His existence that night was febrile, half-alive. The combination of pain and the dullers twisting his mind. Sometimes he watched the pyre as it grew. Other times his pain was so great he thought himself already on it, skin burning while his cowl consumed him from within. Between these times he found himself existing in another place.
A boy crying over his bruises in the corner of a monastery garden among the snowflowers.
The heat of the day oppressive.
Nasim the gardener making a poultice of Allbalm. Telling him to calm himself.
“Cahan Du-Nahere! Cahan Du-Nahere!”
“Nasim?”
He was freezing, shivering. The voice was not the gardener’s. Was it the Rai, come back to ask once more for the impossible? He did not want to see her, kept his eyes closed. An animal in a trap refusing to see the hunter closing.
“Cahan!” a harsh and urgent whisper.
“Go away.”
“I cannot.”
The voice. Not that of the Rai.
He opened one eye. Pain rushing in.
“Cahan Du-Nahere, are you alive?” Snow falling, hard and fast. A blur of the air. He did not recognise the face before him, dressed in heartwood armour, of a very expensive sort, painted with the god marks of Tarl-an-Gig, great blue whorls on the cheeks and around the eyes.
“It is me, Cahan, Venn. Do you remember me?”
“Venn?” he said. The face snapped into focus. “You told them where to find me, I do not blame you.” He could hear self-pity in his own voice. He did not like it, preferred anger.
“What?”
“You were talking to the Rai. Telling her what to do.” He closed his eyes again. “I do not blame you,” he said again. He wanted nothing more than to fade away.
“Sorha,” said Venn, “that is her name.”
“Yes,” he said, “I think I remember.” His teeth were chattering, a movement beyond his control. He had never needed to worry about the cold before, his cowl had protected him. Venn stared through the bars.
“She was coming here anyway,” said Venn. They sounded tired. “I had no choice but to help her.” Cahan’s head ached and the world spun.
“Why?”
“I lied to my mother, in Harnspire,” whispered Venn. “Told her I had done what she wished, woken my cowl.” They held up their hand, pointed at it. “Sorha knew it was a lie. But said it wasn’t in exchange for everything I knew about you.” Cahan tried to move in the cage, find some comfort and failed.
“So you exchanged my life for yours.” He opened his eyes to look at the trion. Found bitterness welling up where there had been magnanimity a moment before. “It seems your principles did not last long. Maybe you really are Rai.” Venn recoiled at his words, as if bruised by them.
“I came here to save you,” said Venn. “I fought my mother, she did not want me to come. I had to pile lie upon lie. Confront her before her most powerful Rai so she would look weak if she did not send me.” Venn looked away. “She hates me for it, I am sure.” Then they spoke again, their voice thick with desperation. “We have to get away.”
“The village—” began Cahan.
“Sorha is obsessed with you, and if she loses me my mother will never allow her back,” they spoke softly and urgently. “When we go she will follow. She will forget all about the village. I stole the key.” They moved forward, unlocked the cage. “The gates are guarded, so we will need to go over the wall.” Cahan more fell out of the cage than climbed out. To go from being enclosed to free should have been a welcome sweetness, but all he knew was a pain in his muscles, growing until it was almost beyond bearing. It became a battle not to cry out.
“Get up,” hissed Venn, trying to pull him upright. “We have to go.”
When the pain had subsided he stood, let Venn lead him away. Round the back of a building, through Tanside and over the wooden wall. They made for Woodedge. He felt the moment he left the influence of the dullers. The pain and the cold sloughed away, it was like leaving the ghost of an old man back in Harn and he ran, free of cold and pain; young again. Clarity returned to his mind, focus to his vision. All those years he had been telling himself he did not rely on his cowl. What a lie that had been.
You need me.
“Where do we go?” said Venn. Despite their armour they did not wear a sword, and they were not well dressed for the cold, already shivering. Wrapping their arms around themselves to keep warm.
“To my farm.” Cahan let out a low whistle and a moment later Segur appeared from the undergrowth. He pointed at the trion but they shied away from the garaur.
“Friend,” he spoke to them both. Venn’s eyes widened. “Segur will not hurt you unless I tell it to,” he said, “let it climb your body and sit around your neck. It will share its warmth with you.” The garaur whined, and Venn looked nervous, but gave a nod of their head and the garaur twisted up around them. The trion continued to look worried, but when the garaur made no attempt to do anything but be warm they relaxed a little.
“Why go to your farm?” they said. “We should escape.”
“We will,” he said, “but we need supplies, and you need warmer clothes.” He looked back at Harn. “First, I must retrieve my staff,” he said.
He found the staff where he left it and the feel of its wood calmed him, providing a strong sense of something that was right. From there they made their way quickly through Woodedge, staying alert for any noise that did not fit.
They heard nothing.
He was not surprised. Sorha and her troops were from the towns. Townspeople were even more superstitious than the villagers who lived on the edge of the wood. But with every step Cahan found himself struggling; not physically, but mentally. A surety within him growing. Venn might believe what they said about Sorha chasing them, Cahan was sure they did. But they were young, innocent, ready to believe what they wanted rather than what was. Cahan knew better. Sorha would not leave the village alone when she discovered his escape; even without her cowl she was still Rai. When thwarted others would pay the price.
“Come on, Cahan!” Venn shouting from in front of him.
They stopped before the fields his farm sat in. No tracks in the snowy grass around it, no lights burned in the building. He walked and Venn ran ahead.
“Hurry, Cahan!”
Harn: the monk Udinny, the Leoric, her child for whom he had been through so much to save. The girl and her straw doll. The returned crownheads and many other small kindnesses he had been gifted.
Venn would never know they were wrong. They would never come back here. Would have no guilt to carry.
Stop this, he told himself.
He was not a warrior. He was a simple forester. He had been nothing else for many years.
You need me.
“Cahan?” said the trion, “did you speak?”
“No,” he said, walking quickly, taking the lead. Pushing open the door to his farm. “There are packs under the bed. Grab food and warm clothes.”
Who are you?
“Cahan?” said Venn, they looked confused. He felt the same. Those were not the usual words he heard.
“It is my cowl, that is all.”
“I hear a voice but no words, what does it say?”
“Nothing you need bother yourself with, child.” They gave him a look he suspected was common to children everywhere when told to mind their own business. “Now pack quickly before they know we are missing. They will come here first.” They continued to pack, memories of Harn gnawed at him.
“Cahan? Cahan?” he shook his head. Rubbed his temples.
“What?” the word coming out overly gruff and he saw the trion’s eyes widen, as if he had insulted them.
“I only asked what else I should bring, I have hard bread, dried meat and some cheese.”
“There is a coat, take that,” he pointed at a coat by the door.
“What of you?”
“I will be all right.”
“Are you worried about the villagers?”
“No,” said too fast, almost barked. “You said yourself, Sorha will follow us.” Venn nodded, keeping their head bowed as they went to get the coat from the door.
What was he doing? What had been true before the walls of Harn when they were about to execute Udinny had not changed. The villagers would die, Udinny would die. The fact he would not be there to see it happen would not change it.
They left, trudging through the snow towards Woodedge. The Rai would never stop coming for him. Never. No matter where he went.
Except Wyrdwood.
None would follow them there. Even Udinny, who was the most infuriatingly curious person he had ever met, had been wary of entering Wyrdwood. There they could live as hermits, make no contact with others.
But Udinny had come with him to Wyrdwood, partly because she thought her god asked it of her. And partly because she did not want to let someone go alone into danger.
And now she would die.
Hard, too, she would die hard. Marked as a traitor for following Ranya, a god most had forgotten.
They would all die.
“Cahan,” said Venn, somehow the trion had got well ahead of him again. “Why have you stopped? They could come at any minute.” He rolled his head back, closed his eyes and let the snow fall upon his face. He had lived alone for a long time. It was no life.
“I need something else from the farm,” he said.
“What?” they asked.
“A shovel,” he said, and turned back.
“Why?” shouted Venn.
“To dig something up.”