Broken World Book Four - The Staff of Law (11 page)

“
He found the fourth piece.”

“
He knew I wanted it, and he knew where it was. The fifth piece
he always dismissed as lost, and, as far as he was concerned, that
was that. He has no ambition to restore the staff. He fulfilled my
Wish to find the four pieces we knew of. We must return to
Tyrander’s castle and see if we can find it.”

“
We?” Kieran’s brows rose. “You’d leave Travain with his
nursemaids?”

“
No, he’ll come with me.”

“
He’s just a baby. You can’t go dragging him all over the
countryside. It’s too dangerous, and besides, we’d have to take two
wet nurses and a wagon of food for him.” At her mutinous look, he
hurried on, “Let Chanter go. He can fly, and nothing can harm him
in the air.”

She scowled,
considering this. “He’d have to walk back if he’s carrying it. That
would be dangerous for him.”

“
Not as dangerous as it would be for you. Think of Travain.
Would you put him in that much danger? Chanter knows better than to
go near people, and he doesn’t need to. He can protect himself from
the beasts out there even if it means flying away and leaving the
stone, then returning for it when it’s safe. We can’t
fly.”

She bit her
lip, pondering, and he added, “The only time he needed our help was
to get the piece from the Kingdom of Zare, because it was in a
city. He found the stone in the ocean and the one in the mountains.
There’s no one at Tyrander’s castle.”

She nodded. “I
suppose you’re right. But he’s not here.”

“
He’ll be back soon, he rarely stays away longer than a month,
or you could call him.”

She looked
down at Travain, who stared at the broken staff. “He hasn’t even
seen his son.”

“
He saw him when he was born. Chanter’s not interested in him.
You have to accept that.”

She blinked
and sighed. “I suppose I do, don’t I?”

Talsy woke to
find the room filled with dawn’s soft, rosy light, and stretched,
wondering what had disturbed her. Usually she did not wake so
early. Two days had passed since her conversation with Kieran.
Sensing a presence close by, she rolled over to glance at the
window. The Mujar sat on the ledge, one leg braced against its
edge, the other dangling within the room. She rose with a glad cry
and went over to hug him. He held her away and inspected her with a
smile.

“
You look much better.”

She pulled a
face. “I was a mess, wasn’t I?”

“
Yes, you were, but you seem happy now.”

“
I am, especially now that you’re here.”

Travain
grizzled, and she went over to pick him up, opening her nightgown
for him to suckle.

Chanter tilted
his head. “He’s grown.”

She grinned,
her eyes shining with pride. “He’s crawling already, and he’s so
good.”

“
I’m glad he’s made you happy.”

“
He eats like a horse, and he has all his teeth
already.”

“
Strange, the way Lowmen feed their young,” he said. “Almost
like Mujar eating their mother plant, but yours only eat part of
you.”

Talsy laughed.
“What a strange thought! But I suppose it’s true, in a weird way.”
She sat in a chair and gazed down at her son, stroking his soft
white hair. “He doesn’t have the mark.”

“
He’s too young. Mujar don’t develop the mark until they’re
about six months old.”

“
Can you tell if he’s more like you than me?”

He looked
away. “No, not yet. He looks quite Lowman.”

“
He’s not normal. No Lowman baby would be crawling at a month
old, or have all his teeth. He never cries and hardly
sleeps.”

“
Of course he’s not normal, but as yet there’s no way to tell
if he’ll be like a Mujar or merely a strange Lowman
child.”

Talsy bit back
a retort, reminding herself that of all the people she knew,
Chanter was the least likely to admire their offspring. “Would you
like to hold him?”

“
No.”

She quelled
another surge of animosity at his rejection and changed the
subject. “We have to find the last piece of the staff.”

He glanced
around. “So you’ve regained your interest in that. I’d hoped the
child would distract you.”

“
His name’s Travain.”

The Mujar
frowned. “You gave him this name?”

“
Yes, why, don’t you like it?”

“
It’s all right.”

Talsy had the
impression that he had other reservations about her naming the
child, but returned to the previous subject. “I think I know where
the last piece of stone is.”

“
Really?” He looked sceptical. “Where?”

“
I think you know as well as I do. It’s not that hard to figure
out. The fifth piece is where it’s always been, in Tyrander’s
castle.”

“
Ah.” He stared across the valley, hiding his
expression.

“
You knew, didn’t you?” she accused.

“
As you say, it’s not that hard to figure out. It’s not
certain, but that would be the logical location.”

“
Will you go and fetch it?”

“
To what end?” He turned to look at her. “Then you’ll have five
pieces of useless stone lying on a sheet of velvet instead of
four.”

“
You can make it whole again.”

“
Another pointless exercise. The laws are gone, and they can’t
be remade except by the gods.”

“
We could restore some of them,” she argued.

He shook his
head. “We’ve been through this before.”

“
I want that last piece. If you won’t do it, I’ll go
myself.”

“
I didn’t say that I wouldn’t fetch it.” He sighed. “If that’s
your Wish, then I will.”

“
We don’t have to be formal about this, do we?”

“
No.”

“
And once it’s here, you’ll make it whole again?”

He nodded, his
expression sorrowful. “I wish I could restore the laws, too. The
world outside is dying.”

“
How bad is it?”

“
Bad enough, and getting worse.”

Remembering
the journey home from the Kingdom of Zare, she shuddered. It had
been bad enough then. “That’s why we have to try to restore the
staff. Maybe if we make it whole again, the gods will put back the
laws.” She glanced down at Travain. “I want a world for our son to
inherit, a future in which he can have children of his own, not
seventy-two years in which to ponder the futility of his existence,
imprisoned in this valley. When you die, so does this valley,
unless Travain has the power to maintain it, and his children too.
But even if they do, they’ll still be trapped here.”

Chanter shook
his head. “In a hundred years, not even a purebred Mujar will be
able to stop the world from falling apart. There are limits to our
power, you know. We’re not gods.”

“
Then we have to find a way to restore the laws, even if it
means spending every day on our knees begging the gods to help
us.”

He looked
startled. “You think this would help?”

“
Yes, well, how else will they know what we need, or how we
feel?”

Chanter’s eyes
grew distant. “They see everything we do and know what’s in our
hearts. Why do they need us to beg for their aid?”

“
Well then, once we’ve restored the staff, we wait until the
gods decide what to do about it. If, by restoring the laws, they
can remake the world as it was, why wouldn’t they? What would be
the point in letting it come to an end, and killing the good as
well as the bad?”

He shrugged,
staring at the floor. “Who knows what they’ll decide. I do their
will, but I don’t know their thoughts. At the moment, my decisions
are my own. They touched me only once, when I chose you. Since then
I’ve been following the instructions they gave me and the knowledge
they revealed to me.”

“
Then let’s restore the staff. Perhaps they’re waiting for us
to take the initiative. When you chose me, they made a decision,
maybe when we restore the staff, they’ll make another.” She leant
forward. “Let’s show them we care, and not just sit here waiting
for the end.”

The Mujar rose
and turned to the window. “If that’s your Wish, so be it.”

Talsy jumped
up. “Wait! Don’t go yet. Stay, have something to eat, rest a while,
there’s no hurry.”

Chanter
hesitated, and she knew a part of him yearned for the freedom that
beckoned outside the window, while the temptation of the comforts
every Mujar craved held him back. He followed her down to the
castle’s vast, warm kitchen, where Sheera tended the roaring ovens
and lorded it over a bevy of women that came to help her and bake
their bread. Sheera was patently delighted to see Chanter, and
plied him with food until he could eat no more, her gaze often
darting between him and Travain. Perhaps she looked for
similarities, or expected some gesture of affection or acceptance,
Talsy mused. Chanter ignored the child, and when Travain finished
feeding, Talsy handed him to a wet nurse for another meal.

Law swam the
ocean depths for many moons with his new, gentle friends. He found
their shape pleasing and their play enjoyable. When they hunted, he
left them to play amongst the waves, glided through the glittering
blueness and leapt high into the cold dry void to fall back with a
great splash into the swirling sea. He plumbed the depths and
followed the gleam of Dolana that mapped the ocean floor, enjoying
the water’s soft embrace and the soothing cradle of its cold
cocoon. For a while, he joined a pod of whales and tried their
form, but he found it too slow and bulky, and reverted to a
dolphin’s sleek, speedy shape.

Far out in the
ocean, he came across a massive food beast basking in the sun, its
bevy of predators like a flotilla of ships around an island. Here
he discovered the joy of communing with his own kind, a speech far
deeper and more meaningful than the dolphins’ chatter or the
whales’ mournful songs. He bonded with a predator and shared its
gentle mind and peaceful ways, enjoying the sweet rush of emotion
that was its name. Seeking to be closer still, he tried to take its
form, but, no matter how hard he tried, the shape of a predator
would not come into his mind. He pondered this for some time,
taking man form to crawl out onto the food beast’s back and lie in
the sun. He had become adept at changing his shape, and had tried
many, finding some that he liked and others that were not so much
fun to wear.

More than
anything, he longed to join the predators in their joyful play, and
wondered why this was denied him. The whispering golden light in
his head had become much calmer since he joined the food beast. As
the rushing wisps of words and letters flashed around his head, he
strived to read them, but the angular writing defied his attempts
to decipher it.

Law’s new home
drifted across the sea, safe from the strange, growing chaos in the
world. When he slept, the golden writing in his dreams slowed to
wavering stillness, like a reflection in the dark pool of his
mind.

Law dreamt of
a stone staff, another of light and a third of darkness, and knew
their names. He saw the stone staff broken and its words unleashed,
but none of it concerned him. The joy all Mujar craved was his in
abundance, and he spurned the niggling mystery of the blinding
light, content to leave it unsolved.

Chapter Five

Chanter rode
the breeze on broad wings, revelling in his freedom and the joy of
flight, while the growing chaos saddened him. Strange vistas of
twisted trees and barren lands passed below, grotesque animals
hunted others as mutated as they. Living stone invaded dying
forests, water and earth blood welled from the ground to run in
rivers of corruption, their banks polluted by the sickness of their
deadly burden. Clouds of ash rode the winds, and smoke from distant
mountains fouled the air. Occasionally, he found an oasis of green,
but soon these would fall, and all who sheltered in them.

The wind
beneath him died, and he plummeted, flapping. A drone of wings
warned him, and he folded his own as a massive manant attacked, its
pincers nipping the air where he had been. The forbidding land
rushed up at him, a gloomy forest of twisted, dying trees, knobs of
living stone sprouting obscenely in their place.

Spreading his
wings at the last moment, he swooped into the shelter of the trees,
which forced the manant to veer away. In the wood’s darkness, he
twisted and turned between the branches, unaided by any Kuran, for
none guarded this forest now. A barrier loomed before him, too
close to avoid, and he crashed into a giant web’s sticky trap. The
strong strands ensnared his wings, and flapping only entangled him
further. Glimpsing a bloated white spider-like creature whose eyes
spat a poisonous glare, he struggled wildly. His frantic flapping
tore the web and sent him tumbling into the stinking ooze that
covered the forest floor.

There, he
became mired in the muck that weighed his wings with a burden of
mud. In a rush of Ashmar, he reverted to a man, stood up and wiped
off most of the sludge. As he walked, the slippery slime oozed
around his boots, forcing him to clutch trees. The corruption
sickened him; the stench abused his nose and the foul warm Dolana
seeped into him from his feet. Not daring to use the corrupted
power, or attempt to fly while covered with mud, he tramped on,
wary of aggressive chaos beasts that had lost their respect for
Mujar.