Chapter 6
The Crossroads
On the day they were due to reach Ulum, Sal crawled out of his sleeping bag before dawn. He was turning into an early riser, much to Shilly’s dismay. Nervous and excited at the same time, he slipped off the wagon and went for a walk.
The camp was quiet apart from the occasional snore from human and camel. By night the landscape lacked the brown, baked aspect it showed during the day; it was inviting, almost gentle. The air was still and frigid, biting with the deep, desert chill he remembered from his days travelling the borderlands with his father — only here, further north, it was even more pronounced.
In the days since they had joined the caravan, they had travelled five hundred kilometres into the Interior, and since leaving Fundelry, he and Shilly had put more than one and a half thousand kilometres behind them. That thought, instead of making him proud, made him feel very small, and more than a little humble.
He was in his mother’s country. This was the land in which she had been raised: as defined by the sun as the sea defined the Strand. Before coming to the Haunted City to marry Highson Sparre, nephew of the woman who would one day become the Syndic of the Strand, Seirian Mierlo had spent her life in landscape much like this and perhaps even seen the very things he was seeing now. The Interior was as much a part of his heritage as her family name and the Change. It was finally time to become acquainted with it.
He climbed a short distance up the side of a hill and sat on a protruding lip of rock to wait for the sunrise. Molash, the cook, was always up at dawn, and would soon have the fires stoked for a breakfast of fried eggs and onion with herbs and plants scavenged from the area around the campsite, only some of which Sal recognised. The camels would wake then, too; their noise, along with the smell of food, would rouse the rest of the camp. Then it would be all noise and fuss until everyone had dressed and eaten, and everything was stowed for the day’s journey. Then they would be off.
Had they been closer to Ulum, Sal would have seriously considered leaving — before anyone woke, to save awkward questions. But Shilly couldn’t get very far, even on the crutches one of the caravan workers had made for her, carved with the repeated circular motif of Belilanca Brokate. The dry hills were unkind to travellers on foot.
In the buggy, it would have been a simple journey, but that wasn’t an option any more. Brokate had sold it to a vehicle trader in Nesh, the night they had crossed the Divide. He had only learned of its loss when he had offered to show the caravan mechanic how to service it.
“It’s too incriminating,” she had said when confronted. “Too hard to hide. If someone follows you, we’ll stand out because of it. And besides —” she had displayed an awkward smile, teeth flashing in the yellow sunlight “— it was too good a deal. Passage to Ulum isn’t worth what I got for your buggy, even taking into account the crossing we went through, so you get to keep the difference. Here...” She had reached under the seat at the front of the caravan’s leading wagon, and held out a purse full of metal and ceramic coins. “This is yours. I was going to give it to you when we reached Yidna, but you might as well have it now. I don’t think I need to tell you to spend it wisely.”
Through a strong sense of betrayal and hurt, he had known that what she had done not only made sense, but was needlessly honourable. Their deal had not required her to give him anything. He was quite happy to let her take the lot in the knowledge that, without her help, they would never have made it to the Interior in the first place.
But she wouldn’t let him say no. As a result, he and Shilly now had money for when they arrived in Ulum. Enough to cover accommodation and food for a couple of weeks if they were careful. Enough, maybe, to bribe an official or two. Enough, he hoped, to get them where Shilly wanted to go.
Exactly where he was going, he hadn’t worked out yet.
The thought of being unable to travel gnawed at him. All his life had been spent on the road; that was what he considered normal. Losing the buggy was like losing a home as well as a way of life.
A faint smudge of light crept into the eastern sky as he remembered the rest of that conversation with Brokate.
“Have I earned your story now, Sal?” she had asked, glancing cannily at him from her position at the reins.
“What story?”
“Why you’re here. Who you were running from.”
Squirming, he had replied: “It’s not that interesting, really.”
“I’ll bet it is. I’ve barely known you a day, and you’ve already given me the most exciting Divide crossing I’m ever likely to have.” Again, her smile had flashed at him from her tattooed, pale-skinned face. “Give me something to tell my nephews and nieces when I get home, Sal. Don’t leave me wondering who you were for the rest of my life. I’ve no doubt you and Shilly are someone.”
“Well,” he had begun, hesitating over almost every word. “My father, he stole something from the Sky Wardens, and they wanted it so badly they chased him all over the Strand to get it.”
“And I presume they didn’t get it, in the end, otherwise they wouldn’t be after you now.”
“They did get it, sort of. But it wasn’t a thing so much.”
“Then what?”
“It was my mother.”
“Ah.” She had leaned back slightly and nodded. “I think I see now. They got her, and now they want you.”
“Yes.”
“But you didn’t want to go with them, so you ran. Why here?”
“Shilly thinks — that is, we think — there’s someone in the Desert Ports who might be able to help us.”
“The biggest and best Desert Port is Ulum, so you’re heading in the right direction. Who is it you’re looking for?”
He had stalled at saying the name. It was all very well revealing their history to someone who was, basically, a complete stranger, but their future was another thing entirely. “A Stone Mage,” had been all that he would admit, in the end.
That had surprised her. “Really? You could be heading off the griddle and on to the grate, my friend.”
“Why?”
“Who’s to say that he or she will be any different from those you’re running from? Whether they throw rocks around or whistle at the wind, they’re all after the same thing. If you have a knack with the Change, if you have their way in your blood, they’ll want you, no matter where you came from and no matter what you want. It’s as simple as that.”
“Really?” On one level, hearing her say that had comforted him. It reinforced something Shilly had said earlier, about everyone wanting him. If it was as simple as that, then all their problems were solved. Skender Van Haasteren would be only too pleased to teach someone with Sal’s innate talent, and Shilly with him. They would receive all the welcome they hoped for when they found him.
Brokate had chuckled throatily. “We have a saying where I come from: if the Stone Mages don’t get you, the Weavers will. We’re a backward bunch, you see. Although the talent is prized we don’t like being told what to do, and we don’t like those who’ll tell us, either. I’m sure half my bias is a result of that attitude, drummed into me as a child.”
“Who are the Weavers?” Sal had asked, remembering when Lodo had mentioned them once without explanation.
“You don’t know? I don’t either, to tell you the truth. Not really. They come at night, it’s said, and they take anyone with the talent who uses it for evil, or out of selfishness, or tries to bottle it up inside so no one will know it’s there. They take children away and never bring them back. Sometimes they take women of childbearing age and force them to have children, or take men and force them to sire more — which wouldn’t be hard, some men I know.”
“They really do that?”
A quick shrug had demonstrated that she didn’t take the stories especially seriously. “We also have erges and djinns back home, if that’s any consol
ation.”
He had taken her point: it could have been nothing more than a story to frighten kids with at night. But her words about jumping from the griddle to the grate stuck with him. He didn’t want to be with the Alcaide or the Syndic because they had kidnapped his mother and killed his father. What if the Stone Mages were just as bad? What would happen if he changed his mind and decided to leave — perhaps to join his mother’s family in Mount Birrinah? Would they let him go? What would he do if they didn’t?
There was no point worrying about that until he met them, he knew, but the thought was in his head, and there it stayed, nagging at him.
The sky was changing colour by the minute as the sun began to rise. Molash the cook was up and relieving himself. Sal averted his eyes and wondered how he and Shilly were ever going to sort things out on their own. Even with the occasional Change-assisted massage, her leg was slow to heal. She was far from able to rest her weight on it. If their search for Van Haasteren failed in Ulum and they ran out of money, they would be stuck in an unfamiliar city, alone. His only hope then would be to find his mother’s estranged family and hope that they would help him despite everything; it was his mother’s fault, after all, that her family had been expelled from the Haunted City and sent back to the Interior.
Maybe, he thought, if all else failed he could work for Brokate. She might need a weather-worker on her journeys across the Interior. With Shilly’s help, he could light fires and provide illumination; they could learn to do other things, like mend axles or pottery, heal minor injuries, tell fortunes. Their life wouldn’t be glamorous, but it was better than having no other options at all. His parents had lived and worked just like that: his mother with the Change, his father knowing how to use it.
But there was no point in worrying about it until they found Skender Van Haasteren, and they wouldn’t find him until they reached Ulum. He told himself to let it go and enjoy the journey while it lasted. He was seeing things he’d never seen before. He was going places his father had never travelled. He was looking after himself and Shilly as best as he was able, and he had kept both the Syndic and Behenna off his back. That was something to be proud of, no matter where he ended up. Although the thought of getting to know an entire country was daunting, taking it one piece at a time was the best way, he decided. He would have the rest of his life to put those pieces together.
A sharp whistle brought him back to the present. It was Shilly, leaning awkwardly out of the wagon and waving at him. He scrambled to his feet and hurried down the slope. Brokate had insisted that he continue assisting Shilly with her toilet, since the caravan leader wouldn’t be with them forever. He didn’t know what to say or where to look, and he felt like his face was flaming red every time, but he knew it would be wrong to avoid it. It was perfectly natural and nothing to be ashamed of. He might as well wish that his voice wouldn’t break, as he knew it inevitably would.
Perhaps, he thought, Lodo had meant that the two of them were destined to embarrass each other.
“Today’s the day,” she said, when he came to a halt at the back of the wagon. Her hair was painted gold by the dawn, sun-bleached tips reflecting the clarity of the new morning. She seemed excited by the thought.
He nodded, glad that at least one of them was absolutely certain they were doing the right thing.
The hills, no longer mere bumps on the landscape, grew angular and steeper as the day wore on. Brokate sensed his mood and let him ride with her in silence, but the rest of the caravan became increasingly boisterous as their destination approached. They joked, sang bawdy songs, and argued about who owed who how many drinks at which establishment. Only the bean counters, as Brokate called them, wondered aloud what sort of price they would get for the goods they carried for themselves, or worried about whether the cargo they carried for others would be collected and paid for in good order. Everyone was concerned with making money, since that was the nature of their business, but at the end of their week long trip, conversation concentrated mainly on the pleasures of being home.
When Ulum finally came into sight, a cheer went up. The road ahead zigzagged along the lip of a steep incline, then dipped out of sight behind a sloping wall easily ten metres high, topped with outward-leaning battlements. Beyond the wall, Sal could see numerous painted spires and domes glinting in the sunlight.
Shilly whistled from the back of the wagon. “That’s some town.”
“Home to fifty thousand people according to the last census,” said Brokate, “each and every one of them needing to eat, drink and amuse themselves. A lot of trade comes through here because it sits on a crossroads. Most of the human traffic comes southeast along the hills, from Mount Birrinah, heading through Lower Light and Carslake and ultimately back to the Strand the longer but safer way. Grain and stock come from the Long Sleep Plains to the northeast. Traders like us bring more exotic goods from the southwest, through the hills. There are things you can only get from the south, even though the road’s harder that way.”
Sal was only half-listening to Brokate’s words. As he squinted to get a better look at the city, wishing he had the binoculars he had studied the Divide through, he realised that something wasn’t quite right.
“Is this the biggest town in the Interior?” Shilly asked.
“Not at all, but it’s definitely one of the top ten or so. Boliva and Parham are twice as large. I’ve been to them and can attest to that. They’re not as well managed as Ulum, though. Mount Birrinah is about the same in size, and one of the nicest to look at, but that’s because it’s much richer.”
“What about the Nine Stars?”
“That’s different again. No city is the same as any other; that’s the most important thing to remember. The Interior is a very big place, and there’s a lot of variety.”
Just like the Strand, Sal thought. There was, perhaps, as much difference between the far east and west of both lands as there was between deep north and south. Only someone who hadn’t travelled would expect it to be otherwise.
Perhaps the oddest thing about this city was the lack of flags, banners, lines of washing, signs flapping in the wind ...
Something in his head clicked. He knew what was bothering him about Ulum, now. He could see everything with unnatural clarity. The air was smoke-free, except for two dense columns on the far side, rising thickly into the sky where fierce winds high up tore them to ribbons. There was no dust, no haze, no blurring of the details at all. He would have thought fifty thousand people would leave more evidence of their presence in the air.
“Where are they all?” he asked.
Brokate turned to look at him with a slight smile on her lips. “Underground, of course. It’s the only civilised place to live around here. You’ll see.”
She snapped her reins and the camels lumbered forward. Sal glanced at Shilly, whose expression didn’t change from one of puzzlement.
The sound of the caravan riders ebbed as they concentrated on the many sharp turns in the road, followed by a steep descent to the city gates themselves. The shadow of the hills enveloped them, and the air became uneasy, as though many winds tried to cram into one narrow space at once. The wall of the city stood at the higher end of a shallow valley, and the gates were set into the base of the wall — a stone archway eight metres high, and the same in width, that could be sealed by solid doors of wood and steel. The doors were open, and the caravan slid unchallenged between them.
“This is the workers’ entrance,” said Brokate. “As I said, not many people come from the southwest, compared to the other directions. Those gates are much busier, and therefore better appointed.”
Still, Sal thought, it was hardly unimpressive. On the far side of the wall was a brick tunnel two metres higher and wider than the gates. The floor was made of time-polished slate. Numerous glass-capped holes in the roof above let in long beams of sunlight. At first he had trouble seeing, but his eyes soon adj
usted.
The tunnel led for quite a long distance without branching or deviating from its course. Just as Sal was beginning to feel as though it might never end, a door slid open ahead of them and they filed through into a very different space.
The first thing he noticed was the noise: there were other people here, their voices distant and echoing. The air had the same quality that a very large building did, but the area was much larger still. When they emerged fully into the enormous chamber, he saw that it was constructed like a hall: the arched ceiling lay high above, pierced by skylights and supported by numerous columns, some slender, others thicker than five people across. The walls were concealed behind these columns, so the true extent of the chamber could not be seen. The only thing Sal could be sure of, intuitively, was that it completely enclosed them. Nowhere that he could see was there an entrance larger than the one through which they had just passed. The air smelt contained.
Yet it wasn’t stifling. Giant, sail-like fans turned to keep air circulating. There were roads and small buildings dotted across the floor of the chamber, and plants growing in the relative gloom. The voices he heard came from a group of twenty or so people in the distance, standing in a pool of light and conversing cheerfully about something which he couldn’t make out. They were robed in many colours — contrasting with the uniform blues and greys of the chamber — and didn’t look up to notice the arrival of the caravan.
“This isn’t Ulum,” said Brokate, anticipating their questions. “This is just one of the upper levels; an antechamber, if you like. The city itself is spread out through numerous cavities below us, some of them much larger than this. As well as roads, it has tunnels to take you from place to place. Apart from that slight difference it is very much like any surface town. It’s certainly easier than living under the sun all the time. Stay here long enough and you soon forget to miss the clouds. Or so they say.”
She sounded sceptical, and Sal sympathised. There was a certain magnificence to building a city underground, but he was sure he would miss the open space. Even if they piped sunlight through the hollow columns, along with air, what about the stars? What about trees? What about birdsong?
The Sky Warden & the Sun (Books of the Change) Page 13
