The Soul Weaver

CHAPTER 22

Dull light beams pushed their way through the dusty air from a tiny grate close to the ceiling.

“Oh, cripes!” An outburst of words quite close to my ear. “They’ve done for you like they done for the Lady, haven’t they? Demonfire! A right fine mess we’re in now.”

A freckled face… a worried face, striped by the dusty light-beams… appeared in the air somewhere above me.

Jostling. Sitting upright now.

“Radele brought our breakfast and told me to see that you eat. Very kind he is.”

Bread in my hand.

“Well, come on then. Put it in your mouth.”

Dry… chewy… Teeth and tongue, wits like dung…

“Wasn’t supposed to work out this way. ‘Be fast,’ he says. ‘It’s got to be fast or we’ll all be dead.’ So now he’s out there likely dying, while I’m rotting in a bin of turnips. They’re all going to die if his plan don’t work. What in this cursed world am I to do?”

No cursing! No rotting! Carrots in the bin… turnips… heads and turnips…

A mechanical click… a buckle? a clock? a latch? Disturbs the dancing dust motes…

“Come on, horse boy. Time for you to do your duties as the Prince has commanded you. By rights you should be banished to the Wastes as a traitor, though my father says you’re only a pawn of the Destroyer. He claims that mundanes are incapable of any meaningful act such as treachery. I’ll have to consider that. I think you should be dead.”

Clambering… crowding… bumping. A door slammed. Click. Silence. Colors, impressions, bits and pieces of memories, fragments of music, of song, of stories or poems, showers of words. Words are my life… Drifting, pushing, and crowding one another this way and that, like gnats hovering above a pond. Swirling aimlessly like snowflakes in a circling wind… like dust motes in the light…

Directionless time… fading light… blindness creeping… Fearful blindness… terrible… not that, not that, not that…

Click. Snap. Searing brightness. Air shifting. Stumbling boots. An avalanche of turnips… Sounds, movements, smells… nudging me… wandering…

“Move closer to the pipes, boy. I’ll leave you loose enough you can tend the Preceptor, but we’ll not have you getting away.”

Intrusion. Crowded. Arms… legs… boots… Click. Snap. Darkness. Not blindness. Night. Quiet breathing. Lungs and tongues, inhale… exhale… smothering dark…

“Master Ven’Dar, can you hear me? Here, squeeze my hand if you can understand me.”

A nice hand. A working hand. Scars. Don’t raise your hand to me, young man! So much clutter in my head, ready to fly away… A sister’s ready hand, boxing my ears…

“Ah, curse all sorcery and them as practice it!”

The hand withdrew. Cold bread now. Bread in my mouth. Sour ale. Sleep tugging at my eyelids…

Light and darkness. Crowding, bumping, silence in the light.

Crowding, bumping, companionship in the dark. Hands in the dark. The cycle… whirling past.

“You know, Master” - the spoon popped between my lips yet again - “sometimes the way things happen just turns a man’s head inside out. The first clue I get, and in the same breath I hear it’s no use to us. I’ve been trying and trying to find out what was the list Radele used for the enchantment. Today I heard Radele talking to his Grandpa Ustele, the Preceptor, and at last I hear them talking about a list, and I’m thinking it might be the list as is needed to help the Lady and maybe I could somehow get away and find someone to come help her. But doesn’t the old man say that you’re probably the only one in Avonar as could say the ‘list of all the Dar’Nethi talents’? And your head is about as useful as one of these turnips.”

Drowning!

Figs and pools, pigs and fools…

“Ah, plague on it! Now you’re a mess. How am I supposed to feed you when I’m tethered to this pipe like a donkey? No way I could run off, anyway. Not with this magic they’ve put on me that make my feet like lead. Only reason I can talk is that they’re just not scared of anything in my head. Not like with you and the Lady.”

Dampness… on and under me… earthen floor… soup mud… farmyard mud… stink… of onions and pigs…

“I looked about to see if you might have a bit of writing in the house that might be such a thing as this list, but I’m so ignorant, I couldn’t even tell if it was the right one or not, nor yet what to do with it if I found it.” Cloth blotting. “I’m just not much good to nobody as doesn’t have a mane and a tail, am I?”

The list of talents… the hundred… of all the hundred you received only one… in measure large or small… your gift… to be with you forever… to guide your Way… Ven’Dar yn Cyran, proved a Word Winder this day! Fool of a boy, can’t you feel it? Look what you’ve done… best learn a cast to repair the steps or father will flay you! So difficult to be good at it. You can’t stay at home… not with power like yours… undisciplined whelp… Master Exeget will house you, as well as mentor you… prevent your killing anyone… Exeget, cold as an ice cliff… Be worthy of your people… be worthy of your gift… Truth is the foundation of a Word Winder’s power… Try again… and again… You are the living essence of the Way… Mice scrabbling through the baskets of turnips and onions and carrots. Onions rotting. Men rotting in the desert… dead in the Wastes… turnips and carrots…

Light and darkness. Crowding, bumping, silence in the light.

Crowding, bumping, companionship in the dark. “Can you hear me, Master? The Lady’s fading. Every day I have to see her. For a man to breathe on her would kill her.”

Light and darkness. Click, snap. Breathing in the dark.

A crash. Again. Fist hammering. “Shit, shit, shit! I can’t believe they’d do it! And here I’m stuck in this cursed hole, no better off than I was in Zhev’Na. And you no more help than a two-legged mule.”

Pinching my shoulder. Rattling my teeth. “Listen to me, Master Ven’Dar. We’ve got to help the Lady. Radele is going to kill her before the Prince comes back here. He believes that when the Prince looks in my head, he’ll find out where the young master is. But old Ustele told him that having the Lady around might stop the Prince from killing their son - just knowing what she would say about it if she could talk. The Prince has been in an awful battle, he says, one that’s gone on for days, but he’ll be coming here tomorrow. So we’ve no more time.”

Words tumbling… raindrops… hailstones… avalanche… buried… hurt…

“Do you remember how I told you to think on the talents of the Dar’Nethi? The list? It’s the key to the silencing. I’ve tried talking to the Lady to get her to think on it. But I don’t know if she can hear me or if she knows all of the list, and it has to be every one of the talents, so Radele says. You’ve got to name every one of them in your head, Master.”

Warm, bony hands… enfolding…

“I know some of them: Healer, like the Prince, Word Winder, that’s you. Master Gar’Dena, may his name be writ, was a Gem Worker. There’s Builders and Horsemasters that the Prince told me of… but I don’t know the rest. You’ve got to name the whole list to be free.”

Gem Worker… left for dead like turnips left to rot. Hurts! Hurts! Forests rotting… souls… cabbages… black and moldering… soon to be dust, like the Wastes…

Raindrops of words pelting the sea. Tiring. J curled up on the cool dirt. Sleeping… creeping…

“No, Master! You don’t understand. The time! It’s been too long already. Demonfire, I know you can hear me.”

Slap! Stinging blow.

“Come on, sit up again. Think, Master. Radele’s killing the Lady. He’s put another enchantment on her that’s going to make her die if we don’t stop it. Is there a Singer in the list? A Tree… something?” Words hard-edged in the darkness. “You want to save the Prince, you got to save yourself first. I heard Radele sniggering at the Lady, telling her how he’s going to see she don’t save the young master this time. Oh, demonfire, Master Ven’Dar, you’ve got to listen, and you’ve got to think of the list. Right now.”

Hands squeezing cheeks and jaw… trembling now… suddenly cold as a glacier… cold fire…

Singer, Healer, Speaker, Word Winder… Hold yourself together, Ven’Dar. Ven’Dar the Vainglorious. Dam up the ocean and replace it with a water jar. Catch the raindrop words in something where they’ll make a difference.

… Metalwright… Sea Dweller… who battles the tide… Timeless waves… drifting…

No! You can do this. You know the list. Exeget taunted you until you learned them all. Do you need to stand on your head to do it? Say the list. Every name.

Stronger now. Builder, Tree… Delver, of course, Balancer, like the great D’Arnath himself and C’Netra, yammering, beloved C’Netra…

The list grew… The voice in my head… so loud… so hard… What next? Say them!

Gem Worker… Silver Shaper… and next? So hard to remember… leave it go…

No, hold on. How do you remember the names? How were you taught? Probing… digging… holding back the tide of madness. In the order of their discovery: the Hundred Talents. After Silver Shaper comes Horsemaster… You draw them from the depths of your being, not just facts memorized in childhood, but from the essentials of your soul, lived… believed… cherished…

The list grew.

Is that all? There are more, aren’t there? Think… remember…

Ninety and nine have I spoken, from Glass Maker to Storyteller, from Gardener to Navigator, each one a touchstone of our history, a fundamental of our life, like the heart of a mother and the hand of a father that shape the core of the family.

What is the last? Why do some say the list is complete at ninety and nine?

Because the hundredth is the myth… the Soul Weaver…

My eyes blinked open. I was kneeling on the dirt floor of my root cellar, cold as a new-caught fish and stinking like a dead one. No sooner had I voiced the hundredth name than the ocean of confusion had retreated, exposing shape and order like rocks emerged from a receding tide: past, present, future, memory, dream, knowledge, deduction… and dominating all of it, the driving urgency to go to the Lady. She would be in my parlor, sitting by the fire, lost in a sea of light and shadows as I had been. And close beside me in the dark, very close, someone else was breathing.

“I think I’m all right now,” I said, nudging straggling, greasy hair out of my eyes.

How was this possible? I might have thought another Dar’Nethi had spoken in my thoughts, giving me the names and prodding me to attention when I faltered. Yet such a speaking was very different, an intrusion across the barriers of self, instantly recognizable and traceable to the intruder. No one but my sister and I knew of “Ven’Dar the Vainglorious,” the young Word Winder whose first cast had landed so wide of its mark that his elder sister, the humble Balancer, had been forced to make peace with an entire village of infuriated Gardeners standing hip-deep in an ocean of well-intentioned mud. No one but I knew how I used the title so often as a prod to humility. And I’d never told even C’Netra how Exeget had made me stand on my head until I could speak the list. No. Though it was impossible, the words had been mine. But, of course, this lad had urged me to it.

“Thank you,” I said to my companion in the dark cellar, while I rubbed my swirling head and shook the last confusion away. He had fallen so silent while I wrestled with chaos that his dark, still shape might have been nothing but another bag of onions. “You were right. The list was the key. I don’t know how I was able to do it, but you were right.”

“Please, go to her,” he said quietly, demonstrating not the least surprise at my sudden speech. “Hurry.”

“We’ll both go,” I said.

“Can’t. They’ve bound me here and not just with rope. Touching the door latch makes my hand feel as if it’s being torn off. And you’d think my boots had anvils in them instead of feet.”

Stupid that I’d forgotten. I would have sworn he was free, running around me, hounding me like a sheep dog, while he pelted me with words. A foolish image.

“You’ve run into so many disadvantages in your association with us Dar’Nethi that you’ve forgotten the advantages,” I said, as I produced a soft white light from my hand, crawled over his long legs, and grappled with a tangle of pipes and rope I could scarcely reach. With a knife of flame I split the ropes that bound his ankles and wrists, perhaps a little too vigorously, for he yelped. The backs of my own hands felt singed. As he massaged blood back into his fingers, I countered the simple enchantments that kept him from securing his own freedom. “Now we can go.”

“Maybe I should stay here for a while. Distract Radele if he should come to check on us.”

“If what you’ve told me is correct, young Paulo, we need to get the Lady and ourselves out of this house at the first instant. I can handle Radele, as long as you watch my back and yell at me if he should raise his hand again. You’ve no idea how embarrassing this has been - to be caught like a novice. And you’ve no idea how lucky we are that I could come up with the list.” Enunciating the precise words in a mind scarcely capable of thought. Vasrin’s hand, surely.

“Go ahead, then, I’ll follow.”

Coaxing the smooth veneer of a binding spell from the door latch, I allowed my light to die and pulled open the door a crack. A stray beam of lamplight from the cellar stair invaded our dusty den. The faintest of magical feelers sent into the adjacent cellars and up the stairs confirmed that no one lurked anywhere nearby. Evidently our captors were secure in our incapacity. I stepped through the low door into my cluttered storeroom, stretching my cramped legs and stiff back.

Creaky old man. I glanced back to see if my young friend had emerged. Paulo had just stepped out, and when I turned, he threw his hand up before his face, as if to shield his eyes from the brightness, but not before I’d gotten a glimpse of them. Odd… something…

“She’s in your front sitting room,” he said. “They leave her sit up till a serving woman is sent in to her about an hour before midnight.”

“Are you well, son?”

“I’m fine. Lead on. And, Master, Radele said Men’Thor was on his way tonight, so as to be here when the Prince arrived. To be sure of him.”

“I understand. We’ll be quick and quiet.”

With what stealth a not-young man just out of a week’s trance could muster, I led Paulo through the maze of pots and paintings, crates of books, and extra furnishings I’d shoved into my cellars when I ran out of space in the main rooms of my house. We crept up the stairs. Perhaps I needed to hire a Builder to make my stairs less steep, I thought, as we topped the last step and tiptoed into the back passage that serviced the kitchens and the large doors that led to the front of the house. What nonsense comes to mind, even in the midst of great events. Did D’Arnath worry about the steepness of his cellar stairs as he built his Bridge?

The hallways were deserted, but quiet voices emanated from the library. My reading room, what Paulo called the front sitting room, was tucked in between the front doors and the library. I could afford no enchantments lest Radele be monitoring the house, so I cracked the reading-room door ever so slightly and hoped my man Ceddoch had quieted the old hinges as I’d asked him to do some time ago when life was less complicated.

The door opened without sound. The Lady Seriana was alone, exactly as I had envisioned her, even to the deep blue color of her gown and her position on the low stool in front of my favorite fireplace. She stared into the fire, unmoving, unblinking, lost wherever the tides of random thought and memory had taken her. Far from my reading room, I guessed; it had been four months for her. I could afford no anger at those responsible. We had time for nothing but to get her away.

The boy darted past me and knelt by the Lady, his back to me, his whisper barely audible. “Come, my lady. We’ve come to take you to safety. Don’t be afraid.”

He took her hands and stood up, pulling her gently to her feet. She, of course, said nothing and made no resistance. She was as pale as starlight, as fragile as a soap bubble that floats from your hand on washing day. A loud voice might dissolve her, or a hasty touch; I guessed that her remaining life could be measured in hours, not days.

Fixing my attention on the passage, I whispered over my shoulder. “When I say the word, take her straight through the kitchen to the stable and get her on a horse. From the rear door of the stable, a track leads down into the Vale. When you meet the main path that traverses the Vale - you’ll know it - go left, upward, and ride hard until you come to an arched rock. Half a league beyond it, a path will branch to the left and lead you to a stone tower. You’ll be immensely reluctant to go there, but it’s only a winding to keep people away. Push through it, keeping your eyes on the path every moment. No harm will come to you, and once inside the tower you’ll no longer feel the aversion. If I don’t arrive close on your heels, get the Lady to Avonar and tell the Preceptor Ce’Aret all you’ve told me.”

I glanced up and down the passage, listening so intently I could hear my own heart beating. Satisfied that no one lay in wait, I nodded.

With an arm around her waist, the youth led the Lady down the dim passageway. As soon as they had disappeared into the back of the house I hurried the opposite way to an alcove near the front entry, where I kept my old mentor Exeget’s weapons. I grabbed two swords, two knives, a bow, and a small quiver, prayed holy Vasrin we wouldn’t need them, and slipped out of the alcove into the foyer, heading toward the back of the house where I’d sent Paulo and the Lady.

Fortune plays many games, testing us, I think, or perhaps as part of some grand jest. Why else should Radele step out of the library just then, and the front door swing open to reveal Men’Thor, clad in cloak and battlefield boots and already removing his gloves?

“Ven’Dar!” Father and son spoke in perfect unison.

Happily, I was less shocked than either of them, and more familiar with the plan of the house and the wards I had created to deter intrusions. I sped across the foyer, whispering the word that extinguished every lamp, candle, and torch in the house. I laughed when I heard the bump and curse that could be nothing but the meeting of Radele and my gallery wall. Lest sun or moon guide any ne’er-do-well through my chambers once the lights were doused, the winding shifted the perceived locations of doorways and corners. On my way through the kitchen I grabbed an armful of cloaks, abandoned over the years by my kitchen staff, and a small leather bag I always kept hanging by the door, a habit retained from my youth in a village in constant danger of Zhid raiders. A wise man was always provisioned for a hasty retreat.

Trailed by shouts and curses, I burst from the kitchens into the warm, starry night of the kitchen yard. Through the windows behind me, a pale light flicked into life. Radele and Men’Thor were no fools. My enchantments would give us only moments.

“Best hurry!” I yelled as I burst into the stable. The Lady was already astride a chestnut gelding, and Paulo was swinging up behind her. The back door of the stable stood open, and my own Jocelyn stood ready for me. I threw the cloaks across Jocelyn’s saddle and tossed the spare sword to Paulo, but to my surprise he dropped it as if it were newly pulled from the smith’s fire.

“I’ve no place to carry it,” he said. “And I’m no good with ‘em.” He spurred the chestnut, and they shot from the stable like a meteor across the night sky.

I didn’t follow immediately, but buckled on the second sword belt and hung the bow and quiver over my back. Forcing myself to ignore the commotion, the shouts and slamming doors, the lamps winking to life one by one as the men searched for us, I took a deep breath and worked a winding of somewhat more weight than the house ward: wood, paper, straw, consume, huge, shield, home, safety, necessity, heat, sudden, confusion, terror, escape…

Focus on the words, Ven’Dar. I sought the truth of the words, the meanings buried beneath centuries of use. I drew them together and infused them with my gift, my knowledge, and my intent. Patience. Let it grow. Lives could depend on how long you hold before the cast.

My hands rested on Jocelyn’s flank as the enchantment swelled within me. I resisted the urge to set the spell free before it broke through the boundaries of my body, holding my focus until the main door of the stable was thrown open. One person was out of the house. The others would soon realize where we’d gone and follow him. At last, out of time, I made my cast. Fire!

No chance of this winding going astray. Nentao was my own house, after all. As if the ground beneath had opened to the fiery heart of the earth, yellow-orange flames burst through windows and walls, engulfing my home.

I urged Jocelyn through the back door and galloped down the track in the light of the flames. I didn’t look back to see Nentao burning, nor did I listen to the shouts and screams. I might have been tempted to moderate my work, and we needed every advantage we could get.

Paulo had told me that most of my own servants had been dismissed; my wards would warn the rest and lead them safely away. Radele’s men would be confused and desperate to find their way out, but they also would escape. I had left them a thread.

Men’Thor’s bodyguard, who had opened the stable door, raced down the path after us. But, poor soul, he didn’t know the track well enough and was too cautious. If he’d come at full speed he might have overtaken me before I could cast again, and taken care of me as young men can do to those more than double their age. But he hesitated and got himself tangled in what, on the next morning, he was going to swear was a massive spiderweb with a dinner-plate-sized spider lurking in it. In fact, it was a particularly thick patch of vine-draped trees and a small, very shy raccoon.

The fellow didn’t know that the time for caution was past. As I galloped through the Lydian Vale, the world galloped right alongside me, history’s ragged banners flying as we raced into the dark midnight.