Chapter 443: The Song Above the River

I told Lethan first.

Before Teren came through the gate. Before anyone else in Greykeep knew. I went to the infirmary at dawn with Teren's folded note inside my coat, and I sat down in the chair beside Lethan's bed, and I waited for his eye to find me.

It did.

Back.

“I'm back.”

Road?

“A marsh,” I said. “A causeway. A house on stilts at the end of it.”

His eye held mine.

Liora was in the chair by the window. She had heard me come in. She had not moved.

“There was a man in the house,” I said. “He'd been there three years. Holding a lamp in the window. He couldn't speak. Someone took his voice.”

Lethan's eye did not move.

But his hand did. On the blanket. His fingers tightened.

“He wrote his name on the glass,” I said. “With his finger. In the fog.”

I reached into my coat.

I took out the note.

I did not unfold it yet.

“Lethan,” I said quietly. “It's Teren.”

Nothing happened.

For a long moment, nothing at all.

Lethan lay perfectly still. His eye stayed fixed on my face. His hand stayed on the blanket. The frost did not form. The bell did not ring.

Liora had risen from her chair by the window. She stood very still, one hand pressed against her mouth.

Then Lethan's lips moved.

No sound.

They moved again.

“Teren,” he whispered.

The word was barely there. Rough and broken and almost lost in his breath.

But it was there.

“Teren,” I agreed.

Lethan's eye closed.

When it opened again, it was wet.

I unfolded the note.

I held it where he could see it. The large, shaky letters. The charcoal smudged where Teren's hand had trembled.

FOR LETHAN.

I REMEMBER THE CAMP.

I REMEMBER HE WASN'T ASLEEP.

HE WAS LISTENING.

TELL HIM I'M COMING TO FINISH THE SONG.

Lethan read it.

I watched his eye move across each line. Slowly. Then back to the beginning. Then across again.

When he reached the last line, his fingers moved on the blanket.

Toward the bell.

He did not ring it.

He rested his hand beside it.

The frost formed slowly beside his fingers.

Today?

“Today,” I said. “He's at the gate station now. With Dorran and Melody and Halemar. They'll be here by noon.”

Lethan's eye held mine.

Then it moved.

To the window. To the two lamps on the sill.

One for Teren.

One for him.

The frost formed again.

Light.

“Both of them?”

One blink.

Yes.

Liora was already moving.

Caldris examined Teren in the receiving hall.

He did not want to wait. He had been examining him, in fact, since the moment Teren stepped out of the marsh house, in small careful ways. A hand resting on his shoulder. A glance at his throat. A question asked and answered in writing.

Now, in the receiving hall, with Thesra beside him and Anwen standing close, he asked Teren to sit.

Teren sat.

Caldris laid two fingers very lightly against the side of Teren's throat.

His face changed.

“It's the same,” he said quietly. “Almost the same. As Lethan's chamber.”

“A command?” Thesra asked.

“A binding. Woven into the voice itself.” Caldris closed his eyes. “Lethan's was imposed through the chamber. A place that held him. This one's woven directly into him. Through the throat.” His jaw tightened. “Someone did this with their hands.”

Teren did not move.

He sat very still with his eyes on the floor.

“Can you take it out?” I asked.

Caldris was quiet for a long time.

“Some of it,” he said. “Part of it came loose when the door opened. It was tied to the house. To the seal.” He opened his eyes. “When Dorran opened the door, those threads broke. That's why he could hum on the way here.”

“He hummed?”

“On Serevan's back,” Melody said from behind me. “Very quietly. Under his breath. He didn't know anyone could hear.”

Teren's face went red.

He looked up at Caldris.

His lips moved.

Caldris answered the question before Teren could write it.

“Not today,” he said gently. “The rest is woven deeper. It'll take time. Weeks. Perhaps months.” He paused. “But it will come out. I'm certain of that.”

Teren looked at him for a long moment.

Then he nodded.

And picked up the charcoal and the paper Caldris had given him, and wrote three words, and held them up.

TAKE ME UPSTAIRS.

Lethan's room was full.

I had not meant it to be. But word had spread through the castle the way word always did, and by the time we reached the infirmary corridor, there were people waiting.

Not crowding. Not pressing. Only standing along the walls of the corridor, quietly, the way people stood along the road at Westmere when the eleven came through.

Vaust was there, leaning on his staff. Halemar beside him, pale but standing.

Mary and Melody.

Avarn, with Garrick beside him.

Brannoc, with Corra on his arm, walking slowly.

And at the very end of the corridor, by Lethan's door, Dorran.

He had come up from the receiving hall ahead of us. He had not gone in. He stood against the wall beside the door with his scarred hand pressed flat against his chest and his eyes on the floor.

Teren stopped in front of him.

Dorran looked up.

Teren looked at him for a long time.

Then he reached out and put his hand on Dorran's shoulder.

He did not write anything.

He did not need to.

Liora opened the door.

The room was bright. She had drawn back the curtains and lit both lamps on the windowsill, though it was midday and the sun was shining.

Lethan lay in his bed.

He had asked to be propped up. Liora had arranged the pillows so that he was nearly sitting, his head turned toward the door, his right hand resting on the blanket beside the bell.

His eye was on the doorway.

Teren stepped into it.

He stopped.

He stood in the doorway of the infirmary room and looked at the man in the bed.

At the frost-white patches on his skin. At the hand that moved so slowly. At the single eye that could still see, fixed on him.

At the two lamps burning on the windowsill behind him.

Teren did not move.

Lethan did not move.

The corridor behind us had gone utterly silent.

Then Lethan's lips moved.

“Teren,” he said.

Out loud.

Rough and broken and barely more than a whisper.

But out loud.

Teren made a sound.

Not a word. Not anything shaped. A sound torn out of his throat past whatever was still woven there, raw and cracked and terrible.

He crossed the room in three steps and dropped to his knees beside the bed.

He did not touch Lethan at first.

He knelt there with his hands hovering over the blanket, as though he were afraid that touching him might hurt. Or might make him disappear.

Lethan's eye moved toward Teren's hands.

His own hand moved.

Slowly. Across the blanket. An inch at a time. The way he had pushed the lamp across the windowsill, the night of the observance.

Toward Teren.

It took him a long time.

Nobody helped.

Nobody moved.

When his fingers finally reached the edge of the blanket, Teren took them.

Very gently.

In both his hands.

And bowed his head over them.

Liora had backed into the corner of the room, both hands pressed against her mouth.

I stood in the doorway.

Behind me, I could hear someone in the corridor crying quietly. I did not turn to see who.

Lethan's eye was fixed on Teren's bowed head.

His mouth moved.

“Sang,” he whispered. “Badly.”

Teren's shoulders shook.

He lifted his head. His face was wet. His mouth was open, his lips moving without sound.

Then he did something I did not expect.

He laughed.

Without sound. Without voice. His whole body shaking with it, his face crumpling, tears running down his cheeks.

Lethan watched him.

And the corner of his mouth moved.

Upward.

They sat like that for a long time.

Teren on his knees beside the bed. Lethan's hand in both of his. Neither of them speaking.

Then Teren let go with one hand and reached into his coat.

He took out the charcoal and a scrap of paper.

He wrote something.

He held it up where Lethan could see it.

YOU WEREN'T ASLEEP.

Lethan's eye held the paper for a long moment.

The frost formed slowly beside his hand.

No.

Teren wrote again.

WHY PRETEND?

Lethan's eye moved from the paper to Teren's face.

His lips moved.

“So you'd,” he whispered. “Keep. Singing.”

Teren stared at him.

He put the paper down.

He put his face in his hands.

I left them then.

So did everyone else.

Liora stayed. She sat in her chair by the window with the two lamps burning beside her, and she did not move, and she did not say anything, and nobody asked her to leave.

The corridor emptied slowly.

Garrick was the last to go.

He stood at the doorway with Avarn's hand on his shoulder, looking in at the two men. At Teren kneeling. At Lethan's hand in his.

Then he looked up at Avarn.

“Is that what it's like?” he asked quietly. “Having a brother?”

Avarn looked down at him.

He did not answer at once.

“Sometimes,” he said finally. “Not always. But sometimes.”

Garrick nodded slowly.

Then he turned around and walked down the corridor toward the nursery.

Toward Roderic.

I watched him go.

He did not run.

But he walked very fast.

They finished the song that night.

I was not there for most of it. Liora told me afterward.

Teren had stayed in the room all afternoon. He did not eat. He did not sleep. He sat beside the bed and held Lethan's hand and wrote him things on scraps of paper, and Lethan answered in frost and in single whispered words.

They talked about the camp above the river.

About the other soldiers. The ones who had died. The ones who might not have.

About Teren's three daughters.

When the sun went down, Teren stopped writing.

He looked at Lethan for a long time.

Then he began to hum.

Liora sent for me.

I came quickly. I stood in the doorway and listened.

It was not a song I knew.

Teren hummed it very quietly. Brokenly. The binding still woven into his throat caught at every third note and choked it, so that the melody came out ragged and incomplete, full of gaps.

But it was a melody.

Slow. Low. The kind of song soldiers sing around a fire late at night when nobody is ready to sleep and nobody wants to talk about tomorrow.

Lethan's eye was closed.

His lips were moving.

Not singing. He could not sing. His voice was a whisper at best.

But he was mouthing the words. Silently. Every one. In time with the melody.

He knew it.

He had always known it.

He had been lying in the dark in a camp above a river, listening, while Teren sang it badly.

Teren hummed the last verse.

The binding caught on the final line. The melody broke apart. Teren's breath hitched. He stopped.

He tried again.

The binding caught again.

He stopped.

He bowed his head.

The last line was gone. The last few notes. Choked off by something woven into his throat by someone's hands three years ago.

Lethan's eye opened.

He looked at Teren.

His lips moved.

And then, very quietly, in a voice so rough and broken that it was barely more than breath, Lethan sang the last line.

Not well.

Not in tune.

Badly.

As badly as Teren used to sing it around the fire, while another soldier pretended to sleep.

But he sang it.

Teren lifted his head.

He stared at Lethan.

Lethan's eye held his.

The last note faded into the quiet of the room.

The two lamps on the windowsill burned steady.

And then Liora, in her chair by the window, said, very softly:

“Look.”

The lamps on the windowsill had changed.

Not brighter. Not larger.

Warmer.

The flames had gone from yellow to something deeper. Gold. The color of honey in sunlight. The color of the lantern Corran had carved in Westmere, held out toward whoever was coming.

And beneath my feet, through the stone floor of the infirmary, I felt the warmth rise.

“Keeper?” I said quietly.

The warmth stirred.

“That song,” the Keeper said.

Her voice was strange. Not distant. Not faint.

Close.

Closer than I had ever heard it.

“That song,” she said again. “Where did they learn it?”

Teren looked up sharply.

He looked at the floor. At the lamps. At me.

He did not know the Keeper's voice. He had never heard her before.

But Lethan had.

His eye moved toward the floor.

His lips moved.

“Camp,” he whispered. “Everyone. Knew it.”

“Everyone,” the Keeper repeated softly.

“Old,” Lethan whispered. “Soldiers' song.”

The warmth went very still.

“It isn't a soldiers' song,” the Keeper said.

Teren had grabbed his charcoal.

He wrote quickly. His hand was shaking.

WHO IS THAT?

I looked at him.

“The Keeper of Roads,” I said. “She carries what people mean. She's been carrying lamps for everyone who's waiting.”

Teren stared at me.

Then he looked down at the floor.

He wrote again.

WHAT SONG IS IT?

The Keeper did not answer at once.

When she did, her voice was very quiet.

“It's the traveler's hymn,” she said. “Not the tune. The tune changed, over the years. Soldiers made it slower. Sadder.” A pause. “But the words. The last verse. The one Lethan sang.”

“What about it?” I asked.

“Travelers sing the first verses,” the Keeper said. “Asking for the lamp. Asking someone to keep it lit for whoever's still walking.” Her voice was trembling now. “The last verse is the answer. The Keeper's verse.”

Vaust had told me.

In his room, after I first came back from the trough below the western climb.

Only one voice ever sang that part.

“Nobody else knows it,” the Keeper said. “Nobody else was ever supposed to. It's the verse I sing back. To the people on the road.” A pause. “How do soldiers know it?”

Nobody answered.

Teren was staring at the floor.

Lethan's eye had closed.

The warmth beneath my feet had gone utterly still.

Then the Keeper said, very softly:

“Unless someone taught it to them.”

“Someone else,” I said slowly. “Someone who knew your verse.”

“Yes.”

“Who?”

The Keeper did not answer for a long time.

“The person who took me in,” she said finally. “When I was lost. In the small house in the valley with the lamp in the window.” Her voice wavered. “They sang to me. The first night. While I was too cold to sleep.”

Nobody moved.

“I took that verse,” the Keeper said. “I made it mine. I sang it back to every traveler for thousands of years.” Her voice broke. “I thought I was the only one who remembered it. I thought whoever taught it to me was gone.”

“And now?” I asked.

The warmth beneath my feet pulsed once.

Not strongly.

But not faintly either.

“Now,” the Keeper said, “I can feel my house.”

I stopped breathing.

“The hole,” the Keeper said. “The place I couldn't feel. The only place in the world I was never allowed to go.” Her voice was shaking. “When Lethan sang that last line. When he sang my verse. Badly. Out of tune. With a binding still in his body.”

“What happened?”

“The lamp,” the Keeper said. “In my house. It lit again.”

“Like before?”

“Not like before.” The warmth was rising now. Rising through the floor. Through the walls. Through the whole infirmary. “Before, it was a match. Struck and blown out. Tonight—”

She stopped.

“Tonight,” the Keeper of Roads said, “it stayed lit.”

Teren had dropped his charcoal.

Lethan's eye had opened again. It was fixed on the floor.

Liora had both hands pressed against her mouth.

“For how long?” I asked.

“It's still lit,” the Keeper said. “Now. As I'm speaking.” A pause. “I can see it. For the first time in—I don't know how long. A window. A small window in a small house in a valley. With a lamp in it.”

“Can you see inside?”

“No.” Her voice broke. “Only the lamp. Only the window.” A long pause. “But Uriah.”

“I'm here.”

“Someone's singing,” the Keeper said.

I could not move.

“In my house,” the Keeper said. “Right now. Very quietly. Behind the lamp.”

“Singing what?”

The Keeper was silent for a long time.

When she answered, her voice was barely more than a whisper.

“The last verse,” she said. “My verse. The answer.”

A pause.

“Someone in my house,” the Keeper of Roads said, “is singing it back.”

Nobody spoke for a long time.

The two lamps on the windowsill burned gold.

Teren sat on the floor beside Lethan's bed, staring at nothing. His lips were moving. Silently. The words of the last verse.

Lethan's hand had found Teren's again on the blanket.

Liora had not moved.

Finally, I said, “Can they hear you?”

“I don't know,” the Keeper said. “I've never been able to reach inside. Not once.” A pause. “But tonight, someone sang my verse. In a camp song. Here. In this room.” Her voice wavered. “And someone in my house heard it. And sang it back.”

“Then the song carries,” I said slowly. “Like the lamps.”

“Like the lamps,” the Keeper agreed. “Like the bread. Like the leaves.” A pause. “Like everything people mean.”

Lethan's lips moved.

“Again,” he whispered.

Everyone turned to look at him.

His eye was on Teren.

“Again,” Lethan whispered. “Sing. Again.”

Teren stared at him.

He put his hand to his throat.

He shook his head.

Lethan's eye did not waver.

“Badly,” he whispered. “Like. Before.”

Teren looked at him for a long time.

Then he closed his eyes.

He began to hum.

The binding caught at every third note. The melody came out broken and ragged, full of gaps.

Lethan mouthed the words.

At the last verse, Teren's voice failed again.

Lethan sang it.

Rough and broken and out of tune.

And beneath the floor, through the stone, from somewhere so far away I could not imagine it and so close I could feel it in my bones—

An answer.

Not words. Not a voice.

A warmth.

Rising up through the floor of the infirmary. Through the walls. Through the lamps on the windowsill, which flared gold and steady.

The Keeper's voice, when it came, was not speaking to me.

It was speaking to someone else.

Very softly. Very carefully.

The way you speak to someone you have not seen in a very, very long time, and are afraid you might be imagining.

“Is that you?” the Keeper of Roads said.

Silence.

The lamps burned.

Then, so faint I almost missed it, so faint it might have been nothing at all—

Someone hummed the last note.

Back.