Vault Of Heaven 01 - The Unremembered (72 page)

None of them spoke, and the fire hissed in the silence.

Against the quiet hum of burning wood, Vendanj asked, “Then why redraw the Charter?”

Grant gave Vendanj a bleak, unsmiling look. “Perhaps only to define what we have become, what lies ahead for us when the Hand is opened and the scourge of the Bourne spreads to the farthest reaches.”

“For such a condition no Charter needs to be written,” Vendanj countered.

“Since you are here only once I will tell you.” He stood and went to the table where the parchments lay open. “It is my primrose in this desert. You can’t imagine what it is like to write these words, and not believe they are possible. But not writing them is like admitting the League of Exigents is right. And if that were so, then I could not remain here.” His eyes seemed to look far away. He muttered, “And the cradle would be more merciful as a casket than as a promise of life.”

“What evidence have you that the Bourne will ever spill through the Hand?” Vendanj asked, eyeing the documents beneath Grant’s fingers.

“You,” the man said.

Again no one spoke, the only sound the popping of sap in the flames. Mira stood as still as a statue. Outside, the sound of hooves approached. Grant went to the door and gave a few instructions. Three of the six ran back into the dusk; the other three came inside and stood back near the hall entrance.

Vendanj gave the newcomers a look. “Can they be trusted?”

“As you would trust me,” Grant answered.

The Sheason appeared dubious, but turned to Grant. “The regent has called for the filling of every seat at the council table … and for a Convocation of Seats.”

Grant frowned, unimpressed. “There’s never been a regent who didn’t want to fulfill that prophecy. But the words of seers don’t like to be forced to fruition before it is time.”

“Perhaps,” Vendanj agreed. “But it is not only Vohnce that answers the call.”

“And the nations of the sea, those across the Aela, the northern kingdoms past Ir-Caul?” Grant asked. “Do they care about the Second Promise any more than the First? Do they even remember? Those are old alliances, seasons without memory behind us. It is political posturing of the same brand that brought me here. Your Court of Judicature will fatten themselves and squabble over appointments to military stewardships and land resources, and those are the ones that even attend. The rest defend their own farthest boarders if they can, and have no use for convocations.”

“You may be right. But it is not all the same.… A cry has begun to end the Song of Suffering sung from the Tract of Desolation.”

That statement silenced the room.

This secret the Sheason had kept was one Braethen wished he had never heard. This song, sung from the lips of a select few, remained one of the few gifts of the First Ones, a protection against the Quiet. The singing of that song kept the Veil in place, and the dark races and creations of the One sealed away from the light of men … or, at least, was supposed to. From his books, Braethen had gathered that the Tract only became efficacious when rendered in vocal melody … the Song of Suffering.

Finally, Grant asked, “Who raises this cry?”

“It passes on the lips of people in the street,” Vendanj said. “But even there it sounds like the League.”

“Ah,” Grant grunted.

“There are Quietgiven deep in the land,” Mira added. “As near as the southern perimeter of the Scar. They came at our heels not four days ago.”

“Nearer, fleetfoot, than that.” Grant sat himself back by his fire. He watched the flame a moment. “You were not hard to anticipate, Far. You’ve likely seen the plodding tracks of Bar’dyn in hardpan dirt. They are near, but they won’t engage us. They either fear us … or they use us as bait.” Grant shifted his attention to Braethen. “How long before they come through that door, sodalist? Is that the kind of danger you speak about, the life you esteem highly enough to hold your sword beside a three-ring man?”

“Enough!” Vendanj said in a raised voice.

But Grant didn’t stop. “And you, Far, what covenants do you break by coming into the lands of men? You are either more like me in exile than you’ll admit, or the mysteries of your people are about to be laid bare for a tribe of Velle too fast for even you.”

“Enough!” Vendanj yelled again. His voice boomed in the house, crashing down from the crossbeams and echoing off the floor. “These are not the words of the man who kept a straight back beneath the weight of irons and named his accusers. Beware that your sentence does not make you foolish.”

“Speak softly to dead men, Sheason,” Grant returned. “There’s no threat that moves us.” His gaze did not flinch from Vendanj.

The Sheason returned the stony stare. “We went to the Hollows to find Tahn.”

At that, Grant’s eyes lit with interest.

“Through Myrr and over the High Plains we came,” Vendanj related. “But on the north face we were separated. He is lost to us, hopefully moving toward Recityv.”

Grant clenched his jaw. The man from the Scar looked past them all at the three standing in the shadow of the back hall. Whispers passed among them.

“I belong here, Sheason,” he said. “The world beyond the Scar is not mine anymore.”

Vendanj sat stiffly in his seat and shook his head. His eyes flashed with disgust. From where Braethen stood, the force of his anger was palpable. “Then answer me this one question,” the Sheason said.

Grant looked him in the eye.

“Why have you hardly aged a day since you were exiled?”

CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

The Untabernacled

The man showed a toothy grin and reached to take Tahn’s hand in greeting. Tahn held his arm rigid, gritting his teeth beneath his lips. His jaw dropped when Sevilla’s hand passed through his own without so much as a bump.

Tahn stared in disbelief at his fingers. Everything around him began to happen very quickly. Sevilla snarled at himself in disgust, seeming to have forgotten his true nature. In an instant, his body began to change. The fine garments fell to loose rags, worn with holes. The hat and scabbard that showed such refinement became a filthy sash and a spate of unkempt, knotted hair that hung like the dark strands of an old mop. Behind him, Tahn heard Sutter draw his sword, the scrape of metal being bared somehow reassuring.

Sevilla looked up at Tahn, a strange mixture of bitterness and regret in his eyes. “So long in that dark country, little hunter, digger of roots,” he said. “There still, though through the vaults of Stonemount I may wander.” Anger surged in his visage, pure hatred contorting his face. “I want my own temple!”

Sevilla leapt forward with startling speed, his hands rising toward Tahn’s throat. Sutter called a warning, and Tahn dropped backward into a roll. Sevilla raced through the air where Tahn had stood. As Sevilla turned, a shriek tore through the wilds. Sutter jumped between them as Tahn struggled to gain his feet.

“Little man with a steel toy,” the thing barked in savage mockery. “If I could I’d take your strike to know the glory of the sting.” Sevilla launched himself again, moving with surprising speed. Sutter started to swing, but had only cocked his blade when Sevilla shot an arm into his chest, the creature’s gnarled fist plunging deep within Sutter’s flesh. Nails dropped his sword, his body tensing.

Tahn watched his friend writhe on Sevilla’s arm and knew with sudden, dark knowledge that the creature could touch man when it meant to cause him harm. Cords stood out in sharp relief on his friend’s neck as he twisted and fought to free himself. But it appeared as though the being had hold of his friend’s heart. Around them the air began to whip and swirl, stirring sparks from the fire in dervishes and tugging at their cloaks. Sutter sputtered calls for assistance, his movements starting to slow.

Tahn nocked an arrow and made his draw before he realized his weapon would not harm the insubstantial creature. There was nothing he could do. How could he destroy something he could not touch? His mind filled with the sudden image of himself standing upon the precipice prepared to fire into emptiness. His heart told him it was the answer, but he did not understand.

Relaxing his draw, Tahn charged at Sutter and Sevilla, diving into his friend and wrapping his arms about his waist. His momentum tore Sutter from the creature’s grasp, and Nails uttered a weak, throaty cry as Tahn severed his connection to the beast. His friend fell to the ground beneath him like a loose bag of grain. Quickly, Tahn turned over and sat up, again drawing his bow and pulling his aim down on the dark creature. He must shoot, but he had no faith in the arrow.

The being lurched forward, menace contorting its withered features. Words hissed from Sevilla’s lips, but Tahn could not discern their meaning. It did not rush, but came on slowly, as though preparing for some arcane ritual. Tahn thought he could still see the prim hat and decorative scabbard, the fine cloak and trimmed hem of his garment, all still somehow in the ratty remains of the figure before him.

Tahn slowly stood and uncertainly faced Sevilla. He then cast his arrow to the ground between them and drew back his string again. Sevilla paused, concern narrowing in his contorted features. Distantly Tahn heard Sutter howling in pain, but the sound of it was lost behind another sound, like the hum of a potter’s wheel heard turning. His entire body began to quake uncontrollably, as though vibrating with the same strident hum he heard in his head. If he’d had an arrow prepared, it would have fallen from its string.

The air continued to howl about them as Sevilla took another guarded step forward. Tahn drew his string farther, his heart pounding in every joint of his body. He looked at the shape of the hammer on his left hand to gain steadiness, and whispered the oldest words he knew: “I draw with the strength of my arms, but release as the Will allows.” The familiar phrase was both a prayer and an imprecation. Despite the terrible tremors wracking his flesh, his strength and thought and emotion coalesced as he had never before experienced.

The small camp became a maelstrom of embers, leaves, twigs, and dust. Eddies of the mixture swirled in the crevices of trees and large roots. Tahn’s hair whipped about his head, flailing at his eyes, but he kept his arms up, trying to hold steady on the figure of Sevilla. He saw the ledge from his dream, the impossible targets of a cloud, a mountain, a horizon, and closed his eyes against them. He felt close to the precipice, and was ready to release, wanted to release and give way to the feeling that welled inside him.

Then abruptly the wind ceased, the fire immediately falling to a slender flame. Tahn opened his eyes. Sevilla took a step back before turning and starting to walk away.

Tahn watched, unable to stop his own shaking or release his draw. His muscles ached but would not obey. At the edge of the light, Sevilla half turned and looked back. His clothes still hung in mottled rags, but his face had again become the amiable, sure man they’d first seen. He appeared ready to say something, his lips working silently. Then he was gone among the trees. Tahn collapsed, still gripping his bow and staring into the low ceiling of tightly woven limbs.

Then everything went dark.

*   *   *

Sutter writhed on the root-choked floor of the wilds.

His soul ached.

The moment Sevilla had put his unearthly hand into his chest, he’d taken hold of something inside him. It hurt differently than a cut or broken bone. This hurt was not of flesh, but somehow of spirit. He felt as though this creature had laid hold of his soul. And its icy touch had taught him an awful, immutable truth: His Forda could be separated from his body.

For a terrible moment, he thought this disembodied spirit wished to possess him and force Sutter’s soul into the empty existence in which
it
had lived. But as soon as the thought came, it dissipated like breath on glass. And then he realized he knew what Sevilla (or whatever its true name was) sought. It hunted for the Stonemounts to try and find its spirit a tabernacle of its own. Did it also then hope that if it could somehow inhabit the
bones
of a Stonemount man, it might take on a mortal life?

Even through his pain, Sutter’s mind flashed on the notion that true life, true
wholeness,
came not when spirit merely inhabited flesh, but that there was something more to it. And so Sevilla, lacking that, was … damned!

The creature wailed at the thought, somehow, through its unearthly connection with Sutter, hearing and knowing his mind.

Then the struggle began in earnest.

With the intention of taking possession of Sutter’s body, this penaebra meant to rip Sutter’s soul from his body and cast it to the wilds. Sutter could feel himself shifting inside his body, his spirit wrestling to remain whole within its bodily tabernacle.

His vision swam, one moment looking into the creature’s terrible rictus, the next awash in blue where images of the countless dead walked, watched, or wailed. Somehow, with the eyes of his inner self he could view the unseen world filled with the untabernacled—spirits with no body. It haunted him with its severe serenity, even as he struggled to get free of Sevilla’s hold.

Only vaguely was he aware of Tahn—movement somewhere nearby.

And his soul began to slip.