Vault Of Heaven 01 - The Unremembered (8 page)

In a broken gait, the reader hobbled toward the ladder that leaned against the Fieldstone. He clutched the scroll tightly to his chest with both arms. A strong gust of wind rushed in upon the crowd, and hands went up to hold hoods in place. Ogea’s cowl was thrown back. A soft moan, so like the wind, escaped those closest to the reader—dried blood stained the reader’s cheeks and chin.

The old man dropped to one knee just a pace from the ladder. But he stood on his own and slowly looked up the long ascent. Pausing for a breath, he tucked the scroll into his cloak and grasped the rungs.

And climbed.

The Fieldstone never appeared so tall to Braethen. Step by step, Ogea went up, gasping at every rung. The rasp in his lungs was audible above the white rushing sound of the wind. Two thirds of the way up, his foot slipped and caused him almost to lose his grip. One bony hand held tight, and he quickly hugged the ladder, pressing his cheek to a rung.

He started again. This time he climbed past the balcony with deliberate steps and slowly reached the roof, where he turned and beheld the people standing in the street below. Atop the inn, the wind whipped at his thin white hair and beard, his russet cloak flailing against the grey of the clouds blanketing the sky. After he regained his breath, he took the scroll from inside his cloak and thoughtfully ran his hands across its length. Holding the parchment in one hand, he surveyed the crowd again and began to speak.

“Northsun is past, another cycle come, and another measure of time to reckon our lives by. Hidden behind the clouds, the sun falls again into the west, and beneath these shrouds we huddle near our fires and share encouraging words.” The reader sighed heavily. “The time for this is now past.”

Ogea then stepped closer to the edge of the Fieldstone and raised his voice with more passion. “Before our fires, before the sun, the Great Fathers held their Council of Creation at the Tabernacle of the Sky. They called forth the light, the land, and filled both with life. Every living thing was intended to grow in stature and harmony with the elements around it.

“And this all was done for the good of everyone. But in their wisdom, the First Ones knew there must be counterbalance, a way for their creation to be tested and challenged. Else no learning or change could occur, and their council would bring to naught their intention: that we should become great ourselves. So, one of the fathers was given the charge to create all that would be ill to the land and its life. To one was given the task of creating sorrow and strife.”

It was the old story, one Ogea told at every Northsun, but it enthralled the crowd to the last man, riveting them all as Braethen had never seen. Perhaps the endless storms had caused Hollows’s folk to reflect more, of late, on their own mortality.

“For a time, the council served with great joy. Sound and song filled the land with vibrance, attending the creation of every living thing. But the One grew delighted in his charge to test men by affliction. He set upon the lands pricks and briars of every sort, creatures without conscience, to harrow the creations of light. Thousands of years did the council serve, the One becoming dark in his soul, consumed with his task.

“The Great Fathers knew the One must be bound, else men were lost. So, together they sealed him to the earth that he so wanted to destroy, creating for him a sepulchre in the farthest corner of the world to live an eternity in his rancor. And thus the High Season came to an end; the time of creation, of newness at the hands of the Noble Ones, passed from memory.”

Ogea’s hair flailed in the wind, his cloak pulled powerfully by the gales. The sash at his waist likewise twisted in the gusts that rushed over the Fieldstone roof. His pallor shone down upon the people, as though the warning in his tale had stolen his own vigor. Yet his voice rose into the wind. And into the face of it his eyes remained unblinking as he surveyed those who listened to his words.

“But by the time the One had been bound, balance had been undone. The land had gone awry of the Great Fathers’ plan from the foundation, and they could not hope to salvage their vision. So they abandoned their work, sealing those given to the Quiet within the Bourne and leaving the unfinished world to mete out its own fate. And many scornful races there were who had, indeed, given their very souls to Quietus’s hateful designs. So, into the land the First Ones introduced the Sheason, an order ordained to establishing peace and equanimity, set apart to guide the other races throughout the rest of Aeshau Vaal.

“But legions of the One pressed against the Shadow of the Hand where the veil between the Bourne and our world grew weakest. Quietgiven roiled with bitterness and chaos, unsure of their place since the Abandonment by the First Ones. But none more than the Draethmorte.”

Gasps escaped the crowd at the mention of the Draethmorte. An unnatural chill rippled Braethen’s flesh. He had heard Ogea utter the word only once.

“They were the first to be given breath at the hands of the One, in a time before his banishment, when the Gods yet held hope for this world. They knew well the power of the First Ones, for they learned at the feet of the council itself, serving in that first High Season, believing themselves chosen to set the world upon its path and guide it to its own glory.

“But like their creator, their arts grew cankered. And when the One was exiled, they, too, were sent into the Bourne, where their bitterness and hatred were likewise bound. There they served as the One’s highest council, organizing his followers. These armies eventually penetrated the veil, passing the Pall Mountains. They marched south from the Hand into the lands of men after the Framers were gone.”

From the roof the reader began to cough, the rasp in his chest sounding like the wet tearing of flesh. Blood oozed onto his lips, and when he spoke again the blood spattered in red-grey droplets down his tunic.

“The land has grown old since the Craven Season, ages passing, millennia now often forgotten. They have names, all of them, but it is enough to know that we have lived, survived, tended the land. Until this season that rests upon us now. The Sheason have dwindled, some lost to the weakness of flesh, unwilling to accept the cost to their own lives to bear the call. More often, they cannot find suitable initiates to learn their path. And in this Age of Rumor, there are those who have sought the execution of the Sheason.”

Ogea looked up into the sky and shook his fist, a strangled protest tearing from his narrow chest into the neutral light of the clouds.

Braethen knew why the reader protested, and he shared Ogea’s disdain. The League of Civility had passed the Civilization Order in most nations to execute Sheason for rendering the Will even when in the service of others. The League claimed what the Sheason did was superstitious and archaic, akin to the dark talents the old stories ascribed to creatures of the Bourne.

Ogea slowly lowered his gaze to the people. He held the scroll aloft. The wind riffled its edges, threatening to tear the seal. But Ogea took the red wax in his bony hands and snapped it in two. The sound, faint and brittle, sent yet another shiver down Braethen’s back, and he muttered, softly so that others might not hear, “A seal once broken…”

Ogea unrolled the vellum but held it aside. Without referring to it, he began to speak again, a quiet humility in his voice.

“Good friends, I have read for the last time. Northsun has come again to the Land, and we are grateful for its light. We have hope, but it is naive if we sit idly and do nothing. There is a quiet darkness spreading. When its blight is complete enough, the power of the Will shall no longer be able to contain the Quiet. Forda I’Forza, body and spirit, earth and sky … will fail. The abandonment of the Great Fathers will be complete.… We will have proven that our growth did not matter; we will have shown that we hadn’t enough desire and fortitude to be great ourselves.”

Ogea fell to his knees. He held the parchment before his face and nodded to himself. Then he backed onto the ladder and began to descend. Only four rungs down, the reader slipped, his scroll falling from his hands and cast about by eddies of wind along the side of the Fieldstone. The old man dangled for a moment and then lost his grip on the rung. He plummeted, his fall seeming to last unnaturally long. Into the mud he splashed, letting out a thick mewling sound as he hit the ground. Braethen pushed his way through hundreds of townsfolk to reach Ogea’s side. There, he turned his friend over and placed a hand on his chest to see if he still breathed.

Braethen suddenly felt eyes upon him. The crowd had crept closer, but they were all Hollows folk. Turning toward the back of the Fieldstone, he spied a tall, dark man, his face cast in sorrow and determination. Braethen’s heart went cold when he saw the insignia at the man’s neck: three rings, a Sheason.

CHAPTER FOUR

Dangers of the Road

The woman knelt at the side of the river, washing her face and hands and arms.

The highwayman watched from behind a thicket of scrub oak.

Leaf-shadow dappled the slow-moving water, the bulrushes, and the woman herself, who remained unaware that she was not alone. The low hum of the current cloaked his slow steps as his companions crouched in strategic positions downriver and across from her, in case she bolted.

She surely hadn’t driven alone the team of horses and wagon that stood a hundred strides south. Somewhere close by, she had a man.

He would arrive too late.

Really, she should have known better. In the open places between the cities of men—with their garrisons and high outer walls—the world belonged to the man who would take the risk; the man who played his chances; the man who took the open road and sky above as his home and roof. For travelers in the places between, fair warning consisted of nothing more than a reflection in the water above you as you splashed a day’s grit from the creases around your eyes and mouth … in the moment before you tried to scream.

The woman stood up fast, whirling, her lips parting to raise a cry of alarm.

The highwayman put his boot into her stomach to steal her breath before it could carry her distress to another. She went down on one knee, looking up with the surprised, pleading eyes he’d grown so tired of seeing.

Give me some real bit of anger instead!

His companions closed in cautiously—a caged and frightened animal will lash out.

“Now, before you start with any other ideas, let me tell you what is best for you,” the highwayman said. “Because your options are few. For sport, my fellows here would like as not take you for a
ride,
then drop you in the river for the fish. These lads aren’t delicate about anything, my good woman, so bear that in mind when you get your breath back and find your anger.”

His companions smiled over his words, but the highwayman didn’t have much use for them, either, and gave them a flat look.

The woman finally gasped a breath, her face pinched in pain and dread.

“For my part, I’d spare you that indignity, since I can’t imagine the pleasure of a woman that is not freely given.” The highwayman smiled genuinely, then caught a sneer on the woman’s face. “But in exchange for my protection, you’ll come along with us and keep your protests quiet. Otherwise, you are gambling that wherever we’re going is worse than an early grave. And those are bad odds.”

Deliberately, the woman stood, a steady defiance clear on her brow. “You think because my dress is worn I care less about virtue than my life? Is that what thieves on the open road believe?”

The highwayman laughed aloud, but low.

She went on, undaunted. “Any man with such a proposition can’t be trusted to keep his word.” She spat on him. “Kill me, then. Prove yourself the gentleman, save me from the itchy hands of your friends.”

“Nah,” one of his companions said. “If we aren’t taking her with us, then let’s do with her what a man can, and take what’s on the wagon besides.” The man pointed off toward the woman’s camp.

The highwayman turned a questioning look on her. “Your play, my lady. What price for your virtue today?”

They stared at each other for several long moments. The years of toil and travel had given her salt, he had to admit that. The fact made him happier to have come upon her—the road had an indifferent beneficence if you spent enough time there.

Then he caught an imperceptible crack in her resolve. Just a glint in the eye, as her mind showed her the scene that could play out on this dappled bank in the early evening sun. He’d won. But not before her full lungs brought a scream of help that shattered the relative calm, scattering birds to the air and long echoes down the surface of the river.

A name. A name she cried out.

He knew she couldn’t have been alone.

Before his men could wrestle her down, the heavy, thundering feet of a rescuer pounded the earth in their direction.

The highwayman nodded to the woman, and to himself, and took a position between his captive and the impending approach of this other. Resting a hand on his sword, he stood as still as a statue until the worried face of a man emerged from the trees on a dead run toward him. The man drew a pair of knives. Even from this distance, he could see that they weren’t weapons. They were tools of some trade. Deadly perhaps, and likely the man was skilled in their use. But not a fighter. Not truly a threat.