The Shattered Vigil Read online

  I checked that thought. Friends came into a man’s life and they left it—that was the nature of the world—but I’d had the opportunity for something more. Elwin’s desperate, dying gift in the House of Passing had left me with two almost equally bitter choices. Marry Gael and watch her and my children age and die while I remained young, or grant her uncle, Count Alainn, his greatest desire and let her marry Lord Rupert.

  “Don’t remind me,” I said, my voice tight. “And you’re probably right. Still, it can’t hurt to try.” I paused to look around the room that had been set aside for the Vigil’s grisly task. A few paces away, Bronwyn and Toria Deel—what remained of the true Vigil, along with Pellin and Jorgen—each delved one of the prisoners. “I need to get out of this room for a while.” A thought occurred to me. “And the cathedral.”

  Bolt’s face shifted into a look of mild disapproval, which was the same as saying that it lost whatever small expression it held. He could have given rocks lessons on how to be stony. “Are you going to see her again?”

  He didn’t have to say who her was—ever and always there would be only one. Gael. “No.” I saw him relax, a minute shift in the set of his shoulders, as if he no longer anticipated drawing the sword at his side. “I haven’t seen Ealdor since before Bas-solas.” I sighed. “Pellin is going to send me from Collum once we’re done delving everyone who went insane. I need to say good-bye.”

  He turned to signal Bronwyn, nothing more than a quick flutter of the fingers of his right hand and a tilting of the head, but I saw her rise and approach as if she’d been summoned. Her guard, Balean, shadowed her, protecting her against whatever threat might arise in a cathedral. My hackles went up. Pellin and Bronwyn were both old beyond belief. I didn’t know just how old, but they accumulated their life in decades the way others numbered individual years. Neither of them trusted me for reasons I couldn’t control any more than the color of my eyes.

  “How do you fare, Lord Dura?” she asked. Not Willet or Dura, always Lord Dura. Lady Bronwyn never failed in the use of the title, a fact that had escaped my attention until I discovered her age. She and Pellin had been born in an older, more formal time. Even their speech carried hints of an accent that no one living would be able to identify, vestiges of the language all people had once spoken that had changed over the course of centuries.

  “Well enough,” I said. I briefly considered playing dumb and just as quickly rejected the idea. The events of the festival had taught me that I needed the help of others in the Vigil no matter how hard I might try to deny it. If trust could be established between us, it would be up to me to take the first step. “I’m going to visit a couple of friends, one here in the cathedral and another in the city.”

  She nodded in approval, but the corners of her eyes tightened just a fraction, giving the lie to her expression.

  “Friends are bless and balm to me:

  One to mirror,

  Two for strength,

  Three to reveal what must be seen,

  Four of us in perfect unity.

  Different as we can be,

  Yet we command eternity.”

  She nodded her head as if there were some particularly deep wisdom contained within the singsong that I couldn’t fail to see with her. She didn’t dispense children’s rhymes as often as Bolt invented his own militaristic quips, but it didn’t take a gift to see that she had spent quite a bit of time with them. I couldn’t help but feel Bolt saw me as a raw recruit while Bronwyn looked upon me as an untutored schoolboy.

  “Who are you going to visit?” she asked.

  The directness of the question surprised me, but I stifled my initial response. I had no secrets from the Vigil. None. They’d delved me and those closest to me. If I attempted to dissemble or refused to answer, I would only give them cause to believe that the dark scroll, the vault, in my head had taken control of me at last. The irony would have been laughable were it not so incredibly tragic. I held the same scroll in my mind that I had been charged with destroying in those who’d murdered others during Bas-solas.

  No wonder the Vigil didn’t—couldn’t—trust me. “Custos and Ealdor,” I said.

  She nodded. “I would like to accompany you, if you will permit it. The librarian is of particular interest to me.”

  The request was lightly made, at least by her tone, but I could see Lady Bronwyn steeling herself, a soldier shouldering an unpleasant duty. She, like Toria Deel and me, had spent days breaking the vaults and minds of others, and yet my intention to visit a pair of old friends elicited this reaction.

  My stomach started a promenade around my insides, my fear fighting against my curiosity. Why did she want to come? She’d left the choice up to me. I didn’t want company, but questions crowded my discomfort aside. As usual, my curiosity won without breaking a sweat.

  “Of course, Lady Bronwyn. I will welcome your company.”

  Chapter 2

  I worked my way through the halls of the Merum cathedral, gathering and replaying random memories as I went. Somewhere beneath me on the lowest level, Peret Volsk lay imprisoned. In the halls above him, scores of people were interred, waiting for the Vigil to break their vaults. Once we’d completed that task, I would leave the people of Bunard, with their familiar faces and handclasps.

  Somehow, I couldn’t see it as an adventure anymore. I’d be leaving behind my heart and soul, ripped from me in the person of Gael. Dark thoughts drifted through my mind. It would have been easier if she’d died during Bas-solas. I imagined myself riding out of the city, determined to exact vengeance on whatever power had been loosed from the Darkwater. The heels of our boots struck echoes from the floor, my thoughts influencing my feet. The pain twisted, accusing me. No, it would have been better if I had died.

  It wasn’t until we entered the library and I saw Custos across the massive domed hall that I realized the absence of almond-crusted figs in my pocket and a random book or scroll in my hand. As we drew nearer, Custos noted my empty hands as well. For a moment we stared at each other, unsure of where to begin without the customary props of our conversation. His gaze shifted to Bronwyn and her guard before returning to me.

  “I’m sorry, old friend,” I said as I showed him my empty hands. “I forgot.”

  His stricken expression cut me. Lines of grief put years on his face that didn’t belong there.

  “I’ll go get them,” I said. “Wait for me.”

  One of his hands, the fingers worked thin by incessant writing, waved my concern away. “It’s not the figs, Willet. I’ve just received word there’s been a fire in Caisel.” Tears welled in his eyes. “Most of the library is gone. The brothers managed to save a few of the texts, but it will take lifetimes of copy work to restore it.”

  I had nothing to say. Books were more than Custos’s life work; they were his friends. Hating the thought of adding to his pain, I put my hand on his arm. “I’m going to have to leave soon, Custos,” I said. “I can’t stay here.”

  His shoulders lifted a little before settling, and a sad smile made a brief appearance on his features before it too drifted away. “It’s the unforgiving rule of history, Willet. Every book has its epilogue. I must say I’ve enjoyed this one more than any other.”

  I nodded, but inside a piece of myself seemed to break off and float away. “Is there some place private we can go that has ink and parchment?”

  “Of course.”

  As he turned, leading us to the sanctum, Bolt leaned in to mutter in my ear. “This is another reason the Vigil lead solitary lives. How many times would you have to say good-bye to your closest friends before you decided you couldn’t bear it anymore?”

  “What about Toria Deel?” I asked, referring to the youngest member of the Vigil. From hints they had dropped, the Elanian was over a hundred, though she looked to be of an age with me or younger.

  He dipped his head a fraction, as if I’d found a flaw in his argument. “Ah. She is more social than the rest, even more than Laewan was.” A
soft chuckle escaped him. “But she’s Elanian,” he said as if that explained everything.

  I’d never been to the southernmost country on our continent, but I’d heard the tales from merchants of the fiery, dark-skinned, dark-haired southerners. At the time, I’d dismissed most of them, presuming it was the ale talking, but now I wasn’t so sure.

  Custos closed the door of the sanctum and led me to the trestle table in the center of the room, Bronwyn and Balean stopping with Bolt a few paces away. Along with the knowledge the librarian had given me on partitioning my mind, the domed room had been my means of survival weeks before, when Laewan had tried to break into my mind. I stored all of my memories in an exact replica of this sanctum within my head, safeguarding them against the enemy we faced.

  “I need that mind of yours again, my friend,” I said, taking up the quill and inkpot to draw the writing I’d seen on the black scrolls. My hand, more accustomed to a sword after years in the king’s service than a quill, couldn’t quite replicate the beauty of the flowing script I’d seen. I closed my eyes for a moment, recalling the exact appearance of the words that had been Bronach’s death sentence, then transferred them to the paper before me. “Have you ever seen writing like this?”

  I stepped aside as he leaned over the parchment to gaze at the whorls and loops that flowed across its width. I could almost sense his mind sorting through every book and sheet he’d ever read, searching for some connection, and amazement filled me again. Custos remembered every detail, down to the last word, and he’d consumed the contents of the cathedral’s massive library.

  But he straightened, shaking his head. “No, Willet, and what’s more I’ve never even heard mention of such a script. Where is it from?”

  Behind me, Bronwyn cleared her throat and Balean’s posture shifted. I resisted answering.

  Custos didn’t possess the same ability to read people as he did parchment, but Lady Bronwyn hadn’t been subtle. The librarian’s eyes flicked to her before he spoke. “One of your, ah, associates, came to visit. They took the writing from Tiochus I showed you earlier. I think they meant to burn it.”

  For an instant, I could see anger flickering in the depths of his eyes. As keeper of the vast library in the Merum cathedral, Custos prized the writings that filled it above all else, tending and keeping them so that the knowledge contained within ancient and not-so-ancient texts would never be lost. The purposeful destruction of something as precious as a first-century writing on the gift of domere would be an act of apostasy to him.

  Bronwyn’s face softened. She stepped forward and laid a gloved hand on the librarian’s arm. “Be at peace,” she said. “The Vigil do not destroy the texts that they find regarding their gift. The loss of knowledge would hurt them as much as you. They are all tended and safeguarded.”

  Custos nodded, but an instant later I saw an expression dawn on his face that I’d never seen before. “All of them?” he said, his voice almost too soft to be heard. “How many? Where?”

  She took a half step back.

  Custos pursued her and reached out to take her hand, but Balean caught his wrist. “You have to let me see them.”

  Bronwyn started to shake her head, but before she could answer, I spoke. “You’re right, of course.”

  “Have you gone daft?” Bolt said with a jerk.

  Members of the Vigil didn’t usually start to slip until they were very old, but I did a quick check to make sure my thoughts were still my own anyway. “I don’t think so,” I said, turning to meet Bronwyn’s gaze. “It only makes sense. As far as I know, no one else in the world can do what Custos does.” I waved my hand at the room around us, indeed, the entire library. “Who else can memorize so much?”

  Bronwyn’s eyes narrowed in thought. “He’s memorized the entire contents of this room?”

  I laughed, sweeping my arm to indicate all that resided beyond the door of the sanctum. “No, I mean he’s memorized the entire library. All of it.”

  Custos met Bronwyn’s gaze for a moment, then scuffed his feet like an embarrassed schoolboy.

  I couldn’t keep from laughing. “Whenever I visit, I pick a book at random and open it to some page Aer or chance decrees and read him a passage. The challenge is for him to finish the passage from memory.” I laughed at the look on Bronwyn’s face. “It’s our game. The price if I lose is a packet of almond-crusted figs.” I patted Custos on the top of his bald head. “I always go to the market first. It saves time.”

  Bronwyn shook her head. “There’s no such gift, talent, or temperament that can do such a thing.”

  “Longevity doesn’t equate with omniscience,” Custos said.

  “Perhaps people are more wondrous than you know,” I added before Bronwyn could respond. “Come with me into the library for a moment.”

  Without waiting, I left Custos and Bolt in the sanctum with Bronwyn in tow. Balean followed, his posture vigilant as if he expected assassins to leap from the pages of some story and attack.

  I paused to swing my arm in a wave that encompassed the entire library. “Choose anything. Book or scroll, old or new—it won’t matter.”

  Her green eyes narrowed as she considered my challenge. “I’ve seen tricksters perform at nearly every court in the world, Lord Dura. You have no ‘suggestions’ or ‘guidance’ to offer on my random selection?”

  I laughed. “I’m no magician, Lady Bronwyn. If you like, I will return to the sanctum and await you there.”

  She cocked her eyebrows at me, the look speculative. “No, Lord Dura. That won’t be necessary.” With half a dozen quick steps she moved to the nearest case and selected a book from the bottom shelf, then lifted it and blew, eyeing the displaced dust with satisfaction.

  “No one has read this in a while, it seems.” She smiled at me. “Shall we return, Lord Dura?”

  My expression mirrored hers. “By all means.”

  Custos stood, a shy smile lifting the corners of his mouth as Lady Bronwyn stopped three paces short of where he stood and flipped the book open to a page near the end of the text. “How is the game played?” she asked me.

  “I pick a random spot in the book or scroll, as you have done, and then I read enough of the book to distinguish it from any of the other texts in the library.” I shrugged. “It usually doesn’t take much, a sentence, two at the most.”

  Mild surprise wreathed her features, but now I saw genuine interest there as well, not just the appreciative disbelief people wore for the court magicians. Bronwyn cleared her throat and read. “‘In the one thousandth four hundredth and sixty-fourth year of the coming of the exordium, we discovered—’”

  Custos held up his hand. “‘—gold in the mountains of the farthest north. We lacked the equipment needed to mine, but most of the men were unwilling to leave, remaining past the last day of autumn to pan the streams coming from the frozen wastes. I returned south, tracking my way through the ancient trees and rumors of the Everwood, leaving ahead of the winter. The men I’d come to think of as brothers, I never saw again.’”

  Bronwyn, her mouth gaping, gazed at the age-spotted dome of Custos’s head as he stared at a spot on the floor a pace or two in front of his feet. “Your pardon, honored librarian, I didn’t bring any figs with me.” She shook her head and lifted the book in her hand to trace a pattern on the dusty cover. “You are required. Who else besides those of us in this room is aware of your . . . ” She paused, searching for a word. “Hmmm . . . ” She clasped her hands. “I can’t very well call it a gift or a talent, or even a temperament. You have an ability, Custos. Who else knows of it?”

  Custos shook his head. “No one except those in this room. I was afraid they would take me away from my books.”

  I didn’t need my gift to interpret the expression of ownership dawning on Bronwyn’s age-lined face. “Welcome to the Vigil, Custos,” I said with a smile. “May Aer have mercy on your soul,” I uttered under my breath.

  “It will be up to Pellin, of course,” Bronwyn said.
>
  I nodded, but I knew once Pellin accepted the truth of Custos’s unique ability, he would welcome him.

  “How many writings are there in this secret library?” Custos asked, peering at Bronwyn without fully lifting his head.

  Bronwyn squinted. “I’ve never counted them, but the space required is considerable. Thousands, perhaps.”

  Custos’s face filled with longing even as he nodded. “There would have been many at first, but as the gift supposedly died and then even rumor of it faded, the writings would have slowed to a trickle before they stopped altogether.”

  Bronwyn nodded. “True. I’ll speak to Pellin at the first opportunity.”

  I caught Custos’s attention and pointed to the looping figures I’d traced on the parchment. “But we have other matters to attend to as well.”

  Custos picked up the sheet. “Some things aren’t learned from books in a library. I’ll show it to some of the brothers who’ve traveled the southern continent. Perhaps they will be able to make something of it.”

  We looped our way back through the library and out into the stable yard before setting off for Ealdor’s little church. It would be good to see him again, though I suspected he would still be mourning the loss of a portion of his flock. The slaughter of Bas-solas had taken a heavy toll on the lower merchants’ section of the city, where his parish sat nestled against the river just across from the poor quarter.

  I rode Dest through Criers’ Square next to Lady Bronwyn, with our guards flanking us on the outside. We were twenty paces past it when I reined in, pointing to the intersection where representatives of the four orders of the church declaimed their interpretation of the exordium and the rest of the liturgy each day.

  Something was wrong.

  “What do you see?” I asked Bolt.

  He gave me a facial equivalent of a shrug. “The usual. Each order has their crier on a stand, waiting their turn.”