'Just a different rhythm,' he said aloud to himself.
'What?' Wennem asked.
Makon shook his head.
'You are very quiet,' Wennem said. 'You used to speak a lot more.'
'That's because you never spoke at all,' Makon said lightly. 'I had to make up for both of us.'
'I wanted to speak,' she said with a surprising urgency.
Makon nodded, pretending to understand.
'I wanted to tell everyone what had happened, but every time I started I saw my family being killed and my mouth wouldn't make the words. It was like screaming without making any sound.'
'And now?'
'It is still terrible, but far away, like it happened years ago. I try to remember what the faces of my husband and child looked like but can't do it any more. It's only when I'm thinking of something else that a word or smell strikes me like lightning hitting a tree and for a heartbeat I see my husband clearly as if he was standing before me, or I'm holding my baby in my arms again. It is dreadful and wonderful at the same time.'
'I hope you never forget,' Makon said gently.
Wennem smiled uneasily. 'I was hoping you would understand.'
Makon had to resist the urge to turn to her. He was sure the words meant what he thought they meant, but he was afraid of breaking contact with the lick of joy it kindled inside him.
So they rode together in silence, words suddenly too frail.
CHAPTER 24
Powl had been seeking an answer to a conundrum, and felt at last a resolution had been found. It was a turning point, he realised, in the way he regarded his faith and his work as primate for the Church of the Righteous God. As a priest he detested turning points—the path to salvation should always be straight—but as a scholar he delighted in the twists and turns that experience and knowledge introduced to life.
He carefully opened the new book he had started, which was filled with the strange letters from the ancient alphabet used in the volumes of Colanus. He reviewed what he had already written on its first few pages, then lifted his pen to continue the work. And hesitated.
He put the pen down.
Was he sure? Was he moving too fast? After all, it had only been a few nights ago that he had gained his first real success—understanding that the symbols on the backs of the volumes, though not ideograms, were still in essence ideogrammatic. Each letter actually represented a sound and each group of letters a word, but the words themselves were not describing precisely the contents of the volumes but their part in the whole. He had been in the church library where he spent most of his time desperately trying to find some clue to the name of God. He was meticulously checking each theological tract on each shelf, when one book stood out—not because of its content, but because it was on the wrong shelf. The small red stamp on its spine indicated it belonged in the section on natural philosophy and not in the section on inductive reasoning. Struck by the idea that this might conceivably be the case with the words on the spines of the ancient volumes, the next day he visited the central library of the theurgia, carefully noting each of the major headings under which they catalogued their books. As with the church library, the headings reflected principle rather than subject, the essence of something rather than the thing itself. Later, he matched all transliterations he could make from the volumes and compared them to the headings. It was with a feeling of wonder and elation that he noticed some either matched perfectly or came too close just to be coincidence. The second group fired the real breakthrough, for it showed Powl what ancient, previously unknown letters he could substitute for letters from the modern alphabet used everywhere in Theare.
From there he was able to decipher most of the words and groups on the spines of the volumes from the tower. Any new word he wrote down carefully and tried to find in the main text of the volumes and guess at its meaning through context. If he found the same word appearing in a similar context he assumed he was close to finding its real meaning. This did not always work, but what it did do was allow Powl to start compiling a simple and primitive dictionary.
By the night after his visit to the library of the theurgia, he knew he had the tools necessary to decipher all the volumes. For two days that is where he stopped.
The ancient magikers themselves had conspired against Colanus to get their hands on the volumes, realising that they may be the source of all of Colanus's power, secular and magikal. Colanus had surprised the conspirators by giving them access to the volumes. Of course they could not read them. And what right did Powl have to read them, or even attempt to decipher them for someone else? The primate was not interested in power as such, he told himself, and was not tempted for the same reasons as the ancient magikers. But he was interested in knowledge. It was his greatest strength and weakness as a priest. Knowledge was both the foundation and enemy of faith; without knowledge there was no possibility of understanding God, but with knowledge God could be questioned.
Even from his earliest days as a novice, Powl had thought knowledge was a tool used by God to bring his people closer to him and he had pursued it with all his ability, and in those days after his breakthrough with the alphabet and language of the volumes he came to believe he was in some way fulfilling God's purpose for him.
And for that there will be a reward, he told himself, wanting to believe it.
The name of God.
He picked up his pen again.
Olio and Edaytor walked together along the harbour front, a group of Royal Guards trailing behind. The naval docks were busy with ships being caulked and tarred, their sails mended, their wood sanded and polished, the sheets checked and stowed. The merchant docks were similarly busy, but with supplies being sorted and loaded. The workers were all grim-faced and serious. No one sang shanties or shouted a joke. There was no laughter. This was preparation for war.
Edaytor wrapped his cloak tighter around him as a cool southerly breeze swept up from the sea.
'Another summer gone,' he said.
Olio stopped suddenly. 'It has been over a year since my mother died.' He turned around slowly to view the docks and foreshore. 'We're not far from where her pyre was lit.' He shook his head. 'Who could ever have imagined so much would change in so little a time?' He absently fingered the Key of the Heart, and when he looked up it was to see the destroyed section of the old city. Some of it had been rebuilt, some was still in various stages of being cleaned out, but the charred skeletons of houses and shops still filled most of the space. On rainy days the smell of burnt wood still wafted across the city, making those with the strongest memories gag over their food.
'Have you decided what you are going to do with that?' Edaytor asked, pointing to the Key.
'Wear it,' Olio answered lightly and tucked it back behind his shirt.
'That's no answer, your Highness.'
Olio laughed. 'Whenever you say "your Highness" like that it's a kind of rebuke.'
Edaytor looked horrified. 'Your Highness!' he burst out before he could stop himself.
'See?'
Edaytor could only harrumph. He put his hands behind his back and bowed his head in embarrassment.
Olio put an arm around the prelate's broad shoulders. 'Your question is one I have been asking myself ever since my recovery,' he told him, resuming their walk.
'Have you come up with an answer?'
'Of a kind. It is my task in life, I think, to work as a healer.' The prince felt Edaytor stiffen under his arm. 'But not by using the Key of the Heart directly,' he added quickly.
'Then it will involve the Key in some part?' Edaytor pushed.
'Do you know why they are called the Keys of Power?'