Palimpsest

In the port cities along the western coast, there is a toast that old sailors and dockworkers sometimes raise without being able to say where it comes from or what it means. Three words, spoken quietly, glasses touched.

For the unwritten.

When asked, most who say it will tell you it is simply something their father taught them. Beyond that, nobody knows.

— The Annals of Marialis, Volume IV: Trade Routes and Traveler Accounts. Compiler's footnote.

Chapter 26 For Rebels

Harrik hadn't moved from the window for some time, but he was no longer watching the street. He had found a stool, sat down, and turned his back against the window. With his ear pressed to the half-open shutter beside him, he seemed to be listening to what was outside. A few steps away, at the corner, Veylith was watching the other street through the window there. The others had sunk down wherever they could in the dim half-light of the workshop. As the crowd had drawn further off, the inside had grown quieter and quieter, settling into a still moment.

Darian was sitting beside Ravah in a corner, working on her wound — or rather, working to keep it from getting worse. Tivver, taking sips from a flask he'd pulled out of his pocket, was trying not to let Vaelra see him drinking. Vaelra had caught him at it and was making hand gestures at him: come over here. The way she could practically shout without speaking had always impressed Tivver. Even so, when he ignored her and started looking up at the ceiling, Vaelra began trying to get up from where she was. Realizing he wasn't going to escape her, Tivver finally signaled stay where you are and headed over. Kaelin was a little further off, near the windows, seemingly looking at the iron pieces on the workbench. But she was actually watching Veylith standing by the other window.

"That's a fine dagger," Harrik said suddenly, his voice as low as he could make it. Even so, it was enough to startle Kaelin, who hadn't noticed him coming up beside her.

"This… was my father's," Kaelin answered, caught off guard. He was sitting on the stool turned toward her, but his eyes were closed.

"I know."

"You know?"

"Let's say I remember now."

Now Kaelin's whole attention was on him. She was staring at him in astonishment. A great many things were going through her head, but nothing came out of her mouth.

"Twenty years," Harrik went on, with a sigh. "For twenty years I lived with an emptiness inside me. An emptiness that came with me wherever I went, that never filled. As though something had been stolen from me, and the thing that had been stolen was the most basic part of who I was. The worst of it was not even knowing what had been stolen — not even being able to put the feeling into words."

Kaelin had taken another step closer, and she had begun to feel what he was feeling. Standing in front of her was a man who'd been broken deep down, and yet now felt whole again.

"But today, at last, I got back what was stolen from me. Someone, or something, gave it back to me — and gave it back to everyone. It seems what was stolen really was one of the things that made me who I was." He stopped for a moment and swallowed. His eyes were still closed. "I was part of a great rebellion. Back then I was a young man your age, full of fire. I was surrounded by people who fought for their ideals. And it wasn't a small group either. We were part of a movement whose followers were growing across nearly the whole of the lands. The Ledger, and Zimuvath, who had become its instrument, had brought everyone under control. The Zuvari faith was something I still believed in, but once those sons of bitches who used the faith began to take control of all the script magic, the matter no longer had anything to do with belief. The Ledger had already been working for over a thousand years, slipping into every place and laying the groundwork to take hold. By the time they had the religion and the wealthy in hand, we were at the end of the game. Not just human kingdoms — they were taking control of the dwarven, elven, orcish, and other races' kingdoms too."

Kaelin had crouched down beside him as she listened. Many questions were on her mind, but she didn't cut in — she was only just realizing how much there was she needed to learn.

"But still, a wave of rebellion was rising among the trampled guilds and the common people. It had been happening for many long years, in fact, but people are inclined not to see the road they've taken until they reach the cliff's edge. In the end, a plan was made, and four kingdoms moved to seize their governments at the same moment. That's as much as I knew, at least. At the start, everything went according to plan. But then Warden units armed with war scripts began to surround us. The most terrifying thing was the walls that suddenly began appearing in the streets. Before we could understand what was happening, we'd been trapped. They knew we were coming, and they had let it happen so they could catch every one of us." Harrik's teeth were clenched, as though he were living the moment again. Kaelin still listened without breaking in.

"After that, every one of us collapsed where we stood, and when I got up there was an emptiness inside me. I had not the slightest memory of the rebellion, not the faintest idea of what had been done in that time. It had become nothing more than a feeling that grew vaguer the harder I looked at it. They had finally rid themselves of their greatest threat." Then his expression eased, and his voice softened. "While the plans for the rebellion were being made, I went to a great many secret meetings. Most of them were either in the back rooms of taverns or in someone's house. There was a man I saw and spoke with at many of those meetings — much older than me. An elven man. He was actually one of the leaders of the rebellion." He paused for an instant, smiling.

"Feyndor," he said, with audible admiration in his voice. "An elf, but a strange one — drank like a man, sang filthy songs with us. There was almost no one who didn't love him. A few times I had the chance to attend meetings at his house. His wife always made us good things to eat, and would sit with us and plan. She would even drink with us. In fact she could drink much harder than Feyndor." He let out a quiet breath and finally smiled. Then, when he opened his eyes at last, Kaelin was crouched in front of him, looking at him with her eyes brimming.

"They had a small child too. A little girl full of life, running around inside with her father's dagger, her hair more red than his and looking like it had caught fire — she used to entertain all of us."

Kaelin couldn't hold her tears back any longer. She had laid her head on Harrik's knee and, with a slight trembling, was silently weeping. Harrik had laid his hand on her hair, and for an instant he himself had been close to tears.

"I don't know what happened to him, kid," he said, gently stroking her hair. "I remember everything before, but what they did to us is still dark to me. The fact that they didn't do away with us but wiped our memories and used us is real. Although they may not have done the same to the leaders that mattered to them." He says it, but raising his head and seeing Kaelin's face turned up to him, he can't help but add, "Still, we can't know what happened — that bastard fought like the devil himself."

Kaelin finally wiped her eyes and stood up again. Gripping the hilt of the dagger at her belt firmly, she said, "I still don't know what's happening to me, or what I'm capable of. But I can tell you this much — this isn't over."

"I knew it," Vaelra cut in from behind. Kaelin realized in that moment that all of them had been listening. They were all looking at her with shining eyes. Veylith was still looking out the window, but Kaelin knew she was feeling the same thing.

Harrik smiled, got up, opened a drawer of the workbench beside him, and pulled out a half-bottle of rum. Tivver's and Vaelra's eyes went straight to the bottle. Then Harrik righted two tin cups that had been turned upside down on the bench. "You may look like your father, kiddo, but when I look at you it's your mother I see more. And she was a great deal more frightening than him."

He turned to her with the two cups full and held one out to her. "But there's something different in you — something far greater than them." He looked at her for a few seconds and raised his cup into the air. "To rebels," he said. Kaelin clinked her cup against his and brought it to her mouth. Just before drinking, Harrik whispered to himself, "For the unwritten." Then they both tipped their cups back. After that, they looked at each other for a moment.

"Can we drink to her father too, Mister Harrik, sir?" Tivver jumped in. Ravah and Darian shook their heads, looking embarrassed for him, while Vaelra elbowed him with, "Shut up, Tivver." At which the two of them looked at each other and started laughing. Kaelin took the bottle and walked over to them, refilled her own cup and handed it to Tivver. Harrik turned back and headed for the window, throwing Veylith a glance from the corner of his eye.

In that moment a man's shout from outside drew all of their attention back out. Harrik looked carefully through the gap in the shutter and said, "They're moving." Veylith closed the shutter she'd been watching the other side from and made her way over to him. From the gap she too looked at the soldiers gathered in the courtyard. With an officer at their head, the unit was preparing to leave, and there was no sound now from the gathered men. With another shout from the officer, the unit finally began to move. In formation, stepping all at once, they came out of the courtyard and turned in their direction. The footsteps were drawing nearer, the sound was rising. Echoing between the empty streets and the buildings that showed no human face, the footsteps tightened around Harrik and the others, who were beginning to feel as if caught in a trap inside the workshop.

The wood and the iron pieces hung from the ceiling were starting to shake from the vibrations. With the thought of a unit of soldiers a few steps outside that could destroy them in an instant, Tivver and Vaelra both threw back the rum in their hands at the same time. Right next to them Ravah waited, her batons gripped tight. Veylith and Harrik, in front of the windows facing the road, were trying to see out through the barely-open gaps in the closed shutters. Kaelin was standing almost in the dead center of the workshop. To keep from making a sound she hadn't moved from where she was for several minutes.

The noise had reached its peak now. With every footfall the workshop's shelves and the many things hung from the ceiling rattled, and even the shutters were stirring slightly. The instant Kaelin turned her head toward the slightly-open shutter on her left, a hammer hanging by its head between two nails on the ceiling caught her eye. With the next footfall the front of the hammer slid loose, and it began to swing as if it would fall. Held now by a single nail by the slightest tilt at its tip, the hammer had to fall any moment. Kaelin slowly took a step, and just as she was taking the second one, the hammer at last came free. With a flash of reflex she reached out and managed to catch it by the handle. But she couldn't keep her foot, still in the air, from coming down hard on the floor. Harrik and Veylith both turned at once and looked at her. The footsteps stopped dead.

For a few seconds that felt like hours, every one of them held their breath and looked at Kaelin. Her arm stretched out forward, the hammer in her hand, she stood there frozen stiff. Veylith had her hands on the weapons at her belt, waiting in a battle-ready stance, when another shout went up and the footsteps started up again. The instant they understood that the soldiers were moving off in formation, they all let out their breath. Kaelin slowly pulled herself together and set the hammer down on the bench. Then she went over to Veylith, who was still watching the outside through the gap in the shutter.

"They're moving away," Veylith said, without looking at her. After turning to her, more relaxed now, she went on, "Good save."

"I know," Kaelin answered in a whisper. "Took at least two years off my life." At that Veylith smiled, and looked outside again, but this time toward where Harrik was.

"How many?" she asked quietly, whispering toward him. Harrik went on watching the street without turning, but he raised his right hand and held up two fingers. "Good," Veylith said to herself, and went over to him.

"But both of them can see the whole street," Harrik said, when Veylith reached him. Then he moved aside so she could see for herself, and started thinking.

Looking through the gap, Veylith saw, on each of the courtyard's two corners facing the road, a raised platform with stairs up to it, and a sentry standing on each one. Between them was the distance of four buildings, and the street, after the soldiers had gone, had emptied out and grown still quieter. The only sound was the receding footfalls of the soldiers. When she turned back inside, there was a thoughtful expression on her face.

"What?" Kaelin, standing right behind her, asked at once.

"Too far and too quiet," she answered, sighing.

"Meaning we can't shoot them from here, because the guns make too much noise," Harrik cut in. "And if we run at them, sooner or later they'll see us coming and blow their whistles."

"We have to find a way to get to them without being seen," Veylith said, finishing his thought.

"What if we go around from behind?" Kaelin tried.

"Whichever way we come from, they'll see us coming out of the courtyard," Harrik answered, shaking his head.

"What if Kae did her helpless damsel act again? Last time she almost had even me fooled," Tivver jumped in from behind.

"What?" Vaelra rounded on him at once.

"You should've seen it — you'd have been proud, no question," Tivver said, throwing her a wicked smile.

Kaelin felt slightly embarrassed at this, but still looked at Harrik in expectation. Harrik shook his head no. "Your description's everywhere by now, and these look like experienced soldiers besides. They wouldn't leave their posts for a trick that simple."

"We can't go back from here," said Ravah, who had been silent for a long while. "There has to be a way to get close to them without being seen. Maybe through the buildings, or over the rooftops."

"The buildings aren't tall enough, and I don't think there's any way through inside them either," Veylith answered the suggestion this time.

"What if we changed clothes?" Darian put in, coming over. "We could put on Warden uniforms, maybe, to keep from drawing suspicion. If we can't get there in hiding, let's try to walk over there as if we belonged."

"Unfortunately, it'd be hard to find a uniform that didn't have blood on it," Kaelin said this time.

"And even if we did — who's going to put on a Warden uniform?" Vaelra muttered. "The dwarf, the gnome, the old smith?"

Every one of them knew there wasn't a single person among them who could pass for a Warden. But Harrik, who hadn't spoken in all this time, had drifted off into thought in a corner. Then, "Maybe you have a point," he said, breaking out of his thoughts and cutting in. They all turned to him at once. But Harrik was still gazing into the corner as if he were thinking.

"This is the part where you defend your ridiculous idea," Tivver said finally, impatiently.

"Maybe we can't walk over there as though we belonged, but we can go without looking like a threat," Harrik said, then turned and threw Tivver a glance. Tivver had never seen Harrik laugh, but he could have sworn the man was grinning to himself.

…

A few minutes later, all of them were out on the platform on the side of the workshop facing the side road. While Veylith watched the sentries from around the corner, Harrik and Ravah were carrying newly-made wooden barrels in her direction. They had brought out at least seven or eight barrels and stood them up where the sentries couldn't see them.

"Showtime," Harrik said, when he was done arranging the barrels, looking at Tivver. Without answering, Tivver headed over to him, but the look on his face was one of obvious unease. Darian followed him with a similar expression.

"I think we could still come up with another plan," Tivver said finally, stopping when he reached the barrels.

Vaelra, at the workshop's entrance, by now strong enough to stand on her own, cut in: "Sorry, Tiv — but unfortunately this situation has us over a barrel."

"Oh, very nice — was that your first joke?" Tivver shot back, irritated. Vaelra grinned to herself, slyly, looking pleased with herself.

"Nothing to be done — come on," Darian said, with a tense but resigned expression. Then he hopped into one of the barrels with the lid still off. Tivver, at this, swore at the barrel in front of him and climbed into it. "Sorry that none of us would fit in these barrels," Harrik said, but his face was telling another story.

"You're enjoying this, aren't you, old man?" Tivver asked from inside the barrel, with a weary look.

"Not at all," Harrik answered. "We really scraped the bottom of the barrel for ideas," he said, and couldn't quite suppress the smirk that crossed his face.

When Veylith turned to them from the corner, expression unchanged, and called out, "Get ready to roll," Vaelra and Kaelin were giggling on the side, and even Ravah couldn't help smiling for an instant. Tivver, from inside his barrel, said, "I hate every one of you." After that, the lids of all the barrels were closed.