The Cycle of Galand Box Set

by Edward W. Robertson

  "Meaning we have to haul tons of grain out through a mile of cramped tunnel. How many years do you suppose that would take?"

  "I suppose you've got a better idea?"

  "Of course I do," Blays said. "All we need is a little help from Gladdic—and the king of Mallon."

  ~

  They were close enough to Bressel that Dante could smell its river and sewers. A little unnerving to be so near to the center of the enemy's power, but they were currently in a completely unremarkable patch of forest two miles outside the city, and he didn't intend to get any closer.

  A swarm of gray moths and blue butterflies winged toward the city. Some headed for the spires of the king's keep. Others flitted toward the Chenney, the great rectangular tower where Dante and Blays had been imprisoned a few months earlier, or toward Gladdic's personal temple, where they'd encountered their first Andrac. The moths entered through open shutters and landed on the walls.

  Wary for priests, who could detect the nether linking him to his spies, Dante sent the dead insects further into the keep, prison, and temple. By following the best-dressed servants on their errands, he soon found the king's chambers. A butterfly scooted inside in the wake of a man with a serving tray.

  While the king took his meal, the butterfly hastened to the study. It landed on the desk and took a good look around.

  "Got it," Dante said. "Handwriting and the seal."

  He made a careful sketch of the seal, which included a hawk, the symbol of King Charles' Sarlinian family, soaring over a stylized image of waves, plains, and mountains, which represented the vastness of Mallon. Naran started to carve the sketch into the end of a stumpy rod of wood. He claimed to have become an expert whittler to pass the time during long voyages.

  Dante turned his eye to the handwriting. He would have preferred to have it right in front of him, but he imagined his view would be clear enough to suffice. He took down a sample of letters and words.

  Fastidious though he was, by the time he finished, he still hadn't seen hide nor hair of Gladdic. Aware that it could take days to find the priest (if he was in Bressel at all), Dante turned back with the others, striking eastward through the forest. On the off chance of spotting Gladdic, he left his insects behind, but he knew his connection to them would fall apart before they reached the Londren.

  "We really need some proper spies," he muttered to Blays. "I'll lose these in a day or two. Besides, bugs can't ask questions. Or take things."

  "Sounds like what you really need is some undead raccoons." Blays glanced behind them. "Suppose Mallon has spies in Narashtovik?"

  "That's a troubling thought."

  "Because the answer's yes, isn't it?"

  The next day, they entered Londren Forest, rendezvousing with a Collenese caravan half a day's ride from the fort. Seeing the caravan was a jolt to the heart: all of the teamsters and soldiers were dressed in the blue of the Mallish military—in fact, their uniforms had been taken from the dead in Collen.

  Cord lifted her arm. "Were you successful?"

  Blays brushed dust from his shoulder. "I'd hope so. If we have failed, we're being so nonchalant about it that I don't like our chances going forward."

  "I hoped you wouldn't be so we would have no choice but to battle them. Still, I see the wisdom in this." She grinned savagely. "Besides, the Mallish think they're so smart. Tricking them will taste sweet in its own way."

  They joined the caravan and made way for the fort, stopping at sunset to eat and kill a few hours. A half hour before they were ready to move on, Dante climbed inside an empty wagon. He sat in front of a reasonably clear mirror and blew on his torchstone, lighting the interior with a pale glow.

  He made a small cut on his arm, called the nether to his hands, then directed it to his face. He used the shadows to carve new features over his own, long and cadaverous, the skin pale, the eyes deep-set coals. He whitened his hair and extended his height several inches. Last, he donned a long gray robe.

  He emerged from the wagon and turned in a circle for Blays. "What do you think?"

  Blays laughed out loud. "That I hope I die before I ever look that old. It's the spitting image. Unless his mother's manning the wall, this just might work."

  Dante smiled and gathered the others to him. Including the teamsters, they numbered over thirty. "Remember your jobs. Speak as little as possible."

  A man raised his hands. "What if the soldiers ask us questions?"

  "Pretend you hold them in deepest contempt," Blays said. "Hang on, they're Mallish. You won't even have to pretend."

  They struck out along the rutted road toward the fort. The autumn night grew chilly, thick with the scent of dew. Leaves were falling everywhere, mulching under the wagon wheels and crackling underfoot. Dante was glad they hadn't tried to sneak up.

  They took a northern fork of the road. An hour later, lights flickered ahead, outlining the ten-foot stone walls of the fort. When they drew within two hundred yards, silhouettes appeared over the gates, watching them progress. Dante motioned the caravan to a stop twenty feet from the banded wooden doors.

  "Hullo." A guard leaned over the top of the wall. He gave the wagons a long look, then peered down at Dante. "Bit late for a visit, isn't it?"

  "My name is Ordon Gladdic," Dante said in his best imitation of his foe, dredging up a proper Bresselian accent. "I come by order of the king."

  "King Charles?"

  Dante stared up at him in disgust. Too aggrieved to speak, he removed a letter from his robes. It was sealed with blue wax, stamped with the king's hawk.

  The guard frowned and lowered a wicker basket on a string. Dante set the letter inside. The guard drew it upward, thumbed open the wax, and read haltingly, tracing his finger along the words.

  Done, he leaned over the top of the wall. "You need all of it?"

  "An allowance will be made for your men," Dante said. "Nine-tenths will leave with us."

  The guard scrunched his mouth to the side. "I don't have the brains for this, Ordon. Pardon me while I fetch Spalder Nicols, yeah?"

  Dante stood stiffly, doing his best to appear affronted. Three minutes later, the gates creaked open, revealing a middle-aged man in a gray robe. The orange trim marked him as a spalder. Strange to see a man of such rank out in the wilds. Either he was being punished for something, or the fort was more important than its meager garrison implied.

  "Ordon Gladdic." Nicols bowed, bending one knee. "Forgive my surprise. I thought you were to be on your way to Tanar Atain by now."

  "Who told you that?"

  "Oh, I can't remember. Surely you know how well whispers travel within the cloisters."

  "I was recalled."

  "To requisition grain from my outpost?" Nicols smiled archly. "You seem…overqualified for this task, Ordon."

  "Then a man of reason would infer the matter's importance, and help me to achieve it."

  "Of course, lord." The priest stepped aside, gesturing sweepingly. As the carts rattled into the bailey, Nicols remained at Dante's arm. "May we speak in private, lord?"

  Dante made a dismissive gesture. "Now is not the time."

  "It will take a great deal of time to fill your wagons, Ordon. I believe the matter will be to your interest. It involves the rebels."

  Dante glanced at Blays, who was lingering near the gates disguised in soldier's garb. Blays gave him the smallest of nods, watching from the corner of his eye as Dante crossed the bailey with Nicols. They entered a plain stone building that appeared to serve as the fort's temple. Stray leaves gathered in the corners. Nicols brought him upstairs to a cozy room with a lit fireplace, two shelves of books, and a great deal of maps. Nicols offered him a seat, then tea.

  "Galladese?" Dante said.

  "I wasn't aware there was another kind."

  Dante said nothing—he'd forgotten that before Gallador had split from Gask, tea had been unknown in Mallon. "You said you had news from the basin."

  The spalder nodded, rubbing his jaw. His chin was a
s smooth as the tabletop. Tidy. Kept himself in order. Which meant that the unswept leaves downstairs implied his men disliked him.

  "The Collen Basin," Nicols said, as if savoring the flavor of the words. "They call it the riddle that cannot be solved. You believe otherwise, don't you?"

  "A riddle cannot be a riddle unless it has an answer."

  "At Grayson Fort, we are happy to take in travelers and refugees. It's a way to curry goodwill, but it's also a way to gather news. What I hear from such people makes me believe you've found the solution to the Collenese Riddle. It's like when a blight takes a field, isn't it? The only way to save the field—and the others around it—is to burn it."

  Dante let a moment pass. "If a house is built on a rotten foundation, it is doomed to collapse."

  "The second campaign—they brought you back to lead it, didn't they?"

  "Second campaign?"

  Nicols smirked. "The king's already called in new levies. The training grounds are filled from dawn to dusk. Our lord saw how close you came, and he believes you can be the one to finally prise the arrow from Mallon's side."

  "You said you had news."

  Though it was beyond obvious they had the room to themselves, the spalder glanced left and right, as if afraid of being overheard. He leaned closer. He opened his mouth to speak, then clicked it shut.

  A tendril of ether slipped from his hand to probe the nether surrounding Dante. The nether rippled, set aswirl, opening holes in his disguise.

  Nicols jerked backward. "Who are you?"

  Shadows filled the room.

  5

  Nether swarmed to Dante's hands. His fury came with it. Before he knew what he was doing, he thrust a blade of shadows straight for the man's heart. Nicols yelled out, voice echoing from the brick walls. Adeptly, he shaped the ether he'd used to probe Dante's disguise into a shining shield. The two forces met with a flash of light, and then a counter-flash of darkness. White sparks twinkled to the floor.

  "Galand," Nicols sneered. "You couldn't kill Gladdic. And you won't kill—"

  Dante fired another bolt at the man's heart. As before, the spalder blocked it, but Dante had already followed it up with another strike. This one was as thin as a knitting needle. And it was aimed at Nicols' forehead.

  The priest was still smirking as he collapsed to the stone floor. His limbs jerked like some awful dance, and then he went still, pooling like spilled oil.

  A fist beat against the door. "Spalder? Is everything all right?"

  "Indeed."

  "I need to come in, sir."

  "One moment."

  Heart thundering, Dante drew Nicols' features across his own, using a polished silver bowl for his mirror. He thrust a hand at two of the candelabras, snuffing the flames and reducing the room to a soft glow. He flung a blanket over the body.

  He moved to the door and flung it open. Outside, a novice in dark gray robes straightened his spine. "Excuse my interruption, Spalder. I heard a shout."

  "The ordon and I discuss grave matters. Leave me be before you give me reason to shout more."

  The man bowed and left. Dante eased the door's bolt closed. Silently, he cursed himself up and down. He should never have spent so much time in the company of the priest. He'd let his greed for intelligence overshadow his caution. Worst of all, he hadn't even gotten any news. All he'd gotten was another body.

  The thought made him smile. But the smile made him pause: What if he'd exposed himself on purpose? Knowing that if he was discovered, it would give him a way to unleash his anger toward the Keeper at the Mallish instead?

  Self-recrimination could wait. They were currently inside an enemy fort. If he was found with the body, his people might be hurt. Even if they won the fight, it would all but guarantee the continuation of the war. He pulled the blanket from over the spalder. He wanted to get Blays, who could found a university dedicated to the various methods of disposing of dead bodies, but he didn't want to leave the body alone.

  Anyway, he had an idea.

  The man was dead, but his tissue wasn't. Dante knitted shut the hole in his forehead, found a cloth, and wetted it with water from a ewer. He wiped the blood from Nicols' brow and hair, then tossed the rag into the fireplace, picked up Nicols, and set him in a chair.

  There weren't any moths in the room, but a thorough search turned up a gathering of black beetles hidden in the kindling next to the fireplace. He killed one, then sent it outside to trundle toward the granaries. There, his men were shoveling gobs of grain into chutes angled into the wagon beds.

  It was going to be a while. He sat across from Nicols and sighed. "That will teach you to gossip."

  ~

  It was the middle of the night by the time they finished loading the wagons. Disguised as Gladdic again, Dante rose. So did Nicols. Dante opened the door for him, leading the way downstairs and outside the silent temple.

  Along with the wagons, they'd brought a carriage appropriate for a man of Gladdic's stature. Dante walked to it and opened its door. Stiff-legged, Nicols' body followed after him. Somehow, it made it up the running boards and flung itself inside the carriage.

  "Er, pardon me, milord," the guard who'd greeted them said, startling Dante. "Is the spalder…going somewhere?"

  "Spalder Nicols will be accompanying me back to the capital." Dante swung into the vehicle, closed the door, then popped it open a handspan. "Who is his supporting priest?"

  "Why, that would be Horris, sir."

  Dante stepped out, dropping his voice to a murmur. "Is Horris a better man than the spalder?"

  The guard's mouth quirked. "Everyone is, sir."

  "Then for the benefit of the border, I might also take the spalder with me to Tanar Atain. Good night, soldier."

  The wagons rolled out, lumbering heavily. Once they were out of sight of Grayson Fort, Blays jogged over to the carriage and jumped inside.

  He froze, staring at the spalder, then gave Dante a dark look. "Another body?"

  "This was the only way."

  "To what? Draw as much attention as possible?"

  "He found out I was an impostor," Dante said. "I had no choice."

  "Well, I suppose it's easier than negotiating with them. What are you going to do with the body?"

  "I had intended to bury it."

  "You should at least have a little fun with it. Point it dead east and tell it to start walking. A year later, if it walks out of the west, you'll prove the world really is round."

  Dante didn't know what was stranger: that Blays knew the works of the geometrician Acade, or that he didn't seem to be bothered by the reanimated corpse. Such things had always made him skittish, if not outright disgusted. Normally, he would have been happy to see Blays shrug it off, but he couldn't shake the feeling that the only reason Blays wasn't rattled by it was because he'd seen so much madness over the last few months. They needed to get home. Before all the adventure and warring left them permanently unhinged.

  "Anyway," Blays continued, "their grain was more than happy to become our grain. You'll never guess what else we found."

  "The world's greatest variety of mouse droppings?"

  "A barrel full of shaden."

  Dante's eyebrows shot up. "Did you take it?"

  "The extremely potent enemy weapon? Drat, I knew I was forgetting something."

  "That should make the fight a little easier for us." He considered the dead man. "Though I'm starting to wonder if there's going to be a second campaign at all." He nodded to the corpse. "He seemed to think Gladdic was off to somewhere called Tanar Atain."

  "Tanar Atain? Why would he go there?"

  "You know about this place?"

  "I know it's a wretched southern swamp full of unspeakable horrors. So maybe it's his birthplace. Long ways from here, though. If he's down there, there's no way he's leading another attack this year."

  The thought should have been comforting. Instead, it only reminded Dante how wide and unknowable the world was—and how easy it was for
people to hide themselves in its fringes.

  They arrived in Collen three days later. The grain was sorted and stored. If Dante continued harvesting potatoes and wheat from nothing, Boggs and Cord thought they'd wind up with enough to see them through the winter. He used a few shaden to speed the growth of the fields.

  The Reborn Shrine had been destroyed by the gigantic demon, but its subterranean layers had largely survived—along with its archives. Dante asked the Keeper to look into Tanar Atain. She seemed happy to have a project. Now that she'd roped Dante into sticking around, most of the business of the war had been turned over to the commanders and logisticians, leaving her with little to do.

  She returned the following afternoon with an armload of books and maps. "Tanar Atain lies hundreds of miles to the south. The swamplands are very difficult to navigate without a guide, and little is known about them. However, three hundred years ago, Mallon did a great deal of trade with the area. That is when the neeling came to Bressel."

  Dante examined one of her maps, careful not to further damage its tattered edges. "What are Mallon's relations with them like today?"

  "Negligible. Tanar Atain has been closed to outsiders for many decades."

  "Then why would Gladdic be allowed in?"

  She gave him a flat look. "I will saddle my horse to ride south and ask."

  "Maybe he's hiding from us. Waiting for us to leave here. Or maybe King Charles booted him out for his failure and this is his exile. I don't suppose you know anyone from the area?"

  "I have spent the last ninety years beneath the Reborn Shrine. I don't know anyone from anywhere."

  "I don't like this." He stood, chair scraping. "Keep digging. This could be more important than we realize."

  Through the loon, Naran's men reported that Mallish troops were drilling outside the capital. Infantry and cavalry, along with a handful of priests. In Bressel's pubs, soldiers complained about being sent off to eat dust and die away from home with the holidays so close. No official announcements had been made, but there was no mistaking the direction the wind was blowing.