Scriber (12 page)

“Dennon Lark… Haven’t heard your name in years. Most of us hoped you’d have the good sense to stay away.” His gaze flickered to the two women with me, and he paled slightly as he noticed the full Errynson arms on Bryndine’s tabard. “But he’s still a pinned Scriber, Yurrel. Open the gate.”

Yurrel climbed to his feet and sullenly tromped into the gatehouse. A moment later, I heard the metallic clanking of chains, and the portcullis began to rise.

“Thank you, Scriber Ibyn.” Bryndine inclined her head towards the man.

“I’m not doing you a favor. You’ll find no warmer welcome inside than you did here. And not just because of Lark, either. There are some who still don’t like the trick you tried to pull with the School of Warfare. But it won’t be me who denies the King’s own niece.” He waved us onwards. “Go on, get your business done, and then leave us be.”

Some of those waiting past the gatehouse had dispersed when it became clear that there would be no violence, but many stayed, and we entered the campus to the sound of angry shouts and hurled insults. Bryndine and Sylla flanked me to either side, keeping the crowd at bay, but even so we were shoved and jostled frequently as we hurried towards the School of History, where I hoped to find Illias.

“He mentioned that the Old Garden can’t be rebuilt, and you said something similar a few nights ago. Have the Scribers made no progress with Elovian architecture?” Bryndine asked as we cut across the grassy campus. “I thought I had heard of advances in that field.”

“The School of Sciences has nearly solved the problem of supporting domes and arches that size, yes. But the glasswork…” The stained glass images suspended above the Old Garden courtyard had been one of the greatest works of art left from before the Forgetting. They were irreplaceable. Even if the techniques were recovered, any attempt at repair would only result in a pale imitation; the tangible weight of history was not something that could be replicated. “The School of Arts has tried, but…”

There are some things I will never forgive myself for, and Bryndine had found one. It was not a subject I liked to dwell on. She seemed to sense my reticence, and we walked the rest of the way to the History building in silence.

Illias’ private study was on the top level of the building, and I led us straight there. It was easier once we were inside; those within were busy with classes or sequestered in silent study, and had not witnessed the scene at the gate. My presence went largely unnoticed as we climbed the stairways to the fourth floor.

When I knocked on his office door, a muffled grunt of invitation answered. He was in; that was a blessing. I had feared I might have to search the entire campus for him. I entered hastily, not wanting to risk being seen by anyone who knew me, and Bryndine followed. Sylla remained outside by the door—it was hardly necessary to stand guard in the middle of the Academy, but given our reception at the gates, I could understand the impulse.

“What is it? I’ve work to do.” Illias had his head down, bent over a thick tome with age-yellowed pages, so that all I could see was the thinning grey hair atop his head. His quill hand was scribbling down words on a pile of clean, new paper, and he barely took the time to look at it as he copied. A smile I could not repress teased the corners of my mouth upwards. This was exactly how I remembered him. Morning, noon, and night, always bent over a book in study, or copying old works to ensure their survival.

His office had not changed either; it looked exactly as it had when I was ten, sitting at his desk and listening to his stories of times past, the stories that led me to a lifelong love of history. Dozens of oil lanterns hung from the ceiling and candles littered every flat surface. The many sources of flickering light cast hundreds of shadows that danced merrily along the walls. Illias hated a dark room; he hated not being able to read.

“Illias…” I didn’t know what to say. It had been too long.

His head snapped up at the sound of my voice, and a warmth tingled through my veins at the sight of his familiar lined face, the grizzled grey beard that grew all the way down his neck, the piercing intelligence in his faded blue eyes. “Is that… Denn?” His mouth curved into a joyous smile, revealing crooked yellow teeth. It was not a handsome smile, but to me it was the most welcome thing in the world.

“Illias, I—” My words were choked off by a sudden tightness in my throat. There were tears in my eyes as the old man rose from his seat and rushed towards me, pulling me into a tight embrace.

“My boy.” His voice was thick with emotion. “You don’t know how often I’ve hoped it was you on the other side of that door.” Then, more sharply: “It’s been five Dragon-damned years.” He released me and took a step back, cuffing me lightly on the side of the head. “What took you so long?”

“Well,” I answered, still blinking back tears, “they held me up at the gate.”

Chapter Ten

The Wyddin were said to possess great power over the Earth and Sky and all natural things, letting them control the weather and possess the bodies of animals and other such tricks. If the legends of Elovia are to be believed, the Sages harnessed this power. They used it to raise great palaces and temples from the Earth, to call down rain on their crops, and to decimate opposing armies by summoning lightning upon them and sundering the ground beneath their feet. In the end, though, the power was more than the Sages could control, and the Wyddin destroyed the kingdom utterly.

Clearly, much of this has been exaggerated and fictionalized over time. But I hope that by studying the old legends, I can come to understand some kernel of truth behind what really destroyed Old Elovia. It may make a good final project, to earn my pin.

— From the personal journals of Dennon Lark

From the moment Bryndine and I sat down at his desk, Illias struggled to contain himself. He was barely able to sit still while we reminisced. I knew the man well—he wanted to tell me something, and would be impossible to talk to until he did. I feared what it might be. I did not want to discuss any real Scriber business; Illias still wanted me to resume my work with him, and I was not ready for that. But after a quarter-hour of barely getting through to him, I realized it was pointless to avoid the issue.

“Out with it, old man. What are you hiding?”

Instead of responding to my question immediately, he pulled open a desk drawer and drew forth a thick sheaf of papers covered in musical notation and lyrics. Lifting them a few inches above the desk, he released them with a theatrical flourish so that they fell with a heavy thump. “Look at all of it, Denn! This is everything we’ve found since you left.”

I didn’t move, but Bryndine leaned forward to examine the papers. “Music? Is there some meaning here that I am missing, Master Illias?”

It must have seemed strange to her; an historian so giddy over a stack of songs. But I knew what they were, and all the enjoyment I had felt at seeing Illias again drained out of me in an instant.

“You’ve heard of Adello, of course?” Illias looked up at Bryndine with an eager expression that I knew well. He was a born teacher; there was little he loved more than finding gaps in knowledge and filling them in. But these were gaps I would just as soon he left unfilled.

“The bard?”

“Yes, of course you know him. Much of the famous songs and myths that are popular today are his work. And you know he lived during the Forgetting, I assume.”

“Vaguely, yes. I had never given him much thought.” Bryndine motioned for Illias to continue.

“When Dennon was a student here, he put a great deal of time into the idea that we could learn much about our past by looking into such things. Tales passed down orally, rather than the written words that were destroyed in the Forgetting. Many such songs and stories were put to the page by the early Scribers after the Forgetting, but Denn sought out and transcribed many bits and pieces of old folk songs himself as well. He began by looking into the legends of Old Elovia.”

I tried to interrupt. “Illias, don’t. None of this—”

He simply talked over me, ignoring my protests. “His work impressed the Council enough that he was granted full Academy backing for his research after he was pinned. He and I worked to develop a number of popular theories about ancient Elovian history. But it was quite by accident that our pursuit turned towards the Forgetting and the Archives. One of Adello’s songs…” He turned to me with frustration in his eyes. “What was it called again, Denn?”

“
Curse of the Sages
,” I answered with a sigh, shifting uncomfortably as I resigned myself to hearing the story of my failed career. One did not easily stop Illias when his didactic instincts took over.

“Yes, I always forget the name. In any case, it is commonly thought to be a tale of the Elovian cataclysm, and as such was included in our research. A Prince’s love of reading leads him to dark Wyddin lore recorded by the Sages, and it destroys the kingdom. You may have heard it.”

“It does sound familiar,” Bryndine agreed. “There is some extra meaning to it?”

Illias nodded enthusiastically. “An entirely
different
meaning, in fact. Adello is mainly known for his songs of times long past—
Erryn the Burner
and
The Wyddin’s Wrath
and so on, the sort of tales tavern minstrels like to play.
The Sages’ Curse
seems to fit in perfectly at a glance.

“But Denn noticed something peculiar about it. It makes no specific mention of time or setting; it only speaks of how the Prince is corrupted by Elovian lore concerning the Wyddin. And much of the melody, as well as the description of the Prince, is similar to another piece—one that had never been attributed to Adello.
The Golden Prince
. A somewhat scandalous ballad, considering it is written from a male perspective, about the singer’s adoration for the apparently handsome and virtuous Prince Fyrril.”

“The Forgetter’s son?”

“Ullyd’s son, yes. I’m glad to see you haven’t forgotten everything you learned here.” Illias flashed his best teacher’s smile, the one that had encouraged me so many times in my youth. I had almost forgotten that he would have taught Bryndine when she attended the Academy—he was not just telling a story, he was testing his student’s memory. “We hadn’t credited
The Golden Prince
to Adello—it is rather different from his usual work. Fyrril was a contemporary of his, not a legend, and the song is rather shamelessly flattering.

“But Dennon noticed the similarities, and took the two songs to the School of Arts. They decided it was very likely Adello had written both, based on the style and arrangement, and the nearly identical terms describing the Prince.” Illias peered intently at Bryndine’s face, looking for signs of enlightenment. “Now, what do you suppose that showed us?”

She thought about it for a moment before answering. “It is Prince Fyrril in both songs, I suppose?”

“Yes!” Illias pounded a triumphant fist on his desk, shaking the candles perched on it and making the shadows in the room jump. “And if both are about Fyrril,
Curse of the Sages
must not be about the Elovian cataclysm. That was centuries before Fyrril’s time. It
is
about the evils of Elovian knowledge, but during the Forgetting! Ullyd needed to spread fear to ensure the people supported his anti-literacy laws, and he must have commissioned Adello to help.

“Not only that, but Fyrril had previously been thought of as little more than a footnote in history. He was Ullyd’s oldest son, but there is no record of his rule, not a single song or tale. But we now believe that he may have actually rebelled against his father, perhaps even tried to prevent the Forgetting—something that merited such a public condemnation. We would never have found any of it without Denn’s fine work.” He smiled proudly at me.

This was not something I wanted to be congratulated for. “If any of it is true. I am not considered a reliable source these days.”

“It is an interesting study either way, Scriber Dennon,” Bryndine said. “Is this what led you to search for the Archives? If Fyrril rebelled, he might have saved the books before they were burned.”

I was mildly impressed that she had put it together so quickly. “That is what I thought at the time,” I said. “But it was a fool’s errand.” The bitterness in my voice surprised me—the wounds of my past were closer to the surface here. “Hundreds have gone looking for the Archives on some wild theory, and it never ends well. They say Prince Willyn was seeking them when he disappeared—one of the few men to fail out of all six Schools at the Academy. That is the sort of company I am in. The last in a long line of idiots.”

“One mistake doesn’t invalidate all your work, my boy,” Illias protested. “That’s what this is, the continuation of your work.” He tapped the stack of music on his desk. “I’ve had every Historian at the Academy scouring Delwyn’s Hall for transcripts of old songs that cover similar themes. The School of Arts has identified hundreds of them as Adello’s since you’ve been gone. He was apparently quite prolific in his work for Ullyd. There is a trove of knowledge about the Forgetting here.”

“What can we learn from these?” I asked. “That reading is evil? That knowledge corrupts? These songs were written to scare people! They tell us nothing about what actually happened!”

“You thought differently once. This is what we
do
, Denn. We uncover the past as best we can.”

“I was
wrong
when I thought there was something in those songs. Look what happened!” I swept my hand in a vaguely southward direction, towards Three Rivers. “I tore apart an irreplaceable piece of history. What will I do next time, burn down the Kingshome?”

“It was an accident, Denn. You can’t let that—“

“Nine men
died
, Illias!”

The old man sank back in his chair with a weary sigh. “I gather you are not here to return to your research, then?”

“I’m sorry, Illias. I can’t. I shouldn’t have come.” This was becoming crueller than I had intended. I had only wanted to see Illias again, but of course it had raised his hopes. He had never hidden the fact that he wanted me back at the Academy. “I just wanted to see you, that’s all this was meant to be.”