“I was once told to burn a book is a heinous crime,” he observed, recalling one of his mother’s many lectures on the importance of learning.
Harlick jerked to his feet in fright, taking a few wary backward steps. “What do you want?” he demanded, the quaver in his voice draining any threat from the words.
“To talk.” Vaelin entered and crouched next to the fire, warming his hands and watching the books burn. Harlick said nothing, crossing his arms and refusing to meet his gaze.
“You are Gifted,” Vaelin continued. “You must be or you wouldn’t be here.”
Harlick’s eyes flashed at him. “Don’t you mean afflicted, brother?”
“You have no need to fear me. I have questions, questions a man of learning might be able to answer. Especially a man with a gift.”
“And if I can’t answer?”
Vaelin shrugged. “I shall seek answers elsewhere.” He nodded at the fire. “For a librarian you seem to have little respect for books.”
Harlick bridled, anger overcoming his fear. “I have given my life to the service of knowledge. I will not justify myself to one who does little but litter the Realm with corpses.”
Vaelin inclined his head. “As you wish, sir. But I should still like to ask you my questions. You may answer or no, the choice is your own.”
Harlick pondered in silence for a moment then moved back to the fur covered stool beside the fire, resuming his seat and cautiously meeting Vaelin’s eye. “Ask then.”
“Is the Seventh Order of the Faith truly extinct?”
The man’s gaze dropped immediately, fear once more clouding his face. He didn’t speak for a long time and when he did his words were a whisper. “Have you come here to kill me?”
“I am not here for you. You know that.”
“But you are in search of the Seventh Order.”
“My search is in service to the Faith and the Realm.” He frowned, realising the import of what Harlick had said. “You are of the Seventh Order?”
Harlick seemed shocked. “You mean to say you do not know? Why else would you be here?”
Vaelin was undecided whether to laugh or cuff the man in frustration. “I came in search of my fugitive brother,” he told Harlick patiently. “Not knowing what I would find. I know a little of the Seventh Order and wish to know more. That is all.”
Harlick’s face became rigid, as if he feared any display of emotion could betray him. “Would you reveal the secrets of your Order, brother?”
“Of course not.”
“Then do not expect me to divulge the secrets of mine. You can torture me, I know. But I’ll tell you nothing.”
Vaelin saw how the man’s hands trembled in his lap and couldn’t help admiring his courage. He had thought the Seventh Order, if it still existed, a malign group of Dark afflicted conspirators, but this frightened man and his simple courage spoke of something different.
“Did the Seventh Order orchestrate the killing of Aspects Sentis and Morvin?” he demanded, more harshly than intended. “Did they try to assassinate me during the Test of the Run? Did they deceive Hentes Mustor into murdering his father?”
Harlick flinched, gasping out a noise that was half a sob and half a laugh. “The Seventh Order guards the Mysteries,” he said, the words sounding like a quotation. “It practices its arts in service of the Faith. It has always been thus.”
“There was a war, centuries ago. Between the Orders, a war begun by the Seventh Order.”
Harlick shook his head. “The Seventh went to war with itself. It was sundered from within, the other Orders were drawn into the conflict. The war was long and terrible, thousands died. When it was over those of the Seventh who remained were feared beyond reason by the people and the nobility. Conclave decided the Seventh would disappear from the fiefs and be seen no more by the people. Its house was destroyed, its books burnt, its brothers and sisters scattered and hidden. But the Faith requires there to be a Seventh Order, visible or no.”
“You mean the Seventh was never truly destroyed? It works in secret?”
“I’ve told you too much. Ask me no more.”
“Do the Aspects know?”
Harlick shut his eyes tight and said nothing.
Suddenly furious Vaelin grabbed the man, lifting him clear of the stool, forcing him against the wall. “DO THE ASPECTS KNOW?”
Harlick shrank from him, quailing in his grasp, words bubbling from his lips amidst panicked spittle. “Of course they know. They know everything.”
Memories came in a flood as Harlick’s words struck home. The shift in Master Sollis’s eyes when he first said ‘Once there were seven’, Aspect Elera’s instant of fear at the same words, the way Sollis had exchanged glances with her after they told the tale of One Eye’s Dark abilities. And the knowledge behind Aspect Arlyn’s eyes. Am I a fool? he wondered. For not seeing this? The Aspects have been lying to the Faithful for centuries.
He released Harlick and went back to the fire. The books were little more than ash now, the leather bindings curled and charred black amidst the embers. “The other Gifted, they don’t know, do they?” he asked, glancing back at Harlick. “They don’t know what you are.”
Harlick shook his head.
“You have a mission here?”
“I cannot tell you anything further, brother.” Harlick’s voice was strained but determined. “Please do not ask me.”
“As you wish, brother.” He went to the doorway, gazing out at the moonlit ruins. “I would be grateful if you would omit mention of Brother Nortah’s survival in any report you make to your Aspect.”
Harlick shrugged. “Brother Nortah is not my concern.”
“Thank you.”
He wandered the ruins for hours, memories playing though his mind in a torrent. They knew, all this time. They knew. He couldn’t decide if his confusion was born of betrayal or something deeper. The Aspects embody the virtues of the Faith. They are the Faith. If they have lied…
“I really wish you’d come with us.” He looked up finding Nortah perched atop a massive piece of fallen statuary. It took Vaelin a moment to recognise it as the marble head of a bearded man, his carved expression one of deep contemplation. Surely one of the city’s luminaries commemorated in stone. Was he a philosopher or a king? A god perhaps. Vaelin leant against the statue’s forehead, running a hand over the deep lines in his brows. Whoever or whatever he had been was forgotten now. No more than a great stone head waiting for the ages to turn him to dust in a city where no one was left to remember his name.
“I… can’t,” he told Nortah eventually.
“You don’t sound so certain now.”
“Perhaps I’m not. Even so, there is much I need to know. I’ll only find answers in the Order.”
“Answers to what?”
There’s something growing. A threat, a danger, something that threatens us all. I’ve felt it for a long time, although it’s only now I realise it. Vaelin left it unsaid. Nortah had a new path now, a new family. Sharing would only burden him. “We’re all looking for answers, brother,” he said. “Though you appear to have found yours.”
“That I have.” Nortah leapt down from the statue and held out his sword. “You should take this as well as the talisman. It’ll add to your proof.”
“You may need it, the road to the Northern Reaches will be long and hazardous. These people will need your protection.”
“There are other forms of protection. I’ve spilled enough blood with this. I intend to live the rest of my days without taking another life.”
Vaelin took the sword. “When will you leave?”
“There’s no point waiting for winter. Convincing the others may be difficult though. Some of them have been here for years.” He paused, his expression oddly sheepish. “I didn’t kill the bear.”
“What?”
“During the Test of the Wild. I didn’t kill it. The shelter I built collapsed in the wind. I was desperate, freezing, wandering in the snow. I found a cave and thought the Departed had guided me to shelter. Unfortunately, the bear who lived there didn’t appreciate visitors. It chased me for miles, all the way to the edge of a cliff. I managed to grab on to a branch, the bear wasn’t so lucky. Kept me fed for a while though.”
Vaelin laughed, the sound was strange amidst the ruins, out of place. “You bloody liar.”
Nortah grinned. “Next to the bow it was my major talent.” His smile faded. “I’ll miss you, and the others. Can’t say I’m sorry about the Battle Lord though.”
They walked back to the camp, fed the waning fire and talked of the Order and their brothers for hours. When Nortah finally went to the shelter he shared with Sella, Vaelin settled down in his cloak knowing that in the morning he would wake early and leave without a farewell. The reason came to him before he tumbled into sleep: I want to stay.
Part IV
In addition to his many lies regarding the supposed perfidy of Alpiran interlopers, King Janus had need of a legal device to supplement his premise for war. Accordingly, extensive digging into the royal archive unearthed an obscure treaty dating back some four hundred years. What was in fact a lapsed and fairly standard trade agreement on tariffs between the Lord of Asrael and the then independent city states of Untesh and Marbellis enabled the king’s Lord of Justice to seize on a minor clause formalising arrangements to cooperate in suppressing Meldenean pirates. Through a mixture of inventive translation from the original Alpiran text and basic sophistry this clause was twisted into an invitation to assume sovereignty. Thus was the lie fabricated that the invasion was simply a seizure of property which already belonged to the king.