Trial of Intentions (21 page)

She trembled before him like a trapped animal. But when his words had rung their last, she said softly, “There are many paths to greatness.”

“What?”

She flinched, but continued. “What happened to you, Roth? Why can't you let others find their own path to distinction? Why must hope be found only in the brand of civility
you
offer?”

A bitter smile turned up his lips. This was the boldness—soft and sure, present even now—that he'd sought to have at his side. He would miss it.

“
Leadership
is what I offer, Leona,” he explained. “Structure and advocacy for those who have no voice or wit to do it for themselves. Defense against charlatans with tricks and hollow promises. There's hope in a commonwealth that directs itself. Earnest change and growth. Not the backward stagnation of this place.” He swept one arm high, pointing into the vaults above.

“Your civility mocks what others hold dear.” She trembled still, but finished. “Which is why we want out, Roth.”

She was scared. And for a moment, he saw her the way he had that day she'd come to his father's door. He'd fallen in love then. Not with her beauty, but with her strength. With her willingness to do what was necessary to survive. He'd not been able to do anything for her then. But he could now. For all those who today were as she had been, he could. He'd wanted badly for her to see that, and to help him. It seemed right. He still loved her. But he knew now, finally, that she would never love him in return.

He gave her a regretful smile. “Some must lead.”

He left her there and strode to the front of Bastulan. There he mounted the altar, took up one of the braziers of coals, and turned to look down the grand hall. She looked small and insignificant from here. He missed her already.

He understood the idealism of his plans. But he would not flinch. To keep his focus, he had only to recall the wharfside shanty where he and his father had struggled from meal to meal.

He grabbed the open scroll that lay upon the granite pulpit and set it across the brazier. In moments it blazed. He then took the brazier and went to one of the great hanging tapestries and set it aflame. Then another. And another. Until the front of the cathedral crackled and seared with fire. He dropped the brazier to the floor, spilling coals and the flaming scroll across lush carpet, which soon began to burn, as well.

He descended the stair and turned to watch the blaze.
I should have done this long ago.
This pyre to dead gods was a declaration that would steel his movement.

Behind him he heard the tattoo of retreating steps—Leona rushing for safety. Maybe she'd go to the regent for protection. More foolishness. Helaina could promise Leona protection, but he would find her if he needed to. Maybe she'd name him the arsonist of Bastulan. He didn't care. The time had come to begin drawing lines. He nodded to himself and started to exit the cathedral to the sound of flames.

He didn't get far. On a pew far to one side, Bastulan still had petitioners: one an old man, the other a young girl. It was custom that invalids were helped to their seats, where they often sat all day, praying, beseeching the deafened gods for healing. Only these two, unable to walk, remained. This man and girl would die in the fire. Their ruined limbs were no use to them. They huddled together in fear.

As the flames licked higher, Roth went to them, hoisting each over a shoulder, and carried them on his way out of the damned place.

 

CHAPTER TWENTY

Doubts

Metaphor is a “meaning hammer.” Sometimes you must cease with subtlety, and hit the reader over the godsdamned head with metaphor.

—From the pages of humorist Stephen Wright's glossary on the Author's Way

B
raethen hadn't done much more than drag himself to the fire. He'd been lying near it for hours, trying to warm himself. Passing through the Telling had played havoc on his stomach, too. But it wasn't only the Telling that was bothering him.

When he caught Vendanj's eye across the flames, the Sheason nodded. “Something on your mind, Sodalist?”

Braethen had many questions—about what had happened between them in the Naltus library, about the Sodality itself. But just now, he tapped the Blade of Seasons he wore at his hip.

“Every time I raise this, I'm caught in darkness.” He struggled to explain without sounding childish. “I understand the blade is more than steel. But I'm not using it well, whatever it is.”

Vendanj offered a smile. “It's just doubt, my friend.”

“Doubt?”

Vendanj remained sitting on the ground, but rocked forward and raised a finger toward him. “You don't trust yourself with the blade's uses.”

He stared across at the man, more uncertain than ever. “You said the blade was about remembering.”

Vendanj stared back several long moments, then looked around. Grant and Wendra slept nearby. “There's a great deal of power in that. In helping us see … even
be
in another place so that we
can
remember.”

Braethen recalled raising the weapon. The darkness taking shape. The feeling of being in two places at once. The image of his father on their front porch.

Vendanj sat back against his rock. “You'd better resolve whatever questions of self-confidence you have. Until you do, the sword is a danger to you.”

Braethen looked down at the blade. “That should be easy enough,” he said, smiling some.

The Sheason returned another rare smile of his own. “Maybe I can recommend a good book to help.”

Braethen laughed. “You sound like my father. He had a book for every occasion, every malady. Whenever I was sad, Da showed up with an Owan Crabtree tale—some bumble-fool usually winds up marrying the prettiest girl in town. Or when the mockery for wanting to become a sodalist got too much, there was Da with a Luie Sonestev book—tales of bravery on the high seas.” He laughed, shook his head. “And when I was sick, a stack of stories found their way onto my bed table. Tragedies. Things far worse than my fever. Made me feel less pitiable.”

Vendanj smiled at A'Posian's good use of story. “Your father was a wise man, and a gifted author. I suspect your doubt comes mostly from your feeling that you disappointed him by not following in his footsteps.”

The words cut deep. Braethen loved his father, respected him; and yet long before joining Vendanj, he'd rejected the idea of becoming an author himself. Doing so had been like rejecting his da. He hung his head, hoping again that his father hadn't felt unappreciated or unloved.

But the Author's Way wasn't a light commitment. It meant a lifetime of reading. Of writing. Of studying written art forms. Of telling story to instruct and entertain and edify. It meant being a consoler, a philosopher, a sage ear and voice when men's blood ran faster than their wits. Much of that Braethen
had
loved and pursued. But not all of it. And not for a lifetime.

Ironically, it was in all that reading and study where he'd discovered the Sodality. He'd learned about it. Read stories about it. And it had taken root in him until he could think of little else. Then came the chance to accompany Vendanj when he'd arrived in the Hollows, and to later take the oath.

“You're right. My father was a wise man, and a gifted author,” Braethen agreed. “And I did disappoint him.”

“Did you?” Vendanj asked, somewhat incredulous.

“All he ever wanted was for me to follow him as an author. He spent years teaching me how to read beyond the words on the page, to find meaning, and then apply the things I'd learned. Every eight days of my life my chores included writing a parable or poem that could be shared at Endnigh supper. He wanted me to benefit from the path he'd forged.”

Vendanj pointed a finger thoughtfully at him. “And these skills your father taught you, would you say you can apply them with some expertise?”

Braethen stared back, puzzled by the question. “For the most part, yes.”

“I see.” Vendanj reached back and retrieved his satchel. After placing it in his lap, he caught Braethen's eye again. “Did I ever tell you I was one of your father's faithful readers?”

Braethen's jaw gaped open more than a little. “You knew my father?”

“That's not what I said. I knew his work.” He then reached inside his satchel and pulled out a book with a well-worn binding. Holding it reverently in both hands, he studied its cover. Without looking up, he said, “There are few things a Sheason prizes more than the work of a good author. The right tale has a way of looking back while looking forward, of inspiring humility while lending confidence. Your father”—he finally looked up at Braethen—“was particularly good at this. I've made a habit of acquiring his most recent work. But this”—he tapped the book in his hands—“isn't so recent. This was written some fifteen years ago.”

Braethen craned his neck to try to see the title. “Which one is it?”

“
The Seamster's Needle.
Do you remember it?” Vendanj stood and brought it to him.

Braethen took the book gently from the Sheason's hands. “I read it, but it's been a long time.”

“I think the book will make more sense to you now,” Vendanj suggested, a tired smile on his face. He returned to his blanket on the other side of the fire. “It's about a tailor who winds up having to choose between sewing garments for nobility with his seamster father, or leaving the comfort of the palace to patch groundcloth for field laborers.”

Braethen looked up at the Sheason, the story's meaning becoming rather obvious. Fifteen years ago, it had seemed a silly conceit for a book.

“Look at the first page,” Vendanj invited.

He turned back the cover. There, like a personal inscription, was a dedication:
To my son. Lend your needle where you find it does the most good.
A weight lifted from his shoulders. He drew a deep breath, and his sight blurred with tears. He wanted badly to see his father just now. Tell him how much he loved him.

“That seamster reads a lot like a boy with the notion of serving the Sodality. In case that wasn't clear.” Vendanj smiled. “You could say I had a sense of you before we ever met. You have your father to thank for that.”

Vendanj then held up an inviting hand. “Read it. The tale is short.”

Braethen carefully turned back the first page, and lost himself to the story. Subtle details of how his father had seen their relationship revealed themselves. In many ways, it was like having his da with him. It gave Braethen a vaguely happy feeling, even though the story left him somewhat unsettled.

The seamster in the tale had left the sure and safe path of his father's royal appointment. The son meant to apply his needle to the clothes of fieldworkers and those unable to pay. With time, he'd lost or worn out the simple tools of his trade, thimbles and fabric scissors and the like. The meager pay from his rustic clientele didn't allow him to replace much—often he took food in trade for his work.

Eventually, the seamster's fingers had grown leathery from the prick of countless needles, calluses forming from the constant use of his hands.

And while the selfless seamster seemed the obvious metaphor for Braethen, the man's hands bothered him. To Braethen's mind, the metaphor indicated not just selflessness, but a loss of feeling. In fact, if the seamster's hands and fingers were the way he experienced and added to the world around him—and Braethen thought they were—then they suggested the seamster himself might be, at least figuratively, dead. Or expendable, anyway.

When Braethen turned the last page, he shut the book and looked up. Staring at him across the fire was Vendanj, his face uncustomarily serene. It seemed as if the Sheason had been waiting for Braethen to finish, knowing he'd have questions. Braethen did.

With the crackle of the fire in accompaniment, Braethen asked, “The seamster's hands, what do you think they represent?”

Vendanj didn't immediately answer, taking a deep breath. “I'm not sure what
I
think matters.”

Braethen blinked, considered. “Maybe the question should be: What did my
father
think they represented?”

Vendanj said nothing, waiting.

“The seamster's hardened hands seem to say that giving your life to the service of someone else means you lose the feeling for what you value most.”

The Sheason's eyebrows went up. “That's your interpretation?”

Braethen thought, and nodded. “It changes you. Maybe not for the worse. But the seamster's hands were his life, his livelihood … his soul, if you want to go that far. Losing feeling in them…” Braethen had a new epiphany about the story. He shifted his legs and refocused on Vendanj. “If the seamster is me, about me giving my life to the Sodality, then something about the order—at least as my father understood it—requires that I lose or give up what matters most to me.”

“And what is that?” Vendanj asked.

Braethen didn't have to think. “The idealism I hold about the Sodality itself.” He stared across the fire at Vendanj, beginning to understand the reality behind the oath he'd taken.

Vendanj looked back at him for a long moment, then asked him a troubling question—troubling in its simplicity. “Do you know how the Sodality began?”

The excitement of imminent academic discovery hit him. For all his searching, a record of the Sodality's formation was something he'd never been able to find. There were author accounts of it, but they were so different as to make it clear they had no idea.

Vendanj settled back against his large rock. “You've heard the story of the first Sheason, Palamon, wrestling Jo'ha'nel, who followed the dissenting god.” Vendanj did not rush. “To say they
wrestled
is an author's way of adding poetry to their fight. It was a struggle of wills. A struggle that took place over many days and many bloody fights. But it was
this
contest where lines were drawn,
this
contest where the intentions of those loyal to Quietus were made known. It's also when the need for the Sodality became clear.”