What Was Forgotten (29 page)

“No, no. I’m just… I’m just keeping an eye out.”

“Ah. I see.” Osmun understood. They were just down the street from her father’s bakery. “Would it really be that bad if you saw him? Or if he saw you?”

“What do you mean?” Nasiri asked. Her tone barely shaped the words into a question, but more into a statement: you have no business asking.

“You must still care for him,” Osmun said. “Despite what happened.”

Nasiri leaned almost completely across the table and grabbed Osmun by the collar. “You have
no
idea what happened. You may know my father, but you do not know me.” She shoved Osmun back, got up from the table, and walked out of the tavern as if it was on fire. Osmun and Myron watched her go in silence.

“She let you off easy,” Myron said after he took several long pulls on his cider.

“She looked like she wanted to strangle me,” Osmun said.

“Likely she did. I asked her about her father once. It didn’t go well.”

“What happened?”

“She stabbed me.”

Osmun downed the rest of his cider in one mouthful. “I guess I did get off easy.” He decided to avoid the topic of Tumanger altogether, even though it was clear that Nasiri still felt for her family. He thought that she might be worried about appearing weak to her father if he saw her and thought she was battling with regret over her decision to separate herself from them. And perhaps it was more than just a worry over appearing weak.

As for her father, Osmun believed Tumanger when he said it was easier for him and Tanu not to see her so they did not have to experience losing her again, but he also believed that, given the chance, he would want to see her all the same.

“Why bring it up in the first place?” Myron asked.

“I suppose I am just used to helping. I was in the border provinces earlier in the year. The people there were struggling with malicious presences coming from the Beyond. They were making people hysterical, sometimes violent. Word soon spread that I was able to help expel the spirits, and people would come to me, take me by the hand and almost drag me off to their homes so that I could cleanse the places of evil.” Osmun lifted up his cup, turning it in his hand, wishing it was full once again. “It was a good feeling, being needed. Far better than being thought a murderer.”

“There are worse habits than trying to help someone,” Myron said.

“Yes, well, Nasiri seems to disagree.”

The door to the tavern opened and Julian entered and looked around as though he was ready to flee at once. Seeing Osmun at the table, he quickly closed the door and sat down with them.

“Your hands are shaking,” Myron observed. Julian set them flat on the table and kept them still, only with noticeable effort. He exhaled and looked around the room. Osmun patted him on the shoulder.

“It’s alright, Julian. You’re safe. Tell us how everything went. When you’re ready, that is.”

“Are you sure you wouldn’t prefer to fade into obscurity?” Myron asked. “There’s safety in it.”

Julian looked up from the table. “Obscurity? What? What are you saying?”

“This sort of…
enterprise
. You don’t exactly seem cut out for it, I’m sorry to say.”

“He’s doing just fine,” Osmun said. “When you’re ready.” Julian exhaled again.

“I was allowed to go into a number of the libraries and studies. I even heard some lectures. I didn’t fully comprehend them…”

“Probably why they let you listen,” Myron said.

“But it was just like Abelus Cypra had said,” Julian continued, “that it’s a consuming discipline, and a lonely one. I don’t know how someone would come to choose to be a historian. There’s nothing in it but loneliness. Only secrets keep you company, and it’s the secrets that will likely end up killing you.”

Osmun thought of Nestor. “Devotion,” he said. “They choose it out of devotion to the emperor, to the Empire, and to the Beacon. If I were not gifted, it may be the path that I would have chosen. It is a difficult choice, but it is a noble choice for that.”

Julian looked back at his hands. “I’m sorry,” he said softly. “I wasn’t thinking about…”

“Every life lived for the Beacon is a worthy one,” Osmun said. “No matter what.” Julian nodded.

Myron rolled his eyes. “Is it too early for ale? I need a drink to stomach all of this praise.”

“They were happy to let me see what much of the college was like, and much of it is old. It
looks
old.”

“In disrepair?” Osmun asked.

“No, I wouldn’t say that. More like an untended garden. Except for the tower; it looked new, and for such an impressive structure, most people seemed to avoid it. Like it was made of glass… or that it might fall on top of you if you stood around it for too long.”

“The bell tower?”

Julian nodded. “I saw no one enter it, though I saw someone come out. He just looked around and then went back inside. He didn’t look like the rest of them.”

“What do you mean?”

“He means he didn’t look bookish,” Myron offered. “He looked like a soldier, is that what you meant?”

“Yes. Like a soldier.”

“Ardent, I bet,” Osmun said.

“Good odds,” Myron said as he leaned back in his chair. “If the Compendium really is inside.”

Osmun drummed his fingers against the table as he thought. “It makes sense. And things that seem out of place usually are.” Why else have a tower at all? They were defensive structures, lending themselves to ornamentation, but inside of the tower at the College, Osmun knew they would find it built to keep out intruders, not built just to house a bronze bell.

“The tower it is, then,” Myron said. “How will you get in? It’s not as though you can just walk up to the door and knock.”

“I don’t know what other option I have,” Osmun said. “I can’t really break down the door, can I?”

“Why not?”

“Mostly because I’m not an En Kazyr.” Osmun kicked at Myron’s chair, and he grabbed a hold of the table a moment before teetering over.

“Alright, point made. It was an unworthy question. The second one, at any rate, but not the first: how will you get in?”

Osmun tapped his fingers on the table. “That is something of a problem, isn’t it?” he said to himself. He couldn’t break down the door, and even if he were somehow gifted with a giant’s strength or a battering ram, it was not a subtle tactic and would alert every Ardent within the tower and most everyone outside it. He had to be
let
inside…

He had to belong. His fingers stopped tapping.

“Do you have an apron?” Osmun asked suddenly.

“I think I can find one for you,” Myron said as he stood up and strode into the tavern’s kitchen.

“Where is he going?” Julian asked.

“I think we’d better wait outside,” Osmun said.

Chapter 18

“Don’t ask, Myron,” Osmun said. “I know that look. You’re going to ask me something I don’t have an answer to.
What if you break your leg? What if you get can’t open the door? What if you have your head cut off at an inopportune moment?
The plan isn’t perfect, but it’s the best any of us have come up with.”

Nasiri looked at Myron, who shrugged. “I wasn’t going to phrase it like that,” he said.

“Keep quiet,” Nasiri whispered.

“Alright, then, I guess no one will ask the important questions.”

They were huddled against the stone wall that encircled the Historian’s College at a point far enough from the main gate that no one on the streets below would spot them. The college was built on a plateau of a rocky hill, a precursor to the Whitewing Mountains that dominated the sky far behind them. They had waited until dusk before taking to the streets and then, as casually as they could, climbed some of the steep rocks behind the buildings that were closest to them. It took a leap from a rooftop over a stone retaining wall onto a grassy area that would lead them up to the part of the wall where they now waited.

Myron was the first onto the rooftop, which he achieved with remarkable ease. But someone noticed him. “What’s on the roof, there?” the voice had called out. Osmun’s heart had stopped, thinking at once that it was a city guard or worse – the Ardent – that had spotted them.

“Collectors, sir,” Myron called back.

“What, tax collectors? What are you doing on the roof?”

“Rodent collectors. One of the residents said there might be carrion around here, we’re just trying to find it. Carrion spreads disease, you know.”

“Oh, yes. I did know that. Would you have a look over here when you’re done?”

“Gladly, friend,” Myron said. “Just as soon as we’re done robbing the church of some sacred artifacts,” he muttered to himself as he lowered a rope to the ground for Nasiri and Osmun.

“You really are a terrific liar,” Osmun said to Myron when he reached the rooftop.

“Everyone is good at something.”

Once beside the wall which encircled the College grounds, they waited, out of sight, until darkness came. Myron leaned against the wall, cradled his hands for Osmun’s foot, and hoisted the priest up. Myron held his hands up, supporting him as he secured his grip on top of the wall. The wall was just wide enough for Osmun to lie on it once he got both feet up, and he remained as motionless as he could as he surveyed the layout of the grounds.

He was immediately over a grove of some kind. There were trees growing close by and a few benches among them. There was a reflecting pool as well; he could see the reflection of the moon on the surface of the water.

“Wish me luck,” Osmun whispered before dropping down from the top of the wall. As he landed his feet disappeared nearly up to his knees, and he barely kept himself standing. A wave of disorientation passed over him. Was this some kind of trap?

“What was that?” Nasiri hissed from the other side of the wall.

“There’s a pond here… I didn’t see how large it was.” Osmun strained to see in the dark, and after waiting a moment and not seeing anyone running at him from flung-open doors, he made his way to the edge of the water, lifting his legs high and placing them down as slowly as he could. He looked back to the spot on the wall where he had been. When the time came, climbing the wall from the water would be difficult. And noisy.

“When I come back, leave the rope further down,” Osmun whispered. He waited for a reply, but none came. He was about to speak again when he heard a door open, and he immediately threw himself to the ground. The six wings of the school loomed before him, every side of it had a covered walkway and dozens of doorways on each of its four levels. While the walkways were lined with lit torches, anyone straying from them would need light of their own, so while the voices echoed off of walls, disguising their place of origin, Osmun instead looked for a moving light, without success. He wondered where the voices had actually come from. Had they been nearby, or was he hearing someone from the other side of the college altogether? If the latter, it was a wonder that no one had heard him splash into the reflecting pool.

He lifted himself up and made his way through the few trees, beyond which was, as much as he could tell, a flat field of grass that surrounded the College, presumably on all sides. He walked, as normally as his nervousness would allow, across the field and to the pillared, paved walkway of the closest wing. Looking down, he saw his soaking wet feet leaving tracks on the pavement. He looked around again; anyone walking past would not be able to miss the muddy footprints. He prayed silently to Xidius, asking for his favour. And any luck that could be spared. Best to stay to the grass as much as possible, he warned himself.

Osmun continued down towards where the wing ended, staying on the grass next to the walkway. There was another paved path that ran between this wing and the next, a path that led towards the tower in the centre. He looked up at it; had it always been so tall? The upper levels were almost invisible in the dark. He imagined some sentry up there looking down at him at that very moment, and the thought made him take a few steps forward until he hugged the closest wall, putting him at least out of the immediate light of the torches.

“Stupid,” he whispered. “Act like you belong.” Osmun spotted a large chimney on the inside wall of the south-eastern wing and made his way towards it, and as he neared, was reassured by the faint smell of smoke. On the outward-facing walkway were at least a dozen doors, but Osmun needed to find the one that led down to the kitchen. He thought back to the monastery; the doors there had been larger to allow for carts and barrows to be brought in and unloaded. At the opposite end, closest to the main gate, he found such a door, and found it to be unlocked.

Donning the apron once through the door, he padded down to the kitchen and allowed himself to relax slightly when he saw that it was empty. There were three ovens against the far wall, all of them feeding into the one large chimney Osmun saw on the outside. The smell of smoke drifted from the cinders in the oven and mixed with the scents of herbs that were stored in the dozens of jars along the immense countertop. He walked, still cautious, to the adjoining room, and then to another until he found a stack of barrels on their sides, piled almost to the ceiling. There were spigots jutting from few of them. “Now let’s just hope they’re thirsty,” Osmun said. “And that they haven’t forsworn all forms of drink.”