Vault Of Heaven 01 - The Unremembered (9 page)

He hoped he would not have to kill the man.

The woman dropped to the ground behind the highwayman, dodging his companions and screeching into the long shadows. She kicked and rolled until finally they pounced on her, smothering her thrashing arms under their bulk.

As the encroaching champion came near, the highwayman drew his sword, dropped to one knee, and placed the blade on the woman’s neck. “That’s far enough.”

The other came to a skidding stop. “Leave her be! She’s done nothing to you.”

“Ah, but you can’t really know that, can you?” the highwayman said, taking some sport of it.

“Aye, I can. She’s not a combative soul, nor a
thief
.” The man spoke his insult slowly.

“Hmmm. Well, let us get straight to it, then. I have invited this woman to join me. It is not a negotiable invitation. You’ll want to attempt her rescue, and that’s most noble. But mind you”—he fixed the man a stare—“resist that impulse. It will likely only get you both killed. I hope you’ll trust me on that; it’s not something you should gamble on.”

Then a knowing, grateful expression touched the rescuer’s taut features. “You’re not going to kill her or you’d have done it already. And I don’t see the signs of a man with forceful loins.” He looked at the woman in a way that betrayed an intimacy the highwayman hadn’t yet seen. “So then let’s have a trade on it,” the man resumed. “I’ll take her place. Whatever need you have, let me fill it.” Emotion crept into the rescuer’s voice. “I won’t argue or resist.”

The man dropped his hands to his sides, a sign of good faith, waiting.

The highwayman relaxed his own grip on his sword and stood, marveling at the reason and proposed sacrifice. It was going to be easy to manipulate this man, since clearly he loved the woman.

But that could be dangerous, too. He’d have to play it just right.

“A noble request, but I’m afraid I must decline. You have my word, though, that I bear her no mortal threat.” He signaled for his men to haul her to her feet.

“Don’t do this,” the man replied, both a plea and edge in his tone.

This is where it gets dangerous. Wonderful!

“Take care, man.” The highwayman stepped forward.

The other’s hands rose again, one knife swiveling about, tip back—a fighter’s grip.
Maybe more than tools after all.

Then he lunged, knives slicing through the air. The highwayman rolled left and came up, his sword just blocking another attack as he got to his feet. His men pulled the woman back as she thrashed against their clutch.

“There’s still time. Let it go. If I kill you, you’ll have no chance to track us in hope of revenge, or, better still, saving your beloved.” He ducked as another knife slipped through the air near his face.

“She would rather die, here, now, than go with you one league!” The man danced from one foot to the other.

The highwayman sensed the truth in that. But he didn’t have time for this. He had pressing matters. This husband or lover needed to more clearly see his choices. “Would she rather watch you die before accompanying us up the road?” As if on cue, another of the highwayman’s men emerged with a bow at full draw on the rescuer.

At that the man paused, his knife handles creaking beneath his iron grip. His arms trembled with suspended action, even as he shared a long look with the woman they’d claimed from the river’s edge. Tears began to stream down her face, silent, fearful, dignified tears. In response, her loved one’s face pinched in a rictus of disbelief and horror.

“I will find you,” he whispered. “I will never stop.”

“There. That’s sensible,” the highwayman commented. He had his men tie the man up. Then, as the failed rescuer watched, they drew the woman through another line of trees, hoisted her into a saddle, and rode east.

CHAPTER FIVE

Quiet in the Hollows

“Inside!” Hambley shouted, directing them to the kitchen door just twenty feet away. “Stay back, the rest of you! We can see to this. Take to your meals or homes, off now.” No one moved. “Go!” The gathering slowly broke up, hushed talk shared between husbands and wives and friends.

Tahn, Sutter, and Braethen lifted Ogea and carried him into Hambley’s kitchen, past the ovens, and down a back hall to one of the sleeping rooms. With care, they eased him onto the bed, and Hambley drew back the curtain to allow in the watery light. Braethen sat on the mattress and gently placed his hands on the man’s neck and cheeks.

“What can you do for him, Braethen?” Hambley asked.

“Nothing.” The answer came from the doorway.

Braethen looked up and saw again the Sheason, who stood now in the doorway. He’d often dreamed of the moment he’d meet a member of the order, imagined what he might say, how he might try to make an impression. All of those preparations fled him as he sat near a friend who might be taking his last breaths.

Hambley redirected his question. “Vendanj, can you help?”

“Shall we let Braethen answer?” Sutter said with an acerbic tone.

Vendanj ignored Sutter and moved to the other side of the bed, taking one of Ogea’s hands in his own. “Hello, old man. I was here. I listened.”

Though he’d only just met this Vendanj, the gentleness he heard now in the Sheason’s voice did not sound like it often belonged to the man, who wore an iron visage. Ogea remained unconscious, his face still streaked with mud. Vendanj laid his free hand on the reader’s forehead and spoke briefly in a tongue Braethen had never heard spoken. He couldn’t be sure, but he thought he somehow
felt
the words the Sheason uttered. He regarded Vendanj with a look of disbelief.
The Conceiver’s Tongue.

Ogea’s eyes opened slightly, and he looked up at the man holding his hand. “Vendanj.” He coughed, swallowing hard against a spasm that threatened to steal his voice. “You should not have come. It is dangerous for you here.”

“Quiet, friend.” Vendanj spoke in mild reproach. “Use your voice only for what matters.”

The reader nodded appreciatively. “Bar’dyn. Two days outside the Hollows on the east road. I escaped … used a trick Artixan once showed me. Tell him that for me.” Ogea smiled, the expression turning sour on his face as the need to cough overcame him and he spat blood up onto Vendanj’s cheek and lips. The Sheason made no move to wipe away the blood.

“I will tell him,” Vendanj assured the reader.

“More. A Velle … with them. Careful, Vendanj.” Ogea trailed off, his eyes conveying warning. His chest rose and fell in shallow pants, a soft wheezing sound rising from his throat with each breath. He then shifted his head on the goose-feather pillow and looked at Braethen.

“I don’t think we’ll be sharing that evenwine this year, my young friend. I’m sorry.”

Braethen took Ogea’s other hand and shook his head at the apology.

“Safeguard my scribblings,” the reader said, smiling weakly. “They are important to the right eyes.”

Another wracking cough seized Ogea, the ripping sounds coming from deeper within his body this time. A fresh stream of blood coursed down his left cheek from the corner of his mouth. He licked his lips to wet them, leaving a bloodred coating like the paint the womenfolk wore at Harvest.

“Is there more?” Vendanj asked.

“Yes. You must remind them of the New Promise, because a passage has been opened again into the Bourne.”

The room stood quite for a long moment. The revelation chilled them all.

“Are you sure?” Vendanj asked finally, his voice strained.

“The veil has not yet failed, but from the Shadow of the Hand the firstborn of the One bellow deep into the Bourne to call their lost brothers. Some are able to pass through. They are here in the Hollows for the same reason you come. But how they got into the Hollows, I know not. Something must be—” He tried to cough, but his chest only heaved, too hollow to force the sound.

“Enough, friend. You have said all you will say.” Vendanj gently clenched the old man’s hand. Braethen still clasped the other.

“No, the—”

“Hush, my friend. Be still and remember.…”

The old man did not protest. He turned his head toward the ceiling, his eyes growing distant, a vague smile playing on his reddened lips.

Vendanj bowed, placing his forehead on the back of Ogea’s hand and holding it there. Braethen regarded the two men reverently. Sutter and Hambley looked perplexed, but Braethen bowed his head. A calm settled over the room, broken only by the whispering sound of the reader drawing air. It came softly, slowing.

Sadness grew in Braethen’s breast, his heart simultaneously filling with pride for a man who had earned the respect of others for the eloquence and boldness of his words without ever lifting a weapon. He reflected on the friendship the old man had offered him; a friend who had never judged his dream of being a sodalist, but instead traded tales about the order with him. His heart also pounded with the fear of losing his one supporter, as though the dream would pass if Ogea were no longer around to help him believe.

In those moments, Braethen also reflected on what it would mean to be a sodalist for real. And he knew suddenly a simple truth: Standing fast with a friend in his final moments, sharing whatever fear or pain or relief would come, was the measure of his devotion.

And so he held his friend’s hand. And waited.

Sometime later, Ogea stopped breathing.

Vendanj looked up and brushed a gentle palm over the old man’s open eyes, drawing down the lids. He gently placed the man’s hand on the bed, then stood. His body formed a silhouette against the window behind him, nearly blackening the room.

He turned and spoke quietly. “The time has come for us to finish our talk, Tahn, but not here. Hambley, can we take dinner somewhere in private?”

Hambley still stared at Ogea. “He’s really dead, isn’t he? And he fell from my ladder.”

“He was dead before he entered the Hollows,” Vendanj assured Hambley. “There is no time to grieve for him now. We must speak in secret.”

The innkeeper drew in a bracing breath. “We can use the townsmen’s chamber.”

“Well enough,” Vendanj replied.

Hambley opened the door and disappeared to make his preparations. Vendanj went directly to Tahn and reached down to take the sword they’d retrieved from Geddy’s smithy. He gave it a brief look, then motioned them into the hall. The large man brushed past Sutter and Tahn, his cloak stirring an indoor breeze as he went. They followed, but Braethen remained kneeling at the side of the bed, staring at the pallid face of the reader. After a moment, he reached out and gently touched Ogea’s kind face. He whispered, “By Will and Sky, thank you for your belief in me.”

*   *   *

Tahn strode down the hall and through a back door into the townsmen’s chamber. The hearth, a fire blazing within, dominated the inner wall. Muted voices could be heard from the common room, where hushed talk conjectured on the condition of the reader. The windows admitted watery light from the skies without, leaving the private room in half shadow. Hambley drew a flame from the fire onto the end of a small dried reed, and returned to the wooden table in the center of the room. A brass fixture there held ten candles in a wide oval pattern. Hambley lit them all and extinguished the reed.

“I will fetch some bread and bitter.” He bustled through the door and was gone.

Each of them stood behind one of the wide, high-backed chairs, as though sitting committed them to something they were uncertain they wanted to join. Vendanj sat and Sutter looked over at Tahn, who shrugged and sat down. Sutter and Braethen followed.

Vendanj glanced at Braethen, then began. “The things we must discuss are matters of import. Let’s begin with Tahn. I think there is more to the story you started to tell here not an hour ago.”

Behind them the sounds of the hall grew steadily more raucous, some men chewing hungrily, others arguing, many laughing nervously. But on this side of the fire, in the small circle around the rough table, quiet, intense conversation went on with a man whose face looked trustworthy, but who was also filled with the knowledge of an outlander. Would he have knowledge of the creature Tahn had seen in the trees controlling the very rain itself?

Tahn related his encounter with the creature in the woods, the darkness in the rain, and the dry ground with two scorched, fist-punched holes. When he’d finished, Vendanj regarded him a moment, but asked no questions. Then he spoke again.

“There are choices ahead. Only Braethen has made the Change, but Tahn has no father to counsel him, and you”—Vendanj pointed at Sutter—“I’d rather leave behind. But you know too much. If we leave you here, you’re a danger to us, to yourself, and to your adoptive parents.”

Tahn turned to his friend. Sutter was the son of Filmoere and Kaylla Te Polis, the best root farmers in all the Hollows. Tahn had been in their home a thousand times. Vendanj must be mistaken.
Adopted?
But his friend’s sheepish look confirmed what Vendanj had said. Tahn raised his brows in question. Sutter only shrugged.

“Never mind the revelations,” Vendanj went on. “As soon as preparations can be made, we must depart the Hollows.” He fastened his steely gaze on Braethen. “Why do you wear the crest of the Sodality? Are you received into the order?”