04c Dreams of Fire and Gods: Gods (15 page)

Gonim shook his head. “There’s something I haven’t told you. I was charged with finding out more about the magic in this valley. You’ve pointed the way, I think—to the city in the forest. But I can’t leave the valley until I’ve gone there.”

“Someone…
charged
you to do this? Who?”

“I can’t tell you that.” He had no doubt Sheh would consider him mad if he told him the truth. And that might make him more likely to fetch Father Kosün. Let him imagine that one of the elders in Worlen had sent Gonim on this mission.

Sheh stared at him wordlessly. Then at last he said, “You can’t get into the city. No one can.”

“I have to try.”

“This is insane!” Sheh protested. “We’re almost out of the forest. Just another few leagues. Then we’ll be granted asylum by the emperor’s army.”

Gonim shook his head again and leaned close for one final lingering kiss. “You’re beautiful and very sweet. I’ll think of you. But I can’t stay. I need you to do something for me.”

“What?”

“Wait until I’ve gone, then tell Father Kosün exactly what I’ve told you.”

“He’ll think you’re mad,” Sheh said petulantly.

“That’s fine. But make sure he knows I’ve left of my own accord—I haven’t wandered off and gotten lost. There won’t be any point in delaying the party to search for me. I can run like the wind, and the city is too far out of your path. Will you tell him that?”

Sheh had tears pooling in his eyes, but he nodded mutely. Gonim couldn’t resist pulling him in for an embrace. Then he turned and took off into the forest, heading toward the mysterious city.

T
HE
difficulty in rounding up the escaped
vönan
wouldn’t lie in the danger involved—they were powerless and many of them were aged—but in their sheer number. Sael had learned the
caedan
were joining them in this adventure. That meant their number was now close to a hundred.

The
ömem
hadn’t been included. That wasn’t surprising—there was a tremendous amount of distrust and animosity between them and the
vönan
. It was perhaps more surprising that the
vönan
and
caedan
had set aside
their
differences long enough to forge this plan. But the answer to that soon become apparent. Geilin, using a Taaweh technique to “see” through shadows, had learned many of the details of the plan by spying on the
vönan
, including the bribes that had been used to buy passage from the city guards. Put simply, the temple had much more money than the
vönan
did.

But how did one corral a hundred people in the forest, in the dark? Sael set out after them with a contingent of twenty soldiers—all that could reasonably be spared with so many at the boundary—once Geilin confirmed the escapees had reached the forest.
But they had been holding back, following at a distance for several leagues, waiting for this mysterious man the Iinu Shavi had an interest in to leave his companions.

“This would have been simple if we’d rounded them up at the gate,” Sael complained. “Now even if we catch most of them, some are bound to run off into the woods.”

Geilin was walking alongside him with Tanum and his other three apprentices in tow. It seemed odd to bring them along when they’d just begun their training, but as Geilin had pointed out, they were the only functional sorcerers in the valley. Raw as they were, they might still prove useful. Now the old wizard stopped walking and held up a hand for quiet. Sael stopped beside him and the double line of soldiers behind him halted.

“Oh, this is good,” Geilin murmured, smiling. “This is
too good
.”

Sael said nothing, but he couldn’t resist spreading his hands in a gesture of impatience.

At last, Geilin’s eyes focused on him. “Forgive me, Your Lordship, but it appears our quarry has stopped to rest. They are all gathered in a small clearing.”

That could certainly make it easier to surround them, provided the soldiers could be stealthy enough. “What of this man the Iinu Shavi is interested in?” Sael asked.

“A young man just snuck off into the forest,” Geilin replied.

“Perhaps he’s just going to relieve himself.”

Geilin laughed. “No. He bid a rather fond farewell to one of his companions before he left. He is on his way to Gyishya.”

“That’s it, then,” Sael said with a sigh of relief. He turned to face his men. Raising his voice, he told them, “We’ll need to move quietly—”

“My Lord,” Geilin interrupted him, “if I may. I believe I have a plan which might prove more effective.”

“Yes?”

Geilin took his arm and pulled him aside, out of the hearing of both the soldiers and Geilin’s apprentices. “Allow me to take my apprentices in, before the soldiers.”

Sael glanced at Tanum, who was watching them both curiously. “Are you mad? My father would have me hung from the bell tower if he knew I put her in danger. He’d be furious to learn she was here to begin with.”

“One of the first things one learns in Taaweh magic is how to disappear,” Geilin said. Sael was certainly already familiar with this. “In the unlikely event that one of those old fools might pick up a stick and wave it around, Tanum is perfectly capable of getting out of harm’s way.”

“A number of those ‘old fools’ have apprentices my age,” Sael pointed out.

Geilin’s voice was unusually curt. “Nevertheless, I have confidence in her. I respectfully suggest that His Lordship might as well.”

It was the closest Geilin had come to chastising him since Sael had become
dekan
, which made it sting all the more. He found himself looking away, embarrassed. “As you wish.”

“Thank you, my lord.”

Geilin left him to speak with Tanum and his other apprentices. They conferred for a moment, with Geilin gesticulating as he explained his plan to them. Then he nodded and all five of them fell into the earth.

The soldiers jumped back, startled, and Sael had to force himself not to smile. “It’s all right,” he told them. “It’s merely a new type of magic Master Geilin has been studying.” He doubted the men would find that very reassuring, but it was the best he could do.
Perhaps I should have warned them before we set out.

Too late now.

The sorcerers returned in a surprisingly short time, startling the soldiers again but looking unharmed. The boys were grinning from ear to ear and even Lady Tanum looked pleased.

Geilin bowed to Sael and said, “You may bring your men along now. No need to travel quietly.”

“Oh, Sael!” Tanum exclaimed. “Wait until you see it!”

“See what?”

Tanum exchanged a glance with Geilin and merely said, “You’ll see when you get there.”

Sael glared at her, a look that would have had anyone else in Harleh bowing and scraping to appease him. But she merely looked pleased with herself.

“Shall we go?” Geilin asked.

When they arrived at the clearing—or what Sael assumed was the clearing—they found an enormous earthen wall enclosing it. The wall encompassed a space the size of Harleh Keep’s carriage yard and was taller than two men, one standing on the shoulders of the other. From the inside of the enclosure, men could be heard shouting, though it was all a jumble, and what they were saying was lost in the chaos.

“By the gods!” one of his soldiers exclaimed.

Since Sael had seen Geilin and his apprentices creating walls out of hedges and stone in the courtyard, he was less shocked. But it was an impressive feat nonetheless. He motioned for the soldiers to remain where they were and then walked around the enclosure for a short distance, Geilin at his side. Eventually he said, “We can’t just
leave
them here.”

“Not indefinitely.”

“I don’t imagine it would be easy for you and your apprentices to transport them all back to Harleh.”

Geilin shook his head. “Alas, no. We’re quite far away from the city and my apprentices aren’t used to traveling underground yet. I could take a few at a time, but at that rate….”

“We’re fairly close to the encampment at the boundary,” Sael said. “Would your apprentices be able to go that far?”

“Perhaps not. Might I suggest that you have enough men with you to march the captives there, now that they’ve been subdued? Or perhaps you could take half of them and then come back for the rest?”

Sael called to the captain in charge of his men and the man came trotting over. “Captain Mokh, do you have an idea how far we are from the military encampment near the boundary?”
The camp had recently been moved to within sight of the imperial encampment.

Mokh turned around a bit to get his bearings. “Yes, my lord. It’s about two leagues to the northwest.”

“Master Geilin,” Sael said, “could you take me to the top of the wall, please?”

Geilin placed a hand on his arm again, and Sael felt himself falling. Then in the blink of an eye, he was standing beside the wizard on top of the earthen wall, looking down into a sea of confused and frightened faces. Someone noticed his appearance and shouted to the others, “The
dekan
!”

Others took up the shout and began pointing up at him. Sael held up a hand for silence and, rebellious or not, a lifetime of living under the authority of the
vek
and his sons took hold of them. They grew silent and bowed.

“I assume you all know that running off to join the emperor’s army is an act of treason,” Sael announced.

One of the elder
caedan
—Sael recognized him as Father Kosün—looked pained at this and tried to speak. “Please, Your Lordship—”

“When the emperor sent an army to attack Harleh,” Sael continued, ignoring him, “he declared war upon the
veikit
. From that point forward, we became two
separate
kingdoms at war with one another. The citizens of Harleh and Worlen, and all of the other
tondekan
in the east kingdom, no longer have the option to travel to the west without express permission from the
vek
or their
dekan
.” This was an oversimplification of the matter, since many of the
dekan
had not yet sided with the
vek
in this conflict. But Sael saw no reason to delve into the political complexities of the issue. “Therefore it is
treason
to attempt to cross the boundary,” he continued. “And treason is punishable by
death
. Do you understand me?”

“Your Lordship,” Father Kosün tried again.

“I need you all to acknowledge that you understand me,” Sael persisted, raising his voice.

A chorus of fearful “Yes, my lords” rose up from the enclosure. He had no idea if all of them had responded, but it would have to do.

“Very well. I am willing to assume you did not understand the full implications of what you were doing before this moment. So you will be transported under guard to our military encampment and held there until morning. I recommend you get some sleep there, because in the morning, you will be escorted back to Harleh. You will not be executed, and you will not be imprisoned, once you are back in Harleh. But you will remain under close watch for the near future.”

K
OREH
and Seffni traveled for over a fortnight, while the mist showed no sign of lifting. Koreh led the way, keeping them on the path when it was difficult to discern, with Seffni either riding Sek or walking beside the horse. The older man was very weak, though Koreh had been unable to determine why. If this had been Dasak, he would have assumed it was because Seffni hadn’t been eating properly as he wandered through the forest, half-mad with his fruitless quest to find Tanum. But in Bashyeh food was unnecessary. Seffni was, in fact, the only ill person Koreh had ever come across in the land. He wondered if the illness was somehow self-inflicted.

At least Seffni’s sanity had gradually returned. Like many of the inhabitants of Bashyeh, the centuries had nearly obliterated the memory of his life in Dasak. The last memories he clung to were those of people he’d loved, especially Tanum. But like Koreh, Seffni had been unable to find peace here, and over time, his incomplete memories of his wife drove him to wander aimlessly in search of her.

“I’ve been feeling the same,” Koreh told him one night as they sat close to the blue flame of their campfire. “About needing to find… someone, I mean. But I knew I’d never find him here.”

Seffni grunted, his expression weary. “I remember Harleh now. Some of it.” He was wrapped in a blanket that had appeared in Koreh’s pack the first night Seffni joined him, along with other supplies Koreh had never packed. Now Seffni pulled the blanket close and stared into the flames. “But for so long… the only thing I could remember was Tanum. I knew she was missing and I had to find her, but I had no idea where to look.”

Would that have happened to me?
Koreh wondered. Seffni had been in Bashyeh longer than Koreh—perhaps centuries longer. Yet so had Koreh’s family, and they hadn’t been insane. His mother still remembered him and their life in gü-Khemed. For that matter, Sek seemed to remember Koreh. And he seemed pretty sane for a horse.