Vault Of Heaven 01 - The Unremembered (114 page)

“What did I say?” Tahn finally managed.

Her smile held a moment more, then fell. “Never mind, Archer,” she said. She was about to go, then leaned back in and whispered, “Oh, and it’s not wise to sleep naked. You never know when you’re going to have to get up in a hurry.”

She ducked away before Tahn could laugh or blush.

“My scouts returned this morning and reported no sign of Quietgiven in the valley,” King Elan was saying to Vendanj. “But the Soliel is not an easy place to hide. I’d rest little until you reach the Saeculorum. Even the Quiet may think twice before following you; such are the dreadful secrets that lay hidden there.

“Your packs are full, and your skins refreshed.” Elan cast his careful gaze over their mounts. “We’ve seen to your horses. They’ll be in need of little besides water until you pass beyond the Stretches.” His brows lifted a question. “Tillinghast?”

Vendanj only nodded.

“We are come to the fabric of the Charter and the Tract, then. I pray what is restored to you there is the necessary sum of your First Inheritance, my friends.” Elan swept them with a glance much as he had their horses. He seemed to linger a moment on Tahn. “Be watchful. Resolve weakens when one nears a goal’s completion. The Saeculorum will likely see to that. And if it does not, Tillinghast will.”

Tahn looked down at the Far king. A wave of doubt stole through him.

“Thank you, Elan,” Vendanj said, and took his saddle.

The others stepped into their stirrups in a riot of creaking leather. It reminded Tahn of the moment in the Kottel Rhine when men took to their plow horses to partake in the ritual hunt. A thrill raced through him. Sutter’s face was a perfect mirror to the emotion; Nails had never looked so enthused. Tahn thought his friend sat taller in his saddle at the prospect of what they were about to do. Braethen sat his horse, reading, one fist filled with reins, the other holding a book.

The Far had prepared a horse for Penit. Wendra drew even with him, put a hand on his arm, and gave it a squeeze.

Grant rode up to Tahn and fixed him with a steady gaze. Tahn thought the exile looked wistful, an expression that couldn’t possibly seem any more incongruous on the man’s face. Then Grant held a daypack out to Tahn. Tahn took the pack.

“You were late coming down to endfast, so I put some things aside for you,” Grant explained.

“Thank you,” Tahn said, confused.

“It is time,” Vendanj said, looking straight at Tahn. He kicked his mount into motion.

“Woodchuck, I don’t know what you did to earn that man’s adoration, but I think I’d prefer a nest of angry hornets down the front of my pants to the strange bond he seems to have with you.”

A single chuckle escaped Grant. When Sutter and Tahn turned quizzical stares on him, the exile only pointed toward the yard gates, prompting them to get moving. Mira heeled Solus without looking back and led them from the stable yard.

In the light of the sun, shale sparkled. They rode for eight straight hours, taking only brief breaks to rest their horses.

Late in the day, shale gave way to russet earth broken by an occasional oasis of long green grass around pools of water. Thorny flowers grew across the earth, crawling over the ground in a huge network of interconnected creepers. Stout trees with long thin leaves dotted the land, their shade giving rise to bloodred ferns and yellowed bushes with leaves that rustled together like dim rattles.

Ahead, the mountains loomed closer, reaching up with suddenness from the basin as though thrust into the sky in a violent quaking of the land. The nearer they drew, the less friendly the crags and sheer ravines appeared. Still Vendanj never slowed. It was as though he fled something yet unseen, though he never looked back.

Behind them, the sun began to set, aureate hues fading to russet and finally to the muted blues of twilight. With the passing of the light, they finally stopped to rest. Mira strung a tether line near another pool and tied Solus to it. The others did likewise, unlashing bedrolls from their saddles.

Sutter sat gingerly, grimacing against the pain in his thighs and buttocks. Once down, he promptly pulled a hunk of salted meat from his daypack and took a large bite. Around it he said, “No need to stop just yet. I still have feeling in my ass.”

Tahn sat beside him and drank deeply from his water skin. When he was done, he said, “It’s a lie, you’ve never felt a thing below your neck.”

Braethen and Wendra laughed weakly, and found patches of ground on which to lay out their bedrolls. Braethen managed the fire. Vendanj strode to the center of their makeshift circle. “Eat and get to sleep quickly. We will move before it is light. Are any of you in undue pain?”

Even Sutter was silent.

But then he slapped Tahn’s leg to call him from his thoughts. “Let’s have a story,” he said. “Penit, come over and give us one of your fancies. I’m paying.” Sutter tossed a rock in the semblance of a coin into the center of the circle they’d formed. “And spare not the wit.”

Tahn had noticed Sutter seemed to feel a kind of fatherly affection for Penit that surprised him.

Penit came as bidden, and smiled in embarrassment. Grant perched on a rock, his back to them, watching the southern horizon where stars flickered into view against the spread of dark.

“What story do you wish?” Penit asked.

“Anything,” Wendra said. “Something stirring. Something familiar, perhaps. Oh, you choose.”

Penit eyed the back of the exile and cleared his throat. Braethen had just finished readying wood for a fire, and struck it alight as Penit began.

Grant shifted a quarter turn, though not far enough to watch the boy spin his tale.

Penit raised his chin as Tahn had seen him do atop his stage-wagon in Myrr, and the words began to take a familiar form, scripted by a gifted author no doubt.

“Years ago, the great court of Recityv convened to rule on the life of a man condemned, the people said, because he held no regard for life.” Penit paced once toward the growing fire, adopting an orator’s pose.

Sutter chuckled enthusiastically. Tahn smiled at the words so eloquently fashioned as they came from the boy’s youthful lips. The fire licked higher, casting shadows around them. At the far edge of their circle, Vendanj came, peering on with little interest.

“Go on,” Wendra enthused.

With another tilt of his head, Penit resumed, this time raising an open hand to dramatize the tale. “Our man in this tale stood beneath the weight of his accusation while the gentry, the ruling seats, and the merchant classes all looked on.” Penit lowered his voice to a whisper. “And the words he spoke are said to reverberate still in the great court of Recityv.

“And so it goes,” Penit said, as if ready to tell one of the greatest rhea-fols he knew.

CHAPTER SEVENTY-THREE

Rhea-fol: The Dissent

“And so it goes,” Penit said again, and turned a circle where he stood. When he’d made one full round he wore a grave expression and tightly folded arms, his eyes stern and turned earthward toward the fire. The flicker of the flames lent much to the look of condemnation the boy wore.

“You are accused here of high treason, Denolan SeFeery,” Penit said with a surprisingly authoritative voice.

Braethen had looked wistful. Now his face fell into a doleful frown.

Penit went on. “You are aware of the crimes that bring you here?”

He turned a circle—a character change—and stared upward into the starry night, defiance clear in the set of his chin. “I know why you have brought me here, my Lady,” Penit said with firm resolve and a second adopted voice, this one calm but implacable. “But it is your arrogance and ignorance that call my actions crimes. Stop these proceedings before you condemn yourselves in your haste to place blame. I am not a traitor.”

Penit whirled, again with arms folded. “Enough!” The vehemence of the command caught Tahn off guard. “You will answer as you are asked, and nothing more.” Penit pointed an accusatory finger toward the fire, disgust curling his upper lip.

“There is ample evidence that I might wish to forgo these … pleasantries … but I will obey the law of the land before all else.”

Penit sneered. “Blessed be Will and Sky that we are
civilized
here, or you’d be well acquainted with your earth by now. I’ve no ear to listen to what defense you intend to make, SeFeery. Still, we will proceed as with every dissent brought to the Halls at Solath Mahnus. And you will uphold the standard of citizenship throughout. Counselor, lead on.”

Penit turned again, swirling plumes of dust at his feet drawn into the stream of heat now rising from the fire. He spun to a new stance two paces from where he’d been, a calm, calculating expression in his features—the Counselor. “Two nights ago our good and noble regent brought forth her child from the womb. Trumpets heralded the arrival, and songs came in chorus. Celebrations began at the announcement … though a secret remained strictly held by the regent’s closest servants.” Penit paused, his eyes narrowing farther. “The child arrived without breath.”

Penit spun in one long turn back to the place of the accused. With an upturned face and the poise of one beyond his years, he said, “These words weave a deception that hopes to demonize me, my Lady. No such jubilation existed in the city. The regent’s child is not heir to her seat, and many suspect the timing of the child’s birth—”

Penit shuffled in a tight spin to his first position. “Silence!” Clear hatred shot from Penit’s eyes toward the fire. “You have been warned about violating the dignity of our procedure here. Now, go on, Counselor.”

Again Penit turned, the cool, intelligent gaze returning. “Yes,” he began, confident. “The child had no birthright to rule. That is not our way. But it is not the threat of losing a monarch that brings you to us today.” Penit grinned with malice, and shook his head. “Rather, you must answer why you felt it your place to stop the restitution of that child’s life by the benevolent abilities of the Order of Sheason. I might add, trying to stop the Sheason from saving the child is not so different from murder. For to take life and to prevent its reclamation are close cousins, are they not?” A snide look passed over Penit’s face.

In the darkness, Vendanj appeared to scowl, his own arms crossed in front of him as he looked on at Penit’s dramatic telling of the tale.

Penit again performed his circular dance, and landed in the guise of the accused. “Though framed as a question, sir, I take it you did not mean it so. I’ll leave the question to its own destruction through every man’s wisdom.”

Once more the boy twisted around to the place of prosecutor, a thin haze of dust floating in the circle around his feet near the fire. “Very well. A semantic discussion for another time.” Penit paced back and forth a few steps before cocking his head and staring inquisitively into the fire. “How is it that you knew where the ceremony would take place?”

Penit turned, this time more slowly, his form casting shadows. As a defendant he spoke toward the sky. “I was taken into the regent’s trust as a special aid and protector. First to teach and inform as a benefit of my years in tutelage to Julian A’sa. Second to vouchsafe for her in special circumstances when the regent’s guard were too conspicuous. I am Emerit.”

Penit turned. “I see.” His eyes shone as a child’s who had captured something with which to play. “Then by her confidence, you knew when and where the stewards of the Will would minister to the child to give it a chance at life. And with this knowledge you undertook not only to deny that chance, but to contravene the wishes of the regent. Is that,” Penit said, raising a dubious brow, “also a weave of deception? Or have I fairly described the circumstance and your intentions in its regard?”

Penit stepped much more deliberately in his slow arcing circle. Tahn watched the change in expression take place as the boy came to the position of the accused. A calm shaped his mouth, as again he seemed to speak toward the spray of stars. “It is … incomplete. It is true that there is little I did not know about the affairs of the regent. And with time, she came to trust my judgment.”

Penit shifted his focus, as if turning from his inquisitor to view the unseen judge presiding over the dissent. “I became perhaps the only one able … or willing,” Penit said in a sudden burst of anger, as he looked back to where his questioner might be standing, “to tell her she was wrong.”

Wendra and Sutter let out a gasp, so thoroughly engrossed in the tale that they felt the shock of the seditious words in the Court of Judicature. Tahn found himself unwittingly looking in the direction Penit did when addressing the judge, attempting to see the object of Penit’s fancy. Braethen nodded knowingly.

For a long moment Penit let the words hang over the fire and his rapt listeners. When Tahn spied Vendanj again, the Sheason had not moved, shadow playing across his darkened features as the fire spat and surged, glinting dully over his three-ringed pendant. He undoubtedly knew the story; the recognition of it was clear in his eyes. But something more rested there, something inexorable like floodwater in a spring of heavy rains.

The boy then stepped twice, gracefully completing his turn to change his guise back to the counselor. A thin smile spread on Penit’s lips. “‘Tell her she was wrong,’ you say. With an adversary like you, SeFeery, I hardly need to present evidence here. Your arrogance about my Lady’s trust in you is hardly the indemnification you might hope it to be.” Penit let his grin fall. “And in any case, wide is the gulf between the liberty to provide strong counsel and taking measures to inhibit the actions or choice of the regent. In the instance of the latter, we have witnesses who attest to your treason. Do you wish to hear their testimony, or will you concede their words as truth?”