The Child Eater (23 page)

They came back almost immediately. There he was—there
it
was—a crumpled form against the back wall of some restaurant near the King's Officers' barracks. The vision lasted only a second, but it was long enough for Matyas to sense something missing. He concentrated, then gasped and opened wide his eyes. “Oh no,” he said—and at the thought that he would have to show this to Lahaylla, “Oh God.”

And then a voice floated up from his cellar of memory, icy, amused. “Ah. It's you.” Matyas just had time to step out of the circle before he threw up on Veil's ancient wood floor.

The crowd was small. Only one Master walked with him, Horekh. The others either considered the troubles of common people not their concern or else they saw Matyas' face and wanted no part of whatever he was about to reveal. Horekh had looked at them all, then at Matyas, and said, “I will walk with you.”

Matyas had sent away the crowd, told them to go home and not worry. It was the best he could do. He had tried, weakly, to send Lahaylla away as well, but she insisted, and so did a group of five or six, including
an older man and woman who held Lahaylla's arms, either to comfort her or themselves. Parents, he guessed, and when they looked at him, he wondered what she had told them.

They found the boy—the
thing
—quickly enough, crumpled up right where the snakes had shown him. At first Lahaylla had thought Matyas was trying to trick her in some way. “What are you showing me?” she demanded. “Do you think this is funny?” The group around her looked angry, while Horekh just watched Matyas' face.

“I'm sorry,” Matyas could only say. “I'm sorry.”

She looked at him again, then back at the crumpled object against the wall. Matyas could see her take it in, maybe the clothing first, a tunic and pants of plain brown wool that she'd probably sewn herself, and then the shape, the thin arms, the narrow chest. “Rorin?” she whispered, for even though she could see, she could not feel. There was nothing left of him, it was as if he'd never existed. But still, she picked up the empty body, expecting to embrace it, hold it against her, and it was only then, when she unfolded the limbs, hoping to find some small remnant of her brother, that she saw, finally, what was not there.

“His head!” she screamed. “His head! What have you done with his head!”

“
What happened to the head?
” Matyas was speaking even before he came fully into the room. Sitting upright in her straight-backed chair, her back to him, Veil didn't answer. Matyas went on, “How could someone just . . . empty out like that? He wasn't just dead. He was gone. Completely. What happened to the head?” He'd been walking toward her, and now he spun the chair around, fearful she would just stare coldly at him.

Instead, her face showed a grief, a brokenness he never would have thought possible in her. He was silent, but only a moment, for then he said, “Why do I keep seeing this? Heads. Bodies. I don't know. I don't know what I mean.
Why don't I know what I mean?
” Images swirled around him, too fast for him to catch hold of them, Rorin, yes, but dreams, and visions—and someone else, a boy, back at . . . Halewin! Yes, that was his name, the cook's son, who'd vanished years ago.

And tunnels, and faces, and pieces of paper—and that voice, that terrible voice. “What's wrong with me?” Matyas cried.

She got up and walked to him, but he took a step backward, as if she might hurt him, punish him for something. But no, she only took his hands, her own so small and delicate. Lights appeared between them. The Splendor had come, the first time he'd seen them in months. For him or for her? “Oh, Matyas,” she said, “I am so sorry. All this time I did not tell you—I told myself you needed to discover it for yourself. You needed to overcome the Forgetting. But really, I was hoping it would never happen. Please, come and sit with me. You've grown tall, knowledge nourishes you, and my ancient neck hurts from bending.”

Matyas realized, with a slight shock, that he did indeed tower over her. When he'd first come, they were nearly eye to eye. He noticed, as he sat in the carved red chair opposite her plain white one, that the Splendor followed him. Despite everything, he had to make sure not to smile.

“Matyas,” Veil said, “do you know the story of the Five Creations?”

“Yes, of course. The Creator tried four times to make the world and failed. She made a world of Fire and it burned itself up. Then She tried Water and all the creatures drowned. Next came Air, but everything fell apart and all the pieces drifted away from each other. So then it was Earth, but nothing moved. The Creator wept—frustration, the books say—and discovered She could use Her tears to bind everything together. That was the Fifth Creation, the world we live in.”

Veil nodded. “Yes. That is what the books say. And no doubt there are many who believe it. Lukhanan, I suspect, has never questioned it. Nevertheless, the story is a lie.”

Matyas stared at her. It had never occurred to him that the old books could lie. And yet, when he'd read that tale, hadn't he thought there was something wrong with it? How could the Creator stumble like that?

Veil went on, “When the Creator, blessed be Her face, began Her Great Work, it seemed a simple task. She created a world and beheld it, and it appeared good in all things. And then She discovered a flaw. There was something terrible in this bright world made from the Fire of Her passion. She could not simply erase it, for it appeared to be woven into the very fabric, and so She destroyed it, and started again. Now She acted with great care and compassion, and created a world of Water. And yet here, too, the flaw remained. So She destroyed this one as well. Now She planned and analyzed and measured before every step. Thus She created a world of Air, for Air is mind, as of course you know. And still there was the same terrible flaw. So She made an Earth world, heavy
and dull, but it was still the same. Her tears, Matyas, were not of frustration, but a terrible grief.”

For some reason, Matyas thought of Royja, but he pushed it away. He needed to concentrate.

“Finally,” Veil said, “the Creator accepted what She could not change. She created a world of balance, and set within it two great trees. One was the Tree of Life, also known as Constancy, which grew into the light and brought forth all the creatures, animal as well as plant. The other, the Tree of Knowledge, known also as Variance, She made to grow down, taking the flaw into dark, hidden places where She hoped no one would ever discover it.”

“What is it?” Matyas burst out. “This flaw—is it what happened to that boy?”

“Please,” she said, and held up a hand. “Let me do this—” She took a breath. “The flaw is a spell. It's called the Spell of Extension, and with it a Master can live forever. This is what the Creator discovered—that it was not possible to create a living world that would not contain, deep within it, the Spell of Extension. She could not grow a Tree of Life without a Tree of Knowledge. The best She could do was hide the Knowledge in darkness.”

Matyas thought of his dreams of tunnels. He remembered the dark places that time he'd stolen Veil's red box, thinking it held the secret of how to fly. For wasn't there a young man about to step off a cliff, without a care, as if the wind would carry him? Instead, he'd found himself in the dark tunnel. With bodies. With heads. With
him
. Now Matyas wanted to make Veil stop, before it was too late. Before he remembered. But it was already too late. He said, “The Tree of Knowledge. It's the Tarot of Eternity, isn't it?” The Splendor flared so brightly he had to squint, then it dwindled and went out.

“You must understand, Matyas. Joachim—”

“The Brilliant?” Bitterness sharpened his voice.

She nodded. “Joachim the Brilliant. Joachim the Blessed. He did not
know
of the flaw.”

“Then what about the Kallistocha? The one who taught him? Did he know?”

For once, for just a moment, Veil was speechless. Despite everything, despite his desire to run, Matyas nearly smiled. Veil said, “Well, you
have
delved far. You are right, of course. Yes. Joachim did not just create the Tarot of Eternity. He was guided by a High Prince of the Kallistochoi.”

If she knew—if she had any idea—that Matyas had met such a
person
, she didn't show it. When Matyas had first discovered this idea, that a High Prince had guided Joachim, he had wanted to run to Veil and find out if it could possibly be the same one. But he would have had to admit he'd hidden this experience for so long, and wouldn't he have appeared ungrateful after everything she'd taught him? And something else. He didn't want to share this knowledge, with Veil, with Horekh, with anyone. It was the only thing he had that was his alone. Now he said, “So the Kallistocha created it.”

“No, no, you don't understand. No one
created
the Tarot of Eternity. The Tarot of Eternity has always existed.”

Matyas sat back. “What? That's . . . that doesn't make any sense. You mean the Creator made it? Along with the world?”

She leaned forward to touch his hand. “Matyas, you know what I mean.”

“No!”

“Yes. The Creator used the pictures to create the world. They were not a history but a blueprint. When the Creator brought Herself out of nothingness, the Tarot of Eternity was waiting for Her.”

“But I saw it! It's just pictures!”

“What you saw was a copy of a copy. And even then . . .” She did not need to remind him how he'd become lost in them.

He said, “Did he know? The Kallistocha? About the spell?”

She frowned. “No one really knows. Joachim himself had no answer.”

“Then did Joachim discover it?”

“No.” She sighed. “Florian was not Joachim's only disciple. There was . . . another.” There was something sharp in the air as she said that, like a shadow with knives.

Matyas said, “And this other disciple—he was the one who discovered the Spell of Extension?” What was it he'd read in Florian?
Beware the Tree that seeks to flower forever
.

“Yes.”

“What was his name?”

“No one knows.”

“What? Florian must have known.”

“Matyas,” she said carefully, “have you never wondered how Florian died?”

“Oh God,” Matyas said. “He killed her. Because she knew his name!”

“It was more than that. He killed her, yes, but then he used her body to cast a Spell of Forgetting. He took his name out of memory, buried it under a great red rock where no one could ever discover it. It was the only way to ensure that neither Florian nor anyone else could ever block him from the Spell of Extension.”

“Then what do we call him? Just ‘the other'?”

She took a deep breath. “No. We call him the Child Eater.”

Matyas jumped up and began to move about the room. He wanted to kick over her piles of books, smash her carvings, but he just couldn't make himself do it. “This is wrong,” he said, not looking at her. “You're wrong. You shouldn't have kept this from me. It wasn't right.”

“Matyas,” she said, then stopped.

What?
he thought. What lie or trick was she about to try now? But instead of some elaborate speech, or the opposite, a cryptic reference that she refused to explain, Veil did something astonishing. She began to cry. It wasn't loud, or gulping, the way Royja sometimes did, but there was no mistaking what filled her eyes. “You're right,” she said softly. “Of course you're right. I knew it was impossible. And unfair. I couldn't help myself, I had to try.”

“Try what? What was so important that you had to lie to me?”

Her voice came even softer now, almost a whisper. “I wanted to protect you.”

Matyas opened his mouth for some sharp, furious answer but nothing came. All he could say was, “Protect me from what?”

“Oh, Matyas, watching you discover the wonders of Florian, even just your delight in simple spells, has brought back a joy I lost a very long time ago. I couldn't bear to corrupt that.”

“So you were protecting yourself. Not me.”

She looked startled for just a second, then said, “Yes, perhaps that's true.” She shook her head slightly and the thin white hair came alive for an instant then settled back around her frail shoulders. She said, “I told you that the Child Eater seals himself off with a Spell of Forgetting, and this is true. But that spell works so very well because people
want
to forget. People like Lukhanan, those who think magic is all about power and prestige—”

“And money,” Matyas said with a slight smile.

Veil nodded. “And money. They don't want to know about something dark and fearful in the heart of existence. If there were no barrier against memory, they would build one as soon as possible.”

“You didn't forget.”

“No.”

“Are you saying I'm no better than Lukhanan?” He didn't wait for an answer. Instead, he turned his back on her and marched to the window. He knew what he'd said was unfair but he didn't care. Down below in the courtyard, the wizards and apprentices talked and argued and practiced as if nothing had happened that day.

He shook his head and raised his eyes beyond the Academy, beyond even the city walls, out past the Winter Gate to a flat, rocky area dotted with stunted trees and wooden platforms. The City of the Dead, they called this place. The platforms, about seven feet high with steps up one end, ran some ten feet long and three feet wide. Stained with age and blood, the Offering Tables, as people called them, had stood there for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. Overhead, vultures circled and glided, waiting for funeral processions to march from the city, wailing and ringing bells as they brought dead bodies to lay out on the platforms. The vultures took the meat, the Offering Table took the blood and the family carried home the bones.