The Forgotten (The Lost Words: Volume 3) (63 page)

Lucas blinked slowly. “It is never too late.”

Jarman locked his eyes on a vague point in the horizon. “It is amazing how people can be ignorant, selective about their past. You would think they would have learned from the history books how to avoid having to repeat the same grisly errors, to fight the same pointless wars. Even now, with disaster lurking, they choose to invest themselves in their petty schemes and feuds. They would rather see the world burn than give up on their ego.”

Lucas did flash a smile now, but it was so quick Jarman thought he had imagined it. “Jarman, you are here because of your own personal vendetta. Do not forget that.”

“I am trying to save the realms!”

“Yes, you are,” Lucas agreed. “That is true.” He turned toward Ecol. “Do not expect people to see beyond the span of their lives. Even someone who can grasp the next decade is considered a visionary. Emperor Adam may have been one, and he had magic at his side. Maybe, he misjudged. The time of peace he wanted is now.”

Jarman sighed. “So, we will see petty human needs decide the world’s fate?”

Lucas did not move. “Or petty divine needs.”

“What can we do?”

“For the continental people, the wars between the gods and goddesses are not their past. They no longer remember those times. They do not know anything about what happened back then, and they do not understand the last war twenty years ago either. There will always be a disaster hanging above humanity, and the humans will always rush to their own rescue at the last moment. Such is the nature of our race, Sirtai, Caytorean, or nomad. We may be blessed with better laws, more science and magic, but we, too, are the victims of the same shortcomings.”

“We separated from the Old Land because we did not want a part in their pointless wars,” Jarman said.

Lucas started walking toward the burned fort. “Maybe, maybe not. We will never know the little doubts and fears our ancestors shared. But I am convinced they were not much different from James and Amalia. You must give them a chance. You are asking them to forfeit everything they know and everything they are, Jarman. Would you do the same in their place?”

“If I understood the reality, yes,” he ventured.

“Then go home to Tuba Tuba. We will return to our islands and stay apart from the realms, as we have always done. It will not be much different from the First Age. The gods and humans of the Old Land will fight their war. Someone will win. Maybe the humans, maybe Calemore.”

“They will be destroyed without magic,” Jarman pleaded.

“We do not know that for certain,” Lucas spoke as he followed the frozen road.

Jarman recalled seeing that half Sirtai near the mayor’s inn. He thought of Rob’s death. He recalled what Lucas thought he’d seen in the man before his demise. Maybe, maybe the continental people could defeat Calemore. It sounded unlikely, but they probably still had some gods. And their Special Children might come forward in the hour of need.

Lucas and he were the only pieces that did not belong here.

Oh, but he had unfinished business in the realms.

Damian would pay for the death of his third mother. So would Calemore.

The closer they got to the blackened fortifications, the livelier it became. Soldiers and craftsmen were working hard, some with sweat staining their vests and a layer of frost thickening on the wet clothes. Mules and oxen labored, drawing carts full of metal and fresh logs. Even dogs were busy, dragging sleds behind them.

Jarman was surprised to see town children running over cleared rubble and snow mounds, some helping, some playing, throwing snowballs at one another, racing with sleighs. For them, the horrors of war were an experience you could put away, even if just for a few hours of carefree fun. Jarman wished he could share their sentiment.

Both the emperor and the empress were there, with an invisible shield protecting them from magical weapons in addition to a useless human shield. A flock of officers was hanging nearby, whispering advice, trying to look important and busy. Like everyone else, they had their own personal agenda, and it came first.

There was no real reason for any of the brass to supervise the repairs. But with half the legions deployed at the battle lines at all times, soldiers sleeping in windy tents and eating cold food, and the threat of a new Red Caps assault imminent, they felt it was good for morale to partake in the suffering. A very misplaced emotion.

How could he convince the brother and sister to abandon this folly and move north? How?

One thing reality was teaching him, a cruel lesson he had never learned in Tuba Tuba, was that books always had easy solutions to problems. When you mixed in the human soup of doubt, lies, greed, and simple stupidity—unpredictability and luck took over. He had spent ten years championing intellect and common sense as his best weapons. Now he was learning a lesson in reality.

Life had no simple solutions. He had invested all his skill trying to ascend the ladder of hierarchy among the Anada wizards to become an ever better scholar, a more talented magic wielder. Perhaps he should have been focusing on the little
things: how to make people do what you wanted, make them change their creed for your sake? Could that be done? Ever?

“Men like to rebuild what was destroyed. It keeps them busy,” Lucas said.

“Then we must wait for Calemore to descend upon the realms before these people will unite?”

Lucas lifted a finger. “They
might
unite then. Might.”

Jarman sighed wearily. “What do we do, friend?”

The Anada wizard turned, his face hard. “We try to solve this like your father would have done. Why would Calemore want to kill an Eybalen fop?”

Jarman felt his mind racing. “What is a half Sirtai doing in James’s camp?” he retorted.

Lucas stepped closer. “Like Armin used to say, it all begins with the first murder. All the questions and answers we need about the gods and goddesses and their Special Children and all these folks, we will have them once we unravel this story.”

The story that had made Lucas a life slave. Jarman nodded.

CHAPTER 47

F
or the first time in months, Ewan was alone. Naman was sick with fever and coughing. Some old woman was taking care of him, making him chew willow bark and drink elm tea. That left the king of the Oth Danesh without a translator and without much company.

On his own, Ewan racked his brain, thinking, reliving every moment since coming out of the Abyss, trying to figure out what purpose his life had. He remembered the early days in Eybalen and meeting Constance; he remembered traveling with her through Caytor. Then, he recalled that monumental encounter with the pirates near Monard and the deadly game of Sleeper, when his life had taken yet another new spin.

He tried to find logic in the legends this strange, divided nation had, but could not find any. They had no names for their cities, for their foes, they would not let their mariners step inland, and those who dwelled far from the sea would not venture north. Crazy.

The Pains of Memory
was not any better. A collection of morbid stories that chilled his soul. He still did not believe those ugly words described some past life of his. He refused to believe that. Still, he clung to the bits and pieces that seemed understandable, tried to figure out the ancient truth behind the old texts.

He was not very good at reading in Oth Danesh yet, so he refrained from opening the books. Instead, he spent his time touring Kamar Doue, watching people cringe away from him. Day after day, no matter what he did, they kept fearing him on an almost religious level. A deep primal fear, laced with revulsion, the kind of thing that shocked you when you saw it etched on someone’s pale, bloodless face.

The first flowers had broken through the winter crust, tiny, sad snowdrops making a white blanket of their own. There were patches of sodden brown earth showing. The nights were not as cold as they used to be, and the city was livelier and smellier. Ewan wished he could at least pretend to enjoy the stench of cooking and eating the stale cabbage and the touch of frost on his skin. But even those sensations were denied him. Love, friendship, the caress of nature. He understood them, because he knew he had once felt them. And sometimes, his invulnerable body would yield an odd tinge, reminding him of his long-lost humanity. Still, most of the time, he was a ghost walking through another’s world.

His footsteps always led him to that magic-made lake, where he stood and stared toward the far shore, his eyes vaguely focused on the center. Sometimes he saw a ripple stir the surface; sometimes the wind chased the tiny wavelets. Now and then, a fishing boat would slice through his vision. Inexorably, he gazed at the leaden surface, trying to figure out its mystery.

There was more to it than just a defeat.

More than the last stand of his champion. Something else.

He rolled the paragraphs from
The Pains of Memory
through his head. For some reason, he remembered every passage all too well. He could hear Naman droning, his voice dry and raspy and his tongue swollen.

There is hope when the night returns. There is hope when the champion is born again. He shall be the king’s hand; he shall
slay. Destroy those that cannot be killed. Scythe those who oppose his rise. In the blood of the fallen, he will seed the future. Through death, reap power. The king awaits his champion. In his hand, the scepter, from the muddy darkness
.

Ewan watched fishermen return to shore. They saw him and paddled away, toward a distant beach. Ewan shook his head.

Stay here and await the king. Count the years and remember the defeat. No one will venture past the curtain of treason. No one will speak or see until the king returns. His champion will wait to present him with his scepter, for a king cannot rule without one
.

Maddening, stupid riddles. Worst of all, Ewan could not figure out what his role really was, according to these books. Was he supposed to fight someone? Wage a war against an ancient foe?
The Pains of Memory
did not name his enemy, so how could he really fight it, even if he wanted to? Was this some kind of a cruel mind trick? Or did those writing the books omit the names by vicious necessity?

That pirate Toraan had told him he was promised to them, but there was nothing that tied Ewan to the memories. Nothing that mentioned him in any way. The chapters rambled about the king and his glory, his return and his revenge, and the champion that awaited him to present him with some gift. Any lunatic could have written that, and hundreds or thousands of years later, people shaped their lives based on a moment of madness.

Ewan rubbed his temples. A man from the legends. They thought he was the man from the legends, because he had defeated a pirate in a game of Sleeper.

A game of Sleeper…

He froze.

What if Naman’s translations were wrong or just figurative? What if the texts were deliberately vague to deny any
enemy from understanding and interpreting them correctly? Muddy darkness? What was there? Where could one find mud and darkness at the same time?

At the bottom of a lake.

Where only the hale can crawl…

Hale, healthy? Strong? With strong lungs? Crawl, perhaps they had meant swim? Crawling was not much unlike swimming.

The lake, the lake. The place where the king’s champion had died, destroyed by powerful magic, so vast that it had upended this gigantic bowl of rock and scattered debris for miles around, shaping these hills and riverbeds.

A thought occurred to him.

Ewan undressed, let the white clothes the Oth Danesh had given him slither to the wet pebbles. He stepped into the lake, the icy water sloshing round his toes and ankles. But he was not cold. He only remembered what the cold used to feel like back at the monastery, when he and his friends Adrian and Tomas had dipped naked into the stream in the middle of winter, laughing and screaming breathlessly. Those
were
memories from his previous life.

He slipped into the water and began to swim with slow, deliberate strokes, advancing toward the lake’s center. At the beach, a small crowd had gathered, watching him. Men in their little boats stopped trawling the nets and stared, curiosity mixed with terror in their big eyes. No one could predict what their king might do now. Even Ewan did not know what he would do.

He reached the spot where he thought he remembered that Oth Danesh drowning. Taking an unneeded gulp of air, more on instinct than need, he pulled his knees close to his chest, bowled over, and dipped below the surface. The world
turned blurred and gray. Less than a pace away, the water became murky and impenetrable. There was a definite feel of silt between his fingers, stirred by underwater currents from the rivers flowing into the lake.

Ewan began diving, lugging great gushes of water with his hands behind him. Small fish that lived in the cold depths slithered away from him. The light began to fade, until he was surrounded by a brown darkness. A muddy kind of darkness.

Blind, he plowed onward, long past the limits of a human body. Any other swimmer would have given up by now, or died from exposure, or had his lungs burst. Not him. He could endure this forever, if needed. As long as it took. He kept diving, fairly certain he was almost vertical and maintaining his course toward the center of the lake’s bottom.