The Book of Silence by Lawrence Watt-Evans Page A

the god of time be coerced, with the Book of Silence, into undoing what has happened?”
    â€œNo. I doubt that the book wastes space on anything so trivial.”
    â€œThe reversal of time, the resurrection of the dead, are trivial? Why, then, have you recalled where it lies? What good can it do me now?”
    â€œThere was no deception in my sudden memory, Garth; your mention of the Death-God’s totem, the Pallid Mask, reminded me. I had brought the book from Dûsarra so that I might have both my great devices in a single safe place.”
    â€œIn three years, you did not recall so simple a fact?”
    â€œIn three centuries, three millennia, I did not. Perhaps I was not intended to; though I do not currently wield the mask directly, no greater power has freed me of my patron as I freed you of Bheleu. The Age of Death is not yet come, but Death holds sway in every era.”
    This presented Garth with another new concept. It had never occurred to him that the Forgotten King might himself be the victim of the machinations of the gods beyond the fact of his immortality. Garth had assumed that the old man had had no contact with the gods since he left the service of The God Whose Name Is Not Spoken, that he dealt with no being more powerful than himself. The suggestion that his patron deity was still affecting him, perhaps involving him against his will in some divine scheme, was unsettling.
    The entire conversation was becoming unsettling; it was getting out of hand, Garth decided. He had come with the intent of asking a few simple questions and receiving a few simple answers. He had wanted to know what part the King had played in Kyrith’s death and whether she might be brought back to life somehow. He had not wanted to listen to details of the King’s past, or to anything about the Book of Silence that might remind him of his own false oath. The King was being more loquacious than ever before in the three years Garth had known him, but everything he said related to his own concerns, rather than to Garth’s. In mixed anger and desperation, Garth declared, “I care nothing for that. Answer me my questions.”
    The King said nothing.
    â€œIs there any way known to you, no matter how fantastical or difficult, in which Kyrith might be restored to life?”
    â€œNo.” The old man chopped the single syllable off short, but it was unmistakable and definite.
    â€œHave you any reason, however slight, to believe that there might be some way not known to you?” Garth was reluctant to give up until he had exhausted every possibility.
    Again, the King said, “No.”
    That seemed final; Garth could think of no other approach. The old man might be lying, but if he were, Garth had no way of coaxing the truth out of him.
    â€œYou had no part in her death?”
    â€œNo. I am no oathbreaker.”
    The added phrase hurt, and Garth wondered whether the old man knew of his intended infidelity. It was only after a few seconds of silence that he realized that the King had had no need to mention his oath, for the King did not like to speak unnecessarily. Garth had no choice but to conclude that the King knew very well that the overman had sworn falsely when he agreed to fetch the Book of Silence and was reminding him of it as delicately as possible.
    He was not at all sure why the old man should do so. Perhaps, Garth thought, the King meant to shame him into fulfilling his false oath. The overman leaned back, his chair creaking beneath his shifting weight, and thought in silence for a moment.
    In Dûsarra, watching his scrying glass, Haggat decided that this was an ideal opportunity for his next planned event. He gestured to his waiting acolyte, who hurried off to tell a priest, especially trained for this coming performance, that it was time to begin.
    A moment later, in the King’s Inn, something flickered at the edge of the overman’s vision. He whirled, startled, his