Skies (19 page)

“No,” Tadeo said, voice firm. “You must stay and eat. Then we will speak on why I have told you these things tonight.”

And with that, Gavin found himself sitting once more.

Tadeo produced some hard cheese and a heavy brown bread from inside one of the smaller buildings next to his hut and then disappeared around the back side of his home. Gavin eyed the cheese and bread, stomach rumbling, and wondered if he should start eating it while Tadeo was away. He’d just made up his mind and was reaching for cheese when Tadeo came back holding a thick cut of cured meat on a long skewer. Gavin quickly turned his forward lean toward the cheese into a stretch and then returned to his original position, wondering if he should offer to help or if he’d simply be in the way if he tried.

Tadeo placed the meat over the flames by hammering a pair of poles with forks at the end of them deep into the ground on either side of the fire and then resting the skewer across it, making a spit. The meat smelled delicious, though it was darker in color than anything Gavin had seen before.

“That smells good,” Gavin said.

“Is rude to speak while cooking,” Tadeo said. “Is time for thinking, not wasting.”

Gavin didn’t think talking was wasting time, but didn’t press the issue. He considered leaving and going out in search of Darryn on his own, but the smell of the meat as the flames licked it and the look of the cheese convinced him to stay. His curiosity may have also had a part in his decision, though Gavin wouldn’t have admitted it.

Tadeo pulled out a knife long enough to double as a small sword and sliced off a wedge of the hard cheese, then tore the bread in two. He placed the cheese and half the loaf on a simple wooden board before Gavin. Gavin wasn’t sure if he was supposed to start eating so he left the tray alone. He was glad he had when Tadeo knelt before his platter a moment later and bowed to the food, pressing his forehead to the edge of the wooden tray. Tadeo held that pose for the space of three heartbeats, then rose and nodded in Gavin’s direction.

“You may eat.”

Gavin hesitated, not sure how to ask the obvious question that had formed on his lips. Tadeo didn’t have any such reservations. He seized the remainder of the bread and cheese and shoved large amounts of both in to his mouth.

“During meal you may speak,” Tadeo said through a mouthful of food. “This thing is allowed.”

Gavin opened his mouth and then shut it again, then shrugged and picked up the cheese. It was as hard as it looked, though it didn’t look or smell anything like any of the hard cheeses. He pulled off a small piece and popped it in his mouth. Flavors exploded in his mouth, an array of unfamiliar spices fighting against one another across his tongue.

“This is good,” Gavin said after swallowing.

“You are strange man,” Tadeo said, eying him over the fire. “One moment you appear strong and mature. Then this thing is gone in the next moment.”

Gavin smiled. “Part of my charm, I guess. You’re not at all as quiet as you appear, either.”

“Is not proper to speak much in places with many people. When is just you and one other, perhaps two, talking is a good. Much learning can be done.”

Gavin shrugged. Even though he didn’t know anything about the man, he found he liked Tadeo. He knew part of it was his own nature to be trusting in general, a trait that had gotten him into more trouble that he could remember in his life, but there was also something genuine and earnest about the man that Gavin found endearing, which was odd, considering his initial impression of the man.

“Earlier you said you would tell me why you told me those things,” Gavin said after taking another bite of bread and cheese. “So, why did you tell me?”

Tadeo turned the spit, breaking the silence that stretched between them with the hiss of meat drippings hitting flame.

“Why did you come out here tonight?” Tadeo asked. “I have seen you as you walk at night. This thing is common for you.”

“You’ve been watching me?”

“This thing is not strange. The whole valley has been watching you. As I said, you are legend given flesh. But why did you come here tonight? This thing is important.”

Gavin frowned, trying to put together the information Tadeo had already given him with this new question. Nothing came together in his mind.

“I came in search of Darryn, the man you had earlier in Brisson’s building,” Gavin added when Tadeo gave him a blank look.

Tadeo nodded. “I thought this thing was true. That one, he will bring you much trouble, I think.”

“What makes you say that?”

“This man, I caught him where he should not be. Is dangerous for him and for you.”

“The Rahuli do not answer to Brisson’s laws,” Gavin said, more sharply than he intended. “He was doing nothing wrong.”

“And would you still say this thing if he were to betray you to the Orinai?”

Gavin tossed his wooden tray to the side, all the bread and cheese long since eaten.

“What are you talking about?”

“There is an Orinai army camped four days hard march from here,” Tadeo said. “An army big enough to kill us all. This man, Darryn, was almost captured by their scouts.”

“An army?” Gavin wrapped one hand around the hilt of his greatsword, eyes involuntarily darting to the shadows around them. “Are you sure? Brisson only said something about patrols and scouts.”

Tadeo didn’t answer, but instead gave Gavin a look that said the answer should be obvious.

“If what you say is true about why Brisson avoided me and the rest of it,” Gavin said, realization hitting him with the force of a chill rain. “Then I assume he already knows. You would have told him. He hasn’t told anyone else because he doesn’t want to induce a panic. He knows they’re not warriors and knowing an army is that close would cause chaos.” Gavin knew that part to be true. Just the promise of a future threat of the Orinai had led Kaiden to fight against his own people, had caused a war between siblings.

“Perhaps you are smarter than you look too, I think,” Tadeo said with a small nod of approval. “This thing is true. Brisson knows.”

“And what’s he doing about it then?”

“Nothing, Gavin. He is doing nothing,” another voice said from the darkness, a voice Gavin recognized but didn’t believe.

Gavin spun as Samsin stepped out of the shadows and into the light.

“How then did the belief that the soul is eternal and re-emerges as a new body, a new life, if you will, come to be such an integral part of the understanding of our place in the vastness of this world?”

—From the Discourses on Knowledge, Volume 15, Year 1023

Gavin leapt to his feet and drew his sword in the same flowing motion. He reached out for his powers, drawing on the energy around him, but nothing came. Gavin grasped at it, but the effect was like trying to pull smoke out of the air with only his fingers.

“You’re supposed to be dead,” Gavin said. He kept his sword pointed directly at the tall, thin man.

Samsin took a small, deliberate step forward. The firelight cast his features into sharp, sudden detail. Half his face was covered in partially healed cuts with yellowish bruises across the rest. His nose looked as if it had been broken in multiple places and his once fine hair was cropped so short he looked almost bald. Scabs and the marks of careful stitches stuck up through the hair. One arm was wrapped and covered in thick bandages, held in a sling. A pair of sticks which were serving as splints to keep it in place poked out the end of the bandages. One leg was also wrapped in a swath of bandages and Samsin was leaning heavily on a thick wooden cane. Several fingers looked as if they had been broken.

“Why don’t you put the sword away and we can talk about this,” Samsin said. His voice came out in a wheeze, punctuated by the sharp intakes of breath that marked a man who had broken rib bones.

Gavin glanced from Tadeo to Samsin and back again. The former was watching him without expression, though Samsin’s eyes looked pained. No, not so much pained as pleading. There was pain there, and plenty of it, but beyond that, beneath that surface of discomfort and unease sat a desperate need . . . and meek acceptance. It was so contrary to everything Gavin knew of the man that he lowered his sword.

“Okay, talk.”

Samsin limped forward and leaned back against the side of a large boulder. Up close, he looked thin and pallid, almost ethereal. It was a miracle he was even standing.

“You’re right,” Samsin said with a grimace. He turned to look at Gavin. The light made the mottled bruises on his face look like they were dancing. “I should be dead. Maybe I was—some of it’s still not very clear.”

Gavin shifted his weight and looked again from Tadeo to Samsin and back again. Tadeo was still watching him, gauging his reactions. Something was going on here that made the hair on the back of Gavin’s neck stand up.

“I fell and the pain was so intense that I thought I was going to die. Everything hurt. It was agony beyond anything I’d ever known, pain beyond standing. I thought my soul had gone on to the torment of the seven halls before my next incarnation could begin and begged for it to end. Eventually it did and I slipped into the warm blanket of blackness.” Samsin stopped and coughed, breath coming in gasps. He brought his one free hand up to wipe some spittle from his mouth and his hand came away bloody.

Gavin sheathed his sword. There was no threat here. Samsin, for all his talk, was still dying. Blood in the lungs was something from which few recovered.

“I . . . I came out . . . on the Path. I saw my own soul and the souls of others in chains, shackled to the Path . . . I . . . I couldn’t . . .” Samsin trailed off again as another fit of coughs hit him.

Tadeo calmly got to his feet and walked over to one of the smaller storage buildings, disappearing inside and leaving Gavin alone with Samsin. Gavin didn’t know what to do. Despite having thought Samsin’s death by stoning had been wrong, the act had been carried out. Samsin represented all that was evil and wrong with the Orinai. He and his kind had driven them out of their home. Beryl had been the one to destroy it, true, but the Orinai had driven them out. In one form or another it had been them driving everything that had happened since Kaiden’s action with the genesauri.

Samsin coughed and a whimper of pain escaped his lips. He coughed again and wiped away more blood, slipping down the boulder’s smooth side until he was sitting on the ground, broken leg stretched out before him.

Gavin was at his side the next instant, a hand on Samsin’s shoulder supporting him.

“What do you need?” Gavin asked.

“Water,” Samsin said, swallowing hard. “Just some water.”

Gavin looked up as Tadeo came out of the storage room carrying a waterskin and a small wooden cup. He set it down on the ground next to Samsin and poured some water into it. Gavin reached for it to hand to Samsin, but Tadeo held out a hand to stop him. Tadeo pulled out a small pouch from inside his shirt and tugged it open, pulling a pinch of yellow powder from inside and dropping it in the water.

“Give him this thing,” Tadeo said, nodding at the cup. “Make sure he drinks all. He is fool to be standing.”

Gavin picked up the cup and held it to Samsin’s lips. He drank a few swallows and then pulled away. His breath smelled like blood and the water in the cup came away stained pink.

“There’s still some left,” Gavin said. “Tadeo says you have to drink all of it.”

“Tadeo?” Samsin asked, lungs heaving. “Is that his name?”

“How do you not know his name?”

“Is easy,” Tadeo said, coming back with a small earthen jar that contained a second powder, this one green. “I did not tell him this thing. Was not important.”

“Well, it’s important for you to tell me what’s going on, so how about you pick up where he left off.”

Samsin struggled to speak, but Tadeo held the cup to Samsin’s lips, this time with the green powder added too, and forced him to drink.

“Hush, Storm Ward, I will tell him this thing.”

Samsin gulped down the drink and Gavin and Tadeo helped him settle back against the boulder. Despite his seven-foot frame, Gavin could have easily managed it on his own. Samsin was far lighter than he had any right to be.

“I found him the night after he was stoned,” Tadeo said, moving back to sit on his side of the fire. “I think, he is dead, is sure, but when I walked by he made small noise. I took him here and he had recovered a little. Still, he thinks he is stronger than he is. This thing is not good.”

Gavin moved back to where he’d been sitting before and took a seat, though he kept his hand close to the hilt of his sword. He didn’t think either of them were really a threat, but the hairs on the back of his neck still hadn’t come down.

“Why have you kept him hidden? What does any of this have to do with the Orinai army?”

Tadeo met Gavin’s eyes and held them, but didn’t answer.

“The army will come for all of you soon,” Samsin said, voice slurring slightly. “It is their way. They will not let you live. Tadeo can’t get Brisson to listen to reason. He needs your help.”

“This thing is only partly true,” Tadeo said, frowning at Samsin. “The army must attack before the snows hit. They will not want to winter here in the north. Is small miracle they have not done this thing already.”

Samsin nodded, an act which seemed to take all his effort. Gavin looked from one to the other. In the dark, a few night insects started calling to one another.

“I’m still not sure what Samsin’s part in all this is? Why shouldn’t I just go to Brisson and tell him Samsin survived. How did they not figure out he wasn’t dead too, by the way?”

“Brisson sent men down to see body. They said he was dead and I do not blame them. I thought he was dead too.” Tadeo turned the spit and then pulled the skewer off the fire altogether. He leaned it against the side of a boulder, juices dripping down into the dirt and steam wafting up into the night air. Gavin’s mouth watered.

“And Samsin’s part in this?” Gavin asked, tearing his eyes away from the meat.

“Nikanor was a part of something within the Orinai,” Samsin whispered, barely loud enough for Gavin to hear. “A resistance.” Samsin licked his lips. “Before he died, he told me how to contact them.”

Gavin narrowed his eyes. “Why didn’t you say anything before?”

Samsin swallowed again and tried to focus on Gavin. It didn’t seem like he had very much control over his eyes.

“I—I did not believe it was needed. I am—I
was
a true Orinai Great One. Now—” He coughed. “Now I see the Path differently. Please, Gavin, you must help us. Please.” The last trailed off and Samsin’s eyelids drifted closed. For half a heartbeat Gavin thought he’d died, but then he saw the rise and fall of Samsin’s chest and relaxed a little.

“I put a thing in his drink to make him sleep,” Tadeo said. “He is as stubborn as one of your people, I think.”

Gavin wasn’t sure if he should be insulted or not.

“What exactly do you want me to do?” Gavin asked.

“Speak to Brisson. We need to let the people know about this thing. The army will come. We need to plan what it is that we will do.”

“I’m going to need more than just your word before I approach Brisson with something like this,” Gavin said. “What about him? Will he live?”

Tadeo shrugged. “Is up to him now. Wound will heal, eventually, with rest. He must have the will to live. As for you, this thing is true. I will show you the army tomorrow. You have bird on which you can fly, yes?”

Gavin nodded. “I do. I will meet you at sunrise.” A thought occurred to him. “But I will need your help in return. I need to find someone, the man you stopped from leaving the valley earlier.”

“I will do this thing,” Tadeo said, then picked up the skewer of meat and sliced off a long, thin piece in one smooth cut. It landed on Tadeo’s tray, juicy and glistening. “Do you want some?”

Gavin’s stomach growled and he grabbed his own wooden platter. Despite the troubling reservations bouncing around in his thoughts, he wasn’t going to pass up food.

***

By the time Gavin returned to his hut, it was well past midnight. He’d eaten far more meat that he should have and he’d walked slowly. He was glad of that, though, as he’d had a lot to think over. That Samsin was alive was a big part of it, but the Orinai army potentially sitting only a few days away with winter blowing frosty breath upon autumn’s toes was even more pressing.

Gavin blew out a long, heavy breath in front of the door to his hut, the breath forming a cloud of mist that vanished in the darkness. The chill night air felt especially cold now. It had taken on a whole new meaning for him in the last few hours. He turned the handle, pushed open the door, and stepped quietly into the room. Light glowed softly from a lamp on the table in the center of the room. Shallee sat in a small chair she’d gotten somewhere, one which rocked back and forth according to her motion. She looked up when Gavin entered. Her son lay contentedly dozing in her lap.

“What are you doing out so late, great leader of the Rahuli?” Shallee asked in a whisper. She smiled at him, though she looked about as tired as he felt.

“I took a walk,” Gavin shut the door carefully behind him. “What are you doing up?”

“This little one decided we needed to walk around a little too, the little monster. At least he’s handsome, like his father.”

Gavin felt a twinge of sadness pass through him. Shallee’s husband had been killed in the Oasis when Kaiden had drawn the genesauri monsters there. She’d given birth to their son after his death and the little boy would grow up never knowing his father. Despite that, Shallee still managed to be Gavin’s rock.

“What, Gavin?” Shallee asked, eyes flicking over him as she gently rocked in her chair. “You look as if your grandmother had caught you stealing the goat cheese again. What’s got you looking like a little stormcloud?”

Gavin gave her a rueful smile. “I never could hide anything from either of you.” His smile caught a little as memories of his grandmother danced through his mind. He hadn’t realized how much he still missed her until acknowledging the dull ache the memories created. “She’s why you call me ‘little stormcloud,’ isn’t it?”

Shallee gave him a small smile and picked up her son, who was beginning to fuss and squirm on her lap. “Tell me what’s going on.”

Gavin hesitated. He didn’t know himself if he believed what Samsin and Tadeo had just told him, or even how he felt about it. What they’d said about the information causing panic and chaos within the people here, however, had been true. He couldn’t afford to let the information spread any further than absolutely necessary, especially if it turned out not to be true.

Still, Gavin realized he wanted to tell her. Always before when he’d made difficult decisions, he’d made them alone. He’d
been
alone. When he’d climbed the walls of the Oasis to see if the legends his grandmother had always told him were true, he’d been alone. When he’d rallied the clans in the Oasis and set them to defending themselves as a people instead of just as clans, he’d been alone. When he faced down Brisson and fought Kaiden and Sarial, he’d been alone. He didn’t want to be alone anymore. But, at the same time, he realized Shallee wasn’t the one he needed to talk to.

“You’re right. Things have been going on,” Gavin said. “But I can’t tell you right now.” He walked toward the door to the room Shallee and Farah shared, then hesitated and looked over at Shallee.

The woman was pointedly ignoring him, looking down at her son’s face illuminated in the lamp light, but a small smile played at the corners of her eyes.