Hours later, after the embers of the fire had gone completely out, Lelwin stopped. “That’s all,” she said.
Toria touched the soldier nearest her, a tall, lanky woman with sinewy arms. Brekana’s memories had merged with the memories of her instruction within the woman’s mind, but the threads held an ephemeral quality, as if they might be forgotten at any moment. “That’s enough,” she said, speaking with false confidence.
“Is the fire out?” Lelwin asked. “Is the moon up?”
“Yes,” Toria said, “on both counts.”
Removing her veil, Lelwin retrieved her bow and quiver. “Come, all of you. It’s time you began your apprenticeship in truth. Once we have departed, Toria Deel, relight your fire. It will draw them to you. Outlined against its light, they will make easier targets.”
Chapter 57
Lelwin and the rest melted into the night, each armed with a short bow and as many arrows as they could carry. Toria stood in the dark, squinting to see, straining to hear, but any noise that might have come to her from outside the copse of trees was swallowed by the wind coming out of the north. “Wag, come here.”
Because he was hidden by darkness, she didn’t know he’d responded until she felt him press against her, his bulk of muscle hard beneath the fur. A thousand different smells came to her as she dropped into his awareness. Wag, I want you to guard Oriano and Serana and all the rest, but don’t kill.
Within the delve her impression of the woods around them pitched as the sentinel tilted his head. Mistress, I don’t understand.
They need to hunt, Wag, and if you kill those from the forest, they won’t learn how. Keep them safe, but don’t kill any from the forest except to save our soldiers.
She could see herself from his perception, hints of yellow and blue in the moonlight. His tongue came out and found her cheek, leaving a trail of wet a hand wide on her face. As you say, Mistress. Knowing how to hunt is important. I will guard your pups.
Moments after he ghosted from her side, she heard the repeated clack of flint against steel. A tiny flare of light bloomed in the woods as Fess relit the fire.
When the flames had strengthened to the point she could see again, Fess stood facing her. “Bronwyn never mentioned such a use of the gift, Lady Deel. She maintained that any attempt to give one person’s memories to another would fail.”
“There are too many unspoken questions there for me to know which one you intend to ask,” she said.
When he dipped his head in acknowledgement it cast his eyes in shadow, making him appear older. “If we are found, it will be some hours from now,” he said. “We have time, I think, for you to answer all of them.”
The scent of cedar, fresh and burning, filled the air. He stared at her, waiting for his answers, but she found it easier to speak if she watched the fire. “Our gift allows us to enter another’s mind and live their memories and emotions as though they were our own. In the annals of the Vigil it is recorded that the early holders of the gift believed it could be used as an instrument of instruction. They thought to use the gift to bring peace to the world.”
A frown passed over his expression. “Peace?”
She nodded. “The men and women of the Vigil have never been accused of lacking ambition, Fess. The early fathers and mothers in the gift surmised that if the knowledge of the devout, those men and women who were strongest in their faith, could be given to kings and nobles, the world would see an end to war.”
“Ah,” he said. “Perhaps if you had gathered the memories of soldiers who’d experienced it and discovered only grief at its end, it might have worked.”
She gave a rueful laugh. “Oh, that was tried as well, along with the memories of healers wielding their saws on the battlefield, and wives and mothers grieving endlessly over loved ones lost. Then the Vigil tried combining them until the load of implanted memories was nearly as great as those the kings and nobles already carried. The early Vigil spent over a hundred years working to eradicate war from the world.”
“It’s just as well you failed,” he said.
She searched his tone for irony or sarcasm but found none. “How so?”
“Centuries of peace would have created a world the Darkwater and Cesla could have destroyed in a fortnight,” he said. “The evil would have emerged from the forest to find a warren of rabbits.” He paused briefly. “If our instruction was doomed to fail, Lady Deel, why did we attempt it?”
She turned to regard the fire. “Failure and success are connected by any number of possibilities between them. Over the years we found that we could gain some measure of success if the implanted memories were strengthened with instruction.”
“The power of story,” he said. “That’s why you had Lelwin tell them everything she knew.”
“And why we continued to give her memories to Oriano’s men throughout,” she added. “The memories are transitory, but her stories conjured images within their minds. By giving them Lelwin’s memories as they created their own, we can give them some measure of permanence.”
“Some measure?” he asked. “How long?”
The temptation to shade the truth kept her silent until he stirred, probably to ask the same question again. “If those under Cesla’s control attack tonight, the combination of real experience with Lelwin’s instruction may be enough to cement Lelwin’s memories as their own.”
“May?”
“We are at war, Fess,” she said. “As Bolt would say, we must use any weapon that comes to hand.”
“They could all die out there tonight, Toria Deel.”
She summoned the courage to face him at last. “And doubtless some of them will, Fess, even under the best circumstances.” She would have added some qualification, but anything else she might have
