The Song of Elenet was the encyclopedia of the Giver’s language. It was the book wherein was written the spoken truth of the entire world. Despite his many flaws and the great mistakes he made as a practitioner of sorcery-that was the word most appropriate to describe human usurpation of divine language-Elenet was ravenous in his desire for knowledge and meticulous in keeping records of what he learned. As the legends told, he did live in a time when the Giver walked the earth. He did trail behind the divine personage. He did listen and learn the songs in the language of creation. Each word he stole from the Giver’s mouth he wrote down in a script of his own devising. For the few who could read the text, it gave all the precise instructions for working magic on the world. It was a manual to the form and shape of creation; as such, there had never been a more dangerous document written in marks on a page, before or since.
When Elenet left this world to explore other ones, he left his book in care of his Santoth disciples. He never said where he was going or why, but he vanished from the earth, just as the Giver had done before him. The book was handed down through the generations, from one God Talker to another. They were, in those ancient times, caretakers of knowledge. Kings and princes ruled the world; Santoth wove spells to hold the fabric of it together, helping to ease the chaos men seemed to long for. It was a sacred responsibility, and for eons they practiced god talk only for the good of the Known World. This changed, however, when a young Santoth named Tinhadin eventually became the keeper of the book.
He held it close to his chest, the Santoth told Aliver, and did not share it with us.
Tinhadin loved the power of the book. He studied it exhaustively, excluding others more and more often. He became chief among the Santoth and grew much stronger than any of them. Eventually he was more powerful than all of them combined. With his hold on the text, only Tinhadin had access to the faithful translations, to the exact pronunciation and significance of each word in the Giver’s language. Any slight variation on this corrupted the magic, weakened it, and/or turned it in ways the speaker had not intended.
Still, the other Santoth had loved Tinhadin as one of their own. He shared knowledge with them, but increasingly the Giver’s words came to them only through him. When he set about to reshape the world, they labored beside him. He wanted to bring peace to the world, he said. There was too much chaos, too much suffering, too much potential for humanity to ruin itself and return to a state like that of the beasts. The others aided Tinhadin in battling to control the world. But before they knew what was happening, Tinhadin had outstripped them. He placed a crown on his own head, and set himself apart from them.
But this was not a joy, the Santoth said. Instead, it became the greatest of burdens.
Like normal men before him, Tinhadin feared losing the power he had gained. And, even more, he became fatigued with how completely he embodied the language of creation. He was a sorcerer with the power to shape the world just by opening his mouth. But, the Santoth explained, he found the power too difficult to control, to unwieldy. Imagine, they said, living an existence where the words out of your mouth changed the very fabric of the world around you.
Tinhadin grew too strong, the magic too much a part of the functioning of his mind. At times he altered the world just by thinking in the Giver’s tongue. Sometimes he would speak the language in his dreams and wake to find the results living around him. That was why he turned against the other Santoth. He grew to hate his magic. He wanted to live without it, but he could not do so in a world where other sorcerers still worked their spells. He banished the Santoth from the empire. They did not all go willingly. Indeed, he battled with a great many of them, destroying them. The rest he drove into exile. Then he worked upon them his last magic, the spell which kept them perpetually alive, trapped in these southern lands until he or a descendant decided to invite them back. That, of course, had never happened, and the Santoth had aged into the beings Aliver now communed with. They were the very same individuals that Tinhadin had expelled, living-if it could be called that-and waiting.
When the prince asked them if they still knew magic, they answered that they did but that their knowledge had been so corrupted over the years that they knew not what would happen if they spoke the Giver’s words. Their knowledge had become a curse from which they spent their eternal lives hiding. Without the true knowledge found only in Elenet’s book, they risked opening a rent in the world that might never be mended. They had learned to speak like gods, but now they feared themselves to be devils instead.
Now that you have heard it from us, the collective voice of the Santoth said, tell us where the book is. We suffer without the word. We need the Giver’s words, and then we can be complete again, and good.
Aliver shook his head. He did not want to say what he had to. Already he felt a certain peace among the sorcerers. He felt their suffering even before they mentioned it. He understood that their banishment had been a terribly prolonged curse, and he no longer had the luxury to doubt even a portion of the things they had communicated to him. But the truth was simple.
I’m sorry, Aliver said. I do not have this book.
The Santoth were slow to respond to this. Your father…he did not tell you of it?
No, he did not.
CHAPTER
Corinn tried to keep her hatred of Hanish Mein pinned to her forehead for the entire world to see. He was her family’s single greatest enemy. She would never forget it, never forgive. She loathed him. Nothing he did would change this. He was a villain of massive proportions, a murderer on an enormous scale, about whom some gentler people in the future would write entire chronicles of infamy.
She had to make sure to remember this, because in the tranquil setting of Calfa Ven it was the insults of a more personal nature that jabbed her most intensely. Simply put, Hanish toyed with her, as he had the first night at the lodge. At times it seemed he went out of his way to please her-and to let her know that he was going out of his way to please her; at other moments he treated her with shocking indifference.
A few days into their stay in the mountains, he asked her to join him for a ride the following afternoon. It was an invitation delivered with great show before a crowd of onlookers. She stood about the next day at the appointed hour-dressed to perfection in a cream-colored riding outfit, with a silken hat perched high on her head, chilled by the spring air but sure that the high color in her cheeks was worth it-only to discover that he had forgotten all about her. He had ridden out early that morning for the hunt with no apparent thought for her at all. Even Rhrenna, her erstwhile friend, could not help but show amusement at the way he belittled her.
What did it matter, though? The Mein were a petty people who took pleasure in humiliating a race that generations had proven was superior. He could have his small amusements, and she would hold to spite. Spite and condescension. That was all she felt for him. Fortunately, their stay in the mountains was almost over. Corinn had been counting the days, ready to get back to Acacia, where she could put some distance between herself and this barbarian who called himself the ruler of the Known World.
Strange, though, that when a servant next brought her a message from Hanish, she experienced a tingling in her chest and a quickening of her pulse that-had the situation been otherwise-she would have interpreted as exhilaration. He wished for her company that afternoon, the messenger said, to practice archery. He prayed that she would not leave him standing alone. That sounded like a fine idea, she thought. Leave him standing about, dejected, spurned. And yet she knew that would not work. Hanish was not easy to insult. He would find a way to playfully punish her for it at dinner that evening. Not going, she decided, would be more easily ridiculed than answering his invitation would be.