What Was Forgotten (38 page)

Together, Zayd and Sera stepped behind the carriage and, saying nothing, began to push. At first it felt as though it would not budge, but it did, inch by inch until the wheels were rolling.

And then… nothing. There was nothing to push against. As the carriage fell forward, the monolith slid off. Part of its covering came loose and, for a blink, shone brilliantly despite the weak daylight, as if it was waving goodbye, or trying to take one last look at the world from under its covering before it plunged into the water below.

He expected the sound of the thing that had caused such immeasurable chaos and tragedy to be more pronounced, but the gorge swallowed it up, along with the carriage, and in moments the ripples from its entrance had dissipated, and the water sped along just the same as it had before. Zayd stared at the water, gripped by some expectation, that this was not over,
couldn’t
be over, and that the gorge would reject what was given.

“I wonder what they wanted,” Zayd said, still staring into the gorge. “What the spirits wanted.”

“So much history is lost,” Sera said. “Great knowledge espoused by people wise beyond our understanding… yet there must be the same truth in the other hand; terrible secrets known by the wicked.
That
history can stay lost.”

Zayd turned to face Sera. There were words in his mind fighting for the right to be spoken, but none seemed necessary. “I hope the world remembers you,” he finally said. Sera touched a pouch at her side where she had placed her relic.

“I hope so, too. If I can…” She looked down, “… I’ll sing your name in a song. Do the same for me. Or Cohvass. Any one of us. Any name you like.”

Zayd nodded, and, knowing no other words should be said, Sera turned northeast along the edge of the gorge. She was obscured by the forest before she had gone a hundred steps. Zayd remained where he was for a while longer. He stared at the water and felt perfectly at peace, like he did when he was back home in his tree by the waterfall.

He was so entranced by the feeling, the sweetness of the freedom that brought on the awareness of the chains. It made him question whether he had counselled Sera correctly, though only briefly. Had he not donned the chains, there would be no chance at moments like these. Was that not enough to make the chains bearable?

Zayd stood and closed his eyes, allowing himself a few final moments of the illusion before he turned to face the path by which he had come.

Barrett was standing in the path, his blade drawn and at the ready.

Chapter 23

It was everywhere he looked and it was in every sound he heard.

The shadow… its voice…

Osmun could not escape it, and it was clear to him now that it wanted something from him, but it wanted him alive. Did it want only to torment him ceaselessly? What else does an immortal spirit have but time? Torturing Osmun into insanity would be nothing more than an amusing diversion to it, and then once it was done… well, then it would move on to the next person and start over.

He had thought there was something truly sinister about this particular spectre, but what if the only thing unique in its being was that it was outside of his control? Beyond that, it was content to trouble the living, as countless other phantoms had.

The reasoning gave Osmun some hope, though that hope was tainted, like rotten food to a starving man. The thing would not kill him. It had intervened, killing two Ardent, so that he might still live.

So he used the sleeping root that night as carelessly as he dared to lessen the ghastly sights and sounds.

It was all he could do.

And when the effects of the herb wore off he was uncertain if he had even slept or if he had remained just on the edge of sleep. Sitting in an alley leaning against a wall, his body was wracked with pain and hunger, so he immediately reached for the fast-dwindling satchel of the sleeping root. It was then that he noticed where he was; he must not have slept, or at least not all of the night. He was near Tumanger’s shop where he had come before. He must have stumbled his way to this place during the night, and while he did not remember that, he could not shake loose the images of the Ardent from his mind, the face that stared at him, smiling, as blood poured from his throat. The root was losing its effectiveness, Osmun realized.

He struggled to his feet and hobbled down the empty early morning street, thinking to himself how he used to walk proudly but now limped, like some villain of folklore, and found Tumanger sitting outside his shop, setting up his stands for the crowds to come.

“Not open yet, my sir,” Tumanger said before looking up and seeing who it was that approached. The tall Ivesian took a step back in surprise, and the look on his face almost brought tears to Osmun’s eyes. “What happens to you?” he asked. “Come, come inside!” Tumanger put his arm beneath Osmun’s to help him through the door and led him to a cushioned chair. “You look like death is by your side!” he said.

“That could be,” Osmun rasped.

Tumanger brought Osmun a flask. Osmun hesitated. “Just water, all it is,” Tumanger said. “What happens? Tell me. The look of you worries.”

“Much happened. Little of it good.” Osmun drained the wooden flask quickly and handed it back. “Can I have more?”

“You come here like this days ago, but now things are worse. You are hurt. Why do you come here? Why not see a healer? Medicine would do you much better than
ractha
.”

“I can’t see a healer. They’ll find me.” Osmun drank again from the flask as Tumanger handed it to him again, refilled.

“Who will find you? Who is looking for the good priest Osmun?”

“The vicars’ soldiers.”
“Soldiers? In the army?”

“Not the Imperial army. The church’s army. Soldiers that fight the enemies of the faith.”

“And they think you are their enemy?”

Osmun nodded, tilted his head back and closed his eyes. “They think I’m a murderer and a thief.”

Tumanger folded his lanky arms. “So why do you come here?” The question was not asked unkindly, but was pointed. Osmun opened his mouth to answer before remembering that he hadn’t come intentionally, at least not that he could recall, yet he knew the truth of it at once.

“I need somewhere to sleep… just for a few nights. If the men after me don’t find me then sickness will.” It sounded pitiful as he said it, but the truth, that he could think of no one else to help him and nowhere else to take refuge, sounded worse.

The Ivesian looked straight ahead, and then looked out the front of his shops into the city streets. Osmun remembered what he had said before about having nothing; it must have been what he was thinking at that moment.

“You’re in no danger,” Osmun said. “I wouldn’t come here if there was that chance.”
“Unless they find you, and then what happens to me?”

“It’s no good to speak of what will not come about.”

“What happens?” Tumanger repeated.

“Then… then there would be danger for you.”

“And Tanu?”

Osmun nodded. “And Tanu. Yes.”

Tumanger looked around the room. “Two nights, and you stay hiding. Stay quiet, yes?” He turned to go back outside the shop, but stopped and turned slowly. He had to force the question out, like pulling an arrowhead free from the body. “Did you find her, good priest Osmun?”

“Tumanger, she…” he remembered the feeling of pressing the cane down on her throat. He remembered the horrific screams that came from her mouth but were not hers. “I never found her. She already went back home.”

He ran out of the sleeping root sometime during the first night there and he began to hear voices as he lay awake on the cot tucked in the back of the bakery, totally in darkness. It wasn’t the shadow’s voice he heard, it was his own and it was Nasiri’s. It was everyone he had spoken with, every word exchanged, since the trial up to this point.

He began to recite prayer after prayer so that he did not have to hear them and relive every mistake made, but as he spoke the voices became louder. Osmun began reciting the Recounting, verse by verse, and still the voices became louder and louder until he had to stop. He thrashed his head back and forth, pressing his hands against his ears as hard as he could, but it only seemed to trap the voices where they were.

Driven from the cot, Osmun began to look through the shop for anything that might lessen his suffering, anything that might hush the voices. Even if they were only distanced by the most insignificant degree, it would be something. He found a flint near the stone oven and lit a candle and began searching every cabinet, every cupboard, every jar.

There were half a dozen small jars of herbs, some of which he knew Tumanger used for the
ractha
… but did he use all of them? He dumped a small amount out from each jar and held the candle up to examine them; none of them had the appearance of black bear root.

“Best be certain,” he muttered as he swept every small pile into his hand and shovelled it into his mouth, following by a gulp of water from the wooden flask. He began to cough immediately and his stomach heaved, but he downed more water and fought the urge to vomit. At least one of the jars contained some kind of foreign pepper. Osmun wiped tears from his eyes and stood, leaning against the counter, waiting for some effect to take hold of him, but the only change he felt was his stomach beginning to turn.

He cursed his desperation but did not abandon it, and he kept searching until the candlelight caught something which glinted in the dark. Osmun pulled a knife from amidst a pile of wood utensils. He stood with it in his hand and stared at it, not knowing why he could not put it down. It answered a question he had not yet asked. He had never thought such things, but he had also never been as alone as he was then, standing in a stranger’s shop in the dark, ready to steal from a man kind enough to offer him shelter.

Its edge was sharp – one swift motion and the voices would be silenced. Osmun held the knife closer and saw a reflection on the flat steel. He looked away, disgusted. He looked exactly as Tumanger had described him, like a half-dead beggar or a piss-drunk thief. He let the knife fall from his hands as tears welled and blurred his vision. He silently cursed himself, cursed Andrican, cursed the evil that tormented him. He was as alone as he could possibly be.

He lay back down in the cot and wept, silently at first, then louder until he was able to drown out the voices with his sorrow. Sleep came to him after a while, but he did not even notice, for he continued to weep, even in his dreams.

There were two presences, two voices that murmured, impossible to ignore and impossible to hear over the din of the others. Osmun realized, then, that the invisible wall between him and the two voices was his consciousness, his mind refusing to stir. Where was he, then? Was he in the moonlit borderland, the space between words and breaths where things wait for nothingness?

The two voices became more distinct, and Osmun felt that he was being pulled by the hands and feet…

“Wake up,” the voice said. “Can you hear me, Osmun?”

His vision finally coming into focus, Osmun placed faces to the two familiar voices.

Oridas Ruhla and Cleric Egus both looked at him, surprised to see him awake. Or alive. Oridas was seated on a stool a few feet from the cot, and he leaned forward with his forearms on his knees. Egus stood behind him, looking at Osmun as if he was unsure it was safe to get any closer.

“Orry?” Osmun said. “What’s going on?”

“I’m here as a favour to him,” Oridas motioned to Egus, who smiled meekly, “and I’m here as a favour to an old friend… to a man I once knew.”

“Orry… I’m
still
that man.” Osmun tried to stand, but his exhaustion convinced him to stay seated as he was.

“Are you?” Orry asked as he stood up. “Accused of heresy and murder. That’s not the man I knew. Not the friend I grew up with.”

“I…” Osmun buried his head in his hands. “I’ve been trying to prove my innocence, Orry. You have to believe me. There is an evil presence here. It won’t stop speaking to me. It might be here still, Orry. You might not be safe.”

“You sound like a madman” Oridas said. There was the slightest hint of sadness in his voice.

Osmun laughed. “Let’s get to the favour so I have something to be thankful for.”

Orry shook his head and walked towards the front of the shop. Egus stepped forward in his place and sat down carefully on the stool. The old man wore a look of such deep pity that Osmun had to look away.
“Get to it… please……” Osmun whispered.

“I’m sorry, Osmun. For everything that’s happened, I’m sorry.”

“How are you sorry?”

“That this happened to you. You were so promising, and then… maybe the trial was too much.”

“Too much?”

“Yes, yes. Too much… for your mind. I’ve heard of it happening before, but I’ve never seen it.”

“There is
nothing
wrong with my mind!” Osmun snapped.

Egus looked confused. “What were you saying a moment ago, lad? You were hearing voices?”