Free Vault Of Heaven 01 - The Unremembered by Peter Orullian Page A

would mean to be a sodalist for real. And he knew suddenly a simple truth: Standing fast with a friend in his final moments, sharing whatever fear or pain or relief would come, was the measure of his devotion.
    And so he held his friend’s hand. And waited.
    Sometime later, Ogea stopped breathing.
    Vendanj looked up and brushed a gentle palm over the old man’s open eyes, drawing down the lids. He gently placed the man’s hand on the bed, then stood. His body formed a silhouette against the window behind him, nearly blackening the room.
    He turned and spoke quietly. “The time has come for us to finish our talk, Tahn, but not here. Hambley, can we take dinner somewhere in private?”
    Hambley still stared at Ogea. “He’s really dead, isn’t he? And he fell from my ladder.”
    “He was dead before he entered the Hollows,” Vendanj assured Hambley. “There is no time to grieve for him now. We must speak in secret.”
    The innkeeper drew in a bracing breath. “We can use the townsmen’s chamber.”
    “Well enough,” Vendanj replied.
    Hambley opened the door and disappeared to make his preparations. Vendanj went directly to Tahn and reached down to take the sword they’d retrieved from Geddy’s smithy. He gave it a brief look, then motioned them into the hall. The large man brushed past Sutter and Tahn, his cloak stirring an indoor breeze as he went. They followed, but Braethen remained kneeling at the side of the bed, staring at the pallid face of the reader. After a moment, he reached out and gently touched Ogea’s kind face. He whispered, “By Will and Sky, thank you for your belief in me.”
    *   *   *
     
    Tahn strode down the hall and through a back door into the townsmen’s chamber. The hearth, a fire blazing within, dominated the inner wall. Muted voices could be heard from the common room, where hushed talk conjectured on the condition of the reader. The windows admitted watery light from the skies without, leaving the private room in half shadow. Hambley drew a flame from the fire onto the end of a small dried reed, and returned to the wooden table in the center of the room. A brass fixture there held ten candles in a wide oval pattern. Hambley lit them all and extinguished the reed.
    “I will fetch some bread and bitter.” He bustled through the door and was gone.
    Each of them stood behind one of the wide, high-backed chairs, as though sitting committed them to something they were uncertain they wanted to join. Vendanj sat and Sutter looked over at Tahn, who shrugged and sat down. Sutter and Braethen followed.
    Vendanj glanced at Braethen, then began. “The things we must discuss are matters of import. Let’s begin with Tahn. I think there is more to the story you started to tell here not an hour ago.”
    Behind them the sounds of the hall grew steadily more raucous, some men chewing hungrily, others arguing, many laughing nervously. But on this side of the fire, in the small circle around the rough table, quiet, intense conversation went on with a man whose face looked trustworthy, but who was also filled with the knowledge of an outlander. Would he have knowledge of the creature Tahn had seen in the trees controlling the very rain itself?
    Tahn related his encounter with the creature in the woods, the darkness in the rain, and the dry ground with two scorched, fist-punched holes. When he’d finished, Vendanj regarded him a moment, but asked no questions. Then he spoke again.
    “There are choices ahead. Only Braethen has made the Change, but Tahn has no father to counsel him, and you”—Vendanj pointed at Sutter—“I’d rather leave behind. But you know too much. If we leave you here, you’re a danger to us, to yourself, and to your adoptive parents.”
    Tahn turned to his friend. Sutter was the son of Filmoere and Kaylla Te Polis, the best root farmers in all the Hollows. Tahn had been in their home a thousand times. Vendanj must be mistaken. Adopted? But his friend’s sheepish