The tally room had felt so secure. He had felt secure, with every element of the vaults and the smithies tallied, monitored, and controlled. He’d believed himself to be rooted there for the rest of his life. He’d believed himself contented. He’d liked the feeling that every scroll possessed its place – its proper pigeonhole – and that every scroll occupied its given place. There was comfort in the notion of order.
But his tally room had been a narrow refuge.
And its security an illusion founded on his own divided loyalty and beset by every troll in Belzetarn who coveted Gael’s power as secretarius.
This crazy quest he’d embarked on would be far more uncomfortable and uncertain than that illusion, downright chancy. Perhaps reality always was. But it would be honest.
The ground leveled out, and the undergrowth drew back. He’d found Nathiar’s track, with the brook chuckling alongside it over sun-dappled rocks and pebbles.
Gael let his mount move forward several strides before pulling the beast up and looking back over his shoulder. Keir smiled as she emerged from the brush.
“It feels good to be away,” she said. “Are you glad?”
He gazed at her, sitting comfortably astride her horse, her straight blond hair – chin-length – a little tousled, her gray eyes serene, and her face . . . what did he see in her face? Relief? An absence of a wariness that he’d never fully realized was there before? Pleasure in his company?
All those, he decided.
“I am glad,” he answered her.
* * *
Epilogue
Twelve moons after their departure from Belzetarn, Keir stood atop a ridge looking to the west, out over many more dim ridges creasing the shadowed land for as far as she could see in this moment before the dawn. The sky was light, a pale blue with a golden tinge. She waited, a bit breathless, for the sun to rise behind her. Soon . . . soon . . .
Then the feathery tops of the strange trees just downhill from her flushed brilliant green, as well as those on the slope across the valley. Each trunk rose branchless to a great height, where a mop of fronds puffed out, sheltering fruits with hairy rinds. Keir had never seen the like of them, nor Gael either, although Gael said he believed they were common in southern climes. Beneath them, gigantic ferns thrust like fountains from between smaller-leaved shrubs and a tangle of vines.
The warm air stood very still. Later morning would bring a breeze.
With the light came birdsong, a cacophony of twitters and more raucous squawks.
The panorama was very like one of Gael’s sketches of a vignette from the frame of the fifth panel of Olluvarde, the one showing the airship safely arrived and the children disembarking. The vignette depicted an airship settling at a mooring tower surrounded by the bizarre branchless trees.
She and Gael had assumed that the airship of the ancients must have made regular journeys inland, until they studied the sketch more closely and realized that the airship in the vignette was different from the one in the larger mural – smaller, with different designs on the envelope covering its air bags, but possessing its own lodestone. Just one, not two.
The discrepancy had prompted them to scour the other sketches for details they’d missed. Gael cursed himself for not copying all of the elegant stonework. Keir was merely thankful that he’d rendered as much as he had.
As near as they could tell, more than one airship had survived the storm that had batted one vessel to its doom in the roiling sea. Definitely two, perhaps three, had escaped to the mainland. Which meant that there had been at least three lodestones – two from the largest airship, one from the smaller – and maybe a fourth stone, if the third airship really had existed.
Gael had been heartened by the possibility that – subtracting the gong’s lodestone from the total – they had two or three stones they might find. It raised their chances of success. Keir dreamed that they might unearth all of them. She could teach other healers how to use the lodestones and between them restore many more trolls to health.
She gazed a moment longer at the view before her, watching the long shadows of the ridges retreat as the sun rose, and inhaling the rich, spicy scents floating from the exotic foliage. Then she turned away, walking back to the short bluff that sheltered their tent. Was Gael awake yet?
She peered in through the open flap.
Her blankets lay where she’d left them, unfolded on her side of the tent. On the other side, still under the top fold of his blanket, Gael was just opening his eyes.
Keir felt the corners of her mouth turning upward. Gael looked healthier than ever before, far more robust than when he’d dwelt in Belzetarn. His ankle never clicked these days, and he moved easily, without the soreness in his joints that had troubled him. But the repositioning of his energea nodes had not only granted him greater comfort. His skin had firmed up and possessed a better color, with a slight flush beneath its clear olive tone, rather than pallor. The lines bracketing his mouth and eyes had faded. The eyes themselves were brighter. And his nose had returned to the merely aquiline, no longer elongated and hooked from his troll-disease. He looked human.
He is human, Keir reminded herself. All trolls were human; humans suffering from an illness. And once she acquired an intact lodestone, she would heal them, as many as were willing.
Gael smiled back at her, his eyes warm. “I think I’ll bathe in the spring after we’ve topped off our waterbags, if you don’t mind,” he said.
Keir grinned. “I’ve already refilled them,” she said. “And bathed.”
He sat up, scrubbing a hand across his face. “Have you, now? Then I’ll wash before we break our fast, rather than after.” He rummaged around in one of the haversacks, drawing out a piece of the knotted root that they’d learned developed a fresh-smelling lather when rubbed.
“Don’t you dare bathe before we’ve checked our direction,” Keir chided.
Gael lifted an eyebrow – teasing her – then tipped the polished teardrop from the pouch that he still kept pinned at his waist.
The constellation of its scrolling energea lattice had changed gradually over the moons they’d been traveling. The protrusion that pointed back to Belzetarn had retreated until the array filled a bumpy, but symmetric sphere. No lodestone was near enough to disturb its configuration.
They’d travelled onward, inspecting the array each morning.
Keir allowed her inner sight to open. What would she see this time?
Gael turned the teardrop as she watched, and her breath caught.
The scrolls of aching gold jostled one another as they twirled, moving to allow the longest of their number to protrude beyond the others. It pointed ahead, across the ridges.
“Gael!” Keir gasped.
“I see it.” He leaned forward, reached for her hand, and brushed the back of it with his lips. “We’ve been seeking hope,” he said. “Now we’ve found it.”
Keir realized she was crying. She’d thought she’d regained hope on the day when she’d healed Gael, but now she realized that it had merely been the lifting of despair. This was hope.
“Our world will change,” she whispered.
Gael nodded, smiling gently. “Yes.”
THE END
Reviews are vital to every author’s success. Please consider leaving a review of The Tally Master wherever you purchased it. A line or two sharing your thoughts on the story will really help other readers seeking their next good book. Thank you!
To receive the earliest notice when I have a new book out, sign up for my newsletter. I send these announcements only when I have something new, never send spam, and will never share your email with anyone else. Plus you can unsubscribe at any time.
http://jmney-grimm.com/sign-up/
If you enjoyed The Tally Master, you might also enjoy Winter Glory, a story in which a tribal warrior mage must face both his past and an ancient monster, magically birthed from the mists of legend.
* * *
Titles by J.M. Ney-Grimm
/>
KAUNIS CLAN SAGA
Sarvet’s Wanderyar
Crossing the Naiad
Livli’s Gift
Winter Glory
LODESTONE TALES
Skies of Navarys
The Tally Master
Resonant Bronze
Rainbow’s Lodestone
Star-drake
NORTH-LANDS STORIES
The Troll’s Belt
Perilous Chance
Troll-magic
Hunting Wild
MYTHIC TALES
Serpent’s Foe
Devouring Light
Fate’s Door
Caught in Amber
* * *
APPENDICES
Who’s Who in The Tally Master
Gael – secretarius of Belzetarn; manages the flow of metals from the mines to the forges
Keir – Gael’s assistant
Arnoll – armorer of Belzetarn; close friend to Gael
Barris – cook for the regenen; close friend to Gael
ELITE OF THE CITADEL
Carbraes – overlord & regenen of Belzetarn
Dreas – march of Belzetarn
Theron – castellanum of Belzetarn
Nathiar – magus of Belzetarn
Fuwan – magus prior to Nathiar
Dreben – brigenen of the First Cohort of the First Legion; likes to fight
VARIOUS & SUNDRY DENIZENS OF BELZETARN
Weit – kitchen scullion who brings lunch to the smithies; picked on by many
Adarn – repentant bully; tapped as Keir’s messenger when Gael is away at Olluvarde
Uwen – guard assigned to Gael’s door after the incident with the gong and the scullions
Hew – a scullion who sweeps the tower’s passages and stairs
Samo – Hew’s immediate supervisor
Halko – hunter who looks very human for a troll
Alton – scullion who serves the upper levels of the tower
Lodis – cook under Barris in the regenen’s kitchen
Piar – healer in the hospital; quick, efficient, and capable
Valdi – messenger for the regenen
IN BELZETARN’S SMITHIES & MINES
Martell – smith who supplies household items and tools to Belzetarn
Jemer – scullion under Martell; always late
Olix – bladesmith of Belzetarn
Randl – smith in the copper smeltery
Ravin – scullion in the tin smeltery
Savron – the annealing smith; gruff
Emon – mine rep who accompanies the copper oxhide deliveries; a worrier
Fintan – mine rep who accompanies tin pebble deliveries; newly healed of a broken leg
Lannarc – porter who took Fintan’s place for a while
ON THE ISLAND OF FIORS
Engis – Keir’s father
Isolt – Keir’s sister
Muirne – servant woman in Keir’s home
IN THE KINGDOM OF HADORGOL
Heiroc – Gael’s former king
Erastys – Heiroc’s brother
Korryn – Gael’s old teacher of magery
Damalis – once Gael’s fiancée
Morza – Heiroc’s favorite landseer dog
Lord Omory – drunken noble of the court
Lord Rikar – high minister to the previous king, Pevarys
Gods of the Bronze Age North-lands
The denizens of Belzetarn are refugees. They hail from all over the North-lands, and each brings his own religious beliefs with him.
One early reader of The Tally Master asked me, “Are you sure you’ve got all these gods straight? There are an awful lot of them!”
There aren’t quite so many deities as it might seem, however, because nearly all of the cultures around the Merovic Sea believe in a Divine Mother attended by her handmaidens. Some of these cultures share a name for the Mother, but not all.
Barris (from the Hamish wilds), Arnoll (from what will become Solmondy), and Keir (from Fiors) refer to the Divine Mother as Sias. But Gael (from Hadorgol) calls her Seya.
The Mother’s handmaidens also have varying names in different lands. Barris refers to Thea and Iona (patronesses of logic and wisdom, respectively), while the people of Erynis (which will become Erice later in history) say Thelor and Elunig. And Thelor is a man, not a woman.
In many places, the handmaidens are regarded as demi-goddesses and sometimes elevated to receive greater admiration than the Mother herself. In Hadorgol and Pirbrant, the patron of logic (and investigation) is regarded as male (like in Erynis) and serves as the primary focus of worship: Tiamar. His mother Seya occupies a subsidiary role.
Carbraes, the regenen and ruler of Belzetarn, was born in the south, far from the Merovic Sea. His culture worshipped a solar deity and enacted rites every year to ensure that the sun’s sacred union with the earth took place. But when Carbraes curses, he refers to a legendary hero, not to his god. He says: “Belm’s debt!”
Hierarchy of Belzetarn
All authority in Belzetarn ultimately flows from its overlord, Regenen Carbraes. The elite wield power granted by him, keep or lose their status through his favor, and must conform to his wishes whenever their own diverge from his.
Carbraes is a reasonable ruler with a predilection for using the carrot rather than the stick. Unfortunately, many of his subjects themselves prefer to brandish the stick rather than dangling the carrot. They are trolls, afflicted by their troll-disease, more prone to violence and displays of temper than are the unafflicted. Carbraes, as practical as he is reasonable, does not hesitate to draw the reins of power up short and hard when necessary.
The greater portion of Carbraes’ subjects serve in his legions. The troll horde is under constant military pressure from the human settlements in the region, and they must fight if they wish to live.
The military hierarchy of Belzetarn is as follows.
Armies and citadels need food, weapons, armor, clothing, tools, and repairs, and thus require cooks, hunters, weapon smiths, blacksmiths, tanners, leatherworkers, and many other suppliers. Belzetarn provides shelter to all these and more. They are fewer in number than the warriors, but they too possess a hierarchy, which borrows a few of its titles from the legions.
Citadel of Belzetarn
Belzetarn occupies the top of a bluff above a lake in the Hamish wilds. Its outer bailey possesses room enough to permit an entire cohort (600 warriors) to practice drills. Stables, kennels, the hunters’ lodge, the gluemaker, and many other offices line its curtain walls.
The artisans’ yard, located along the cliff edge, is smaller, but encompasses the hospital, the felterers, the harnessmakers, the woodcarvers, and so on.
Belzetarn’s tower, erected by potent troll-magery long before Carbraes came to rule it, dwarfs both yard and bailey because of its extreme height, more than 300 feet (~90 meters) from the foundations to the battlements.
Belzetarn is big!
The Tally Master is not a story in which the reader must know where the library is located in relation to the billiard room. (Of course, Belzetarn does not possess either of those!) But the following maps and floor plans will assuage the curiosity of readers who wish to know more of the citadel.
About Tin, Copper, and Bronze Ingots
The ingots issuing from Belzetarn’s copper mines are massive ‘oxhides’ shaped like an animal hide with four ’legs’ that make it possible to carry them. They weigh 80 pounds and measure roughly 70 centimeters (~28 inches) long by 40 centimeters (16 inches) wide by 5 centimeters (~2 inches) thick.
Belzetarn’s tinworks yield ‘pebbles’ created in a rough smelting on site. These pebbles are transported to the citadel’s forges in sacks loaded onto a mule.
Neither the copper oxhides nor the tin pebbles are pure enough for immediate use. Both must be smelted again to remove impurities, and the resulting high-quality metal is poured into molds which create small ingots shaped vaguely like hats.
These �
�hat’ ingots each weigh one pound and measure roughly 9 centimeters (~3.5 inches) per side of the ’hat brim’ – the widest part. The ’crown’ rises 4.2 centimeters (~2 inches) high.
Tin is the least dense of the three relevant metals – tin, bronze, and copper – and the tin hat ingots have a thickness of 2.421 millimeters. Bronze, with more density, yields ingots 2 millimeters thick. And copper, the most dense, possesses ingots of 1.995 millimeters thickness.
The hat ingots are shaped to nest in neat stacks. But because of their different thicknesses, stacks composed of the different metals would wobble a bit, while stacks of all tin, all copper, or all bronze are very stable.
The smiths of the individual forges – sword, armor, and privy – each create their own bronze from the tin and copper hat ingots, because each requires a slightly different ratio of tin to copper. Any leftover bronze is poured into its own hat ingots. The blade smith regularly produces one bronze ingot every day, so precise and standardized are his processes.
The privy smith, who makes tools and household implements for the citadel, is experimenting wildly with different metal mixtures. He rarely has enough leftover bronze to pour an entire ingot, so his leftovers return to storage at the end of the day as a lump which is weighed.
The armor smithy always needs wire (to ‘sew’ the many small platelets of bronze into mail shirts), so any excess bronze is poured into long narrow molds, yielding metal that can be readily hammered into wire.
Glossary
agusten – administrative officer to the bellatarius of a legion; five per legion.
bellatarius – commander of a legion; Belzetarn has merely two legions during the time of The Tally Master.
The Tally Master Page 48
