Students of the Order

by Edward W. Robertson

  "Go." The old man's head was bowed. "I have seen all I need."

  Legs shaking, Joti left. He wandered back to the bunkhouse in a daze.

  Someone was shaking him awake. It was still light out. Late afternoon. He couldn't remember falling asleep.

  Brakk stood over him, looking disgusted. "Lazy Joti, always sleeping when he should be learning to slay humans. The chieftain calls you—and you're late."

  He staggered from bed and discovered he'd fallen asleep with his boots on. He followed Brakk outside, letting the walk burn the fog from his mind. The others were assembled on the platform at the edge of the falls. Everyone stared as he joined them.

  "You look awful," Gogg said.

  Joti grunted.

  The boardwalk clapped with the confident steps of Cog Loton and his personal guards. The chieftain moved to the rear of the platform, washed-out eyes searching their faces.

  "One year ago, you arrived as new recruits." He spoke slowly, giving each word room to breathe. "Ever since, we have been assessing you, determining which of you has the ability to build the skills necessary to survive the rigors of serving your clan. Something rare has happened: every single one of you who remains here has proven able to progress as a warden. An elite man-at-arms, the wardens of the No-Clan are as adept in the wilderness as they are behind the walls of a fortification. You should all be very proud."

  He clapped, smiling tightly. They applauded with him. He sobered, one eyebrow cocked. "Among you, a handful possess the skill necessary to bear a far harsher responsibility. Faddak. Kata. Ruko. And Gogg. Congratulations: beginning today, you will begin your training as Marshals."

  Cog Loton applauded again. He was done. He was finished. And he hadn't called Joti's name.

  20

  Dear Mantyger,

  I've sent my dispatches to Cardozo by a different post. They always say to keep repeating business if anything goes wrong, so I'll get it out of the way: me and, unfortunately, Wa'llach are alive and well; the iron from the Reading mine is an 8 3/7ths on the Wetbiller scale, with multiple samples from throughout the mine all conforming to each other. So you can tell Cardozo that if he complains of not hearing from me. We leave for Cohos the day after tomorrow.

  I've met a rather wonderful girl. She's a princess from one of the mercenary kingdoms in the south, posted out here to chase away trolls. I suppose that if it wasn't for her I'd find this place beyond tedious, but she's wonderful and I don't; I'd never leave, if I could. She's even taught me a bit about how to use the staff as a weapon, so maybe the next time Hanny has too much to drink and starts waving that damn hammer around we won't all be so helpless.

  I miss you all quite a lot. I've never been this close to someone who didn't have the Gift, and it's rather frightening. I've always understood that It came with vast responsibilities; that wizards suffer in ways no one will understand; but I've never wished I didn't have It like I do now.

  Even if everything else wasn't so wretchedly complicated, I wonder how much one of us can ever really be with a regular person. I know you've read the minds of some of the boys you've slept with; I haven't read hers, but I wonder if that really matters. Part of us will always be off in someone else's head, and even if it's not hers that will still keep us apart.

  I even wonder if your approach isn't more honest: using the Gift to cheat to get what we want might be more true to who we are. I've been pretending that I didn't have it, and that's further from the truth, almost, than if I could tell her exactly what she wanted to hear because I'd been in her mind.

  In any event we're leaving the day after tomorrow. I wish I wasn't, but it will be nice to see the lot of you again,

  All my best,

  Wit

  The first light of dawn began to crack through the window as Wit finished his letter and he blew out his candle and sat back in his chair. Elayne yawned, got up, and stood behind Wit, wrapping her arms around him and pressing her cheek against his. Wit folded his letter with one hand, while he took one of her hands in his other and pressed it against his mouth.

  "Secret wizard business?"

  "No, mostly. Just writing to a friend."

  "To another girl?" she said in mock reproach.

  "Well, yes, but she's a wizard."

  "So?"

  "Wizards never make love to other wizards."

  "Why don't you?"

  "We're too close already and we're also stuck with each other. It simply isn't done."

  "What if there was a wizard who you really fancied?"

  "Well, you read their mind until you find the part of them that was a cold-blooded murderer; or an unapologetic cheat; or simply flat out insane, and then you lose interest. With most wizards that doesn't take very long."

  "So which one is the girl you were writing?"

  Wit laughed. "She's my best friend."

  "You got up an hour before dawn to write her a letter, you must have at least thought about screwing her at some point. So is she a murderer, dishonest, or mad?"

  "She's all of them."

  "Your best friend?"

  "Well, she's actually a rather nice person, for a wizard." Wit took a breath, and decided to experiment with lying to his lover. "I think that the two of you would really get along."

  "Really? Why?"

  "You're both powerful people, and have been for all your lives; she's one of the finest wizards the Order has had in half a century." While this was true it did not seem to leave much of an impression on the princess, so Wit tried lying again. "And, while she can get a little peculiar sometimes, she is mostly very respectful and doesn't go about doing bizarre things to people for the hell of it."

  The princess brightened. "Well, that's good."

  She left to attend to some business in the fort, and Wit went down to the main room of the inn. The chief of the Reading dwarves was waiting for Wit, and they had a seat at a table.

  "I hope Wa'llach hasn't been much trouble?" Wit asked, nervously.

  When the foreman had asked for the meeting, Wit had assumed that Wa'llach was the cause. One complication to their staying in Reading was that the miners had been more exposed to Wa'llach than had been intended, and Wit supposed that it was lucky that it had taken this long for it to boil over.

  The foreman shrugged. "Why you magicians insist on keeping that rotten traitor alive is beyond a foolish dwarf like myself. But those are questions for the great magicians, and I have no complaint of him—beyond the foul bastard still being alive to soil the name of my race."

  "I am no great magician," said Wit, deliberately rubbing his clean-shaven chin, "and merely follow orders in that regard myself."

  "Aye, and I know it. In any event, his gambling ring is only a minor inconvenience…"

  "Gambling ring?!"

  "Aye, but truth be told it's been quiet here lately and the lads have been bored and something was bound to come up sooner or later. And with a cut-throat like him running the game, there's actually less of a chance of anyone starting trouble and hurting themselves badly. What I came for was to ask if you might carry a gift and a message to Jacobs when you reach Youngkent."

  "Most gladly, assuming your gift isn't a boulder or great bar of iron or something."

  "No," he grinned, "it shouldn't inconvenience you much at all. Here's the gift." The dwarf took out a small glass phial, filled with a dark substance, and handed it to Wit, who took it in his hand and looked at it questioningly. "And here's the message. 'Enjoy the last drop of fine Mountain Ale that will ever cross your lying lips, you thieving son of a bitch. For if you or any one of your people ever set foot in these mountains again I swear on all my ancestors they'll never come out alive.'"

  Wit nodded slowly. "I will take your message. But I must know something about why you are so displeased with Jacobs."

  The foreman nodded. "That's fair, and simple, enough. The plains of Youngkent are no place where a dwarf would willingly make their home—but after that cur's cheating I wonder that it isn't too g
ood for him. In any event, Nostromo Pass is the swiftest and safest way between two of the oldest dwarven cities—and whoever controls it can grow rich collecting tolls. Jacobs was one of three families that laid claim to it, and they fought over it for centuries. Eventually, they agreed to take turns collecting the tolls for ten-year periods, but when Jacobs' turn came to give it up, they refused. There was another war, but a short one, as all of dwarfdom allied against them, and Jacobs was expelled from the mountains. Now, my people have always been kindly towards Jacobs, and been inclined to think the affair of Nostromo Pass was more complicated than it seemed."

  "Indeed," said Wit, "since you were selling them iron three years ago."

  "And why aren't I selling them iron now? Because Jacobs is a rotten tunnel skunk, whose word is worth no more than bat dung."

  "When Jacobs got his iron from Cohos, that hurt you? We, the Order, should have thought of that, I am sorry." Wit's mind raced as he wondered how to set a Controversy in motion between Reading and Jacobs, in a way that Cardozo could resolve it in Youngkent. "If you want to collect damage from Jacobs, it might be best to accompany me to Youngkent yourself, and seek it there. We will do what we can to make you whole."

  "Oh, I'm more than whole. The Contract with Jacobs was signed when there was a little bit of a surplus, and the price we gave them was very good. I'm merely hurt because we were one of the few houses that would sell to that clown in the first place, and that was how he treated us. And your wizards have been most helpful already in this matter."

  "What do you mean?"

  "Well, when I got the news that Jacobs would take no more of our iron, I was hopping mad, of course. And it weren't just Jacobs: that was as wretched a summer as we've ever had. A pack of orcs, lead by an orange-haired queen bitch, were raiding the wagons out of here and had killed over twenty of my workers. Anyway, there was a wizard traveling in our area, a fellow named Vechtin, who came out to see us about that time, when I was thinking of proceeding in a Controversy against Jacobs. He told me that the mercenaries in Brogdadus were always desperate for metal and would happily chase away the orcs and even leave us a garrison, in exchange for some of the metal that we had mined for Jacobs. The protection of the mercenaries has been worth far more than Jacobs' gold, and all I need to be whole is for that skunk to know that he'll never taste good mountain beer again and that I hate him."

  "Say," said Wit, "I have been meaning to ask you this for some days: do you know the High Dragar of Youngkent?"

  The foreman shook his head. "I've never met him, or had anything to do with him or Youngkent whatsoever, beyond selling materials to Jacobs."

  "Which you were inclined to do because of your clan's connections going back to when Jacobs lived in the mountains?"

  "Aye. Why'd you ask?"

  "Well, you were not the only person disturbed by Jacobs' switch. Reading iron was specified in the Contract LinLaugh, High Dragar of Youngkent, had with Jacobs. Now he has demanded that the wall be taken down and rebuilt with Reading iron."

  "Why?"

  "I don't know and I had hoped you might have an answer to that—if you and LinLaugh were friends, then his insistence on your iron would make some sense."

  "We've never had dealings with dragars. I don't even know that we have it to sell to them, these days. But I have it from a number of travelers that the orcs on the other side of the wall have grown strong. Without it protecting the people of Youngkent…I don't know what would happen. I can't believe that LinLaugh would want it taken down."

  "That is the purpose of this trip, to assess the iron from here and Cohos, and determine what should be done with the wall."

  "Cohos? I didn't know that Hogan had any iron at all these days."

  "Apparently he does, and he was able to give Jacobs a better price than you."

  "Well, aye, he's some hundred miles closer." The foreman fidgeted for a moment. "You're going to be in Youngkent when they decide the fate of the wall?"

  Wit nodded.

  "Well, look, you'd oblige me a great deal if you would only give Jacobs my message and beer if they decide to keep the fool wall up."

  Wit smiled. "Of course."

  "And, you know, if they are to take the wall down, you might tell him that I'll always have a place for a clever builder, should he have to relocate out of Youngkent."

  "I'll tell him, but if it comes to that, Jacobs' dwarves will be Bound to un-build and rebuild the wall. If anything happens in Youngkent, he'll be stuck there for it."

  The foreman scowled. "The ways of your Order are beyond a simple miner like me, but to Bind a dwarf so he won't be able to flee from an orcish horde…Jacobs might be a despicable cheat and an oaf, but there isn't a clan in the mountains that will like to hear of that."

  Wit nodded, pocketed the phial of beer, promised to follow the instructions, and shook hands with the foreman, who left.

  He waited for a few moments and then went to the mine himself. Despite the foreman's assurances, Wit was fairly sure that he needed to at least look into Wa'llach's gambling ring.

  More pressingly, the foreman's story had troubled him. If a wizard had advised Reading three years ago about what to do regarding Jacobs' breach, then the Order ought to have been more generally aware of the situation as it had unfolded in Youngkent. On the one hand, the High Dragar's insistence on Reading iron was completely inexplicable and could not have been foreseen. But, on the other hand, it made absolutely no sense that Wit had been sent on to Reading without being informed about actions taken by a wizard regarding a matter directly related to the one that he had been sent to investigate.

  Wit's strong impression had been that the dwarf had been telling the truth, but wizards could be deceived, and this was done most easily by non-humans. And Reading's foreman lying about the wizard's visit, and maybe other details, would be the simplest explanation. Adepts were told, over and over again, that when dealing with conflicts between members of the same non-human race, they should seek the advice of a member of that race that they trusted, and attempt to understand a neutral viewpoint before proceeding. Wa'llach was equally despised by most dwarves: for this reason he was considered a reliable arbitrator of most things dwarven by the Order, which was not the least reason that they found him immensely valuable.

  The irony of Wa'llach being trustworthy in any context was not lost on Wit. He kicked a rock, sending it bouncing down the road.

  Wa'llach's gambling ring was apparently popular because initially no one was willing to help Wit find it. From reading minds, he learned that Wa'llach was operating out of an abandoned section of the mine, and even a sense of how to get there—but the dwarves whose minds he read all relied on differences in the various tunnels that were meaningless to him, and he was reduced to bribing a young miner with a gold coin.

  "I don't like to be a snitch," the dwarf said.

  "Well, I just want to go to make a bet, for all you know," Wit said.

  "Wizards aren't allowed to gamble."

  "That's not true: we're just not allowed to gamble without saying we're a wizard. Naturally, that generally comes to the same thing, but this is a rare opportunity for me: Wa'llach, being Bound to the Order, will have no choice but to take my bet."

  "I'd be more inclined to believe that if you gave me two gold coins," said the dwarf.

  "And I'd be less inclined to rip your mind open, if you just take me to Wa'llach."

  The dwarf led them into the tunnels.

  "What sort of game is he running, anyway?" asked Wit.

  "Lardle-tops."

  "What's that?"

  "Well, someone makes a four-sided top, with a different rune on each side, and brings it to the game. Then the top is spun a thousand times. Now, the goal is to make a top that will land on each of the four runes exactly 250 times—if that happens then all the gamblers have to give the top maker an agreed-on stake, and if it is close—all four sides have come up between, say, 240 and 260 times—then everyone has to pay the maker half t
he stake. Gamblers also can make any bet the banker will take, generally on exactly how many of a certain side will come up in the thousand."

  The coin that he had given the miner turned out to be a waste: Wa'llach's hideout was easily findable due to a strong smell of alcohol that now permeated much of the tunnels.

  Wa'llach and five other dwarves were sitting in a small circle around a spinning top. A small, evenly burning candle provided the only light, which was apparently enough for the dwarven eyes. Wit intuited that the four runes were written on the wall, because every time the top finished spinning someone would go over to the wall and make a mark, but he could not actually see the runes or the marks.

  When Wa'llach saw Wit, he excused himself and the two walked a ways down the tunnel, where they could talk out of the hearing of the gamblers.

  "You never told me not to run a game," Wa'llach said preemptively.

  "Ha, I haven't told you that yet. But that's not entirely why I'm here." He related the foreman's story, and Wa'llach looked serious.

  "As to the other wizard he says was here, I don't know anything."

  While not a wizard, Wa'llach had still served the Order for longer than Wit had been alive, and had a very good idea of how things were done. And he too seemed puzzled to hear about the wizard.

  "What about Jacobs? The business with the pass, and Jacobs' expulsion from the mountains?"

  "Aye, that was more or less the way of it."

  "The Reading fellow said that they believed there was 'more' to the Nostromo business—what did he mean by that?"

  Wa'llach nodded. "Nostromo Pass was, as he said, claimed by three families. The other two had claims to the land, and Jacobs' claim arose out of the fact that they had built the various bridges and tunnels in the pass, and never been paid. They fought about it for a damned long time, and in the end, hit on the compromise: they would take turns collecting the toll for ten years. That lasted for about a hundred years and then Jacobs decided not to give up the pass when their turn was up. Jacobs lost the war that followed quite badly, of course. The real question is why they started it in the first place."