Vault Of Heaven 01 - The Unremembered (30 page)

“If she’s a queen, and she’s childless … will you be expected to bear the line an heir?”

“It is possible. Authority means something different to the Far than it does to others. It’s not dominion. But in some ways, it’s more important.”

Her eyes held a distant look Tahn had rarely seen. This woman lived so completely in the present that to see her so distracted shocked him. A young boy and girl, no more than eight, danced by, a bit fast and not in time with the tune. “Do you want a family?”

The Far looked down at the children passing them. “It’s not a question of what I want. I am Far. For us, even the most favorable conditions leave a mother but a very short time with her child. Our idea of family is different than yours.”

Tahn caught her attention. “I didn’t ask about the Far. I asked about you.”

Mira stared back at him. They’d stopped dancing, and now, without speaking, were sharing a set of impossible questions. And except for when she sat vigil in the depths of the night over his sleeping friends, it was the only time he could remember seeing her motionless. He believed her heart stirred, mostly because his own told him it must.

A desire and ache for what one might wish but could never have.

For them both.

But Tahn would not let go of his hope for her that had begun in his heart, any more than he could give up his hope for a new sun each day, begun in the stillness of the dark hours of night.

*   *   *

Dust coated the path. In every direction earth rolled away, the crust parched and cracked, the sage dead, wind whistling over the plain. Tahn strode heavily across it, following a pair of footprints. The sun beat down upon him. It seemed not to move in the sky above. Beads of sweat rolled down his brow and into his eyes. He blinked against the sting, and wiped his face with his sleeve. Stumps of trees long dead, bleached white and forming jagged patterns, jutted up like gravestones amidst the dry grass.

The dreary plain continued, heat shimmering at the line of the horizon. Onward he trudged, his heart grieving for the loss of vitality. Occasionally, deep grooves scored the blackened, scorched soil, the sun hot on the sooty surface.

Farther up the path, stones cropped up in odd shapes, pocked and scabrous. Then more stones. And more. Tahn looked past them quickly, his mind refusing to see their shapes. Soon, he could no longer deny their stares, and he stopped to rub the eyes of one of the stones which rose from the ground like a human statue.

Past these he staggered, until he could see the sky growing bluer, green hills rising off the plain, and a tree rising against the horizon. Tahn fixed his gaze there and pushed himself toward it …

*   *   *

In the dark of early morn, Tahn slipped past a Sedagin sentry by going out his window. He crept to the stable and quietly mounted Jole. At an easy walk, he rode Jole to the edge of the High Plains, there to look out upon a crystalline dark. The constellation of Merade the Devout dipped on the eastern horizon, its head fallen below the edge of the plain. Tahn peered out over the vastness of the land that stretched out beneath him. It looked like a mural of shadows, veiled but beautiful. If not for the stars, Tahn would not have known where the earth ended and the sky began.

Sitting with his legs over the edge of the sheer drop, Tahn thought of Balatin and of the old questions that still plagued him: nightmares that felt like memories, faceless figures that seemed somehow familiar but unknowable, maddening words he was compelled to say each time he drew his bow—words that crippled his decisiveness. When did these things begin? It all made Tahn feel like he was slowly losing his mind.

In his worst moments, he simply didn’t know who he was, slave to these things that had no rhyme or reason. A man with no history.

He kept thinking how all this strangeness had something to do with his father—the man he’d loved, and who’d loved him—since Balatin, Tahn had learned, had not always lived in the Hollows. But he’d learned nothing more than that about his father’s early life.

Balatin had rarely spoken of things outside the Hollows. Tahn, for his part, was finding the variety and wonders of the land to be filled with possibility. He reflected on the way the Sedagin spoke of their own home, the High Plains, on the mirth and candor of Penit and his stories. Even Vendanj with his secretive tongue and hard face. These things led him somehow to his thoughts of dawn. But as he closed his eyes and considered the beginning of another day, more questions rose in his mind. Why did the Sedagin isolate themselves from the rest of the world? Why did they patrol their borders against intruders? What purpose existed in a troupe of players enacting the stories of the reader’s books, bringing the tales on wagon-stages into each town they thought would listen and pay? And Vendanj, why did he speak in whispers with the Far? Why wouldn’t he share their plans with those he compelled to accompany him? Why did the man’s heart seem as hard and rough as stone? The questions tumbled over one another and brought darkness to Tahn’s mind.

Then another thought occurred to him, and he opened his eyes to the wide reaches of the land below. These things were connected. He could not understand how, but all these strange things felt like part of something bigger, something that had, impossibly, the power to shape the lives of men.

“That is right.”

The voice startled Tahn and he turned around to find its source.

No one.

He looked down the drop into darkness and saw nothing. The sky above remained empty.

He was alone.

Tahn refocused his attention on the color and warmth that would come into the land at the rise of the greater light. As soon as he did, the thought came over him that the lesser light should be allowed to rule, that the time of the reader’s stories had gone by, their memory a testament to the failure of the Fathers, of men.

The voice came again.
“You begin to see.”
It spoke as softly as a cottonwood seed borne upon a gentle breeze brushing his cheek. But it left a taint in Tahn’s mind in its passing—he could feel it in the way that, in this dreamlike state, he couldn’t focus on things that had always mattered to him.
“You will see further with your mind, Quillescent, than you will ever see with the glare of your youth in your eyes.”

Tahn panicked. The intrusion of the voice, its soft menace that spoke of barrows and widows and silent autumns, got inside him. He tried to stand. But his legs were numb, and he fell back down. The voice descended upon him from the air, rose into him from the earth, and echoed out from deep inside him—unspoken, but felt and understood. Like love or hatred. It began to bind him, close him in. At the edge of this great High Plain, looking into a fathomless distance, Tahn felt as confined as he had ever been. He struggled, trying to remember why he had come out away from the others. He kicked his legs and flailed at the night around him, disregarding the imminent drop beneath his dangling legs.

Someone grabbed him.

He screamed and forced his mind past the voice and its cryptic words to the single thought of daybreak. In that moment, he opened his eyes, and found himself sitting a few feet from the edge of the plain, staring into the openness, with light just touching the horizon.
A dream?
But somehow he knew better. He had fought a battle, a small one. But with whom? For what? His mind reeled in the wake of it, and he thrashed at the inexplicable implications.

The hands did not release him, though.

Mira.

She had dragged him back from the cliff edge. In the faint light of predawn, a look of concern showed in her eyes. They faced one another for several moments.

“Why do you rise before the sun? What prayer do you make that must be spoken at such a time? Every day?”

No one had ever asked Tahn about waking so early, about the purpose of his morning vigil. She had seen him spending those moments each day in reflection. She studied him closely.

Tahn had no reply. He’d never spoken of this to anyone, just as he had never spoken of his inner need to test the merit of every bow draw he made. Twice he had gone to Balatin to tell him, but had not found the words. Part of him believed they were secrets that must be kept, at least until he understood them himself.

Unable to lie to her, he said simply, “I don’t know.”

And together they walked back into the heart of Teheale:
earned in blood
.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Partings

Countless points of light shimmered as the sun reflected off the condensation across the plain. The horses stood saddled and ready. Vendanj gave Tahn a measured look as he approached the party gathered in front of Sedagin’s home.

“We were going to leave you, Woodchuck,” Sutter said. “But the Sedagin prefer guests who bathe.”

Tahn mounted Jole. “And quiet guests, I think.”

His friend laughed. “Well, you missed endfast, so stay downwind of me with that gamy breath of yours.”

Penit giggled, and was silenced by a look from the Sheason.

“Have you forgotten what we are doing?” Vendanj asked. “The north face of the High Plains is a difficult descent under the best of conditions, and we will almost surely meet Quietgiven once we reach the lowlands again. We have many leagues to cross to reach the Scar; we must move fast, and still have strength to enter that place when we arrive. Turn your minds to these things.”

With that, the Sheason rode toward Sedagin, who had appeared from a nearby stable on a sleek white stallion appointed with the customary fir-colored tack and saddle. Behind him came two more Sedagin, Riven and the man who’d challenged Sutter at the feast.

“Stay downwind of me, too,” Wendra whispered. Her lips drew into a wry smile. Sutter stifled laughter, causing snorts and chortles.

“And me,” Braethen added.

“And me,” Penit joined in.

Mira said nothing, but the Far half-smiled, causing Tahn to do the same.

“Any idea why we’re going to the Scar, Braethen?” Sutter asked. “It sounds like a lot of fun, for sure. But you know, details would be great.”

Braethen stifled a laugh, and shook his head. “My knowledge of Scar history is sketchy. And what I do remember … no idea why we’d go there. Seems a bit out of the way, too, if we’re going to Recityv.”

Vendanj and the Sedagin returned just then. “I will escort you to the north face. The path from there is dangerous, but passable if you are careful,” Sedagin said.

With that, they got underway. Just after midday on the third day of their ride, they came to the end of the High Plains. At its edge, Sedagin wheeled to face them. “It has been my privilege to offer you safe passage through our homeland.” He nodded to Vendanj. “It is our custom to offer a gift to friends when they leave us. Sutter, will you come forward?”

Sutter looked up, putting his hand to his chest in question. Sedagin nodded, and Nails rode forward, casting a skeptical look back at Tahn.

Sedagin pulled his blade and flipped it into the air, catching it by the edge of its shaft. “Tylan made a present to you of our hand. Now I make a present to you of our arm.” He extended the sword to Sutter. “Faced with the challenge to fight, you spoke the truth of the Promise so that the grounds of your action were clear. On the lips of a lowlander this sounded strange to us.”

Sutter did not take the blade immediately.

Sedagin sidled closer. “Please take it,” Sedagin said in a respectful tone. “It is as much a blessing to give as it is to receive. Do not deny us this.”

Sedagin held the blade out so that Sutter would have to reach out to claim it. Hesitantly extending his arm, Sutter grasped the blade by its hilt. Tahn watched as Riven bowed at the gesture. Before letting go of the greatsword, Sedagin maneuvered it so that the point pierced the tip of his middle finger. He kept it there as Sutter continued to hold the blade, connecting the two men in that precarious position. Tahn knew the sword must be heavy, and Sutter’s arm soon began to quiver slightly. Sedagin did not move his finger, but pressed more firmly to steady Sutter’s hold. As he did, blood welled up over the tip of his finger and dripped to the plain below. For several moments Sedagin thus helped Sutter hold aloft the blade. Sutter’s arm began to shake more violently, and he started to sweat. When Tahn thought Sutter would surely drop the blade, Sedagin pulled back his hand, and the sword swooped down harmlessly.

“Thank you, my friend,” Sedagin said, and bowed his head slowly.

Sutter opened his mouth to speak, but found no words. At last, he bowed as well. Vendanj watched closely, seeming more pleased than Tahn ever remembered seeing him. Admiration shone in Mira’s eyes as well.

Sedagin turned to Vendanj. “It must be done slowly. Even my own people take care on the Face.”

“We will watch closely,” Vendanj returned.

“If there are changes…” Sedagin trailed off.

“Thank you,” Vendanj replied. Then he turned to the others. “Remember that we have been found by a Quietgiven tracker. The tracker is dangerous because he can feel the connection of Forda I’Forza in the land and in the air—
your
Forda I’Forza.” He pointed at each of them. “It is how he tracks. And he can reason as you do, but
he
carries the craft of scrying. Now that he knows of us, we will not be free of him until he lies dead.”