Only then did Waleck raise his eyes from the cylinder and finally speak. The old man’s voice was hard, determined. "Trust, Mar. A partnership of trust. That is what me must have."
Mar's response was automatic. "No, old man. No more deals."
The violent reaction Mar anticipated did not occur. Waleck glowered, his hands clenched so tightly about the cylinder that his fingers had gone nearly white, but uttered nothing further. Silence prevailed till Mar, eating with careful precision, had scooped the last morsel from his bowl and set it aside.
Waleck's eyes bored unblinkingly into his. "I must trust you, Mar. I have no other choice. You know far too much already."
Mar shed his facade of unconcern. This last was almost a threat. He straightened himself, drawing his legs up beneath him, ready to leap away.
"Say what you will, old man."
Some of the tension visibly eased from Waleck's face, but he remained deadly earnest.
"First, Mar, secrecy. This is essential. Do not speak to anyone of the cylinder. Never, under any circumstances, reveal its contents. An unguarded word in the wrong ears could bring doom upon us both."
Mar stared at the old scrapper for a moment, then slowly nodded. "I‘m listening."
Waleck raised the cylinder to catch Mar's eye. The firelight, waning now as the fire slowly settled into coals, gleamed redly off its curved surface in sparkles and flashes.
"This is something that will change our lives forever, Mar. This discovery will make an irrevocable and unstoppable change in the entire world! These few pages will open a door that has been closed for millennia and unleash forces that have been hidden from the sight of most men for untold generations!"
Waleck paused then, pensive, his eyes straying into the dark, focused upon what, Mar could not guess. The pause lengthened to such an extent that Mar almost spoke sharply, but Waleck at last, with apparent reluctance, returned to the here and now.
"This cylinder holds a text, the premier chapter of a comprehensive book authored by the ancient Sorcerer Oyraebos!" The old man's voice rose as he continued, cresting at a near shout. "A book of MAGIC!"
Mar would have laughed, but feared the old man's reaction. As it was, he had difficulty retaining control of his expression. For the most part, he was confused. Beggars did magic, tricks of the hand and eye to earn a few coppers. The better of them left the streets and performed in taverns, an adjunct to the women and the wine. He had on occasion overheard fishwives and slatterns gossip of evil magic, curses, visitations, ruined milk, and other such nonsense. Both were no more than entertainment, a cheap way to pass time. How could tricks or superstition change the world?
And Oyraebos, the name was familiar now that the old man had pronounced it a second time. Tales of the Evil and Ancient Oyraebos, sometimes Yrobos, Wizard and fiend with a propensity for child flesh, kept small children in at night. And then he was but one of a vast pantheon of nightmarish specters summoned out of the dark: Kahmmre the Dreaded, Hkeelheaele the Destroyer, Bhelacsh the Sorcerer, Myragtar Bane of the Gods, a dozen or so others.
"You must believe, Mar!” Waleck insisted, as if he recognized that Mar found his pronouncement ludicrous. "Oyraebos was no fable! He and his magic, and all the others -- the sorcerers, the wizards, the enchanters -- were alive in an age when magic was supreme, when the artisans of magic ruled our world!"
The old man paused again, seemed to take hold of himself. "I know that the genuine power of magic is hard for you to accept, with the open practice of the art vanished, forgotten or suppressed to little more than myth, but you must. Magic exists – is totally, utterly, and undisputedly real – and its potency is undiminished. All the wonders and miracles that were accomplished in the ancient past can still be brought forth. The only thing that we lack in this modern age are the mechanics of magic -- the fundamental knowledge of its use, the methods, the tools, and the processes that were lost in the long ago!"
"Can you not see, Mar?” Waleck exclaimed, jumping to his feet. "This is exactly what we have found – a book that will reveal those mechanics to us! This text and the others that follow it can teach us how take control of our own destinies, to alter the very world around us, to overcome any obstacle! We have discovered a key that will unlock powers sealed for thousands of years!"
Waleck rushed on before Mar could interrupt. "You must realize why we have no choice but to keep the text a secret, never speak to anyone of its existence? There are a few who still practice magic of a sort, though with nothing approaching the skill of Oyraebos or the other ancient masters. These skulkers would instantly recognize the text and understand the fantastic potential of its possession. Many of them would kill a dozen times over to obtain what we now hold. Should they hear the slightest whisper that a text of Oyraebos has been found, then our lives would hardly be worth the price of watered wine!"
Mar shook his head. He was not sure what he felt: not sad really, a bit amused perhaps, suspicious most certainly.
"No, old man," he told Waleck firmly. "I won’t help you chase fables."
The old scrapper darkened ominously. "Your disbelief matters not at all. What does is that you know I have the text, and that knowledge represents a danger to me."
Mar dropped his hand to the top of his boot. His knife was there, and this Waleck knew. The warning was clear.
The old man frowned and some of his intensity faded, so that he seemed more the Waleck Mar had known.
"No, Mar, you've no need of that. I do not intend to purchase your silence with violence, but with gold." The old man set the cylinder at his feet and opened the large pouch that always hung from his belt. Pulling out a drawstring purse that filled his fist, he tossed it toward Mar.
Mar reached out and snared the purse left handed, grunting as his arm folded from the unexpected weight. Gold, Waleck had said. Without removing his eyes from the scrapper, Mar used both hands to open the purse, spilling the fat yellow coins onto his palm. Twenty thalars, with a dozen different chiseled profiles, one or two newly minted, most decades old.
By Edict of the Emperor Rhajkhanghr, dead five centuries, a full gold thalar of standard weight could be exchanged for fifty silver thal or five hundred copper thay. Two thay would buy a filling meal in Khalar, ten thal a good horse, and one thalar an important man's throat cut. Twenty thalars did not make a man rich, but many a craftsman in the Imperial City saw hardly ten thalars for a good year's labor.
Thievery had never earned him more than a few dozen silver thal at any particular time. Merchants were the only ones in Khalar with ready cash, and they kept the bulk of their money in strongboxes at the Guild, under constant watch. The most coin that he had ever stolen was five thal, forgotten in a stored cabinet. The resellers in the markets would pay no more than half value for the trinkets that he normally lifted, sometimes nothing if the item was known sought by the Guard. He had never found himself with a sum great enough to require its conversion to gold. A thalar or two in silver and copper at best, but most often no more than a few thal. At the moment, he owned not even a single iron penny.
"That is yours," Waleck offered, "if you will stay with me. I will add a hundred more to it when we are done. You need only to heed my orders as you have done these many fortnights, watch my back, and follow where I lead. We have the first text and a clue to the rest. We must search them out, and that journey will surely take us far beyond Khalar. There is danger and hardship ahead, but I will gladly share the knowledge that we uncover, and I can predict that you will consider that sum a mere pittance beside the wealth that will be yours. What say you, Mar?"
A score of thalars would buy a junior commission in the Viceroy's Guard, and it was said that a vote in the Assembly of the Patriarchs had been had for less. Was it enough to cause a thief to trail a half-mad scrapper and his delusion across the world?
Mar slowly dropped the gold back into the purse. Twenty thalars: several years in comfort or one in moderate splendor. No fear of the Guard, no midnight swims, no hu
nger or threadbare clothes. Time and money, all that anyone ever needed.
"Yes, old man. For the gold I will follow you. For the gold."
Waleck's face burst into a triumphant smile, not the warm grin that Mar had seen so often, but a cold, almost savage, flash of teeth.
The old man rose quickly. "We leave for Khalar as soon as we load the mules."
Mar tucked the purse away, joining Waleck as he strode toward the shed. ”What of the bronze door?”
“We leave it. We have no time to spare for it.”
"You said beyond Khalar. Where?"
"We shall learn that in the city. Oyraebos left us a clue to the remaining texts. We must seek the Mother of the Seas, whatever that may be."
"How do you plan to do that?"
"By visiting the Viceroy's Library, of course."
FIVE
Fourthday, Waning, Wintermoon, the year 1643 After the Founding of the Empire
Burdened with his travel pack, Brother Zaereof hopped carefully from the ferry to the dock. His shieldman, Brother Srei, followed closely, bearing his own heavy pack and their two large satchels. Both men studied the dockmen, merchants and idlers who bustled forward to begin the unloading of the ferry’s cargo.
Zaereof paused, moving only slightly to avoid any entanglement with the dockworkers.
After a moment, Srei offered quietly, “Nothing.”
Zaereof nodded and moved along the dock toward the city. Zaereof followed a full three paces behind and at least one to one side. They never walked together in the field; one or the other always walked point.
“What was the name of this place again?” Zaereof asked quietly over his shoulder in Ancient Dstrenii’n. Although the language had been dead for at least two millennia and it was certain that his pronunciation did not match the original, he knew that Srei, as did all the brethren of the Brotherhood’s Exploration Service, would understand perfectly well and, more importantly, that no one else about them would understand a single word.
“Khalar. If you had read the Deacon’s instructions…”
Zaereof laughed. “That’s what you are for, Srei.”
“I am here to manage the relic,” Srei shot back. “And keep knives from your back, though this second, of course, has much lesser priority.”
Zaereof laughed again. “Of course!”
It was only a short walk into the city proper, though they had to surmount several long flights of stairs. It was nigh midday and numerous people were about. Zaereof dallied at intervals to allow Srei to consult the relic while the traffic flowed about them, but each time there was no reaction. They spent the remainder of the day strolling about the city, resting only to take a cheap meal from a street vendor in a great ceremonial plaza.
Finally, Srei suggested, “We should look for lodging before dusk and begin again tomorrow. This is a large city and our search may be a long one.”
Zaereof nodded. “Blessed be the Work.”
“Such is Our Duty,” Srei responded automatically.
“The Restorer Comes!” Zaereof finished.
SIX
The water hole was dry.
Unconcerned, Mar swung down from the gray and pulled the short-handled spade from its lashings behind his saddle. He swung it in short, swift arcs, lopping back the new growth that infringed upon the narrow path, and in moments, he had made an opening wide enough to pass the shoulders of the animals. He took the bridle of his pony and the lead rope of the mule train and led the animals forward, the spade slashing back and forth methodically.
Waleck remained mounted, leaning forward heavily on his saddle brow, his face etched with exhaustion. Rhovma pitched his head to tug the slack reins from the old man's fingers, then trudged after the mules.
The water hole lay in a partially sheltered swale west of a line of stair-step gravel ridges. Dheaia bushes ringed the shallow depression, a great, sprawling mass several paces thick and as high as Mar could reach over his head. Elsewhere in the Waste, the dheaia was a ground-hugging shrub, never growing higher than a man's knee. The plant barely survived in widely scattered patches, forever battling the shallow, wandering dunes. Here, as at the other waterholes, the bushes had flourished into a near impregnable hedge armed with fingerlength thorns. The outer branches of the plant, covered with a mat-like profusion of fibrous leaves no larger than a fingernail, formed a dense canopy that blocked the scorching sun and allowed it to horde its own moisture against the ravages of the Waste. This defense not only insured the dheaia's survival, but also protected the water hole from the sand-laden wind as well as could the stoutest fortress walls. Only the path that Mar worked to widen breached the barrier.
Mar labored without complaint as sweat pooled in his boots. The dheaia meant water and shade, and in the Waste, water and shade meant survival.
He had scarcely noted the advent of summer, some fortnights past. In the Waste City, only the lengthening of the day marked the passage of seasons. The range of daytime temperature never varied in the great depression more than ten degrees year round. Waleck's long tenure in the ancient place had allowed him, over time, to transform his camp into a refuge from the legendary hellishness of the Waste. There was always water there, cool from the earth smothering the cistern, and a stout shed to provide refuge from the sun. Mar had complained of the heat and cursed his never quite quenched thirst daily, but had not really understood how dangerous the Waste truly could be.
Away from the City, water and shade were almost non-existent. Waleck had led them from his encampment with the sun full down, into the relatively cool night, and had ridden without halt across gravel flats, over dune fields, along petrified washes, following the almost indistinguishable trail, league after league, until dawn had bolted over the horizon. They had stopped to share out the water lashed to the back of one of the mules in lieu of a hundred weight of steel and iron scrap, the animals consuming an amazing quantity. Then, to Mar's utter disbelief, they had forged ahead through the rest of the day, rendered by the hellish heat and parched air, until finally, near dusk, they had reached the first water hole.
Mar broke through the thick growth finally and reached the rim of what had been a brimming pool when he had seen it last some many fortnights previously. Now, there was not even cracked mud in the rock-lipped oval, just dry dust and a sprinkling of desiccated dheaia leaves.
When they had reached the first dry oasis, Mar had slid from his saddle, too drained to speak, and stared numbly at the dust. Before he had gathered the strength to accuse, Waleck had pitched a spade at his feet.
"Dig," the old man had ordered gruffly with no sign of concern on his face. He had then turned his back to begin clearing an opening beneath the hedge.
Whether from force of habit or simple fatigue, Mar had obeyed. Predictably, when his hole had reached his knees he had begun to shovel damp earth, then mud when it was up to his waist, and then, no more than the depth of his spade farther down, water had grudgingly begun to seep in. The hole had filled in surprisingly short time, and the horses and mules had drunk their fill without decreasing the level of water noticeably.
And such was the case -- or, rather, routine -- now. Mar sloshed his last splat of mud and hauled himself slowly from the muck. The animals shouldered him aside and made long necks to drink. He left them to themselves; there was no need to hobble them here. The ponies were too smart and the mules too stubborn to wander far from the water. They would seek shelter under the overhanging dheaia shortly on their own. He ignored the yellowed gray slime that covered his breeches and boots; drying, it left him cool in the sweltering heat, and he always bathed in his clothes as his last chore before they departed at sunset. While he had been occupied at his task, the day had passed from leaden-skied pre-dawn to full blistering morning, and he gratefully crawled into the hollow that Waleck had carved beneath the brush. The old man had dropped the mules' heavy packs (which held half their store of scrap, that which had been previously sorted and packed -- the rest Waleck had blit
hely abandoned) in the open, but had dragged their blankets and supplies into the shade. As Mar expected, the old man was already snoring flat of his back in the darkest recess.
There was naught else to do, in all truth. What little had to be done to prepare their camp they had already done. They would cook one meal at dusk to last them through the night. Breakfast, if one wanted it, was dried trail ration and as much tepid water filtered through muslin as one could drink. Mar, accustomed like the ponies to uncertain periods between meals, had no desire for food this morning.
What he did want was another look at that text.
Ten days, Waleck had said, to cross the Waste, though it had taken half that on their outward journey. After that initial tortuous day, they had traveled only at night, resting during the day at the waterholes that defined the trail. Luckily, Father Moon and the doubly bright Cousins were in cycle together and the trail was well enough lit after moonrise for the horses to follow without straying. Also luckily – though the priests would say according to the divine providence of Oahkthegk, God-Regent of mountains and deserts (and all ancillary terrain, inhabitants, and conditions,) -- the stepping-stone water holes were no more than a hard ten to twelve hours ride apart.
There remained but four nights till they reached Khalar. During the previous six nights, Mar had had little to do but grip the gray's reins, follow the shadowy mounted form of Waleck, and think. He had slowly arrived at some unsettling conclusions.
Waleck might be mad, but he was not irrational, and the awful suspicion had puddled at the center of Mar’s thoughts two nights gone that the old man had thoroughly duped him -- that those ravings about this magic were no more than a masterful diversion to hide his true purpose.
Mar knew of but one motivation that would drive men to act without recourse to normal reason, only one desire that could provoke men to desperate, dangerous, and risky measures -- the universal lust for gold. Even small sums could -- but undoubtedly great sums would -- turn brother against brother, father against son, separate friends, spill blood on pretext, send mobs raging through the streets, and turn men of unassuming manner devious and cunning. He accepted this as a fundamental aspect of human existence. Throughout his entire life, he had witnessed on an almost daily basis, in splendid and glorious detail, the inherent venality of man.
Key to Magic 01 Orphan Page 5
