In the center of the courtyard square was the large circular basin of a defunct Agintan fountain, filled with dirt that sprouted unsightly weeds and the dead stump of what had once been the Hanging Tree. It was hardly an appropriate image to greet visitors to the grand city entering on the Post Road, but it was important to the locals that the area be left as it was, and the Codians had acceded. The customs house and guard barracks were in a tidy timber compound just outside the city wall and beyond the moat. Within the courtyard itself the authority of the Empire of All Lands Under the Code resided in one person only and for the last five months, from midnight until dawn, that person was the newest and lowliest member of the Codian Circle of Wizardry in Souterm. Phinneas Phoarty, originally of Thol.
As the sun illuminated the mismatched black, gray, and beige stones of the courtyard walls it also revealed Phin perched gargoyle-like on the dry basin’s edge, enveloped in the billowing gray robes of an Abverwar Wizard. Beside him was a staff issued from the armory in the Circle compound on Again Island. It was a heavy cedar pole inscribed with sigils from its iron butt-spike to the clear crystal globe that topped it, held between two carved hands. It lay on the ground in the basin next to Phin as whenever he tried to prop it up standing against the edge it threatened to roll to one side or the other, and the globe looked very fragile. Phin had no idea if the thing actually worked but he was sure that the armorer would not be happy if it was returned with a shattered bulb.
Under the Code, or at least under the expansion necessitated by the Codification of Tull in 1249, the Circle of Wizardry had the responsibility for monitoring all non-Church magic within the Empire. That looked a lot easier on parchment than it did in practice. Phin’s part in this monitoring consisted of using a simple scrying dweomer, theoretically boosted by the staff, on all travelers leaving Souterm via the North Gate during his shift. In the event magic was detected Phin was to give a verbal warning and make a note of it in the large, leathery tome he daily hauled here along with the staff. That was it. Just a warning and a note. Monitoring.
What pushed Phin’s duties beyond the realm of the ridiculous and fully into the absurd was the fact that during the course of his assigned shift, from midnight until sunup, the North Gate of Souterm was closed.
Not that egress was impossible. There was a small gap in the great wooden portal that shut up the north end of the tunnel through the outer wall of the Gate, the portal in fact being the raised drawbridge. The gap was sealed with a padlocked iron grill, but in theory someone with a burning desire to vacate the city at a godless hour could shout for the attention of a legionnaire guard patrolling the wall high above, and possibly convince the fellow to go find his sergeant and the key. That fetched, the lock could be undone and passage granted out to the stone landing on which the drawbridge rested when lowered. From there a nimble person could scramble down in the dark to the reedy edge of the brackish moat, and providing they had a good arm they could throw rocks across it to hit the ferryman’s hut on the other side. Once awakened, that goodly old fellow would then pole his raft across the moat, fetch the fare, and deposit the traveler on the north side ready to proceed on foot, as there was no method to get a horse across with the bridge up.
Needless to say there were few such travelers willing to undergo that rigmarole most nights. In fact after five months Phin was still waiting for his first. A few people had entered the city late by that method, but Phin was only responsible for those leaving Souterm, not for those coming in after hours. There was another junior mage, albeit less junior than Phin, who oversaw those entries from a comfortable post on the porch of the Legion barracks across the moat.
After the first night on duty Phin had thought it odd that the one Wizard across the way could not have overseen both entries and exits. After a week it seemed pointless to bother posting even one person here. After five months it seemed sheer lunacy, but also a fair summation of how the Wizard Circle of Souterm did everything.
A wagon rolled into the courtyard from the city streets, drawn slowly by a pair of oxen with what looked to be a father letting his young daughter drive from the board in front of a bed full of kegs. The pretty dark-haired girl pulled the reigns and chirruped the oxen to a snorting halt to wait for the drawbridge to be lowered in a few minutes. The girl noticed Phin on his perch a stone-throw away and beamed at him, clearly pleased with her own abilities as a teamster. His baleful stare from the depths of his hood went unchanged, and she stopped smiling and joined her father in pointedly ignoring the sour-looking Wizard.
Technically Phin’s shift had ended with the sunrise, but his relief had been growing increasingly late each morning. With a sigh for his numb hindquarters Phin uncoiled from his cross-legged perch and shook his long legs out of the folds of his garment carefully before standing up, for stepping on his own robe and sprawling headlong would not have been in accord with the dignity of the Circle. He picked up the staff lying in the weedy basin and set the spike on the cobblestone ground. Phin was tall but the crystal globe was higher than his own head until he inclined it toward the wagon, spoke a few words in the lilting dialect of Old Tullish, and wiggled his fingers purely for effect.
The father and daughter were both looking at him now with their eyebrows identically raised, but of course nothing happened. The beer or ale or whatever was in the kegs was clearly not magically active, and more the pity. Phin did not feel like sitting down again and so he leaned on the staff as though he were a man much older, and stared off into the middle distance at no one and nothing.
Two more fellows arrived early for the Gate opening. Phin’s shadowed eyes narrowed and he would have frowned had remaining expressionless not been a part of the unofficial curriculum at Abverwar. Despite leading a thin brown mule the younger of the two newcomers looked like nothing so much as a knight, being tall and broad of shoulder with a calf-length blue traveling cloak meticulously draped to one side of a shining silver breast plate. The man wore trousers and boots for the road rather than leg greaves, and with his hood thrown back fair hair of middling length shone in the rising sun.
It was the blonde hair that made Phin want to frown, for that and the steel breast plate marked the fellow as the very picture of an Exlander. That province still for some reason called itself The First Kingdom, despite having been Codian for a hundred-seventy-odd years. Longer than Tull, or Thol for that matter. Phin’s native country had in fact been an independent kingdom for another thirty years after Exland’s Codification, but the Thols didn’t go around calling their country The Last Kingdom. That would be idiotic. But try telling it to an Exlander, as the expression went.
Long before the Code arose in Beoshore the kingdoms of Exland and Thol had fought a war or two. Or three. Phin however assured himself that whatever resulting prejudice had been acquired in his youth had been removed from him at Abverwar, where all new prejudices had been painstakingly instilled.
The Exlander and his rat of a mule accompanied a balding man in the same sort of blue calf-length cloak, though the older man’s chest was protected only by a belly paunch, not a breastplate. He walked with a plain staff for pace rather than support, as the years that had taken the hair from his crown and put the salt in an otherwise pepper beard had not yet bent him. Phin saw the sigil of the Bridge stitched in silver on the chest of his blue tunic, and sighed. Builder Priest.
The pair rounded the beer wagon and both gave the father and daughter small bows that were returned with a nod and a wave. Words were exchanged and the girl quite possibly blushed at the handsome knight. It was hard for Phin to tell from his distance, but she certainly tittered. The knight looked around the courtyard and saw Phin leaning on his staff. He tapped the priest on the shoulder. The wizard willed them to stay where they were, but they came over with their pack-bearing mule.
“Greetings, Circle Mage,” the priest said with a raised hand but nothing like the bow he had shown the civilians. He had the swarthy look of the local Doonish living under the warm C
hannel sun. Phin was as pale as a corpse. Up close the priest’s escort was even more annoyingly handsome, with a clean-shaven, lordly jaw, wide forehead over sky blue eyes, and strong features that looked like a bust of some ancient king done by some fawning sculptor who had left off all the imperfections.
“Father,” Phin muttered, and added “Egg-lander,” toward the Exlander. If either man noticed they let it go. The priest eyed Phin’s staff.
“Thou art charged with monitoring for thaumaturgy, I take it?”
“Thou art knowing it.”
The priest spread his hands, waiting. Phin had no duty to examine a priest, and probably not even the authority. But the dolt wanted a show. Phin stopped leaning on the staff though he remained in a slouch. He dipped the globe, spoke his words, and blinked as a white light flickered within the glass like a trapped firefly.
“Just the shield, I am sure,” the Exlander said, and turned around to show Phin his back. Slung over his shoulder was a great iron mace and on top of that, worn almost like a backpack, was a medium-sized shield with a triangular bottom rim, shining steel that matched his breast plate. At present there was a faint, white nimbus of light in the air around the shield, answering that shining in Phin‘s staff. It also bore the same sigil as the old priest’s tunic, not the ornate standard of a knightly order or family but rather the simple, curved line known as both the Bridge and the Arch. It was the holy symbol of the Imperial Church of Jobe the Builder, First God of the Ennead.
“You’re both priests?” Phin said, not bothering to conceal a sneer.
The younger priest turned back around as the light in the air and in the globe quickly faded. The only sign that he had noticed Phin’s tone was a slight lowering of his blonde eyebrows.
The older priest spoke. “I am Father Luis Corallo, and this is the Brother Kendall Heggenauer, Both of Jobe. As such, I suppose we are beyond the oversight of your Circle.”
Not this morning, Father.
Phin shook his head and waved a beckoning hand. “Afraid my charge is a bit more involved than that.” He turned to Heggenauer. “Acolyte. It is acolyte, isn’t it?”
“It is.”
“Hand over the device for inspection.” Phin snapped his long, tattooed fingers a few times. The priests exchanged a look but the young one finally shrugged and went about unfastening the straps securing the shield to his back, though doing so spoiled the artful hang of his traveling cloak. Shame, really.
Phin set the staff back down in the weedy basin and took the proffered shield in both hands. Though made entirely of steel it was very light, which was after-all the point. Phin held it face down to reveal the double set of straps for either use or transport. Under the straps in the upper left corner was an embossed symbol of a shield shape with a stylized, swirling S stamped in the middle.
“This is the standard Shanatarian spell of strength and lightness, correct?” Phin asked, tapping the sigil. “Common to all Empire-issued shields, be they Legion towers, footman’s kites, or in this case…what, a horseman’s shield? You don’t ride that donkey, do you Brother?”
“No, I do not.”
“Because this is a spell worked by the Shieldmaiden’s faithful, correct? Not Jobe the Builder, as you guys don’t know that one, yes? Now, if we were building an outhouse…”
“It is not a…what?”
“A courthouse. If we were building a courthouse, I expect you would put your own spell on that. But not on a shield. Not your bailiwick, as it were.”
“It is not a spell,” Brother Heggenauer finally finished a sentence. Phin blinked as though befuddled, and tapped the symbol again.
“I am pretty sure that it is, acolyte. You see, without this mark your shield would be a lot heavier. Altogether less wieldy.”
“It is a blessing,” Heggenauer clarified. “Not a spell.”
“Well, that’s like saying it is a hen but not a chicken, but I take your point. A blessing then. Very much like a spell, but performed only through the vehicle of godly power. Whereas the power of a spell comes from the caster himself.”
Phin tossed the light shield back, and it clanged against Heggenauer’s breast plate even as he caught it. Almost as though the sound had been a signal, rumbling came from the northern side of the yard as the drawbridge began to ratchet down.
“There’s your door, acolyte. Move along.”
Phin was aware he was looking smug, and he cared not in the least. The big blonde Exlander stared at him with a clenched jaw, while the Father only frowned at them both. At length Heggenauer returned the shield to his back and straightened his mace beneath it while giving Phin a minor stink eye. He took the waiting mule’s bridle and both priests took at step toward the opening gate.
“Good day, Wizard,” the Father said.
“And where do you think you are going?”
Both stopped and turned back, Heggenauer now looking openly annoyed. After five months at the short end of the stick Phin just could not let the moment go.
“Excuse me?”
“I ask to where you are bound, Brother. To where does Jobe bid you two nip off?”
“To Galdeez,” Heggenauer nodded due north. “On the bluffs where the Blue River becomes the Red.”
“Yes, I have seen a map.”
“Thence on to Vod’Adia.” Father Corallo said quietly.
Phin jerked and his mouth fell open without any snide words coming out. The older priest continued.
“Blackstone. The Sable City. It is not on any map, though I trust you know the name?”
“Why are you going there?” Phin managed.
“The Fifth Opening is due in two months,” Corallo said. “It is the intent of Jobe’s House in Galdeez to send a crew into the Wilds to erect a compound within Camp Town. We shall minister to such adventurers braving Vod’Adia as may find our services necessary.”
“So you are not going into Vod’Adia,” Phin said. “Not into the city itself?”
Corallo shook his head once. “No. Though there is no injunction against such a course. Not for Jobians.” The older priest narrowed his eyes and his squint no longer looked friendly. “I do seem to recall that Circle Wizards are barred from even approaching the place, correct? Not even allowed to enter the Wilds at any time close to an Opening.”
“On pain of death,” Heggenauer added. Phin could only nod.
“I expect that would do it,” Corallo said. “Good day, Wizard.”
The wagon with the kegs was rolling toward the now open gate, and the pair of priests turned to follow it with their mule clopping along behind them. Ahead on the wagon the father had taken the reins to manage the narrow tunnel in the wall, and his daughter had scrambled up to perch atop the barrels. She was facing back toward Phin and as the wagon rolled into the shadowed stone passage she unmistakably stuck her tongue out at him.
Chapter Ten
In the end most of the Underway proved anticlimactic.
For the remainder of the first day, or rather until a time Tilda guessed to be after sunset, the column of nine moved through passages that varied from narrow clefts where Block and the men had to turn sideways to squeeze through, to great caverns with walls and ceilings that quickly disappeared from the meager circle of light provided by the lanterns. In the first of these the rock floor was covered with guano and high above the unseen ceiling was a chattering mass of thousands and thousands of bats. Fitz’s men lit foul-smelling torches, one for everyone in the group, and they were not bothered as they crossed the vast space. Boots remained slippery for a long time afterwards.
The other caves all seemed to be empty and after hours of moving through them Tilda stopped thinking about how daunting it was to be underground. Instead she thought about how hungry she was, and how bad her legs hurt. She had not eaten since a few bites of breakfast and though Dugan and Procost’s conclusion to that meal should have spoiled her appetite, Tilda had been walking steadily ever since then. Up and down hills, tunnels, and mounds of bat crap. Her k
nees and hips ached, the barrel of her carbine scraped the walls and banged against her shoulder, and her forehead had started to throb enough so that whenever Dugan’s sandals scraped the rock floor behind her she had the urge to throw an elbow back at his nose. When Fitz next called a halt Tilda did not notice that it was not the regular time for a short rest and some water. She leaned against the rough rock wall and rubbed her shoulder, then jerked as the gnome swung open a silent door on oiled hinges right beside her.
Like the door at the entrance this one was newer than its surroundings, being of stout wood with iron reinforcements. Beyond it was not another cave, but a room.
The floor was of tight-fitting flagstones and the walls were faced in smooth granite with the only adornment a decorative band all the way around at what would be eye level for a dwarf, cut with sharp, square writing. Fitz closed and locked the door while his three men with lit lanterns dispersed around the room, talking amongst themselves for the first time in hours. The men lit a number of regularly spaced braziers and the room filled with light to reveal stout chests stacked three high along one section of wall. Fitz and his other two men went to these and soon produced pallets and blankets for bedding, along with a variety of food including salted beef, dried vegetables and fruits, all sealed in jars.
The group spent the night in the room warmed by a fire built in a sunken central pit beneath a shaft in the smooth ceiling covered by a metal grill, through which all smoke was drawn off. There was a second door directly across from the first which Fitz also locked from the inside once the party was safely within, and in two corners were short alcoves. From a hole in the first Fitz’s men drew fresh water in buckets at the ends of long ropes from an underground stream. The second alcove was downstream from the first, the entrance covered with a hanging blanket, and the hole in its floor was used as a latrine.
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