“Yes, holy one.”
“You are afraid to go, and yet your duty requires you go.”
“Yes, holy one.”
“Take comfort. Our lord Sho’Ash, once a prince in his own lands, left his wife, his home, his family. He traveled a year and a day to put an end to the evil of the Black Terror. Now and forever he guides and guards those who go forth in his name to do good deeds.” What the priest said was well known to Sandun: these were core elements of the story of Sho’Ash, which Sandun had heard every year during Holy Week when the sacred rituals of Sho’Ash were acted out.
Sandun wondered if everyone who was going on a journey into the unknown felt the same fears. Sho’Ash had left his native land, gone into the unknown, and challenged the greatest evil the world had seen—but he was a god, the son of Dyus, destined for glorious victory. Sho’Ash was never afraid; he’d had unshakable confidence. Sandun didn’t think he had much choice, but if he were offered the choice freely, would he take it? He didn’t know.
He climbed the stairs up to the light. Before leaving the temple, he stopped to pray before two of the saints: Hurin and Pellar. Hurin held his long sword up to the sky, pledging his every victory to the glory of Sho’Ash. Saint Pellar had her book open in her hands, but her face was lifted to stare at the face of her lord.
Sandun returned to his dark house and lit a lamp before going to bed. The journey seemed no less impossible, but miracles had occurred in the past; despite his many faults and his many sins, Sandun now felt hope. After all, what was the passage of centuries or millenniums to a god? An eyeblink? An hour spent staring at the sun?
Sandun’s second-in-command was selected from the journeymen of the Archives. The most physically gifted of the young men was Maklin Leo. Maklin had grown up on an orange farm in Miloalos. Maklin had the arms of an oak tree, and he was skilled with a wood axe. He also had a prodigious memory; he had named every tree on his family’s farm and had counted every orange on every tree for two years running. The priest of the local temple had recommended him to the exchequer, and he had worked there for a year. Then he requested a transfer to Archives, and they had been happy to have him as memorization was a crucial talent for those who worked inside the Royal Archives. Maklin also chopped the firewood not only for the Archives but for all the other official agencies clustered in Tebispoli: the Royal Astronomers, the Herb Masters, the newly relocated Navy Department, and the College of Natural Philosophers. He was paid for this work, but he told anyone who asked that it was only when he was cutting logs that his mind was quiet.
Sandun doubted that skill in handling a wood axe would be very useful on the expedition, but Master Eulogo insisted that Maklin’s strength and farming background made him the best choice. Sandun did get his pick for the third man: the mapmaker, Basil Vono.
Like Sandun, Basil was from Hepedion; he and Sandun had been friends while they were young boys. But then Basil’s father, a surveyor of land borders, had run afoul of the Viscount of Helioada, and so Basil’s family was forced to leave town and flee north to the forests outside of Thalapolis, where they had relatives who could protect them. Sandun heard little of his friend for the next ten years, during which time Basil became an expert hunter and one of the finest bowmen of the northlands. When he was not out hunting, he was tutored by his father in the art of surveying. Since the Viscount of Helioada was loyal to King Oniktes, Basil joined Pandion’s rebel army more for a chance to avenge his family than for any great love of the would-be king. There, he and Sandun were reunited, and they became blood brothers during the campaign that ended in the great victory of Agnefeld.
After the war, Basil was able to profitably combine his skills as a hunter and surveyor working for the king and for newly installed lords who wished their recently granted domains to be carefully delineated. Every three months or so, he would return to the Archives with one or two hand-drawn maps—for which he was paid handsomely—and some excellent venison or boar steaks. Basil and Sandun would usually eat at the local tavern, where Basil could be convinced to tell humorous hunting stories.
Soon after the meeting with the king, Sandun visited the hunter’s hall in the old part of Seopolis. There he left a message with the door warden, offering a reward of ten crowns to any man who could get a message to Basil Vono. He did the same at the bowyer’s guild hall, the fletcher’s guild, and the currier’s guild. The message was simple: come to Tebispoli as soon as possible.
One hunter who sold a bale of animal skins at the currier’s hall the next day knew Basil’s location and went to deliver the message. Nine days after, Basil showed up at the Royal Archives, dusty and curious, his hunting dog by his side. That very day he was asked to join the expedition at a lieutenant’s pay, six months guaranteed, ninety crowns. In the evening at Sandun’s house, over a fine bottle of fortified wine, Sandun told him the whole story.
Basil looked at a duplicate copy of the map, which Sandun carefully unrolled from a narrow copper tube. “I’ve travelled up and down Kelten and gone deep into the Kelten Alps, but I have not gone to this part of Erimasran,” Basil said thoughtfully. “I do know the hunting becomes very poor on the other side of the Alps. Also, the people are so scattered that no lord has need of carefully marked borders, so there has been no work for me there.”
He picked up another, larger map that purported to show the geography of the known world and brought it over to the light. He stared at it and marked out distances with his folding metal yardstick. He was silent for a long time as the hearth fire cracked and burned, slowly turning the wood into glowing orange embers.
“Even if we can find this path, the distance is too great. It seems impossible unless we find unknown help on the route. It is said by everyone that the mountains go on and on for several thousand miles, monstrously tall, barren peaks, and dry valleys between them.”
Basil continued, “In good land with plenty of game, I can travel twenty miles a day, hunting animals at every camp. Assuming this map is correct, it would take me at least four months of steady travel. The longer it takes to hunt, the fewer miles I can manage per day. If the land is like Erimasran, the trip would take me six months. If the land is worse, perhaps seven or eight months. I must believe the Tiralas are impassible in the winter; all accounts insist on their great height. If the snows come and we can’t find people who will shelter us, we will die.”
“But we are bringing food with us, on mules, for exactly this purpose,” replied Sandun.
“Good travel food can allow us to go faster, perhaps twenty-five miles a day for several months. I don’t travel with mules myself; their braying drives most game into hiding.” Basil stared at the map, playing out distances in his mind. “All right, perhaps even without finding an undiscovered nation in the middle of the Tiralas, it might be possible to cross in four months. If we find the path two weeks before midsummer, we might get through before the snows trap us.”
Sandun smiled at Basil’s reluctant concession. “You don’t have to go with me. You can back out now and no one will think anything of it. You have a woman and a youngster.”
Basil let out a low, mirthless laugh. “I’m a wanderer, gone for months at a time. Ezeil is happy to see me when I show up on her doorstep, but she knows what I am. There are few old hunters: a slip in a steep canyon, a tusk gash that starts to weep pus, and we are never heard from again. You have to go on this trip, right? The king’s command?”
Sandun nodded slowly.
“Then that’s it. We stick together, you and I. Besides, if we make it back, I’ll be the most famous hunter in all of Kelten. They will put a portrait of me in the hunting lodge, right behind the main table. A hundred years from now, men will say, ‘Basil Vono, the greatest guide in history.’” He laughed at the thought of it. Sandun doubted Basil had set foot in the Seopolis lodge more than a dozen times, but he nodded in agreement.
“What about me?”
“You aren’t a member. Is there a guild of explorers? If we make it back, you can start one.”
Three weeks later, the Archive Expedition was on a boat, sailing slowly east through the marsh toward Opomos and the mountains beyond. The preceding days had been a blur of continual decisions, frustrations, and second-guessing by everyone from Master Eulogo to King Pandion himself.
To Sandun’s surprise and bemusement, their military escort had ridden into town a week earlier, and the commander was none other than the dashing third son of the Earl of Agnefeld: Sir Ako, a knight of Kelten, the same man who had married the queen’s golden-haired handmaiden years before. Sir Ako was very tall and very handsome, with sandy hair. Despite his size, he was quick on his feet, and his hands had a grip like a vise. He practiced every day without fail with all weapons but mostly bow and sword. In speech he was affable, able to speak with perfect courtesy to his social equals—and then half an hour later, you could find him cursing and belting out orders to his scouts like the most ill-tempered mule driver.
The eleven scouts under his command were experienced professionals, a hand-picked group of soldiers used to days of hard riding and nights spent in lonely vigil looking out across the border to Fiodroch, watching for spies or signs of military forces massing. Relations between Fiodroch and Kelten were unusually cordial under King Pandion, so the border was largely untroubled for the first time in more than a hundred years—all to the good, since the northern border with Issedon had become bloody, with nearly constant raids and punitive counterstrikes. War with the northern kingdom was openly talked about in Seopolis.
Sandun wondered why a knight was in command of so small a detachment, but in several carefully worded conversations, Sir Ako indicated that he was aware of the true purpose of the expedition and had expressly asked for the command. Later, from Master Eulogo, Sandun learned that Sir Ako was only billed to the Archives at a captain’s rate—a good thing indeed since a knight at full pay would have greatly exceeded their budget. Even so, when all was bought and paid for, the budget for the expedition came to 2,300 crowns, nearly triple what the king had authorized in their first meeting.
Despite the cover story and the vociferous complaints from the chancellor of the exchequer as to the pointlessness of the expedition, Sandun suspected that Issedon’s spies were going to ferret out the truth sooner rather than later. The haste with which the trip was organized, the presence of a knight of the realm in command of elite scouts, and the fact that the king had taken a personal interest in the Archives—all these things suggested something more interesting than a search for an ancient library of the Pellian Empire was afoot. Sandun hoped that no enemies knew where they were going; as a precaution, the map had been seen by fewer than ten men.
It was late afternoon, and as they sat on the deck of the sailboat, the wind hardly seemed to move, yet the tall marsh reeds bent and swayed in the breeze blowing up from the Great Sea. Their sails were full and the boats, guided by men native to the river, tacked back and forth among the islands, always in the deep water, steadily beating upstream.
Several of the scouts attached long, thin lines to their arrows and ventured shots at waterfowl, who flew out of cover as the boat passed their resting places. The lines pulled the arrows off target and reduced their range. But the scouts made adjustments, and a lifetime of archery paid off with two fat ducks being squarely struck and hauled back to the boat.
Basil silently strung his large bow and gave a low whistle. His dog, one of the hunting breeds imported from Akia centuries ago, went to the edge of the boat and stood there, all coiled muscle, as tense as spring iron, looking back and forth between his master’s bow and the reeds. Several birds burst from the thick green stalks, and Basil released his arrow. With a soft flutter of feathers, the largest bird plummeted from the orange-tinted sky. His dog leapt into the water, swam over to where the bird had splashed, and retrieved it. Back on the boat, the dog dropped the bird at Basil’s feet and shook himself, making sure everyone around was aware that he had just been in the water and had come back with a fine catch. The other men nodded.
Sir Ako, resting after his combat practice for the day, came over and sat by Basil and Sandun. “I believe you hunted with my father some years back,” he said to Basil. “He said that had been a good hunt and he had learned something of the habits of wild boar from you. At the time I was serving under Lord Tamiril; otherwise, I would have able to join in the fun.”
“Your father handles a boar spear with as great courage as any man I have known,” said Basil, who then added, “I rather doubt he learned anything about boars from me. His lordship has been hunting game animals since before I was born.”
“He does not hunt nearly as often has he would like. The duties of a marcher lord are many and toilsome. As a knight in the king’s army, I have more free time than he does. Usually when he left the castle it was to inspect the frontier defenses, not hunt. My eldest brother, ensnared by the same duties, complains to me at our every meeting.” Sir Ako stretched out his long legs and smiled in contentment, looking up at the sky. “I am but a simple knight, but I get to ride all day, and when we are not chasing fools attempting to sneak across the border, we are culling the land of surplus deer and destructive boar. That they taste good when cooked over an open fire in the warm summer evenings is but a happy accident.” This last was directed to his men, who chuckled with amusement.
The three boats with the men, the horses and mules, and the supplies moored next to one another at a decaying wooden dock loosely connected to one of the soft marsh islands. On the high point of the land, some ambitious boatmen had built a temporary shelter out of stranded branches and rotted boats. Nearby in the fire pit, the expedition cooked their meal as the light faded from the sky.
From the bank of the muddy isle, Sandun looked out across the land. To the east, far beyond the marshlands, the snowcapped high peaks of the Kelten Alps shone dimly. To the north were lines of lights, some of which appeared to be moving. Taking out his farseeing glass, he could tell that men were working…but on what? Coming down to the fire, he asked the boat master about the lights.
“That would be the mine of the great swamp rock. Mining does not cease day or night, ’cept on the Holy Week of Sun’s Rebirth. We steer well clear o’ that place; the guards be mighty quick with their arrows to warn away all but select cargo boats.”
Sandun, like most people in the region, knew of the wonder rock. Discovered shortly after King Pandion III was crowned, it was later seen as divine favor bestowed on the new king. The place where the rock had been found had for centuries been nothing more than one of the larger islands of the marshland. But strong, shifting currents on one side had washed away the accumulated mud of uncounted years and revealed an underlying metallic stone of extraordinary composition, harder than iron and very slow to rust. Swords made from it were sharper and held their edge longer than nearly all others made in the Archipelago. The rock went far into the earth, some said like a dragon’s tooth growing from subterranean depths. Others argued that it had fallen out of the sky like the famous “star stones” that had been found but rarely over the centuries.
Sir Ako boasted, “I have a sword made from that stone, though in truth, many knights of Kelten carry one these days.” He drew the blade; Sandun, Basil, and several boatmen came close to admire the weapon. “We call them Fine Blades. King Pandion gifts some each year as tournament prizes or for heroic deeds. A few are sold, though never to foreigners. This one was given to me as a wedding present by the queen.” Sir Ako slashed the air with some quick strokes.
Sandun thought about the gifts locked in a pouch that he carried close to him at all hours. King Pandion had traveled over to Tebispoli in his royal barge the day before their journey began. He inspected the soldiers and their equipment, checked the mules, and reviewed the ledger sheets. Sandun noted that neither the chancellor nor the lord exchequer accompanied the king. After
commenting on how the prices had risen since the days he had organized his own army of invasion twelve years ago, he accompanied Master Eulogo and Master Sandun back to the Royal Archives.
King Pandion said, “I have given much thought to a fitting gift for the King of Serica, if the expedition succeeds, as I hope and pray that it will. The gift needs to be small and yet rare. Mere gold or gems I dismiss as unworthy of our great kingdom. Happily, a solution came to mind. Some months past, an alchemist named Moure from the town of Erithofeld invented remarkable glass spheres. He made a present of some to me, and I now entrust twelve of them to you to be given to the King of Serica and others of that land whom you deem will be friendly toward our kingdom and desire beneficial trade.”
He’d summoned his champion, Sir Ekston, who produced a small bag, cunningly made of interlocking metal chains over a very tough leather pouch and locked with a small key. The king opened the lock and poured out twelve orbs onto the table. They were made of semitranslucent glass with a yellow-gold tint. One was as large as a cow’s eye, the others a bit smaller. At first glance they seemed pretty enough but no more.
“Close the blinds, please,” commanded the king. As soon as the blinds were drawn, the Archive room darkened, and the orbs now glowed with an eerie and unexpected green light.
“Master Moure assures me that he made glass spheres like these a year ago, and they are glowing just as brightly. They always give out light, night or day, no matter what you do to them: place them in water, lock them in a sealed box, or hold them in the sunlight.”
Master Eulogo exclaimed, “Truly, these are a wonderment and a fitting present to the King of Serica. You said these can be manufactured? How? I have never heard of such things.” At a nod of approval from the king, both he and Sandun picked up one of the orbs for close examination. Sandun saw that at the center of his orb there was a small black node. The others had it as well.
The Burning Tower Page 3
