Scriber Read online

  Table of Contents

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Chapter Thirty-six

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Scriber

  By Ben S. Dobson

  Copyright © 2011 Ben S. Dobson

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously. Resemblance to any persons, living or dead, actual events, locales, or organizations, is entirely coincidental.

  All rights are reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without the written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations used for the purpose of articles or reviews.

  Dedication

  For my parents, John and Janice Dobson, who badgered me relentlessly until I wrote this book, in a very supportive way.

  Also for Morgan, who taught me how to gallop.

  Prologue

  Scriber Elyse tapped at the stone with her chisel, shaving just the slightest bit off the statue’s cheek, and then climbed down from the ladder to consider her work. After a moment, she set aside her tools and sat before the open journal at her desk.

  She had read this one more than once; it had been written by Dennon Lark during the most famous period of his life. There was no better way to become familiar with her subject. Learning Scriber Dennon’s voice—the way the man wrote and thought—allowed her to better visualize what form the statue would take. She could almost hear him telling the story as she read his journals, though it had happened well over a hundred years before.

  The desk was strewn with books—every journal and history by Dennon Lark that the Academy had to offer. That she had been chosen to sculpt such an historic figure was an honor, and she took her research seriously. But this particular journal was her favorite, and not only because it offered the best insight into her subject. No, she liked this one because of the small note Scriber Dennon had scrawled on the inside cover. She liked what the words said about the man:

  In my life, I have been called many things: prodigy and madman, traitor and visionary, blasphemer and failure and fool. In the end, most people seem to have settled on hero.

  People are idiots.

  It is not me they should revere. I am only an historian, and I deserve to be remembered as nothing more. But I have known heroes, those whose deeds saved the Kingsland from destruction. So to all who read these journals, I say this:

  If you would remember anyone, remember them.

  Smiling, Elyse turned the page and began to read.

  Chapter One

  I disliked Bryndine Errynson the moment I first saw her. She must be the most irritating person I’ve ever known.

  — From the personal journals of Dennon Lark

  The letter was a torment, as they always were. My untouched meal slowly cooled on the table as I unfolded, read, and refolded the small parchment again and again. But no matter how many times I looked, the words remained the same.

  I was alone in the Prince’s Rest that night; there were no customers but myself most nights, really. Waymark was a small, isolated village, not a place that had much use for an inn. Even in a larger town Josia Kellen’s cooking would not have attracted a great deal of business—leaving it uneaten might still have been the proper choice without the distraction of the letter. But on that particular night, the night I met Bryndine Errynson for the first time, I would have ignored a feast cooked in the King’s own kitchens. It was the same every time Illias wrote me.

  Josia Kellen bustled out of the kitchen, kettle in hand, to refresh my tea. “Important news from the city, Scriber Dennon? You’ve barely touched your food.” She was beside me in two steps—the Rest was little more than a converted family residence, and the common room had space for only two tables, uncomfortably close to one another.

  I raised a hand to my temple. “It’s a personal letter, Josia. I’d prefer not to talk about it.”

  Not for the first time, I made a silent vow to start preparing my own meals at home. Josia was an impossibly chatty woman, and she fretted over me relentlessly. She had it in her head that I must be terribly lonely, living by myself with no wife or family. I had all my meals at the inn, and not one of them went by that she didn’t try to engage me in conversation. I hated it.

  But for once she respected my desire for solitude. “I’ll leave you be, then,” she said. “Call me if you need anything.”

  She hurried from the room, and I turned my attention back to Illias’ letter.

  It had come that evening, delivered by a Scriber-pinned courier shortly before my usual late dinner at the Rest. Far from the Saltroad that ran between Three Rivers and the Salt Mountains, Waymark was not a place the couriers serviced regularly. Illias would have personally asked the man to take the detour; it was not the first time he had done so.

  Waymark should have been a distant enough place to escape my past, nestled against the Salt Mountain foothills in the north-western corner of the Three Rivers barony. The villagers thought it an important historical site—a mark on the path of Prince Willyn the Lost, on the journey that had given him his name almost two centuries ago—but the rest of the kingdom ignored the village despite those dubious claims.

  Unfortunately, Illias was undaunted by my isolation. He wrote without fail, once every few months at least. The message was always the same: though he rarely came out and said it directly, what he wanted of me was the one thing I would not give, not even for him. And every time, I would fret for days before I finally shoved down my guilt, stowed the letter in a drawer with all the rest, and neglected to write back.

  It was always the same, but even knowing that, it was a cycle I was helpless to break. With a heavy sigh, I unfolded the paper and looked it over again.

  Denn,

  I hope this letter finds you well—but not too well. I need you back at the Academy, and the sooner you tire of that backwater you’ve exiled yourself to, the better.

  The School of Arts is reconstructing more of Adello’s songs every day, and you are the only one who has ever appreciated the true historical relevance of his work. Legends and children’s tales, they say, as though that discounts their worth. Damn it to the Dragon, they’re all we have left. We can’t expect to just stumble across the truth if we ignore the clues we’re given. The Scribers have become indolent, waiting for discoveries to be brought to us for research and cataloguing.

  The Council is no help of course. Pig-headed idiots, the whole lot. I wish I’d never taken a seat among them. They argue over money
and appearances, and oaths be damned. I have no intention of sitting idle, hoping some farmer will miraculously uncover a hidden cache of history books in his basement. The Forgetting was almost five hundred years ago now, and what have we found since then? Nothing.

  I’m surrounded by fools, Denn. I need you here. You saw the value in this pursuit before anyone. Come back, and help an old man accomplish something before he dies.

  Your friend,

  Illias

  He had never so overtly begged me to return before. Usually he preferred to disguise his intentions, speaking of current affairs in the Kingsland or the latest decisions of the Council, while the subtext of every word screamed at me that I was wasting my life. This was different, though; there was nothing veiled about this.

  Help an old man accomplish something before he dies. That was not an easy thing for me to refuse, even knowing he had likely chosen the phrase with just that intention. My mother had died before I could remember, and my father when I was just a boy—Master Illias Bront had as good as raised me. I would never have earned my Scriber’s pin without him.

  When I was young, nothing had seemed more noble or exciting than becoming a Scriber. Other boys dreamed of becoming warriors, joining the King’s Army and upholding Erryn’s Promise; all I had ever wanted was to swear the Scriber’s oath, to wear that golden pin, to pledge myself to the preservation of knowledge and the recovery of the Kingsland’s lost past. It was not an ambition that met with much approval from my father, a practical man of the Army—as far as Trestan Lark was concerned, reading and writing were pursuits for the weak. And besides that, enrolment in the Academy was as near to impossible as anything could be for the son of a low-ranking soldier, with neither the money to pay tuition nor the connections to seek the sponsorship of a Master Scriber.

  And then one day, Master Illias caught me—a ten-year-old soldier’s son with no money and no connections—sneaking about the Academy campus looking for a glimpse of my impossible dream. Instead of throwing me out, he offered me a job running errands for him, and fostered my desire for knowledge by lending me his books and answering my constant questions. When my father was killed patrolling the Highpass cliffs that same year, Illias found me room and board with the Academy staff, and on my sixteenth birthday, he sponsored my entry into the Academy. As Master of the School of History, he oversaw my education for eight long years. When I graduated, it was Illias Bront who finally placed the golden quill-in-inkwell pin of the Scribers onto my collar with his own hands.

  But when a dream becomes a reality, it is not always a good thing. I could not go back to the Academy, not even for Illias. Too many memories of failure lived there, and a Scriber never forgets.

  “Are you sure you don’t want to talk, Scriber Dennon?” Josia’s voice interrupted my thoughts once again. Very little time had passed since she last refilled my tea, and the cup was more than half full, but she poured anyway—an obvious excuse to bother me.

  “I’m fine, Josia.”

  “It’s only that you seem upset,” she said. “It helps to talk about these things. I’m always here to listen.”

  She meant that sincerely, I knew. Josia was one of the few truly kind people I had met in my life. She was not particularly quick-witted and her constant nattering annoyed me, but it was comforting to know there was at least one good person left in the world. Most people in Waymark—most people anywhere—only cared about other people’s problems to the extent that they made good gossip.

  But for all of that, I still wished she would leave me be. “Not tonight, Josia. Please.”

  She was about to reply when the creak of the front door stopped her. It was not a common sound at the Prince’s Rest, and I was grateful for the distraction.

  “Excuse me, Scriber,” Josia said, and hurried over to greet the new guests. I glanced towards the door with mild curiosity as she ushered two women inside.

  That was the first time I laid eyes on Bryndine Errynson.

  Chapter Two

  Though few records remain from before the Forgetting, there is little doubt that the Errynson line began approximately one thousand years ago with Erryn the Burner and his wife Aliana, the last princess of Elovia. Erryn forged his kingdom with fire, bringing his people up the Conqueror’s River and burning back the First Forest to clear the land. The Burning is considered by most historians to mark the beginning of Erryn’s reign, and the calendar of the Kingsland is measured in years After the Burning, or AB.

  The family took the surname Errynson, after the barbarian tradition, and the burning tree, crimson on a brown field, became their sigil. To this day, the Errynson family is associated with fire and rebirth, and on the eve of each new year the Festival of Burning is held in their honor, during which symbols of the year gone by are burned and prayers are made for the prosperity of the Kingsland, the King, and the Errynson family.

  — From Dennon Lark’s Royal Blood: the Errynson Family

  I knew who she was almost immediately, by reputation and rumor. Broad-shouldered and muscular, she was larger than any woman I’d ever seen. Larger than any man, for that matter. She stood well over seven feet tall, maybe closer to eight—nearly two feet taller than the woman with her, and almost double that over the small, matronly Josia. Though we were both near thirty years of age, I would have looked a child standing next to her, and at a lanky six feet, three inches, I am by no means a short man.

  Despite her size, though, it was her apparel that truly identified her. She carried a heavy-looking greatsword in a scabbard at her back, and a big round shield of plain steel strapped over that. The brown tabard of the King’s Army covered her boiled leather jerkin, with the crimson burning tree of the Errynsons emblazoned full across the chest and a silver Captain’s cord draped over the shoulder. No woman wore that tabard save those of Bryndine Errynson’s company, and only one wore the Army’s colors with the royal arms full-sized instead of in miniature over the heart.

  I couldn’t imagine why, but the King’s niece—the woman they called the Bloody Bride—had just walked through the door of the only inn in Waymark.

  Josia noted the coat of arms as well, and she hardly knew what to do with herself. “My lady… it is such an honor. An Errynson in the Prince’s Rest! Why, not since Prince Willyn—”

  Josia was prepared to go on, but Bryndine’s companion interjected. “We are not here to stay. The Captain requires a Scriber.”

  I could have said something then, but I had come to Waymark to avoid attention, and attending the King’s infamous niece was counter to that goal. I chose to stay quiet and keep my eyes on the table, but not before sparing a quick glance at the second woman. She was lean and trim, with the deep olive skin of the Southern Islanders. Her black hair framed sharp features, dark brown eyes, and a heavy scowl. She too wore the brown of the King’s Army, with the burning tree insignia over her heart, like most Army soldiers. Pledged to the service of the King, but not of royal blood.

  Bryndine shot her a disapproving look. “Courtesies, Sylla. We represent the King’s Army.” She inclined her head towards Josia. “I apologize for my companion, matron. But she speaks truly—we do not intend to stay. We saw a Scriber’s shingle hanging just down the road, but there was no answer at the door. If you’ll see that our horses are fed and watered and tell us where to find the Scriber, you will have a silver for your trouble.”

  Josia’s eyes widened; a silver mark was more than the Rest would make in a month. “My lady, I… I can’t accept… My husband takes care of the stables, and he is late coming back from Barleyfield, I…” The woman was too honest for her own good. The Kellens needed that silver badly and everyone in town knew it. Running an inn in Waymark was not a profitable venture.

  Bryndine took the innkeeper’s trembling hand and pressed the coin into it. “Sylla will see to them, then, if you will only provide the feed. Now, where might I find your Scriber?”

  Josia gestured weakly towards me, still gaping at the coin in her hand. I
had never seen her so speechless—it was rather delightful. Less so was the sudden attention of Bryndine and her companion.

  Reluctantly, I stood and gave a shallow bow. Keeping my head down, I muttered, “An honor, Lady Bryndine.”

  “You know who I am.” It was a statement, not a question.

  An answer passed my lips before I had time to think. “Considering all that they say about you, how could I not?” I meant it in jest, but as soon as I said it I realized how the words could sound to a woman of Bryndine’s repute. I might have been referring to any of a thousand ugly rumors.

  “Mind your tongue, Scriber!” Sylla strode towards me with startling intensity. I felt the blood leave my face, and cursed myself for a fool. The Islander woman was smaller than her Captain, but at that moment—marching towards me with her hand on her sword—she looked far more dangerous. I am not a religious man, but I praised the Mother and the Father when Bryndine raised her right hand to block the other woman’s advance. Her left arm, I noticed, she kept held tightly to her side, and I thought I saw a bandage wrapped about it, but I could not get a clear look.

  “I am sure he meant nothing by it, Sylla. Please, go see to the horses.”

  “Bryn, he can’t—”

  “Sylla. The horses. Please.”

  Sylla glared at me for a moment longer, then turned on her heel and marched out the door, pulling Josia with her. When she was gone, Bryndine pulled out a chair and sat down across from me. I tried to catch a glimpse of the arm that might have been wounded, but she held it out of sight beneath the table.

  I examined her as she settled herself in her chair. Sheer size aside, her appearance did not entirely live up to the tales. I had heard that she shaved her head bald to look like a man, but her hair—the golden-blond common among the Errynsons—was simply cut short above the ears in a somewhat masculine style. Her face was solemn and plain, perhaps slightly square-jawed, but not hideous or mannish as it was so often described. Frankly, she was quite dull to look at if one ignored her imposing bulk. Even her eyes were a colorless grey.