Trial of Intentions (56 page)

That's when he realized he'd fought this wrong.

He looked into the stranger's face, and began with the idea that this Quiet man was muscle and bone. Just like Tahn. He didn't try to shove the stranger back. Instead he sought to be one with the idea of the man's flesh. And he took hold of that idea … with animosity.

The other flinched, losing his grip on him. Tahn took a staggering breath, but kept at his own sense of Resonance. He slowly eased himself back from the edge of the dome and stood. For the moment, he had control, and he pressed his advantage, clenching the man with the notion of shattering his bones from inside his body.

The man began to fight through Tahn's grip. Tahn had anticipated it, and shifted his attack to the obvious Resonance he'd missed.

He reached out with the loss and loathing he'd known in his own life and sought it in the life of the stranger. He followed those strings to the bottom, their lowest note, found a chord in the man. And struck it.

In his mind came a new rushing. Images from the stranger's life, emotional resonance at a pitch Tahn couldn't explain. There was a level on which they
were
the same. It was a disquieting thought, but Tahn exploited it, pushed it, believing he could break the other's will.

Resonance thrummed inside him. The feel of it was like the vibration of a chilling melody felt more in the wood of the instrument that plays it than in its sound.

It's changing me.

But for the moment, Tahn had control, and he could tell that finding something to resonate with inside this man was also changing the part of him that
could
resonate with the Quiet.

He deepened the feeling, seeking to crush the stranger. And as he did, he sensed that the energy he expended was greater than his own. But no glass shattered. No orrery metal bent or sagged. No wood seared and smoked. No strange winds engulfed them. No paper fluttered in warm funnels and whipped through broken windows.

The fight would have been a quiet one to witness. Just Tahn and this stranger, staring at each other, focused in a way no observer would understand. Yet a great, invisible storm was taking place. A flurry that tore at them. It filled his mind with noise and dread, like a tempest, images raining down hard as hail. But it was all a storm inside him. And inside the other.

The man gave Tahn a searching look, shook his head once, slowly, and the storm abruptly ceased.

Tahn was as still and calm inside as the dome around them. The man had simply canceled Tahn's effort at Resonance.

Had the man been playing a game? Testing him? Helping him?

The idea of Resonance had been made more real. More practical. More dangerous. And Tahn had learned that two very different people could be brought into resonance with one another.

If it had all been a lesson to Tahn, why?

With terrible suddenness, the man seized Tahn again, and began throwing him about violently. He hit his worktable, scattering his books. His body whirled left into the dome again, shattering more glass. Then forward, like a hurled doll, he slammed into the skyglass, ringing it like a deep bell. Tahn fell hard to the floor, gasping.

But through the attack, the man hadn't wounded Tahn's memory or touched his life's energy. Tahn had been rattled like a toy, as if to remind him where he stood.

The man casually walked to where Tahn lay on the floor, and looked down. He spoke softly, showing no signs of exertion for what had just happened. “Most have lost faith in you. But not me.” The stranger looked Tahn over. “Not yet. I'm interested in what path you're on now. What you'll learn about Resonance. What you'll do with that knowledge.”

Silence fell across the tower dome, until the man simply walked away. Tahn could hear his footsteps receding down the stairs, as he lay bruised and beaten.

Dear silent gods …

Tahn's mind reeled at what had just happened, at how he'd reshaped the act of firing a bow, firing a part of himself. Resonance. He'd looked inside to find moments of ache and pain and used them to find the same in the Quiet man. And even now, he could feel the residue of the other's deep agony inside himself.

He shivered, realizing that his attempt at this new Resonance had been nothing. The other had handled him like a doll. What did it say about the resonances inside the Quiet?

Succession now meant more to him. He still intended to try to strengthen the Veil. More than ever, in fact. Especially if there were others like this man waiting inside the Bourne to descend into the Eastlands. But he now wanted to learn more about Resonance for himself. Just as he had during this fight. Because he had a feeling that sooner or later this Quiet man would no longer find him interesting. And it was clear he could end Tahn with little more than a thought.

He also wanted to understand what the Quiet man meant when he said,
Most have lost faith in you. But not me.
And something told him he'd only understand that by truly understanding his own Succession argument. He needed to
win
Succession, keep the Grove focused on the question until they found an answer. Until they could prove Resonance with every science. Use it.

But weary and hurting, he couldn't focus for long on the questions. He lay down flat, stared up through the dome at the stars, and slowly caught his breath.

 

CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

A Touch of Resonance

A person's signature, to a Leiholan, isn't their name. Not some thing they write or say. Rather, it's the set of notes that defines who and what they are. It's their resonant harmonics at a fundamental level. Know these, and you have the all of them.

—Framing statement in the study of harmonics and personal signatures, Descant Cathedral

W
endra stepped into an open atrium hidden somewhere deep inside the sprawl of Descant Cathedral halls and buildings. The young music student who had guided her here retreated without a word. Across the square, Belamae stood waiting. He'd not called for Wendra until after meridian, leaving her the morning to reflect on the memories of her mother that had flooded her mind.

Almost immediately, those memories had become like an old, familiar afghan that she might draw around her shoulders when the evening turned chill. The last half of the prior night, she hadn't slept. She'd sat at her bedside, mourning as though she'd lost her mother again. She was grateful to have memories of the woman returned to her, but it made her mother's absence a sharper thing to bear.

Belamae beckoned her to him. She crossed the atrium to a high table set with several tuning forks. He stood on the other side of the table like a barkeep ready to offer her a drink. He picked up one of the forks and struck it soundly against the tabletop. The fork began to hum.

“Vibration,” the Maesteri said, and placed the fork in a hole drilled into a small box set on the table. While the fork continued to hum, Belamae picked up another tuning fork and set it in the hole of an adjacent box. He then put a hand on the first fork to still it. To Wendra's surprise, the second fork was humming at the same pitch as the first had been.

She glanced up at Belamae to find a satisfied-looking smile on his face. “The two forks are calibrated to the same pitch. The second one is humming what we call a
response note
. What you're hearing is the transfer of vibration, Wendra. We call this—”

“Resonance,” she supplied.

“Just so,” he said, grinning. “Incidentally, did you know that Sheason were once called Inner Resonance? Sheason exercise a power of Will that uses and affects this vibratory part of all things. Now, watch.”

The Maesteri then repeated the demonstration, but used three similarly tuned forks to show further resonance from one to the next to the next. Wendra's mind began to race with applications for this new understanding. Though, before she'd gotten far, Belamae picked up one of the tuning forks and waved her over to a pianoforte whose cover had been removed.

It was a short walk, but when they got to the instrument, Belamae's breathing had a slight wheeze about it. He steadied himself, holding the side of the pianoforte, his features pinched.

“Belamae?”

“I'm all right, my girl. Sometimes my air and blood don't keep up with me.”

He rubbed at his chest a bit. Wendra noted the pallor in his skin, and the hollows in his cheeks. He looked ill. But he saw her concern and smiled brightly.

“Now,” he continued, “you might assume from our first experiment that resonance occurs only at the exact same pitch. Observe.” He struck the fork against the side of the instrument, and passed it a hand's width above the strings in a slow, graceful motion. When he'd finished, he stilled the tuning fork and asked, “What do you hear?”

Wendra inclined toward the pianoforte. What she heard surprised her. Not only did she hear the exact pitch, she heard several of its octaves also resonating in the strings drawn over the soundboard.

“You're hearing octaves, my girl. Strings attuned to not just the same note, but to a numerically related vibration. See here.” He pointed out several strings. “The lengths of these are all proportional, doubling in length for each lower octave.”

She took the tuning fork from Belamae, struck it, and passed it over the strings again. After silencing the fork, she leaned in, listening close. “I hear thirds and fifths, too. But fainter.”

“Just so!” Belamae exclaimed. “There are secondary and tertiary harmonics, and more still than that. Together, these do not always seem or sound harmonious, and yet they are related to the signature of a thing. Really, any two notes have a relationship; it's about a consistent structure. Has much to do with math.”

They held a companionable silence until Wendra's mind turned to another question. “If any two notes have a relationship, this helps explain how a Leiholan is shaped by any resonance she sings.”

He nodded. “In a real sense, you become what you sing.”

“Then what of Suffering?” she asked, also thinking of Belamae's refashioned version of that song—for war.

Belamae's smile fell.

Wendra clarified her question. “You said Suffering is always changing.” She followed the logic. “So if Suffering is changing, and a Leiholan—on some level—becomes what she sings, then Soluna…”

He held up his hands. “We've been singing Suffering for ages, Wendra. We understand how to adapt to its subtle shifts. But … it's different in these last few years. I'm convinced there's something more at work than the normal evolution of the Song.”

“Any more of an idea what it is?”

He shook his head, his face drawn tight in genuine concern. “I don't know. But another Leiholan struggled last night. Worse than before. Suffering battered her something awful. I worry she might not…”

He looked up at her then, and took her hands in his. “But please don't fret. We've music to make. And today we'll focus on what I've just shown you: Everything has a resonant structure composed of many harmonic signatures. And it's possible to find common resonances along these signatures
in many things at once
.”

*   *   *

Wendra walked the streets of the Cathedral Quarter, alone. She hadn't left Descant since beginning her training, and was surprised all over again that the cathedral sat in the middle of a slum.

For the most part, the people were warm with their greetings. The pitiable shared the bond of struggling against life's bad odds. Half of those she passed followed their hellos with a petition for food or coin. And when Wendra shook her head, she typically got a “dead gods save you” before she passed on. The other half were equally warm in their greetings, but with a hint of larceny or madness beneath it all.

There was always music, too. Almost every mealhouse and tavern had some kind of performance taking place. Between the various strains of song and the meaty smells and the redolent stench of those who couldn't afford a bath, she nearly forgot that she was on her way to find human traders, like Jastail—who'd nearly sold Wendra and Penit. In fact, it was the highwayman she was specifically trying to find.

She had no real information about where she might locate him, but when he'd taken her before, he'd moved her a long way on the river. The same river that ran through Recityv. Her best guess was that if she could find a quiet dock, there'd be boats used for illicit trade—the kind that could push out into the current and be downriver with pickings before a general search was made.

So, she didn't bother poking her head into drinking holes down narrow alleys, or visiting brothels or gambling pits or auction houses. And she didn't alert anyone to where she was going, least of all Belamae. He'd see this excursion for what it was: a step toward knowing if and when she meant to leave her training. But she needed to at least start to inquire. She'd be happy if she found the Recityv river docks were little more than a travel port and fish market. Either way, she cut her path through the quarter, intent to find out.

The air grew colder as she neared the riverside district. The music here was slower, more often rendered in minor keys. And the voices less practiced, more broken, as from constant tobacco use or short sleep. In a way, this music was resonating with the feeling of the area. And its people.

She passed several inns and taverns before coming to an intricate dock system, like a series of streets and avenues on the water. Countless boats and barges sat moored in the night. The smell of old, wet wood hung thick over everything. Few people strolled the wharf-front. And those that did spoke in hushed tones, if they spoke at all. A fine mist hung in the air, enough to be a nuisance but not entirely hamper her ability to see.

Looking out over the scores of boats, she noted several with lighted windows. The kind of people she was looking for would be keeping their privacy, not standing around in taverns or mealhouses. Spending undue time in a place would be reckless. It's not what Jastail would do. With that thought, she started out onto the docks.