Vault Of Heaven 01 - The Unremembered (65 page)

“Come now,” the man insisted, “cease your careful scrutiny of my sword and answer my question.” He spoke with a merry expression on his face, as though the things he said were of no consequence at all, things charming and lightly conversational.

“I know you crossed the Lesule on the Ophal’re’Donn Bridge; I heard your shout in the Canyon of Choruses. You’re not men of the valley, or you’d never have set foot upon it. And I don’t take you for trophy hunters, because you brought no cart.” All the while the man’s face remained jolly, unconcerned.

Tahn listened intently. He relaxed his draw and dropped his aim to the ground. He started to speak when Sutter chimed in. “We’re adventurers!”

“On our way to Recityv. We’re just passing through,” Tahn amended.

“But a grand place to pass through,” Sutter added honestly.

The stranger seemed to like Sutter’s response better. “Grand, indeed,” he echoed.

“Abandoned by its residents by the looks of it. And some years ago if I’m not mistaken.” Sutter removed a waterskin from his horse and took a draught from it, then offered the stranger a pull.

“No, my young friend. But thank you all the same.”

Sutter corked the skin and refastened it to his saddle.

Tahn put away his arrow and took tentative steps forward. “May I ask what business brings
you
here?”

“I am an archivist and historian, good fellow,” the stranger replied with enthusiasm. “Where else should I be?”

“In a school or library?” Sutter retorted, appropriating the grin the man wore so ceaselessly.

The other’s waxen smile dipped, but only for a moment. “Fah, not so. This is my school. This is the place to find what matters.” The stranger turned a wry look on them both.

“Not for us,” Tahn corrected. “We’re on our way
through
.”

“Well, into the city we’ll go, then,” the stranger said. “I to record and discover, you to find your way through. And while we go, we will talk of what matters: fallen cities, long journeys, eating, drinking, aches of the body and the mind, life and breath, and new friendships … wonderful unions.”

Tahn thought he heard some second meaning to “wonderful unions,” and put another arm’s distance between himself and the stranger. “We don’t have much time to waste,” Tahn interrupted.

The man’s friendly smile finally waned. “You do if you want to leave Stonemount, my new friend.”

Sutter drew his sword again.

“Hold there,” the man exclaimed in a calm but commanding voice. “All I’m saying is that you cannot exit the way you have come. The wards in the Canyon of Choruses will prevent egress.” He indicated the deep chasm through which Tahn and Sutter had entered Stonemount. “There is but one other passage beyond these walls. And energetic as you are, you are not likely to find it alone.” His smile returned. “Come with me and all your better deeds I’ll add to my histories. Then away you’ll go to continue your adventure.”

Sutter slowly sheathed his sword. Tahn leveled his eyes at the man, realizing that he had not yet offered his name. But neither had he asked for theirs. Tahn let it lie there for the moment as they silently agreed to the man’s offer.

The city itself rose like a grand mausoleum built up over centuries for an entire people to sleep their last.

The light strengthened on the eastern rim of the cliffs that encircled the city, bathing the walls and immense towers in bluish hues. In the dawn of another day, the city felt safe, protected.

“A marvel of engineering,” the stranger was saying. “Everything you see was sculpted, erected, and fashioned by the hands of the Stonemounts. An industrious people, gifted as few in the raising of stone to art.” The man scanned the city with appreciative eyes. “It is a shame they are no more.”

“And why is that?” Tahn asked.

“Because,” he said, immediately, “it is rare to see a place so committed to the aesthetic of the entire city. Tell me, where do you come from?”

Sutter shot a guarded look at Tahn, forcing his friend to pause as he considered a response.

“Keep your secret,” the man said before Tahn could come up with a lie. “But answer me this, in your homeland is every house, shop, and stable of equal beauty despite its size? There is no revelation in answering that, is there?”

“No,” Tahn replied. “Each is as decent as its owner can afford.”

“The equality of selfishness,” the man retorted.

“No one goes without,” Tahn argued. “The land is bountiful and hard work earns each his place.”

“Then you were content with your life there,” the man pressed, his gait unflagging as he strode through the city.

“Yes,” Tahn said, anger rising in him. “I have a good life there.”

“I see, and that is why you left that place to seek adventure.” Tahn caught a glimpse of the man’s cheek and saw a wry smile drawing up his lips. Before Tahn could counter, the man went on.

“Don’t be angry. Your home, I’m sure, is very nice. But look there.” He pointed behind them to the first distant outbuilding near the barrows. “Even these are raised with careful splendor, wouldn’t you agree?”

The man was right. No sign existed of an underclass here. Smaller buildings at the edge of the city had been given the same care in design as the towering structures that rose near the city’s center.

Tahn raised his eyes now and saw the sun striking the immense gables and beautiful archways that joined the high buildings hundreds of strides up. In the distance they looked like flags unfurled from parapets into these man-made canyons of stone. Despite the wear of time and cracks creeping into the walls, the symmetry mesmerized him.

“Makes you wonder why they left,” the man said, following Tahn’s gaze.

“They left?” Sutter remarked, incredulous.

“It is the fodder for scholars, and theories abound. I, of course, have my own.” He paused dramatically. “I believe they found a harmony between death and life, like the circle of stone that surrounds the city. They found a way
past
death, past
life
.”

Tahn raised his brows at Sutter, as everyone did when Liefel “Smooth Hands”—the great mooch and braggart—told his incredible stories at Northsun Festival. Sutter smiled back as he ambled beside him.

“I intend to find it,” the man said so quietly that Tahn was not sure he heard him correctly. The words sounded like a secret uttered in the shadow of a dying tree.

As they walked, they fell into a comfortable silence. The heights of the surrounding buildings reminded Tahn of the narrow canyon they’d entered at the river. Deep into the rivers of sky, bridges bisected slivers of blue, arcing like limbs from tree to tree. High up, wind whistled thinly around the corners of the edifices. Occasionally, a bird took flight from the landing of a portico set high off the street. It might have struck Tahn as a lonely sound, mournful perhaps, the burring of wind across a grave marker like those encircling Stonemount. But this wind coursed through a monolithic city that was itself one immense testimony to life gone by. Regardless of the city’s vacancy, Tahn felt oddly at home.

Around a corner, they suddenly were in an expansive square ringed with water fountains now home to accumulated drifts of wind-borne dust and dried leaves. From each fountain ran a tributary channel downward to a great fountain at the square center. All the empty pools were recessed into the ground, so that the water might have lapped near a person’s toes as he stood to appreciate the mists it produced.

Tahn walked close to one fountain. A large bowl stood poised atop the back of a large, granite-sculpted man, the musculature of the figure still evident in the skillfully textured work of the sculptor. Around the perimeter of the great square stood several such statues, each facing the fountain at the center, their eyes peering along the channels that fed the central fountain. Tahn followed a channel, forgetting the stranger as he passed him by.

The channel emptied into a deeper basin. On one side, a set of stairs descended into the fountain.

“Grace and utility,” the stranger said. His face appeared in conflict, admiration contending with envy. The struggle twisted his smile in a horrible line. “This is where they were sanctified. Where they completed their journey.”

The man’s words disquieted Tahn, despite the beauty being described. He didn’t care about this lost city-nation anymore. He and Sutter had concerns of their own. They had to get to Recityv. Wendra would be worried sick, if she was not in need of help herself. Tahn subtly placed a hand on the sticks hidden within his cloak. There were other reasons to hurry, as well.

Tahn refocused on the man. “How do we find our way out of this place?”

The man did not look away from the fountains. “What, so quick to leave so remarkable a place?” A wry grin spread on his lips as he finally turned to marvel at the immensity of the palaces and towering stone edifices that faced the great square. “What adventurers you are proving to be, young friends.”

“Will you help us, or not?”

Unsmiling, the man pointed to the northeast. “Between those two towers.”

Several towers rose to the north, spires reaching skyward. Tahn could see away to the cliffs, a morning haze in the air washing the crisp edges that touched the sky. But he didn’t immediately see.

The stranger pointed once more.

Then Tahn spotted the towers. Each rose with prim majesty from an edifice several blocks away, a stone staircase on the outer wall of both towers spiraling toward the top. A narrow bridge passed between them near the pinnacle. Just under the footpath, Tahn thought he could see a dark, vertical line in the distant cliff wall obscured by the haze.

“Must be a gap like the Canyon of Choruses, huh?” Sutter remarked.

“Indeed,” the man said. “But it is a great deal more difficult to find than it appears. The streets in that direction are not square, and the cemetery there is less … habitable.”

Something in the way the man used the word
habitable
was unsettling.

“We’ll just follow the rim around until we come to a break in the cliff,” Tahn stated matter-of-factly. “We should be able to reach it well before dark.”

“And so your eyes would deceive you.” The stranger stared at both Tahn and Sutter. “The envy of the outside world forced the Stonemount people to protect themselves. In the west there is the Canyon of Choruses. In the north”—he looked again to the dark line between the towers—“the canyon is bordered by wild growth. People here learned to navigate the wilds, but foreigners often found their final earth early by trying to pass through them without a guide.” He turned a mirthful eye on Tahn.

“Don’t tell us: you know the way through these wilds.”

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

Ta’Opin

Jastail and Penit rode side-by-side ahead of Wendra. The highwayman had astutely discovered that if he kept control of Penit, he controlled her. At times he spoke in avuncular tones to the boy, at other times as though they might be brothers, giving advice and smiling over the lad’s imperfect knowledge. Penit seemed just young enough to forget their circumstances and lose himself in conversation with an adult. Wendra stewed in her anger over Jastail’s easy manipulation of the youngster. Once, he even patted Penit’s shoulder, the boy laughing at some comment. Wendra’s heart was gladdened to witness Penit’s resilience, but the dirty hands of the trader on Penit forced her to close her eyes and hum the discordant strains chiming in her head.

Colors swirled in her vision. She could feel blood coursing through the veins at her temples. She could hear the blood coming in rushes like the reprise of a song, ebbing and flowing with regret and violence as each beat of her heart pushed it along. When she opened her eyes again, Penit and Jastail were looking back over their shoulders at her, curious looks on their faces. She hadn’t thought she’d been loud enough to be heard. She ignored their looks and fought for balance as the fading harmonies of rhythmic sound, like strings being plucked by calloused fingers, brought tears to her eyes. They were not the peaceful tunes of her childhood, or her box, and she couldn’t remember their melody, only the rough feel of them on her tongue and the image of broken glass on cellar floors.

After that, Jastail did not speak as often to Penit, nor did he put his hands on him. But he continued to keep the boy close, even when they stopped to rest and eat.

Near meridian of the second day, they came to a road that stretched north and south.

“We’ll use the road,” Jastail said. “But keep your wits about you. The road is filled with travelers whose business it is to deceive. Don’t let them know anything about you, or you’re likely to wind up dead.” He looked at Penit when he spoke, but clearly meant his words for Wendra, too. He turned north and kicked his horse into an easy canter.

They passed a few homes. Wendra badly wanted to make a break for safety among those strangers. But each time, the people they saw remained silent and distant, their eyes following them from behind window glass or over the backs of standing cattle. Others turned their own backs to them in counterfeit gestures of labor, while searching from the corners of their eyes as Jastail and Penit passed by.