Tahn (16 page)

“I prayed with the lady night before last,” he said. “I trust God will help me.”

Tahn remembered his own prayer for Vari on the mountain, and something broke within him.
Vari will know God and the peace of God the rest of his days! Would that it might have been possible for me!
He turned away, suddenly unable to bear the boy’s presence.

Netta was dismayed by the look on Tahn’s face as he brushed past them. She had hoped he would be all right when he came out, as Vari had said. But he wasn’t.

Little Temas had seen it too. She jumped up and ran toward him. “Mr. Dorn, sir—”

Tahn turned around slowly, unable to ignore the child’s call.

She hesitated for an instant and then clung at his waist in a huge hug.

Tahn patted the girl’s head with a shaking hand and closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them, everyone was looking at him. “Return to your lesson, girl,” he said and turned from her quickly to go outside.

Netta followed him with her eyes.

“I don’t think he liked that,” Temas said sadly.

“Don’t think that,” Netta told the girl. “You did the very best thing you could have done.”

She looked at all the children and their carefully drawn letters in the dust. Vari was just coming up from the other chamber. “Jesus said we are to love one another,” she told them. “You mustn’t hesitate. You need it from each other dreadfully. But I fear your teacher has never known such things. He will need help learning to receive them for his own.”

She glanced toward the passage out. “Vari,” she asked. “Can you continue for me?”

“Yes, Lady,” he told her, glad that she would ask. It pleased him that she would take her leave of them so quickly and run to follow the Dorn.

Tahn was in the trees, brushing Smoke’s side, when the lady found him.

“Had I wanted your company, I would have stayed within,” he said.

“I understand, but I wanted to talk to you, please.”

“I told you never to follow a dark angel into the darkness, Lady. I might have killed you last night.” His face felt tight.

“You are not a dark angel, Tahn Dorn,” she said. “You are a child and a man, both hurting terribly.”

He looked over the horse’s back.

“How long have you had such dreams?”

He didn’t want to talk about it. He would rather mount and ride, go now and never come back. But he knew he wouldn’t. “Years,” he answered finally. “I was a child.”

She nodded. “A child with scars from burning water and the cruelty you could not escape?”

He looked down at the ground, putting the two together in his mind for the first time. The horrible hellfire waiting for him, and that terrible time so long ago when he’d screamed without remedy at the burning pain. How could she know?

“Mr. Dorn, you have carried your weight of pain all your life, but it need not continue so.”

“You’re wrong,” he said suddenly. “It can do nothing but continue! You ask me of my dreams. I know from them what the future holds. For years I have known! It was the dreams more than Samis that ruled me. The hell flames kept me obedient to him, because I knew how surely I would meet them were I not.”

He looked so desperate. Netta wanted to reach for his hand, but she couldn’t. “You do his evil deeds no more,” she said. “It does not rule you now.”

He sighed. “I have learned the folly of delay. How is it better to put off for a few hours or days what is inevitable? I shall die and I shall burn, all in a matter of time.”

She was struck by the absolute hopelessness of his words. She had never before met anyone so utterly convinced of hell who was not running for the remedy. “You believe in God, do you not?”

“I was taught not to,” he said. “But I know better.” He slapped Smoke’s rump, and the animal walked away.

“Then why do you not turn to him?” she asked.

“Turn to him?” He looked at her with fear in his eyes. “Lady,” he said, “I have no great longing to hear his rebuke.” He left her quickly and disappeared into the trees.

Her heart pounded. Had he never heard, never, about forgiveness? Nor the mercy of God? He must not go on with such a burden! “Mr. Dorn!” she cried, running after him.

Suddenly he was before her. “What do you want?” he raged. “Haven’t I said do not follow me? Do not ever follow me, for your safety’s sake! You can’t change what’s mine. Sow your seed where there is hope. In the children.”

“There is always hope,” she said softly. “For you as well. God knows what you’ve done. But Christ prayed for the forgiveness of his murderers. Do you think he would not forgive you?”

“Please.” Tahn turned away. He couldn’t bear this. Better never to see a treasure you can’t touch, never to hear of its unreachable goodness.

But she grabbed his arm. “Mr. Dorn!” she pleaded. “Listen to me! You know the judgment of God is real. But the Satan who hates you does not want you to hear of God’s mercy! Jesus died as the bearer of your penalty. You need not carry such torment when Jesus has torn away the chains of hell by his blood. Have you not heard that God so loved the world that he sent his only Son, that whosoever believes in him shall not perish, but have everlasting life?”

He stared at her. She was the widowed Trilett heiress. How could she speak to him so? “How could you believe these things for me?” he asked. “How can you not wish me the flames for the sake of your husband?”

“I have forgiven you,” she said. “But God prepared a way for that long before I was able. Do not fear him, Mr. Dorn. He has always loved you and shall not turn you away.”

It couldn’t be as she said. Could it? He was afraid to reach for such a hope lest it be dashed away. He whistled for Smoke. “I need to go.”

“No,” she told him. “We have food enough for now. I will leave you alone to think, if that is what you need truly.” She turned again toward the cave. “God be with you, sir,” she said. “Remember, when you are able, how much the little ones respect you and long for your company.”

He didn’t look at her and didn’t try to answer. He only stood in silence with a weight on his heart as she walked away from him and went back inside.

10

V
ari was not shaking by noon for lack of the drug. He seemed to be bearing no ill effects of his decision. Tahn took him and Stuva, Tam, and Briant exploring in the countryside around them. The following day he took Stuva and Tam into Merinth.

All the way there and all the way home, Tahn instructed the boys in things they might need to know about their location, its resources, and winter survival. They returned with more clothing and an abundance of food.

Tahn had been in a hurry to get back, to know if it had gotten more difficult for Vari. The first thing he did when he returned to the cave was look around for him. “Where’s Vari?” he asked.

“He took Doogan with him to the stream you were at yesterday,” Netta told him. “He was determined to catch fish.”

“You shouldn’t have let them go,” he snapped at her. “He should not be in the water right now.”

“He seemed fine. The Lord has smoothed his path.”

He turned from her and left to find them, muttering to himself about people without a common measure of sense. She just didn’t understand, that was all. Vari might have seemed fine then. But in ten minutes all that could change. He knew how Vari fished, underwater and by hand. It worried him. Doogan was a good swimmer but maybe not strong enough to help someone so much bigger if they were foolish enough to choose a deep pool.

He hurried Smoke along, though the horse hadn’t rested. He would go to the stream’s closest point and follow it upstream the way they’d gone yesterday. But suddenly he heard hooves. A running horse. He pulled the reins, jumped from the saddle, and led Smoke into the bushes for concealment. But it was Doogan who came crashing from the brush on the horse Tahn had left behind.

“Doogan!” Tahn yelled, his heart suddenly pounding as it never had before. Something was wrong or Doogan would not be alone.

“Sir!” The boy seemed amazed to see him out there. “Vari sent me for help!”

“Did you leave him in the water?” Tahn asked, pulling Smoke forward.

“Yes, but—”

“Just lead me! Move! Go!” They charged the horses forward as fast as the underbrush would allow.

You smoothed his path, did you, God?
Tahn raged in his mind.
Delivered him, did you?

When Doogan stopped, Tahn leaped from the saddle and flew toward the water. But he stopped on the bank and stood, stunned.

Vari was sitting on the opposite bank, holding the head of a dripping wet teenage girl. “She’s breathing all right now, I think,” he said. “I can’t believe you got here so fast.”

Tahn crossed the stream to them, grateful for the cool flowing water to calm the pounding fire that had been in his chest. “What happened?” he asked as he knelt beside them.

“I think she fell from up there.” Vari pointed to where the bank rose steeply just past them. Mud had been giving way along the bank, creating a newly precarious drop-off. At the bottom of it, at stream’s edge, lay an overturned basket.

Tahn looked carefully at the girl. She had a cut on her face, and what would become some nasty bruises on her cheek and one arm. But Vari was right that she seemed to be breathing well.

“You pulled her from the water?”

“Yes,” he answered. “She must’ve hit her head. She wasn’t making it good at all. We heard the splash.”

Tahn looked at him closely. He seemed to be more sound than he’d ever been. Maybe God
had
delivered him.

The girl was starting to stir. She opened her eyes slowly and looked up at them with trepidation.

“Rest yourself,” Tahn told her. “You fell. We’re here to help.”

She seemed confused and was looking around.

“Do you live out here somewhere?” Vari asked her.

She nodded. “Upstream,” she managed to say.

“A farm?” Tahn questioned.

“Yes, sir.” She closed her eyes again.

Tahn looked at Vari and Doogan. “We’ll have to find it and take her home,” he told them. “I’ll carry her. I’ll have to hold her in the saddle.”

“Why don’t you take Doogan?” Vari suggested. “Less weight for Smoke after the trip. I can manage her all right.”