Trial of Intentions (17 page)

Formed of simple iron, the sigil resembled a smooth, thick handcoin with a hollowed middle, save for a small center disk. That inner disk, despite having no physical tie to the outer ring, did not shift from the sigil's center. There was continuity across the gap that made the inner circle immovable, even though one could run the tip of a knife around the inner hollow and feel nothing.

“The sigil is more than a marvel of physical law,” Vendanj explained. “It's a glyph. A symbol from the time of the Framers. Unique because in addition to height and width, it has depth. It stands for fraternity. Family. It also signifies an inner resonance with outer things—connection and familial bonds that cannot be undone or unwritten.

“Thaelon needs to see the Draethmorte pendant, and understand these Quiet leaders still wear the glyph. It says much about what they believe. It says that aside from whatever bitterness or anger the Quiet bear, they still hold to a simple idea about their relationship with the races of the east.”

“What relationship?” Tahn asked.

Vendanj looked away at the Saeculorum. “Their arrival will be more than maddened revenge. They'd come with a sense of purpose. The same purpose with which they began: an ordination to
refine
man. They'll come believing they belong. Perhaps are even kin. With men. With Sheason.”

Vendanj then faced Tahn, and raised a finger of warning. “Be careful, though. The Quiet came to Naltus for the Language. But others may still hunt you. If so, traveling to the Grove by Telling won't throw them off for long. The glyph will draw more Quiet to you—”

“Give it to me,” Sutter broke in. “I don't know anything about this Aubade Grove, or what you think you can do there without
my
help.” He paused to offer a winning smile. “But if I take it, any tracker will think you're lighting out from Naltus, and they'll follow me and giggles here.” He stuck a thumb at Mira.

Tahn shook his head. “I can't let you—”

“Don't start that. We'll just argue and argue and delay all this fun we're about to have.” Sutter looked sideways at Vendanj. “Makes sense, right?”

The Sheason nodded appreciatively. “If you hadn't volunteered, I was going to suggest just that. It's half the reason you're going by horse.” Vendanj looked to the Far. “Mira?”

She hesitated so slightly that most might not have seen the worry in her eyes. But she nodded, too.

“And before you say it, yes, I'll be careful. I'm with Mira; we'll be moving too fast for the Quiet to keep up.” Sutter stopped smiling, and spoke to Tahn the way only a friend can when he wants to get to the heart of something. “You'd do this for me. Let me do it for you.”

Tahn said nothing for a long while, staring back. Then he handed the pendant to Sutter with one hand, and with the other took him in the Hollows grip of friendship.

“It's a good deal, Woodchuck,” Sutter said, and clapped Tahn on the shoulder.

Vendanj looked pleased, but his expression quickly returned to his familiar look of hard caution. “We should make the deception complete.” He came and took Sutter's right hand between his palms. Almost instantly the back of Sutter's hand began to burn, though he didn't seem to be in any pain. When Vendanj pulled away, Sutter's skin bore the same hammer brand as Tahn's did.

“What do I tell people this means?” Sutter asked. “It's hardly a random mark. Is it a sign that I'm meant to be a savior?”

Grant laughed with his rough voice. “It's a reminder that life is toil. And that tools are your best friend. Trust tools.” Grant then stepped forward and hung his bow on Sutter's shoulder. “Carry this. Put your Sedagin glove away, and play the part of Tahn until you get to Ir-Caul—”

“And then show them the glove,” Sutter finished. “I know.”

Mira eyed Sutter's sword and glove. “The Sedagin emblems may not be enough.”

“Perhaps not,” Vendanj agreed. “But the people there have forgotten who they are. Make them remember. The glyph will help.”

“Would you mind explaining that?” Sutter asked.

“I'll put it in simple words for you along the way,” Mira offered.

Sutter laughed, hung the pendant around his neck, and that was the end of it.

Vendanj then addressed them all. “The Quiet don't always fight in open battle. They'll use our own kind against us, spread rumors.” He gave Sutter a thoughtful look. “This will make your disguise more useful to us, and more dangerous for you.”

The Sheason then turned and cupped Wendra's chin with one hand, his touch fatherly. “Now, clear your mind. Concentrate on the words, their meanings. Envision what is described as crisply as you can. Let it take shape before you.” He squeezed her chin gently. “Melody, Wendra. Strong if your heart tells you to sing it so. Do you understand?”

Wendra nodded.

“Tahn will go first.” Vendanj turned to Tahn, and spoke rather cryptically. “Don't let go of the words that have helped define you. It's a mistake.” Then the Sheason stepped back with the others.

Before starting, Wendra stepped close to Tahn, took gentle hold of his arm, and pulled him a few strides away. “I'm still angry. But it's not as much about you anymore. Or Penit.” She glanced at the Tellings in her left hand. “There's hardly been time to talk since we left home. Still, I should have found you, so we could argue it out the way Balatin used to make us.” She gave a weak but sincere smile.

He took her hand. “There'll be time for that later on.” He offered a conciliatory laugh. “But I won't be adding any more reasons for you to hate me.”

She studied his face a moment, questioning.

“I just mean that from now on you can count on me with this.” He tapped his bow. “And the reason I'm going to Aubade Grove is because I think there's a way to stop this whole thing before it starts.”

“The Quiet?” she asked.

He nodded. “You go learn to sing Suffering,” Tahn said. “And I'll do what I can to help you from the Grove.”

She saw earnest passion in Tahn when he spoke about this Grove and what he meant to do there. He looked determined and excited.

“But I don't want any of that to change us so much that we forget the Hollows,” he added. “Fresh rhubarb in the spring. Remember? Your anger is sweet and bitter.”

She smiled at that. “When this is all done, I'll make us a rhubarb pie. We'll eat it on the porch with a pitcher of chilled cucumber water. I should be cooled off by then. Belamae will help me with that.” The thought of the Maesteri widened her smile. He had a calming influence. And he'd teach her how to use her song. Something she wanted now more than ever.

Grant stepped close. “Both of you, take care.”

Tahn extended his other hand to Grant, who held it long enough to be more than a simple farewell. It looked like Grant wanted to say something to Tahn, but finally just nodded.

Wendra then squeezed Tahn's hand and let it drop. She turned toward an open area beside a row of high pyracantha bushes. She breathed deeply, and started to read. Slowly, softly, she began to hum the
feel
of the words, giving rise to a melody that sounded to her like the place described in the Telling.

A very low sound resonated over her teeth as she read and saw the images of Aubade Grove in her mind. Soon, she sang a few lines of spontaneous melody inspired by the beauty of the words and the images they conjured. A few moments later, she was singing without pause, in a fuller voice, raising the words into a song that expressed the feeling of the place and gave it shape and substance.

As she sang, two things happened.

In the space before her, the air began to ripple. It appeared as if a thousand threads danced in vertical and horizontal lines, weaving in and out of each other, tightening. It reminded her of looking through summer heat rising from sunbaked earth, blurring whatever lay beyond it. Except that this had a pattern, as though a fabric or rug was being woven.

At the same time, something inside her screamed for her attention—the song that gave her relief from the memories of childbirth and slave auctions and children whisked away by Quiet hands.

Her voice warbled. The passage taking form in front of her undulated as if unstable. She tried to focus on the words, force her voice to follow the lines of melody she'd found. But the harder she tried, the less cohesive the strands of air seemed to become.

“Focus, Wendra,” she heard the Sheason say somewhere behind her.

She closed her eyes and found the image of Penit, remembered the pageant wagon plays he'd perform for them, his vibrant wit and trust. Then she saw Jastail, the highwayman who'd taken her and Penit and tried to sell them into the Bourne. That was enough. She opened her eyes and focused on the words, reading and singing until the two things felt like the same action.

Over the top of the parchment, the air shimmered brightly before her. It drew itself in long threads, as if on an invisible loom. She stared at the image taking shape, like a mirage on a desert plain. Her voice grew stronger, declaring the grandeur of this place called Aubade Grove.

She wove her melody into a higher register, the sound of it coming more naturally now. The clear tones rose high on the morning air, reaching out over the garden. And in front of her, the fabric of the world crystallized into a large portal, through which the image of five great towers appeared.

She didn't see the last good-byes. She only saw Tahn walk past her and through the Telling she'd sung. She saw him double over as if in great pain just before he dropped out of sight. She let go her song, and the threads of the Telling unraveled until she was looking only at Elan's pyracantha hedge.

“Again,” Vendanj prompted her, not commenting on what they must all surely have seen when Tahn hit the Telling window.

Wendra opened the second parchment—Recityv—and repeated what she'd done.

After several moments, another opening wove itself together, showing them the capital of Vohnce.

“You'll come last,” Vendanj told her. “Don't stop singing until you're standing on the other side.”

Her pulse quickened. She could see Recityv as through a dull haze. She hadn't noticed the skim layer when she'd sung for Tahn, but then she wasn't familiar with Aubade Grove. Before she could stop or warn them, her companions were moving through the opening.

“Keep singing,” Vendanj said, as he led his horse through.

The Sheason's confidence in her bolstered Wendra's song, and she gave everything she could to it. A few moments later, she went in.

The movement was like trying to run through chest-deep water. The mounts all lurched, and fell. Sound traveled slowly, the tones bending, deepening.

Around her, Braethen and Grant tumbled to soft, wet earth. With great difficulty, she rolled to her back and ceased to sing. The window through space began to fragment, dissipate, and then was gone.

Wendra dropped her head back into mud, but quickly rolled and retched. She could hear others doing the same, even as her own stomach heaved from sickness and nausea. Some kind of filmy residue had gotten on her, in her.

She flopped onto her back and drew deep, ragged breaths. Dark clouds rolled in the sky above, and she tried to concentrate on their gentle movement to ease her senses. Sometime later—she didn't know how long—the Sheason crawled to her side.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

Wendra nodded. “I told you it was too soon.”

She could feel the wet, brackish mud on her fingers and face. From the smell of rotting plants, and the awful feeling that still roiled in her belly, she was afraid to know where they had ended up. Her mind raced to dark conclusions.

“It wasn't perfect,” Vendanj admitted, “but look.”

He helped her to sit up, and pointed. In the far distance, looking like another mirage, were the walls of Recityv. The sight of it brought relief, and tears of gratitude.

“We owe you much, Anais,” he said, using the old term of respect.

She looked over at Braethen, stretched out on the bank of what she could now see was a wide, stagnant pond. He shared a look of thanks with her and nodded, not yet ready, she assumed, to test getting up or speaking. He didn't look well.

Grant was trying to stand, his face tightly pinched with pain.

She laid her head back into Vendanj's lap and closed her eyes, fighting another wave of nausea. Beneath it, though, rose a hint of small victory. She'd done it. She marveled again that her song had any power beyond mere melody. And her excitement grew at being so near Descant, near a chance to learn Suffering. For the moment, though, she allowed herself to enjoy the accomplishment of having brought them so far.

 

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

The Bourne: Prelude

If you learn that a prisoner is innocent, do you not set him free? How is our conscience, then, if the creation stories are true and the Inveterae races' only sin—which committed them forever to the Bourne—was being undesirable.

—“The Condemantion of Gods and Man,” a new abstract set forth by Darius Franck, College of Philosophy, Aubade Grove

K
ett Valan dropped to his knees in a puddle of his own blood. His arms were yanked hard in opposite directions by thick leather bands tied to his wrists and anchored to dead trees on either side. He howled in pain. The sound rose past the tribunal, beyond basalt crags, toward a lowering Bourne sky. A deep autumn chill hung in the air. Morning frost covered the ground, save where it had melted in the warmth of his blood. His lips trembled. But not from cold, or even pain. They trembled with confession. He would confess, not to stop the whip and its barbs of rusty steel—the pain he could bear. He would confess, and betray the Inveterae races who secretly sought escape from the Bourne, because he hadn't the will to watch his family suffer.