The First Binding, page 48
I blinked. I hadn’t told him my name. Looking back to where I’d laid the coins only showed me a spot as clean as it had been before, like the money had never been there.
When did he palm the chips?
The storyteller whistled for the barkeeper, handing him the pieces of tin for likely another drink, then made his way over to the stage.
I visited the barman as well, fishing out a whole copper round and tossing it to him. “What did he order?”
“Same as before. Simple Uttari ale.”
“Are the four chips he gave you enough for a glass of ruhah?”
The man shook his head.
“And the copper I gave you plus those four?”
The barkeeper smiled. “More than enough. Want me to make his next just that?”
I nodded. “And tell him it’s from me.”
He tapped the side of his head with two fingers, letting me know he’d do that.
Satisfied my bribe would do the trick, and with the man having already taken the stage, I figured it time to find myself a proper seat to enjoy what would come.
I took what remained of my lushi and sat at one of the few empty tables in the inn.
The storyteller paced around the stage, hands clasped behind his back. He didn’t seem in any particular hurry to grab everyone’s attention. He let it fall on him slowly, as glances passed him by only to realize he occupied a space designed to hold your focus. Then people’s stares hovered back to him and held still.
He walked around the wooden platform harder now. Steps just loud enough to be heard over the drumming of hands along tables, glasses and mugs coming down like distant thunder, and the endless clamoring of men like waves breaking on shores.
Too many layers of noise to make sense of any one part. But the sounds he made were tailored to cut through it all. He cleared his throat so the men closest stopped and paid him mind.
But that cut their chatter and all the other noise that came with it.
The lull then turned the heads of other men in the taproom. They stilled their talking and took notice of the storyteller as well, adopting more leisured poses as they realized entertainment was at hand.
Soon, nothing but a rhythmic and loud tapping came from the stage as the storyteller bounced the heel of his boot against the wood. It fell in step with the beating of my heart and I couldn’t turn away from him if I wanted. The simple trick held me firm in my seat and kept eyes locked on him.
The barkeeper quickly bustled by and passed the storyteller a drink I guessed to be the ruhah I’d paid for.
The teller took a sip, eyelids fluttering as he did. His mouth pulled to one side in a lopsided smile and I could see he enjoyed the beverage.
Good. He might be less of an ass after that.
He cleared his throat and paced the stage again. “Tired travelers, miscontent merchants, beggars and barmen all…” He let the words hang for the space of a breath before breaking back into his act. “Traders, thieves, children, men, and all others under these eaves. You are mine now. For the space it takes for me to finish, you are mine. Understand this. Forget all else. I speak. You listen. That is the way of things.”
A man opened his mouth and the storyteller whirled to face him.
The patron pressed his lips tight together as he fell under the performer’s glare and shrank in his seat.
“There are rules to this kind of thing. They are what separate us from the beasts of the world, and why they tell no stories of their own. First, no interruptions. Second, no thoughts of interrupting me. I’ll know. Third, if you need to take a piss or shit, best you do it now or in your seat later. You don’t get up. You don’t leave.” He waited and watched the crowd. When no one spoke or bothered to move, he nodded to himself.
“Good. Now.” He extended his arms, lacing his fingers together and letting out a series of cracks like twigs breaking underfoot. “People, patrons, purveyors of trade, mercantile mercenaries all. You want a story. But what tales to tell? Stories as old as time and founding stones. Tales to stir the blood and burn deep inside your bones. I have them one; I have them all. Stories of heroes risen. And of their fall. What to tell? What to tell?” He paced around the edge of the platform now.
No one spoke. None gave voice to answer his question.
“Do we talk of demons in places long since gone? Of far back in Dinture, a kingdom forgotten past and washed away by a new dawn? Or do we hear of Brahm the Wanderer?”
A few people hissed in the crowd and the storyteller rounded on them, glaring daggers that made my skin prickle with unseen pressure and heat.
Brahm the Wanderer rankled some people’s sensibilities and, worse, faith. A long divide had formed among the religious bodies throughout the Mutri Empire and wherever else Brahm’s divinity was worshiped. The phase of his life where he’d apparently given up his godhood and wandered the world he’d shaped—as a mortal—was heresy to many. Adherence to that part of his story, and indeed telling it, upset certain bodies of the faith.
The storyteller went on as if the interruption hadn’t happened. “What to tell? What to hear of?” He cupped a hand to his ear as if listening for a broken whisper from the crowd.
I couldn’t understand why he didn’t just pick. Why not just be done with it and throw us into something rousing that held us to the edge of our seats? Why the theatricality and exaggeration?
I’d come to learn and appreciate these subtle tricks later in life. But then, I was just a child. What did I really know of anything but what I thought I knew?
And what you think you know is never quite the same thing as what you actually do. The latter, in fact, is far less than what you could ever hope for it to be. This is true for all things: man, woman, child, and even those that stand outside humanity.
“Who wishes to hear a tale of the plains of Sevinter? The frozen north and people of the Hael? Roving nomads of the ice and harsh unforgiving lands. I know a few stories that will hold you to your seats so long and still you’ll be hard-pressed to peel your asses free when I’m done. Or do you want to know of the paths past Zibrath? Desert kings and horse lords of the sands. Of those wraiths in black who walk the night and take life for coin. Professionals. Artisans. Death’s own hands. Or something closer to home?” A drumlike beat echoed from the stage as he banged the heel of a boot against it.
I’d had enough and figured I’d give him an answer. No more talking around the matter. Now he’d talk straight through it. “The Ashura!”
The beating of his boot stopped. The storyteller stilled.
A different stillness than the one he’d commanded now filled the Zanzikari.
The quiet of men refusing to breathe. A stiff silence of everyone holding their hearts painfully frozen, not wanting to betray the sound of even a single quickened beat. Even the gentle air that had been sifting through from outside had decided it better to leave this place.
The man in the corner polishing a small statue of Beru, the god of wealth and fortune, stopped in place. No sounds of rag and oil over flawless white stone, a color so clean it could have been cast from sea-foam. The portly, nearly naked god himself seemed to add another quiet that could only come from stone.
The storyteller slowly turned to lock eyes with me. “The Ashura.” It wasn’t a question, no. He sounded like he chewed over both the word and whether to find a way to speak of something else.
And why not?
The last time someone had told a story about them, my family had paid the price. No, not even a proper story. Simply the rehearsal of one.
The storyteller inhaled and clicked his tongue against his teeth. Then he broke into an uneven smile. “I know just the one to tell.”
I stiffened at that, and when I’d found some measure of calm again, leaned forward in anticipation.
“You want to hear a story of how stories say they came to be? You want to hear of binder kings and heroes turned against Brahm’s light? Of betrayal and the start of it all?” He nodded, more to himself than anyone else. “You want the story of the fall. Of Abrahm, binder legend, in name of Brahm himself, and how he died.”
I did.
And the storyteller obliged.
FORTY-TWO
A BINDER KNIGHT
Before the Mutri Empire, kings and queens of modern name, comes a tale of shadows and the greatest mortal flame. His name was Abrahm. A scholar. A binder. Wanderer.
He traveled far and wide to learn all he could of the wild bindings back before man would come to lose the many names and shapes of them all. He learned the many tongues of the world.
It was said when Abrahm had been born, the sun and moon embraced, shrouding the world in a bright dark light. A false midnight. He’d been marked for glory by Brahm himself. So both a sword and staff were placed into the babe’s arms, a destiny chosen to be warrior and magician-scholar great.
And he rose to this.
This was a time when shadow and taint ran rampant in Brahm’s fresh world. The Shaen had retreated to the folds of land beyond mortal eyes and means. They’d come to reside in the place between Midnight. A place of ever dark and always light, one and the same. A land far from Brahm’s name and his flame.
So man remained behind to right the wrongs left in his world. And to this, they rallied.
And Abrahm led the way. He gathered eight other great binder warriors to fight against the shadow and what taint they spread. Demons, things in men’s shape and form, but with ways to twist and turn all they touched.
He forged a sword, shining bright, of silver and moonbeams—a binding held fast and tight. A blade that held all the power of Brahm’s first making—his first light. With strength of arm and strength of will, he cut through shadow’s tainted blight. Abrahm had the mind of men many years his senior, and the cunning quickness of any Shaen in his thoughts.
With this, he led armies great and forces small against the enemy, turning them back, or to kindling.
But there was no revelry for each victory in this time before empires high. No joy after each battle fought. And no singing.
Those who held the gift of voice and song did not come to aid in this war tiresome and long. They kept their talents to protect themselves, finding safety in roaming, ever moving and away from the encroaching shadow.
And so men of meager means, weary worn, and tired of the twisting of the world around them, came to Abrahm’s aid. They grew in number, born anew to be battle borne. Abrahm taught these men the bindings all men would come to know, and they turned the tide, slow but surely, with all the patience of water claiming stone.
First came the battle of Uppar Radesh. Tainted things, twisted both in mind and form, took the field. Shadowed flame took the little kingdom stone and mortar, blood and body, leaving little to reclaim. Abrahm danced with shadow, a white flame of moonlight against blackened fire. He cast them back, with strength of arm, and will of mind—held them firm in magical bind.
But shadow turned more than the minds of a few and brought worse than you could know to the hills of full white snow. Through the fire and smoke came a beast of fresh frost in color as the ice around it. A worm with a mouth large enough to swallow homes whole. Fangs as sharp and bright as Abrahm’s own sword of pale frozen light.
Taken by the shadow, with dark fire in its eyes, it came after the binder knight and his men. He fought it to a single stand. Binding fire and stone to hold and burn the beast scale to bone. Abrahm shone lone and ever bright, a figure of cold white light. With his final breath, he uttered of the ten bindings all men would come to know.
He seized the peak firm, tight grip on tall ice and snow. And with but another word, he brought down the mountain low.
Shadow and demons fell to the cold wave as did the beast great. Abrahm and his binders had spared the king and his land from a twisted dark fate. Usaf Ghal, lord of all as far as the white ice stretched, thanked Abrahm and his binders for their heroism, pledging that his lands, now and always, would be home and safe haven for future binders to be.
And so Abrahm would raise his ranks greater there in the time to come. He formed a knighthood of scholar sorcerers to continue his fight against the shadow—blackened flame and those who turned from Brahm’s light and name.
It’s said no man could pierce his skin in battles, be it from a new binding he gleaned, or the cloak and mantle of white iron ice he’d come to wear. He was always found in the heat of the worst darkness, shining bright and wild against the black.
And always the victor was Abrahm.
The shift came in the middle years of war against these twisted shapes, all turned early by demons left unfound by Brahm who came as Radhivahn. And they came to turn more and more with time.
So Abrahm took to turning to bolster his own. He trained more binder knights, and among the greatest, came to teach the daughter of another king.
Hokh Ii Saphed, princess—pure and proud and binder-to-be. It’s said she took to the ten bindings as quickly as a cat does to landing on its feet. She of Dinture, the kingdom of white stone and tree, and of old Singers’ blood. She who was no longer keen to sit and watch the world be swallowed by shadow’s darkened flood.
Together they waded deeper into the fight, freeing any kingdom held whole by demon and tainted grip. But through the worst of the fighting, Abrahm’s fire came to pass. No longer burning bright, against the shadow, his flame could not hope to last.
Through the shadow and darkest night, another binder would take up the light.
But Abrahm’s soul could not rest with the job undone, and it’s said something barred his way to the place weary spirits go to lay. In this place between life and death something took his heart in hold and tried to take and turn him from Brahm true.
A mystery from behind the Doors of Death.
But Abrahm rose again, flame burning once again and better bright. Still imbued with the moon’s pure white light. He roused and rallied scattered forces and once more took to fighting strong.
And shortly ended the war that had been tolling ever long. The enemy now locked forever within the Halls of Stone, and beyond the Walls of Stillness, older than the known world itself.
Even so, in victory’s wake, kingdoms fell behind him. Taken and forgotten—turned to ruin and rust. No darkness spreading. No demons spawning. A quiet death like age-old stone under wind and water, soon to be naught but dust.
Finally, he came to Dinture, kingdom of Hokh, and his binder student. Abrahm approached her with warm welcome and held her in his embrace.
“How have you fared?” he asked of her.
And she told him, as always, truth in all things. “Well enough that my kingdom subsists. Heavy-hearted and hollow-chested at the fall of others. Neighboring brothers and sisters all. Some, even cousins by blood. Now all gone. If not from demons, shadow, and their taint. Now to fires burning black without constraint.”
Abrahm took a step back at this. “You say you know of how those kingdoms came to fall?”
She gave him a weary smile. “Not fall, Rishi.” Hokh shook her head. “Never fall. They were old and strong as stone and would hold just as long. Burned. No demons did this. Nor the work of things tainted, twisted—turned. This was done by something worse. Not so old as shadow, but of its making and its turnings. That is what I think.”
Abrahm looked his student once over again. “You’ve grown.”
“Time does that.” She held her tired smile.
“And you’ve grown in wisdom, in the ten bindings, and how to rule a land.”
She kept her smile still, now a brittle broken thing, so much like the now-fallen stone of which she spoke. “Time does that too, Rishi. But you look the same. Not aged or worn deeper with lines from the battles and even death.”
Now Abrahm matched his student’s face and the lines of her mouth. “Time can do that, yes, but more than that as well. And I did in fact pay. Time took its toll another way. Something else spared me of it.”
Hokh took her own step back now. “And what is that, Rishi?”
Abrahm paused, turning to look over the kingdom of Dinture. White stone palace, gilded roofs of a gold so bright, they were said to catch and carry all of Brahm’s own light. A white so clean, not unlike the mountains far where he’d come to make a legend of himself. A place where binders could now reside and learn the ten bindings should they have the will and their time bide.
He looked past it all to the high mountain walls of dull gray stone, in which they held another rock, white and smooth as bone. It held back any forces that wished to invade in large number, be they the kingdoms of men, or worse things beyond mortal ken.
One way through this kingdom white.
And it is through this way that Abrahm had been welcomed to pass.
He looked back at this way, holding it long in sight. He sighed a heavy breath and turned back to his student. “I’ve taught you many things.”
She nodded.
“I’ve taught you the ten bindings, and then some forgotten more.”
Hokh inclined her head again. “Yes, Rishi.”
“And I’ve played a part in what seems a cycle. Athwun. Now Abrahm.” His lips turned at their ends, slipping into a look weary whole. “And I’ve learned things that have made me rethink a great deal. Of what problems there will always be.”
Hokh looked at her teacher in confusion, waiting for him to answer, but it didn’t come. So she asked him for it. “What problems?”
He blew out another breath, leaning heavier on his binder’s staff. “That there is no turning back the shadow. That black flame will always burn in this world. And that Brahm wrought this to be. It just took me a journey past death for me to see. That this pattern will continue, and take up many other heroes’ lives, make it their curse—their destiny. I seek to break it. To unmake the ties Brahm’s bound us to. To undo the bars that hold his old makings first and true. Before this world, me, and you. In that, I’ll truly save this world. It will begin, bright and dark, all anew.” He closed the distance between her and held her tight in his arms.
