Vault Of Heaven 01 - The Unremembered (97 page)

When all the runners had disappeared, Wendra looked up at Seanbea, who gave her a quirky smile. “Gets in you, doesn’t it?”

Only slightly abashed, Wendra nodded and turned in the opposite direction, where they would next see the children. The crowd simmered, their jubilation falling to murmurs and bubbling expectation. Men and women continued to fill the air with confetti and streamers as the crowd awaited the return of the children from around the outer wall of Solath Mahnus. In the distance, the roar of spectators rose in a moving wave as the runners passed them in their course. The sound of it grew more faint as the race approached the far side of the hill.

“What will you do if the boy wins?” Seanbea asked, interrupting her auditory tracking of the race.

She started as the question penetrated her concentration. “He won’t win,” she answered, disappointed in herself for the sentiment. “He’s fast, but the older boys will have the day.”

“The Roon goes to the runner with the largest heart,” Seanbea countered. “There are tales of a girl three years younger than the tallest, strongest boy finding speed in her legs that even she hadn’t believed existed.” His eyebrows lifted to mark his point. “The Roon chooses who bears the seat, Wendra, not the child. It is a race, yes, but after all the child can do, something more aids the winner in crossing the ribbon.”

“It sounds like a legend, like that of the White Stag or the Pauper’s Drum.” She stood on her tiptoes and looked in the direction the children would come.

“Legends come to us for reasons, Anais,” Seanbea said. “Like the legends of songs that do more than entertain.”

Wendra shot him a hot glance, but the Ta’Opin stood firm under her glare.

Far away, the cheering from the crowd began to cycle back toward them. As the roar of the crowd drew closer, those around Wendra and Seanbea began to fidget and call, the excitement of the race coming before it like leaves stirred by a wind presaging the storm.

Moments later, a pack of children rounded a corner and broke into a sprint down the long concourse. Twelve youngsters ran, their arms pumping, their hair whipping in the wind of their own speed. Across the cobbled street they flew, feet pounding in an impossible rhythm. Hands and arms rose in support as the runners raced past. Twenty strides behind them, a second group of children came around the corner and caused another surge in volume from the onlookers. Behind this cluster of contestants, more children came in staggered formations, each individual racer working feet and knees and arms in ardent strain.

The first grouping came into clear view. Wendra rose up again on her toes and scanned their faces. At the back of the pack, Penit and Dwayne labored to keep pace with those at the front. Sweat streaked their cheeks and temples, matting hair to heads. Two boys ran at the head of the lead group, effortlessly sprinting and seeming untaxed in their exertion. A handful of girls made up the middle of the pack, ponytails flipping to and fro with each long stride. A few more boys flanked the girls, eyeing their counterparts as they drove their legs forward. Penit and Dwayne ran with the third at the back of the group, their strides shorter and quicker then the long, graceful strokes of the others.

Wendra yelled Penit’s name, but she could scarcely hear her own voice. In the midst of the deafening noise, she suddenly wondered if an unheard song held any power. But the thought fled her mind in the exuberance of cheering Penit on. The colored bits of confetti showered like a blizzard in the street, swirling around the bodies of the children as they passed. Some small bits sticking to the sweat on their faces and forearms. Whistles pierced the din, noisemakers popped and rattled, and a few celebrants blew horns of their own.

Then the first pack turned and followed the course down a narrow side street. The crowds lined the route there, too, jostling one another for a view of the children as the first runners dashed past them. Now innumerable voices rose all around Wendra, racers passing constantly in a long procession, the throng lifting its roar down the streets where the Roon snaked into the city. The sound reverberated off stone buildings, and Wendra fancied it the voice of Recityv, a multitude of pitches and words commingled to one great, giant voice.

The last runners passed them and followed the course down the street to Wendra’s left just as the return route began to thrum with the excitement of the lead pack. Wendra clutched her bodice, trying to will her heart to slow, but to no avail. The thrill resonated through her, in her. Every beat in her chest fell like the blow of a hammer.

The intensity of the crowd might have been nothing to what it now became. Every onlooker howled and cheered with the fullness of his own lungs. Taken together, it felt like the air must surely rend. Or else the density of the noise might have weight and substance enough of its own to be touched. The force of the volume pressed at Wendra’s eyes and raised every hair on her body. She felt simultaneously like one dropped into a winter river and one roasting on an oven spit, but none of it was painful. Instead, she felt buoyed, as if she might raise her arms and float upward.

Then Penit appeared on the return avenue.

His shoulders were bent, his arms driving with sheer determination. He emerged from the byway ten strides ahead of Dwayne. He’d found his own sure stride, his legs churning like a champion horse in long, powerful rhythms. His feet glided across the cobblestone, his heels never touching the ground. Tears of pride welled in Wendra’s eyes as she added her voice to the incredible chorus of exultant celebrants.

Through the wide concourse Penit sprinted, seeming to gain speed with every stride. The crowd knew their winner, and reveled in anticipation of the ribbon, now again raised by the men bearing the batons.

Through the riverbanks of proclaiming attendants Penit ran. Their own frenetic energy contrasting the smooth, elegant pace Penit kept as he dashed down the open concourse toward the finish line. He came closer, and Wendra could see the calm but determined set of the boy’s features—the same one she’d seen when he’d gone out to find her help from the cave. She gloried in his impending triumph and all that had transpired to bring him safe to Recityv. Forgotten were her fears of what winning could mean. She held her breath and embraced the joy that raced her heart.

Suddenly, a strange look passed over Penit’s features, a kind of thoughtful concern. He looked back over his shoulder at Dwayne, now twenty strides behind him, and the rest of the lead pack just emerging from the far avenue. His legs carried him forward, but Wendra thought she saw in his eyes a realization not yet communicated to his feet.

Fifteen paces from the ribbon, Penit stopped.

CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE

Winners and Wisdom

Penit came to a skidding halt, his breathing labored, his eyes regarding the ribbon so close ahead.

The crowd erupted with frustrated expectation. Some jeered, others roared in confusion. Wendra noted the pitch shift to something deeper, less appreciative. Violent gestures exhorted Penit to finish the race, continue on. A few heads shook in annoyance. Wendra was sure this had never happened in all the history of the Lesher Roon.

Penit could have jogged the remaining distance and still won the contest. Instead, he turned and watched as Dwayne came racing on. His friend gave him a curious look. Penit nodded, lending a contented, reassuring expression to Dwayne, who passed him with a brief glance.

A moment later, Dwayne broke the ribbon. A roar of victory followed, and the boy was snatched up and extolled by those gathered in the streets as the next Child’s Voice to the High Table. Other children buzzed past Penit to finish for honor’s sake. Some slowed and stopped, moving off to rejoin parents.

The crowd filled the street, many seeming to forget Penit as they rushed to congratulate Dwayne. A few sauntered close and gave him bewildered stares. Wendra fought through the wall of people to Penit, and heard harsh, critical comments aimed at the child before she gathered him close and silenced the critics with a scathing glare. Seanbea forged a path for them back to the wall near the gate, where she knelt and embraced Penit for several moments before realizing he was not crying or otherwise upset.

She drew back and gave him a guarded look. “Penit, why did you stop?”

He peered over her shoulder, presumably at Dwayne, his face a study in satisfaction that burgeoned into a smile.

Wendra turned to follow Penit’s eyes and found the race coordinator marching toward her, baton in hand. Behind him a number of attendants vested in city colors surrounded Dwayne and escorted him watchfully. She thought the man intended to pass them with his brusque, sensible stride. But he came to an abrupt halt next to them.

“You will come with me, all three of you,” he said, pointing at Wendra and Seanbea while keeping his eyes fixed on Penit. “I’ll have no discussion about my race. The regent and her table will hear an account of it from both you and Master Dwayne, and let her say out upon it.”

He paused long enough to indicate which ones they were to his staff with a wave of his baton, then stepped smartly away, heading for the gate. The men in bright Recityv crimson enfolded them in the circle they formed for Dwayne and a shifty-looking man Wendra thought she recognized but couldn’t place. Together, the five of them passed through the inner gate and onto the smooth surface of the Solath Mahnus courtyard. The stone clacked beneath their heels. Long slate slabs had been meticulously fitted together, rendering the yard virtually seamless. Dark marble benches edged the perimeter, here and there occupied by men in full armor and women in neatly pressed dresses. Planters stood on both sides of each stone bench, where manicured trees offered little shade, but prim decoration.

On the far side of the yard, an archway large enough to permit two carriages abreast tunneled into the hill. Above it rose the sprawling courts and halls of Solath Mahnus. Each roof showed crenellated abutments more decorative than useful. The stone of the outer walls had been carved with various crests denoting houses and families. The crests formed pyramids, each successive level holding fewer as if showing the genealogy of the seats housed within.

Their steward ushered Wendra, Seanbea, and Penit into a tunnel lit brightly with oil lamps. Several intersecting passages ran at perfect angles to the one they traversed before finally they came to a wide stair guarded by four men bearing halberds. The fastidious baton wielder did not even bother to acknowledge the guards, fussing past them and up the stairs at a sturdy clip. Gates hung from the ceiling above them. A short stroke would bring them swinging down to block their ascent. Wendra saw strange clips bolted to the outer edges of the stair, where it looked as though the gate locked home once it fell.

Wendra’s legs had started to burn by the time they stepped into a wide, vaulted chamber, appointed with suits of armor and weapons resting on oiled wood stands, and pedestals bearing glass cases where sepia parchments sat atop easels, many of them singed around the edges or burned through in places as if with a hot stick. Murals hung painted on canvases several strides to a side, and long drapes in solid, dignified colors descended from brass rods fastened in the heights of the room’s great ceiling. All around, charcoal-colored marble set in feathered patterns announced the dignity of court, and the refinement of artistry.

Seemingly inured to his surroundings, their guide led them through the hall into a second chamber bordered by doors and dominated by a narrow stair that began in the middle of the room and ascended past the second and third floors, issuing them directly to the fourth story. Marble balustrades ran along the edges of each level, though Wendra had no idea how people found their way to those floors.

At the top, several soldiers stepped into their path in a practiced manner, and waited until the race coordinator said something to them before they would withdraw. They pushed through a large set of double doors and saw a number of maps and long scrolls on tables where men and women sat, harried looks upon their faces, some gesticulating, others with heads cradled in their hands. There were deliberations going on.

Soldiers numbered half the room’s occupants, most in unsullied uniforms and looking ill at ease to be so clean and tailored. Sun streamed through long, high windows, bathing the room in light; looking through those windows, Wendra could see the breadth of Recityv even from the doorway. It made her woozy; she reaffixed her attention onto following the bustling little gentleman.

Some of the room’s occupants looked up as they passed, a few appearing to understand who they were and forgetting whatever concern currently occupied them. Behind them, men with pitchers of water stood at the ready to refill glasses on the table. Wendra found her mouth dry and wanted to ask for something to drink. The hush that followed them into the room dissuaded her from making any requests.

At the back of this room stood another set of double doors guarded by eight men. The race coordinator impatiently waved them away as he approached. The soldiers gave way and the doors were drawn back to admit them. Through the doors stretched another hall, more doors at long intervals on either side and engraved with words from a tongue Wendra did not know. Past these, a final set of stairs led to doors that stood unattended. To these, their trenchant guide took them. Wendra’s stomach churned. She took Penit’s hand and as an afterthought, took Seanbea’s hand as well, just as they came to the end of the hall.