He stared, his nerves flashing hot and then very cold as he comprehended what he had in his hands. This book was a list of all Wan-Edhe’s enemies, or people he wanted to track. And each time they transferred by magic to Destinations warded by Wan-Edhe over what must have been decades, their location appeared.
Jilo flipped back, scanning carefully. There was Siamis, mostly Norsunder Base, but many other places. That must have been when he enchanted the world.
Jilo turned back to Detlev’s entry. His location was seldom mentioned, and nearly all of those were Norsunder Base. Not all the transfers linked up the way Siamis’s did. So the book had some limitations. It never mentioned Norsunder-Beyond, only the Base. Even so? Wan-Edhe was going to want to retrieve it.
The sense of threat pressing down on Jilo intensified as he fumbled his way back inside the castle.
* * *
Colend
After six months of hard travel, which included visiting harbors along the Sartoran Sea in quest of Mendaen’s father lost a century ago, Rel finally cut north into the vast Sartoran continent, which—if Halia, where Marloven Hess lay, was included—reached three quarters of the way around the southern hemisphere.
He rode down the single street bisecting the small market town of Wilderfeld in western Colend. Snow had been swept but ice lurked between the fitted stones in the frigid air.
Like in most places he’d been in Colend, the snow had been formed into neat white walls. Mounds were unsightly.
Rel hunched into his scarf as a cold blast of wind scoured straight off the frozen river alongside the town. Beneath his legs, he felt the horse bunch its muscles as he himself leaned into the wind.
The street abruptly widened into the town square, which was empty of people, snow blankets covering the plots that would be gardens in spring. He expelled a cloudy breath in relief when he found what he had been looking for: a rambling two-story building. Judging by the different patterns to the stones, the lighter growth of ivy up the walls, and the sizes of the windows, it had been added onto at least twice. The sign hanging from the awning over the long porch stated in the flowing Colendi script:
Wilderfeld Scribes and Messengers
Puddlenose of the Mearsieans had taught Rel many of his traveler’s tricks when Rel began his wanders, such as to always seek out the scribe guild when reaching a new town. Young and friendly scribe students were usually willing to recommend places to go (and places to avoid) to someone their age. In fact, Puddlenose had scribe friends here in Wilderfeld, whom he had introduced to Rel the last time they traveled together. The Colendi scribes Thad and Karhin Keperi were always a valuable source of information, and Karhin in particular seemed to have correspondence friends in every city on the continent.
Rel clicked his tongue, though the horse needed no encouragement to lift its head and pick up the pace, as it smelled a stable. A short time later, Rel stamped his boots at the back door porch, and then walked inside to a rare sight: near emptiness.
The rest of the year the shop was crowded with custom, lines at each of the slanted desks where scribes wrote messages for people, couriers coming and going. Rel stepped inside the long main room, noted the duty scribes—mostly adults, none of the young ones familiar—then took the officially stamped greenweave wallet from his pack and handed it to the duty apprentice scribe who sat at the courier desk, writing in beautiful script.
“This is to go to Alsais,” Rel said. “I’m heading northwest.”
“You’re the first in several days,” she said, laying her pen carefully on its holder. “Where from?”
“Lisdan, in Melire,” Rel said.
The scribe’s thin face brightened. “Oh! My cousin Albet is at Lisdan. Did you see him?”
Rel shook his head. “Not on duty when I was through there, but everyone seemed cheerful. There was a smell of cinnamon buns in the shop that day.” Puddlenose, who had initiated Rel into the mysteries of getting bonded as a courier (which basically meant being paid to travel where you were going anyway) had told Rel that scribes liked to hear bits of detail that most people would shrug off.
Sure enough, she thanked him, and when he said, “Is Thad or Karhin about?” she didn’t apologetically tell him the siblings were off-duty, which was the Colendi way of brushing one off. She said, “I can send the duty page to see, if you wish?”
Rel thanked her, and waited as the scribe tapped a tiny bell. A short time later, he was ushered into a plain room, where Thad and Karhin both sat on cushions before a low table, finishing their midday meal. Tall, weedy, with bright red hair, they rose and put their hands together and then outward in the graceful Colendi greeting called ‘the peace.’
Karhin was the first to smile with recognition. “Puddlenose’s friend, I believe? Rel?”
“Yes. The year before the Siamis enchantment you helped me become bonded as a courier for Colend, and I’ve been grateful ever since.”
Colend was so important all across the Sartoran subcontinent that the Universal Language Spell was kept up to date on Colendi idiom more than any other language in the world, except Sartoran. But mere translation did not guard against cultural pitfalls, such as avoiding questions that might require a negative, and other Colendi peculiarities.
When they had gone through the politenesses of Colendi greetings, Thad and Karhin offering food and asking about his journey, and Rel thanking them and replying suitably, Rel brought out the first of his carefully planned requests, worded so that a Colendi could avoid a negative.
“There are two subjects on which I hoped to ask your advice. First . . .” He brought out Mendaen’s information. As soon as he said, “Sartoran boy from the old days. Can you tell me where I’d go to begin my quest?” Karhin flicked her fingers outward like a flower opening, a gesture of pleasure, as she exclaimed, “Oh, please, would you honor me with this precious investigation?”
Rel said, “I did not want to burden you with it, only to ask advice—”
Thad grinned. “You must see, it’s the very type of task some of our friends like the most. Old Sartor, you know!”
By ‘Old Sartor,’ Rel knew that they meant Sartor of a century previous, as opposed to Ancient Sartor.
Karhin added, “This is exactly the kind of project to gain a scribe student great credit.” She bowed over her pressed palms. “Thank you for entrusting it to me.”
Rel thanked her on Mendaen’s behalf, then said, “There is a second thing. I’ve been thinking for weeks how to describe it, and maybe it is not possible. I hope you can advise me . . .”
He really had been thinking about it for weeks. The sense of urgency after that encounter with Kessler had driven him to race northward, but as the days slid by while he was first stuck on a boat riding out a series of storms, then at a border that was closed because of trouble, he’d had time to think about the alliance.
He shrugged off CJ’s rants about adults. Her reasoning might be faulty, but he believed that the idea of underage rulers uniting to form their own circle of communication was exactly what Atan needed. Especially if he, or any of them, ended up with what might be crucial news like what Kessler had told him about Henerek and a possible invasion, information that they might not be able to get past governmental watchdogs to deliver.
Rel imagined trying to tell Atan’s high council about Kessler’s warning earlier in spring. It didn’t take much imagination to predict the way he’d be ushered right back out again on a wave of polite skepticism. After all, he couldn’t prove the truth of anything the renegade prince had said, and he knew what they would say about Kessler as a reliable informant.
Rel described the theory behind the alliance to Karhin and Thad. “. . . so my thought is, if I, or any of my friends, stumble on information that might be important to know, there ought to be a way for us to spread it without having to go before nobles, councils, and others who might see fit to bl
ock information before a young ruler gets it and can decide what to do. For example, you might remember a few years ago, Wan-Edhe of the Chwahir tried to invade Colend.” Rel lifted his hand northward. “Using magic as well as marching his army over the middle pass. And when the mages united against him, he took a couple of hostages to cover his retreat.”
Thad tapped his palms together in the peace, trying to hide his excitement at the idea of being a part of such an alliance.
Rel eyed him uncertainly. He’d learned that the Colendi peace gesture could mean many things, from Hello and welcome to Don’t mind my interruption (or, more bluntly, We know that), to Quiet down, mannerless lout.
“Puddlenose has told us a little about that story,” Thad said, hoping for more—though he could see in his sister’s careful politeness that she was uneasy.
Rel eyed her. He rarely talked about his own part in that ugly business, which had happened right before Kessler’s recruiting gang had come along. He suspected that the Keperis probably knew the general history, but not that he’d disguised himself as a Chwahir flatfoot in a desperate attempt to rescue the hostages, both of whom were friends.
Rel had to be careful, because it all began with Puddlenose’s futile attempt to warn the Colendi king about the invading Chwahir. It had occurred right after Puddlenose made his final escape from Wan-Edhe, knowing that the army was on the march to invade Colend. Yet King Carlael had ignored him with royal and serene loftiness.
Rel knew that no Colendi liked outsiders referring to their king as mad.
Thad raised a hand. “Would your example perhaps relate to Puddlenose’s idea of a scribe circle?”
Karhin said helpfully, “Some of whose members are young monarchs who might like to correspond on subjects of mutual interest.”
Rel let out a long sigh of relief. “Then he’s already talked to you! Ha, it figures. And here I’ve spent the past several weeks thinking about how to approach the idea.”
Karhin said more seriously, “Puddlenose described it as a message relay, saying that he never can keep hold of a notecase. He told us on his last visit he’s lost three, and had two stolen. He wanted a way to send us news from any scribe desk if he thought it might be important, and for us to send it on. We can always relay messages without charge, as practice, for us, but when you say ‘the relay of information,’ that suggests a different purpose.”
Rel bent his head, peripherally aware of the rising wind howling outside. “I’m seeing something entirely new. It might not be possible. It might not be useful.” He hesitated to mention Atan.
Instead, he recounted his recent journey as a caravan guard, and Kessler’s warning about Henerek’s impending attack on Everon. “So you see,” he finished, “I believe the threat is real. But I can’t predict this attack with any certainty. Yet I feel I ought to warn anyone who’ll listen, especially at high levels.”
He’d come this far, why not tell it all?
“The new king of Erdrael Danara, who is no older than you—” He nodded at Thad. “Was one of those hostages during the abortive Chwahir invasion. He’s become a friend, and that’s where I’m headed next. I believe he’d welcome such an alliance. And I also plan to ask the princess and prince in Everon.”
He couldn’t tell if he was making sense or merely sounding pompous. But he had to try, because of Atan’s frustration, her sense of being caged by her high council.
There was another quagmire, too. He wouldn’t betray Atan’s ambivalence about Colend, though on the surface the two kingdoms were firm allies. However, Atan had told him that Sartoran courtiers had begun removing the Colendi lace from their court clothes. Until he’d spent time with Atan, he had been completely oblivious to how galling it was to the Sartorans to have lost the yearly Music Festival to Colend, not only for the sake of music, but because that festival served as the center of cultural exchange for most of the continent, and even farther out.
Thad listened with abating interest. Instead of suggesting a relay crossing countries with news, Rel seemed to want letter writers. It would be a lot of extra work obtaining the expensive paper, and inks, appropriate to royalty, and composing in formal scribe mode for an idea that probably wouldn’t last out the winter. Kings writing to kings, relaying through the scribe desk of a tiny outpost such as Wilderfeld? Unlikely! Kings were surrounded by senior scribes, with elite, magic-protected scribe circles.
As Thad’s interest waned, Karhin’s intensified. She was passionate about being a scribe, and had not only read twice as much scribe history as her brother, she enjoyed voluminous correspondence with scribe students all over, including two new ones, girls from Old Sartor who wanted to catch up with world news, and who’d passed along interesting tidbits of information about the friendship between their young queen and the mysterious Rel the Traveler.
“I’d be happy to relay letters, as part of my service time,” Karhin said when Rel finished. “I’ll register a sigil with the scribe mage at once, before you depart on your next journey. Please carry it to any of your contacts that you wish.”
At last, a success! Even if a small one. Gratefully, Rel began to thank them, but was interrupted by the chimes ringing downstairs.
“Time for tutoring,” Thad said apologetically.
Rel thanked them again, and went downstairs to catch a meal at the courier annex, leaving the brother and sister alone.
“You really think we can run a scribe circle for royalty?” Thad asked Karhin as they assembled their study tools. “King of Erdrael Danara—the Queen of Sartor—the royal children in Everon!”
“It’s not just royalty,” Karhin said. “Rel would be part. And other travelers like him, such as Puddlenose.”
“He’s cousin to a queen,” Thad said.
“But he doesn’t tell everyone. His friends are all over, every rank.” She indicated them both. “Ah-ye! The question of royal correspondents aside,” Karhin said practically, though inside she was thrilled at the idea of being central to so much royal correspondence, “from what Rel describes, it seems they want not just a circle, but a back door scribe-net. Only instead of some senior scribe or noble at the center, we shall preside. Think what it would do for our future positions, once we’re given permission to reveal it!”
“For you,” Thad said, laughing. “You know I haven’t any ambition. And this sounds like a lot of work of the sort I like least. Especially if it has to be written out in formal mode, for all those royal eyes.”
“I’ll handle that part,” she promised.
Thad studied the signs of secret pleasure in the quirk of her eyes, the little smile, and comprehended that she truly relished this extra work, if he didn’t quite perceive why. Thad was a scribe because it was the family business. He didn’t have the passion for the world of paper and words that Karhin had. He was far more interested in people. He only went along because of the prospect of interesting visitors coming by to leave messages.
As they started out of the room, pen cases tucked under their arms, he stretched out a hand to halt Karhin. “There’s Puddlenose’s request,” he said at last.
Karhin’s gaze shifted away. Thad recognized in her averted gaze the discomfort he felt: looming unspoken between them was Prince Shontande, heir to Colend, who Puddlenose thought might like being invited into the alliance because he was young.
Their stepmother, before she joined the family, had been a scribe at the royal palace. Of course she said nothing about the personal lives of the king and prince. That oath was drilled into scribes as they practiced their first letters.
But Thad and Karhin were both good at discerning the shapes of silences, and intensely interested in the young prince, who was so rarely seen. They’d gained an impression of a very lonely boy sequestered in his exquisite palace at Skya Lake for most of the year.
The question no one ever asked out loud, but everyone thought, was: is he also mad
?
Karhin said, “There are no scribe students at Skya. I asked.”
For her, that was clearly the end of it.
Thad lifted his hand. “Leave that part to me.” This mystery was the sort of challenge he liked best.
Karhin duly registered the new sigil, gave it to Rel to pass along, and wrote to the contacts whose sigils he had furnished.
* * *
Spring, 4739 AF
Marloven Hess
Senrid seldom remembered to check his golden notecase.
He couldn’t imagine writing letters to anyone. And it wasn’t as if he didn’t have plenty of things to do.
Now that winter was over, the castle staff was cleaning and airing out rooms. As the snows melted in Marloven Hess, they began to fall up north in Bereth Ferian, and Liere came as usual to visit Senrid. She was there when one of the stewards discovered underneath piles of old winter armor some trunks that Senrid’s barely-remembered mother had brought from her own land. They turned out to be full of carved and painted toy houses.
Liere was so delighted that Senrid gave orders for the trunks to be brought to his study. The pieces now sat all over the floor, along with the plain wooden blocks that Senrid and his cousin had made castles with when very small.
Liere crouched over the beautifully carved toys, marveling over the detail, round Iascan houses (the doors never face west!), steep-roofed Telyer houses, farms and cottages and even one castle.
She moved them about in cozy patterns, built around squares and circles. She didn’t want her town to look like South End, laid out in a strict grid. How did villages and towns and cities grow, anyway? When was a town a city? Well, that might be just a matter of names. The Mearsiean girls called their capital on its mountain a city, but Liere had discovered it was smaller than South End, which was a town.
She sat back, hugging her bony knees against her chest as she wondered how towns began, and if people first chose each other as neighbors before they began building.
A Sword Named Truth Page 30
