Trial of Intentions (18 page)

The Inveterae were his people, too. Which made the confession more bitter still. The First Fathers had herded Inveterae races into the Bourne with Quietgiven when they'd abandoned this world. Or so the old stories told. The Fathers hadn't found enough value in his kin to let them remain in the lands of men. Kett believed the gods were wrong. That they'd been hasty.

He was Gotun. Not a beautiful race. Not like men. Denser of muscle and bone. Thicker of nose and waist. More like Bar'dyn, but boasting smoother skin—easier to brand. But a father doesn't see those things when he looks at his children or mate.

His little ones, Marckol and Neliera, stood in the firm grip of Quiet guards. Filthy Bar'dyn hands on them brought fresh anger. He might defy the tribunal even now, were it not for the fear in his son's eyes, and the tears on his daughter's cheeks. Their worry and dread was for him; they didn't understand that their own lives hung in the balance of his choices here today.

His companion, Saleema, tried to show him a brave face. But the haggard lines on her brow told a different story. He pushed back his pain and shame, and offered her a look of strength to set her heart at ease.

“Stand,” Balroath commanded. The Jinaal officer's voice rang with deep clarity—the hallmark of the Jinaal House. “Have the strength to meet your judgment on your feet, Kett Valan. Or else confirm the rumors of your treachery. Admit that you lead this separatist movement with fellow Inveterae conspirators.”

Kett drew one foot forward and pushed himself to his feet. A wave of nausea and dizziness threatened to tumble him again to his knees, but he fought the sensation, using the lashes bound to his wrists to steady himself.

Balroath nodded. “Good. Traitors should have the same courage in the face of those they betray as when they plot in the dark. Now, let's speak plainly, you and I, so that we don't misunderstand one another.”

Balroath drew back his whip and brought it down savagely across Kett's neck. The force and bite of the blow almost dropped Kett again. But he locked his knees and squeezed his arms as close together as he could, using the leathers to keep himself upright.

This time, he bit back his cries, trying to spare his little ones. He couldn't let them watch this any longer. He had to tell Balroath. But how could he condemn all the Inveterae races, give up their search for escaping the hopelessness of the Bourne. As he convulsed from the strain of torture, he cast his eyes heavenward.

We should never have been sent here.

When the pain receded, he lowered his stare to his torturer and judge. “No misunderstanding.” He tried to sound dignified, but struggled to talk through his own shuddering breath. “You force my confession with the rough end of your whip and by threatening my family. Your tribunal is a mockery. We are not like you—” He gasped a breath. “… never have been.”

Again the whip lashed out, this time tearing deeply at his cheek.

“If you mean that you're ungrateful, then we agree.” Balroath gathered the lash. “You plan to lead Inveterae away from the only advocates they've ever had. You may have descended from the hands of different gods than we did, but those gods caged you here with us. So what is it, Kett Valan? How are you different? Is it that you think only Inveterae deserve to escape the Bourne?”

Kett smiled, the rip in his face sending new shivers of pain down his neck. “You don't want liberation, Balroath. You want dominion.” He laughed. “And advocates? Inveterae are your footstools. Always have been. We raise your crops, tend your prisoner camps. You shove us ahead of you when you try to push through the Veil, then walk over our backs when we fall dead in the breach.”

Balroath let the flail fly again. And again. And kept on until Kett dropped. This time his shoulders popped as his arms separated from his shoulder joints. He hung down, his face near enough to the ground that he could smell coppery blood and fallow earth.

He whispered, mostly for himself, “We want what was taken from us, but not through war. We just wish to go south. And live.”

A long silence settled among them. Balroath interrupted the stillness with a subtle threat: He put down the whip. The next assault would be on someone he loved.

“I will not ask again.”

Kett's chest and gut tightened. Could he reveal the names and plans and hopes of countless families?

I have to get us out!

One last time he turned to Saleema. He needed her look of faith and courage. There was none. Only an aimless plea. Her heart had been pushed too far. He was alone.

He wanted to cry out to his gods, then. Seek rescue, or strength, or just relief. Their Abandonment had never struck him as deeply as now. He was not alone merely in this remote tribunal. He was alone under all the skies of heaven.

In his mind rose the story of Tanelius, an Inveterae of the Fennsalar race herded into the Bourne after the Whiting of Quietus. Tanelius, who, though abandoned by his makers, would not abandon them. Tanelius, who had believed that his own decency would qualify him one day to return to the lands south of the Pall. Tanelius, who had earned the trust of the Quiet through labor.…

A new thought lit in Kett's mind. A dangerous one.

There were rumors that the Quiet had discovered a way out of the Bourne, or at least knew a way of disrupting the Veil while they crossed. It was only a rumor, but one Kett had heard enough times to lend it some weight.

So, there was a way.

Coughing up more blood, he gathered all his strength and stood, his shoulders throbbing with pain. “Place me in service. Give me a rank.”

Balroath's eyebrows rose. “What do you mean?”

“If I betray my cousins, I'll be dead in a few hours—my people won't suffer a double tongue. But if you pardon me, give me a brand and rank, I am more valuable to you.”

“I'm listening,” Balroath said with neither interest or skepticism.

Kett composed himself, drew a lungful of air, and looked around at the other tribunal members. “If there
is
an Inveterae exodus planned, it will take much for
you
to stop it. Not to mention the distraction from your own plans. But Inveterae races will listen to me. I can be an example. I can lead them in a new direction.”

Balroath studied him. “Why would you do this?”

“You know the answer to that.” Kett glanced at Saleema and his children. “But I must be raised in the estimation of your leaders, the Sedgel. I must have a place among you.”

Balroath stared at him with questioning eyes.

“Otherwise,” Kett continued, “Inveterae won't believe what I tell them.”

“And what would you tell them?”

Kett formed the words carefully. “That you will lead us
all
into the world beyond the Pall. That you don't want war. That you will return us to the first intentions of the Framers.”

Balroath laughed—an awful, basso sound that got into the very soil. “You think you can convince Inveterae of this?”

Kett stared back with as much challenge as he dared. “If they see me seated in the halls of your leadership … yes.”

The sour mirth on Balroath's face fell away. He stepped forward, brandishing his whip. “You don't understand the bargain you strike, Kett Valan. The south of the Bourne is a good place for you. North and west … it has a different occupation. And if we agree, you will be changed. You might prefer to die as you are.”

Balroath paused, his eyes searching. Kett stood firm. Chuffing warm, billowing breaths into the chill air, the Jinaal looked at each of his fellows. Nods followed from the others.

“You have your bargain.”

Kett let out a held breath, steaming the air around his face so that he didn't at first see Balroath's movement.

When the air cleared, his heart slammed painfully in his chest.

Balroath had taken three commanding strides toward Saleema, and turned her to face him. He stared into her eyes for a long moment, the look nearly tender, nearly intimate. Then he inclined toward her as if to steal a kiss. But he stopped just short of her lips, and drew a slow breath through his nose, filling his lungs. Thin vapors streamed from Saleema's nose and mouth into him. She began to slump. Her shoulders rolled forward; her knees and hips flexed, threatening to drop her down. Balroath put a hand around her waist to hold her up.

He's drawing in her spirit.

“Please, stop!” Kett cried.

Balroath turned a hard eye on him. When he spun Saleema around to face him, she was gone. The part that made her Saleema was gone. The shell that remained looked back at Kett with vacant eyes.

Balroath lifted his knife from an iron-studded belt. In one easy motion he grabbed her head by the hair and drew his blade across her throat. It happened so fast she didn't have time to fight or scream. She hardly tried.

But shock rose on her face, distant eyes imploring. She dropped to her knees, clutching at her throat to stop the bleeding, as if momentarily herself again. She pitched forward, turning to look up at Kett, reaching out to him.

“You understand the consequences of betraying our trust.” Balroath started to lead Kett's small ones away.

A last wretched cry shot from Kett's throat as he cursed the Quiet and the god that made them. The sound mounted the crags and raced heavenward.

*   *   *

Morning was a good time to lay the dead to rest.

Kett emerged from the mouth of a narrow canyon, pulling a handcart laden with the body of his companion. The wheels creaked in the morning stillness, echoing out over a long, narrow lake at the bottom of a deep valley. He paused there, at the end of a three-day journey to reach Mourning Vale, where Inveterae had, for ages, brought their dead to say good-bye.

Anymore, few Inveterae observed the traditions of their ancestors, many having forgotten the Vale existed at all. Most Inveterae simply focused on harvesting thin wheat and dredge roots for the Quiet, or they worked the camps, shepherding prisoners from both sides of the Veil.

And they'd all but given up the idea of escaping the Bourne. Even the old stories of the Mor peoples—Inveterae races said to have a powerful song, a song that had helped them tear through the Veil and cross into the Eastlands—even those stories were fading.

Kett walked to the water's edge, and watched as littoral mists eddied languidly across the glassy surface, touching the shore and the tips of his feet. He saw his own pale reflection, and thought, as he had so often before, that his kind had a touch of the grotesque.

At a fair distance, it would be hard to discern the difference between his own Gotun race and a Bar'dyn. Nearer, one would see deeper-set eyes, thinner lips, and smoother skin.

But the real difference was their intentions. Gotun—silent hell, all Inveterae races—held no real malice toward men, as Quietgiven did. They owed that to a different set of Framer hands: the Quiet's first and only father was Maldea, the dissenting god; Inveterae were the get of the absent gods.

He looked out over the lake, surveying its eerie calm. No fish broke the water's plane, no insect buzzed, no bird let out its cries. A few trees clung to life, their leaves and needles grey-green under the cloudy sky; most were dead, and appeared like bony hands reaching heavenward with their bare white limbs—perfect companions to the bones that lay beneath them.

The Inveterae didn't bury their dead. Instead they were laid faceup to wait on the grace of the Fathers who might reunite them with the already departed. Like cordwood, the bones of generations lie stacked at the shoreline around the lake, weapons and armor and raiment of their funeral rites hanging from their skeletal remains. Up the sides of the hills around the lake, Inveterae had been laid as far as the eye could see—dark waters framed by endless white mounds of bone.

Kett returned to the handcart, gently picked up Saleema's body, and walked her to the shore. He cupped his hands and drew water from the lake, gently anointing Saleema's face and neck.

He touched the gouge in his cheek that he'd received during his interrogation. He liked the reminder its scar would become once the scab was gone. He would remember Saleema, and he would not give up.

Then he was ready, and began to recite the old words:

Remember us as we remember you

Give to us as we give to you

Follow us as we follow you

Despair for us only that your escape comes too soon

And leaves us here to bide as best we can

Until all is done that we may do

Or else abandonment is ended and we with you

Are reunited on a happier shore

He said it again. And when he'd finished, he remained silent for several moments, saying a more personal, silent good-bye. Then he raised his chin toward the far end of the lake and wailed. The tormented cry raced across the water's dark surface, across the bones of countless forebears, and seemed to fill all the space of Mourning Vale.

His cry was joined by voices from the lip of the canyon behind him, sending awful harmonies into the grey light of morning.

He jumped up and whirled toward the intrusion. As his howl still echoed down the lake, several large shapes ended their own cries and stared at him. When silence returned, six Inveterae, each a different race, slowly approached.

They gathered around his wife's body, looking down with expressions of regret and appreciation. Then each knelt, laid a hand on Saleema, and kept their own private reverence for her. Some time later, they looked up, focusing on Kett.

It was a Raolyn Ela woman who spoke first. The Raolyn had removed themselves from the company of other Inveterae six generations ago. They were easy to spot, with their perfectly white skin and dark, pupil-less eyes.

“You are Kett Valan. I am Sool.” The Raolyn woman spared a look at Saleema. “And this is your companion, Saleema.”