Trial of Intentions (13 page)

“To protect me. Protect the Grove.” Tahn took another step into the room.

Vendanj spoke with a slow sigh. “You were fond of the Grove. More than fond. And of the many reasons to veil your past, one was to keep you from leaving the Hollows—where you were safe—and returning there.” Vendanj motioned to a chair near his bed. “Please, sit down.”

In the man's words Tahn heard an invitation to learn more about his own past. He quickly sat.

Vendanj leveled a thoughtful look at him and pointed at his bow. “You have certain aptitudes, Tahn. Certain abilities. Everyone does. Things that set them apart. And because of it, there's a role for everyone to play in what we're doing.”

“You mean Braethen and Wendra.”

“I mean everyone,” he replied without any pointed correction. “Most of this help will never be seen or heard. Small sacrifices. Endings without clamor…” Those last words sounded like Vendanj was quoting a favorite line of poetry, and his voice trailed off for a moment. “For you there was Tillinghast because of the way you draw your bow.”

How I
used
to draw my bow.

“We haven't had time to talk about the children.” A look of understanding touched his face. “I'm sorry. It was a difficult thing you did. But it was the right thing. For us, but also for the small ones. Don't let it unsettle you for too long.”

Vendanj then told Tahn about his own child. An unborn child. A child that perished when his wife died under the poor physic ministrations of the League. A small smile touched the Sheason's lips as he spoke of the future his child might have had. It was as fanciful as Tahn had ever seen or heard Vendanj.

“She would have been ten come spring.” Vendanj made a circular motion with his hand, as though rolling time forward. “I like to think of her making me drawings. We would have wrestled together, and she would have laughed when I let her pin me down. And in the early morning we would have walked the markets looking for the perfect apple. Except she would have made us buy one badly bruised, because she would have hated to think that no one else would buy the poor thing.”

He went on like that for a while. Sometime later, and without pause, he transitioned to imagining the futures of the children Tahn had mercifully killed that day. He gave them life, conceiving specific moments that felt as though they'd actually been lived, and lived fully. Vendanj never rushed, never sounded as though there was anything more important to be saying.

And when he did pause, he invited Tahn to imagine with him.

So Tahn began, fighting through regret that burned in his eyes. “The first boy … I think he was a prankster. He liked to sneak up on his friends and shriek like a demon and watch them jump.”

Vendanj laughed, his eyes looking like a man who saw it clearly. “He'll grow to be another Sutter.”

Tahn laughed, too. “But he was also the first one to step into a fight to defend a friend,” Tahn added. “And at night, when the other children started to weep with fear because another day had passed without their parents coming to save them … he sat by them with an arm around their shoulders and explained how it took a long time to climb the Pall, and that their parents were coming. Telling them to be patient.”

Vendanj nodded appreciation at this imagining.

“The tall girl was his sister,” Tahn went on. “The strongest among them. A peacemaker. She would have been a trusted counselor. One day the king of Nallan would have been planning to raise taxes so high that families would starve. And she would have convinced him to walk with her in the slums, where soup is brewed from rotten potatoes. She would have showed him what comes after he collected his taxes. And the king would have become known as ‘the feeding king,' because during his time, not one of his people would have known hunger.”

The two of them sat for a good while giving life to those small ones, honoring them in this way. He'd never forget their faces, and somehow now believed more deeply that he'd rescued them from something worse than death.

A companionable silence fell across the room when their imaginings for the six children came to an end. Tahn, though, went on in his head, doing the same for friends he'd known in the Scar. And a little for himself. But it was their memory—those thirty-seven—that helped him finally tell Vendanj. “When I saved them from the Velle … I didn't use the words.”

I draw with the strength of my arms, but release as the Will allows.

He could barely stand to think them anymore.

Out of the darkness came the Sheason's tired voice, edged with a note of despair: “Oh, Tahn, you've let it go. My dying gods…”

The words were chilling to hear, filled with a serious sound. Vendanj slowly sat forward, his face catching a hint of moonlight from the window. Tahn was grateful for the darkness that softened the look of disappointment he saw in the man's face. The Sheason stared at him through the dark for a long time, his shoulders sagging.

Vendanj finally hung his head down, making it hard to understand the words he muttered. “It wasn't just their focus on the library. The Quiet didn't follow the effigy because they've lost regard for you. They knew you had let it go. In the Saeculorum, you ignored the guidance of the Will. Now … you reject it.”

Tahn didn't want to talk about that, and turned to his other question before sharing his plans. “Tell me what ‘Quillescent' means.”

Vendanj lit the bed table lamp and turned up the wick, lending the room a warm light. The flame revealed the depth of loss in the Sheason's expression. It was the look of discouragement and wasted years. The man appeared unnaturally older.

He'd been lying, fully clothed, atop a made bed. He leaned forward with his elbows on his knees and rubbed at his face for a moment. Tahn thought Vendanj was preparing to scold him, that he'd try and persuade him to embrace those words again. But after a good while, and to his credit, he simply looked up, showed Tahn a sad smile, and asked, “Say it again?”

“Quillescent,” Tahn repeated.

Vendanj looked back at him with reddened eyes rimmed by dark circles. “You've asked about this before. I don't know the word. I'd thought I could find it here, in the Naltus library.”

Tahn regarded him with suspicion. “You don't even have an idea?”

“Lots of ideas.” Vendanj's eyes glazed a bit. “It's likely a curse. Maybe a name they use for someone they seek.”

Tahn shook his head again. “I think it's more specific than that, specific to me.”

The Sheason stared at him, unspeaking.

“That give you any more ideas?” he asked earnestly.

It was Vendanj's turn to shake his head. His eyes still seemed to weigh earlier revelations.

Tahn began to wonder if his two questions could be related, if being called Quillescent had anything to do with the Grove. “Why did you send me to Aubade Grove in the first place?”

Vendanj scrubbed his face again, looking like a man trying to freshen his wits. As he did, Tahn focused his own thoughts on the Grove. It was a place of science, a place to learn, too, but that wasn't the main thing—it wasn't a school. His memories were more of debate and inquiry, research and hypothesis. No classrooms or exams. And it all revolved around several disciplines that focused their efforts on the vault of heaven.

Vendanj succeeded in regaining some vigor. “One of the great towers there is devoted to astronomy. Do you remember it?”

“One of five towers, actually,” Tahn added. “Each with a different scientific focus.”

Vendanj nodded. “We weren't sure we'd ever ask you to go to Tillinghast. There were others before you, and more we could have asked.” The Sheason seemed to look into the past then. “The sky, though. You were drawn there from the beginning. Seemed right to cultivate that interest. And to your question, I suppose we thought sending you to the Grove might help if we ever did ask you to go to Tillinghast. Knowledge of the sky is a good way to keep a man grounded.”

Tahn suddenly yearned to be holding an astrolabe and quadrant map and looking up through a skyglass.

Vendanj might have seen the yearning in Tahn's eyes. “You learn more about yourself watching the long turn of a night star than you ever will in the company of philosophers and priests.” He pointed at Tahn. “That's a kind of wisdom you seemed to have right from the start. Made the Grove a good place for you. At least for a while.”

Tahn sat there, staring into his own past, where years of his life had emerged, fully clothed and ready to dance. Sometime later, his eyes focused again. The notion he'd had out on the shale became a conviction. “I'm going to Aubade Grove.”

“Tahn—”

“I can do more good there than anywhere else.” It seemed so clear and obvious to him now. “You'll want to send Wendra to Recityv to sing Suffering, but there may be other ways to keep the Quiet at bay. I think I know one. But I'll know for sure if I go to Aubade Grove.” He gave Vendanj a long look. “You're preparing to fight a war, when you should be trying to
prevent
a war.”

“Tahn,” Vendanj's voice held an awful tone of certainty, “the war has already begun. And it's not only a Quiet war.” The Sheason breathed a heavy sigh. “Oh, the Quiet will come. But while they do, we bicker with the League of Civility over immoral laws … and we try to reconcile a brotherhood that has become divided.”

“The Sheason,” Tahn said.

Vendanj nodded again. “Many believe as I do, that the threat of the Bourne is real, and that we can't afford half measures. But others … they believe my personal losses have driven me mad.” He gave a wan smile. “The order is at odds with itself. And I'm hoping that you can help me make them see more clearly.”

“See what?” Tahn asked.

The Sheason took a long breath, giving Tahn the feeling that he'd come to the crux of it. “Do you remember the story young Penit told us around the fire? About Grant trying to stop the Sheason Artixan from reviving the regent's child who came still?”

Tahn remembered. Chill bumps had risen on his skin. The story had rung with hard truths.

“Grant and I disagree about this,” Vendanj explained. “Just as Thaelon and I disagree. Thaelon is the Randeur of the Sheason; he leads our order. And he believes there are bounds on how we should use the Will. He would have helped Grant try to stop Artixan from reviving Helaina's stillborn child. He would have told me that trying to give life back to the babe was arrogating to godhood. Not our place, as men, he'd say.”

Weakly, Vendanj tapped his own chest. “I, on the other hand, will die believing that the Will should be used in any way necessary to alleviate suffering. Any way necessary to stop the Quiet.” He smiled, seeming to want to lighten the mood. “The abandoning gods didn't leave us much. Let's make the most of what we
do
have.”

Tahn began to understand the weight Vendanj carried. Sympathy got inside him for the man. With slight humor, he asked, “And you think
I
can change his mind?”

“You've seen the Quiet, spoken to them.” Vendanj looked out the window at the night. “You've heard the stories of the League poisoning its own. Your time in the Scar, and even in Aubade Grove, gives you insight Thaelon will respect. You stood at Tillinghast, Tahn … and lived.” He took a long, slow breath. “If we don't unite the order, the next Suffering will be our own.”

Vendanj looked back and patted the side of Tahn's leg with warm familiarity. “The time for politics is over. And the only way through this mess is together, and unified. I think you could help the Randeur see this. And I'll tell you something else, even if Convocation is successful and Helaina unites the Eastlands … I don't believe we can survive the Quiet if the Sheason remain divided. We need Thaelon to understand. We need the Sheason Order to be whole again.”

Everything Vendanj had said convinced Tahn even more that the best thing he could do was find a way to stop the war before it started.

“I'll get to Estem Salo. And I'll do everything I can to convince your Randeur,” Tahn promised. “But by every hell, I'm going to the Grove first. To try to stop this war before it comes.”

“Tahn—”

“Look what happened out there today. How did so many Quiet cross the Pall?”
A lunar eclipse. Pliny Soray slipping her orbit.
“There's something wrong with the Veil. We're running out of time.”

There's a better way.

And he thought he could find it in Aubade Grove. He could build on what had happened in those last few cycles before he'd had to leave there.

“What is it in the Grove that you think can help us?” Vendanj's eyebrows rose with interest.

“A hypothesis,” Tahn answered.
He
now looked out Vendanj's window, gathering a look at the stars. He could see Reliquas, the third planet, and thought suddenly about orbital resonance. “If we knew how the Veil works, the principles that underlie it, we might be able to strengthen it. Keep the Quiet where they are.”

“More than the resonance of the Song of Suffering, you're saying.” Vendanj seemed intrigued.

“It's about the connection between things. Even across great distances. Even when you can't see the connection.” He looked back at Vendanj, and began talking faster and faster, his excitement mounting. “It's just a hypothesis. And a complex one, at that.” He smiled, unable to hold back anymore. “But yes. A good godsdamn yes!”

“Not a new hypothesis, though, is it?” The Sheason offered Tahn a knowing look.

“No, and not easily proved. But I think I have a new approach.” He smiled wide, thinking about Suffering, and the Sheason power over Will, and his own ability to fire a part of himself.
They've got to be related.