Temple of the Traveler: Book 02 - Dreams of the Fallen (17 page)

“Both sides start by laying out everything they want, starting with the most important. Whatever you agree on becomes binding on both parties. Whatever you don’t agree on immediately goes on the table for trading later. One person is the chief negotiator for each side. In the Brotherhood, other members at the table can call a discussion on his decisions, but a majority vote on any issue carries. We try not to contest the negotiator unless it’s really important because dissent looks bad in the face of the enemy. I want the boy to talk for us.”

“As for the dragon, it is just doing its job, really. Great ideas and places where the heavens touch the Earth must always have imposing guardians. Otherwise any fool can write his name on the foundations of the world,” said Tashi. “As for ariah, you don’t blame a wild dog for biting. Predators must be expected to behave like this. Did you believe otherwise when you walked into her den?”

“I suppose not, but you’re putting a child up against a dragon?” asked Bjorn incredulously.

“You’d rather be fighting?” countered the sheriff. Bjorn held up his hands in surrender. Tashi whispered a list of demands into the boy’s ear and the northerner added a few more.

Brent stepped forward, nervous. “Uh . . . the first topic of discussion is healing of our two friends during the truce. We know that your temple can use the power of sleep combined with the Door to heal injuries and revitalize people. We’d like to start with that as a gesture of good faith.”

“I am in
pain
,” snapped the dragoness. “Your request would take hours, and every moment prolongs my agony.”

“You can use dilation,” said Tashi, using the word he learned from the tailor. “Slow yourself and speed us.”

“You spend most of your time looking like a statue anyway,” said Brent.

“It could be done. But this would leave my daughter Zariah vulnerable. I’d also be unable to control the servants in that state and would be unable to guarantee your safety.”

The boy was undeterred. “We’ll put all our weapons in a safe place. Underneath you if you like. Your guards are like your weapons. Order them all out and to stay out, and we’ll all be safe. Zariah stays inside, though.”

“Then so do you,” countered the dragoness.

“Agreed so far, but sleeping that long and healing is likely to make my friends pretty hungry.”

“Aye, ‘tis a common side-effect of the spell on your kind. Zariah will guide you to her banquet table behind the blue silk screen. Eat as much as you can hold.”

Brent seemed squeamish about the next point. “Since your people will be able to take their dead with them when they leave, and I can’t step foot outside, we’re at a disadvantage. I can prepare the bodies, but Ekvar and Nigel have the right to a decent burial outside. No offense, but I don’t think they would rest well if your fellows tossed them in the trash dump out back.”

The dragon writhed for a moment. Zariah interceded. “There is an advocate for the dead traveling just north of here. I believe the locals call him ‘Owl.’ We can have him summoned here in a few hours.”

“Is that like a lawyer?” asked the boy.

“More like a grave robber with a conscience,” explained Bjorn. “They put the dead to rest, and make sure cemeteries are in good repair. In exchange, they take a token price from the coffins and sometimes the families of the deceased. In big cities they even perform funeral services. I’ve heard of this Owl. He looks like an aging rat dressed in rags, but he’ll do right by us. He knows how to wrap up members of the Forge holding the holy dagger, and he may even carry a little Kiateran soil to sprinkle on top.”

“New money,” said Tashi, nodding his agreement. Coins were often worn or shaved over time; therefore, new money had the most metal—the best possible trade for services.

After the Somnambulists left, all weapons in the room, borrowed and otherwise, were placed in a pile beside the Door. All normal doors to the temple were barred until the advocate for the dead arrived. Zariah led them to the semi-private banquet hall reserved for important guests. The men feasted on leftovers finer than any meal they’d experienced.

Brent found a wheelbarrow and moved the bodies of his allies first, reasoning that he might lose any food eaten during the gory process. He wrapped everything of Ekvar’s he could find in a sheet by the front door. Zariah removed the spear from the body for him with savage exuberance. She followed Brent as he struggled to reunite Nigel with his errant head. He reached the body first, and Zariah lurched to prevent him from picking up the scroll fragment in the actor’s hand. However, an invisible force bounced her backward from the boy.

“A master?
You
are a master?” she shrieked, knowing the binding prevented her from harming the boy directly. “Put that down before you kill us all!”

Brent read over the words on the scroll, moving his lips and squinting. There seemed to be something under the letter. He held the scroll up to the light of the Halls of Eternity. Shadows in the shapes of the letters stretched down to touch the hem of Nigel’s cloak. “It’s connected.”

“No!” Zariah pleaded.

The edge of the cloak was weighted. Anyone could see that when Nigel walked. What Brent knew now was that it was weighted with reclaimed pieces of the book of the Bards. He saw the title appear inside the cloak’s lining. Brent donned the cloak himself before anyone else could see the writing that had appeared. He refolded the scroll of Binding and replaced it in the cloak’s pocket. By way of trade, the boy wrapped the actor’s body in his old cloak. Zariah drop-kicked the severed head to him, and he caught it before the first bounce. He blanched at the blatant hatred seething in this woman.

Once the pieces were reunited, Brent felt he should say something profound for the actor’s funeral. Still standing in front of the Door, he peeked inside his new cloak. It read, “Even the spheres in the heavens move to the harmony of music.”

Hearing the commotion, the men finished their meals and came to the base of the Door. Tashi saw Brent kneeling and did likewise. The boy sang a simple funeral dirge, and when he finished, the body of the actor vanished.

“How?” asked Bjorn, blinking.

“He was a High Priest of the Bards. The boy wears that mantle now. When they pass, they pass into memory alone and leave no trace on the earth,” said Tashi.

Brent looked down at the simple cloak, raising his eyebrows. “Mantle, huh?”

“It should protect you from Zariah and any mind tricks this place has while we slumber,” said the sheriff, as if this sort of transition happened every day. Yawning, he lay down to bed.

Bjorn brought a pillow for his injured arm and reclined next to the sheriff. The dragon leaned down and breathed on them before returning to stone. The healing sleep began.

****

Zariah sat within the circle of candles, the temple in utter silence for the first time in decades. Brent had allowed her to change into a simple house gown and collect her most important belongings. In exchange, he gathered leather packs and traveling gear for his companions. Everything was
quid pro quo
with this strange child. His sense of balance and fair play were highly acute. The seeress intended to use that against him at the first opportunity. No doubt the messenger birds had been sent, and rescue was just a matter of time. She took copious notes during her reading of the cards to let Sandarac know everything she could about her captors and their intent.

The boy stood opposite her, observing without comment. To reward his long silence, she explained, “Each of the cards represents an idea or a tool of the gods. Some can have different meanings based on context or position. Like words, yes? By examining how they are arrayed, one can predict one’s fortunes or even change them if one is especially wise.”

“Nothing tells the future, my master has told me as much. Even the gods are blind to this,” Brent said matter-of-factly.

Zariah raised an eyebrow. “True. But a very clear picture of what is can tell one what is highly likely. Think of the cards as a watchtower for the empire.”

“Why were the cards locked in a chest?” asked Brent.

“Each placard is intricately hand-painted, like a portrait suitable for framing. The deck is valuable in its own right, not just for what it tells me.”

Brent nodded. “Like books.”

“Indeed. Like books, most valuable to those who can read them,” she said in a distracted fashion, closing her eyes. “Cut the deck, and I’ll perform a reading for you and yours. Then I’ll do one for myself.”

Brent picked only the top three cards to move to the bottom. “Where is my master?”

Zariah cleared her mind. Her passive receptive powers were still there, even if their capacity was diminished. A god-gift could never be taken away from the faithful. “The first card represents you.” She turned over a card with two children exchanging a cup. “This card normally represents memory. As a person, it may mean that you are here as a witness to record all that passes, the cup waiting to be filled with knowledge and experience.”

Brent said, “Or it could refer to the fact that I am now high priest of the School of Bards, the Way of Mnem.”

The claim shook her, but she tried to continue smoothly. “The second represents your master.” She turned over a card containing a blazing sun of power. “No, this wasn’t here before. There was no Sun in play. He was the beggar monk before.”

Brent said, “People are what they are. Perhaps the words used to describe them have changed. He passed through the Doors again. Tashi said he went to the Holy Mountain.”

“What do you mean
again
?”

“That’s my master’s business. I accept that now he’s the Sun. Perhaps that is merely how I view him. I am satisfied with the reading so far. Gon.”

“You don’t get it. Passing through the portals has
shuffled the deck
. Everything is different. Anything could happen.”

“Very important, they almost never turn up,” she muttered, turning the next card. “Past is the Prisoner. A literal sentence or a vice he cannot escape. Present is the King of Swords, great battle, many difficult roads to travel on a quest. He runs from Sandarac. Future is . . .”

It was the incongruity of the most influential woman in the hemisphere arguing with a child like an equal that made her give up and flip the next card. “The Mute. This one was supposed to be ours in a few days. It must be a duplicate. Every side needs a complete set to try for the College of Wizards. Extras are normally weeded out this late in the game. What’s happening?” She stared at it. Their side had nearly a full hand of Archetypes. She itched to turn over the Future card.

“He’s looking for someone who can’t talk?”

“It’s a metaphor, I think. I mean, sometimes it’s literally a person who cannot speak. I don’t know anymore. The message is for you because this is not like any reading I have ever done,” she said, puzzled.

There was a knock at the gigantic front door of the sanctuary. “Somebody call for a gravedigger? Where is everyone?”

Brent rose and said, “I have to take care of this. You can go ahead and take your turn now. Thank you for the money.” Zariah had given him a stack of silver coins from her treasury to pay for the burial and services.

The boy took the wheelbarrow filled with a shrouded corpse to the front of the Temple of Sleep, where he met a scraggly-faced man with dark circles under his eyes. He looked like a tramp. Zariah returned all the cards to the safety of their wooden case strapped to her belt. As she slipped the final card in, she peeked. What she saw in her hand made her scream. “Never! After all I’ve done, the South will never win. After what they did to me, the Twins must suffer. Serog!”

She knocked candles over in her haste.

“I can come back later, if it’d be better,” said Owl in a folksy-but-polite manner. He didn’t see the dragon, but was familiar with the madness of grief.

The dragoness snapped awake. “Daughter?”

Brent caught a whisper of the emotion and caring, but not the exact word. “A moment. She hasn’t had a good day. She’s not herself.”

Zariah stormed up to the huge beast. “Forces are shifting. That cursed priest is ruining everything. The Twins must be stopped.”

Eyes full of pain, the dragoness explained, “I lost long ago, dear one. When I regained you, it was my one consolation. Don’t take that from me as well. Follow the old codes and you’ll live. As long as there is life, there’s hope.”