Trial of Intentions (16 page)

“We leave at first light. Sleep well.” He then left the room with hope and doubt vying inside him.

We must unify the Sheason. But first we must unify men. Beyond that, the rest is just wind in dry grass.

 

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Gardens of Song

A Telling is a sort of way-finding. It's words that bring a distant place into such sharp focus, that you can reach out and touch it. Those words need to be given voice, though. And most authors can't sing worth a tinker's damn.

—The
Twelfth Example of Clarity,
an author's study aid, by A'Garlen

S
utter found Wendra at the far end of Elan's neatly tended garden. Small juniper shrubs and berry-producing pyracantha bushes nestled low to the ground between stretches of thick, closely shorn grass. The garden seemed an oddity in the city of shale, but a welcome one. He veered to the left, stopping near the low bench where the woman he'd always thought he'd one day marry sat staring blankly into the dark of pre-dawn.

“Good morning,” he said with a cheerful tone.

Her face hung with the fatigue of sleeplessness, her eyes drooping and ringed with dark circles. More than that, her shoulders slumped the way a man's will at day's end, when he plows without a horse. This wasn't like Wendra. She had a straight back. Even in the face of the rumors and innuendo following her rape, she'd not lost her confidence.

Looking at her this way, he remembered something he hadn't thought about in a long time. “Did I ever tell you my da had a song?”

She looked at him with mild surprise. He'd never spoken of this with her. With anyone, really. But it seemed right to share now. She motioned to the other side of her stone bench. Not a great invitation, but good enough.

He sat down, sharing her view of the rows of neatly manicured juniper. “It's not something you would've heard,” he began. “I'm pretty sure Da wrote it himself. It was the only song he ever sang. And he didn't do it often. But when he did, I knew he meant it. Kind of like he needed to sing it. To hear it. You know what I mean?”

She nodded.

“It helped me,” Sutter added. “Now, don't laugh at me. I'm no talent at this.” He didn't wait for her to deny or encourage him. He wanted her to hear it, no matter how bad a job he made of it. He swallowed to clear his throat, and sang it as much like his da as he could.

So now the chance to fall

Too great for simple plans.

Should I fail, others' lives

Will suffer with this man.

I don't belong to those

Who lift the brighter veil.

I'm confined to the ground

With dirt beneath my nails.

So, when north winds blow

And call the autumn wind.

I will hope I have saved

Enough to fight the cold.

Won't let him in.

Reconciled to all the pain I've ever known.

It is just the way this world

Dispenses of its own.

Can I live beyond

The name they make me wear?

I will try to be strong,

To stand again I swear.

Standing has a subtle way

Of giving men the trust

In their only strength,

The will to leave the dust.

So, when I've grown old,

I'll find my way back home.

And I'll fly in that sky

Where summer light has shone.

Don't mourn for me;

It's not a labor's wage

That I sought

When I fought

To find my way back home.

I'll find my way back home.

To find my way.

When he finished, he found her looking at him with a soft expression of thanks. “I guess it's rather simple. Small, maybe,” he said. “But I think the feeling inside it is big.”

She reached out a hand and placed it gently over his. In the chill morning, her hands were warm. He showed her a smile. “Can we talk a moment?” he asked. He hadn't planned the song, and what he'd actually come to share this morning would brighten her mood further.

“It's not my place to tell you to ‘get on with it,'” he said. “But what I have to say may make you smile.”

Wendra showed no look of eagerness or expectation. She seemed, at the moment, rather content. Watching her, he glimpsed the power of a song to provide perspective. But he did have good news.

“First, I have to tell you something about me. And you have to promise not to share it with anyone, not even our hilarious Sheason. But Tahn knows.”

Wendra remained silent, though her lips twisted in a thin zag of distaste at Tahn's name.

Sutter let that go by, and began. He explained about the faces of the dead that came to him. He told of the woman in Ulayla, burned alive; he told of the spirits he'd seen in the catacomb prison cells under the Halls of Solath Mahnus. And last, he told her about the host of Far souls he'd seen before the battle on the shale had started.

This woman that he thought he might love turned searching eyes on him.

He squeezed her hand. “Wendra, I haven't seen Penit's spirit.”

The darkness of predawn still held in the skies above the Far king's garden, deeper still in the shadows of tall junipers shaped like inverted teardrops. But through the black, Sutter saw the light of hope dawn in Wendra's face. It grew there slowly—confusion, doubt, tentative belief, then real hope.

Her fingers tightened on his, and her smile lit his heart.

The sound of footsteps on the crushed-shale path rose up in the morning stillness. They turned to see Vendanj approaching.

He came and stood in front of them. “Sutter, I need to speak with Wendra alone.”

He nodded. “All right. But she's feeling a bit better. Let's try and keep it that way.” Sutter squeezed her hand with encouragement and stood.

Vendanj didn't acknowledge Sutter's jest. “Wake the others. Tell them we'll leave soon.”

*   *   *

Wendra listened as Sutter's steps through the crushed shale faded to nothing. He'd brought her some hope, and a smile besides. When they got past all this—
if
they got past it—she'd marry him if he asked her.

The hope he'd brought her, though, wasn't solely about Penit. She'd realized in that moment that if Penit was still alive, there might be thousands of people alive and held captive inside the Bourne. Taken there by highwaymen. Just as she nearly had been. The inkling of a new purpose took root inside her. A new anger. But that anger didn't feel wrong. In quiet moments like this, sitting in the Far king's garden, her anger felt
true
.

And with that thought, she left behind much of her resentment about her own child—taken by a Bar'dyn—and Penit, and even Tahn. Her thoughts were filled with the idea that fathers and mothers and sons and daughters had been seized and sold into the Bourne. A tremor of song stirred deep inside her.

She then looked up into the Sheason's calm face. He nodded and took the seat where Sutter had been. “It's good to take some solace in simple things.” Vendanj's voice rang low and calm across the garden.

“At home, we'd sit on the porch at night. Light-flies would wink against the trees across the field. Da played a fiddle. Ma sang. That was before they both went to their earth.…” She let the remembering go.

Vendanj didn't speak for a long moment, seeming to let the memory have its due. “I know you grieve for the Far who fell to your song. Just as I know the anger in you seeks its release through these dark sounds. Trust me, I understand the conflict in a soul that aches for justice, has the power to do it, but must wait for the right time.”

She stared back into the Sheason's dark eyes, and said nothing.

Vendanj's face softened. He put his large hands on her shoulders. “But as strong as your song may be in blind anger, it can be more powerful if sung with the right intent. I'm not the one to teach you this. But Belamae is.”

She did want to return to Descant Cathedral. Learn more about her song. Learn to sing Suffering.

“Right now, though,” Vendanj pushed on, “we need your help. I have something for you to try.”

He let go her shoulders, reached into an inner pocket of his coat, and pulled out two folded parchments. He handed them to her.

“What are these?” A kind of dread filled her belly.

“Open them,” he invited, and waited.

She unfolded the sheets and turned them to catch a bit of light from the eastern sky. On the first one, in a carefully rendered script, was a beautiful description of Recityv. The words brought vivid images to mind, capturing the grandeur and sense of promise in that great city. Reading it, Wendra had the feeling of being there, and a sudden longing for that place.

When she'd finished, she looked up at Vendanj, feeling slightly spent, as though part of her had traveled to Recityv and back in those few moments. Vendanj gave her a knowing nod.

“It's a Telling. Like the one Belamae sang for us when we came to Naltus. There are authors with the skill to write the essence of a place.” He tapped the sheet in her hand. “If sung by Leiholan, it can open a passage to Recityv that will save us valuable time.” Vendanj looked the question at her.

She'd used her song mostly to fight. And even then made a mess of it. He needed someone trained. Someone from Descant. “I don't think I can.”

“You can,” he said simply. “The second parchment is of Aubade Grove, somewhere you've not been. But its words are equally vivid.”

“What if I can't?”

The Sheason's brows rose, as if he was honestly considering the question. “The truth is, we may already be too late. But if you can't do this, the Convocation will almost certainly fail. You have to try.” He paused a moment, then added genuinely, “Please. We need you.”

It was the first time she'd heard him ask so.
Please
. She looked again at the parchment in her hand. “I don't even know how to begin.”

“Read them,” he said. “Over and over until the words flow. I'll return with the others in an hour's time. We'll try then.”

Wendra stared down at the parchments as the sound of Vendanj's footsteps passed over crushed stone and faded into the distance. In the silence of the garden, the thought she'd begun—the center of her anger—returned as if it had been waiting for her attention:
highwaymen
trafficking men, women, and children into the Bourne, into the hands of Quiet.
Highwaymen like the one who'd nearly sold Wendra and Penit to Bar'dyn.

There was a piece of the puzzle missing, though: Why did the Quiet pay slavers to move human stock beyond the Pall? That was the part she wanted to understand. The part she thought her songs might help answer. One way or another.

Does that mean singing Suffering at Descant Cathedral for Maesteri Belamae?

She didn't know. What she
did
know was that she had to do something to help those who'd been taken into the Bourne, and do something to try to stop any more from having to go there. But
her
way was reckless. Her way wouldn't help answer the center of her anger. She needed to go to Descant and train.

Just now, she wished she'd learned more when she'd been to Descant the first time. If she had, she wouldn't be worrying so much about these Tellings.

*   *   *

The light had slowly strengthened out of the east. Wendra had read each parchment ten times, poring over the words, before she heard the sound of many feet approaching. When she looked up, she saw them: Vendanj, Braethen, Grant, Sutter, Mira, and Tahn. They came with a few of their mounts.

When they'd all gathered close, Vendanj explained why they were meeting in the garden. “I've asked Wendra to sing two Tellings. One to send Tahn his way. Another to Recityv.”

Everyone looked at her. She saw surprise, reticence, and even—she thought—some admiration.

“There's risk,” he added. “But I have confidence in Wendra. And so should you.”

“What about Sutter and Mira?” Wendra asked.

“They'll head west on horseback. Mira has a call to make on the Laeodalin. We've no Telling for that place.” Vendanj gave Sutter and Mira a look of caution, and directed his next words at them. “After you're done there, move fast toward King Relothian. Tell him what you must to convince him. If the Quiet come, we don't stand much chance without his support.”

“You'll need to be firm with him,” Grant chimed in.

Vendanj nodded agreement. “Then get to Estem Salo. Mira knows the way. We'll do all we can to succeed at Convocation.” He paused, choosing the right words. “But none of that will be enough to stand against the Quiet if the order of Sheason falls.… And we're on the brink of collapse.”

A shocked silence followed.

“Some blame me for the schism in the order. There's some truth to that.” Vendanj nodded with regret. “But we can mend the dissent. We
must
.”

He took a few steps forward and gave Tahn a reassuring pat on the shoulder. “Once you're done in Aubade Grove, we'll get you to Estem Salo, too. If you arrive there before us, find Randeur Thaelon Solas. He leads the order. Tell him the library at Qum'rahm'se is burned. Tell him what has happened here at Naltus. And the sigil you took from the Draethmorte at Tillinghast … be sure he sees it.”

Tahn pulled out the pendant and they all looked.