Students of the Order

by Edward W. Robertson

  The first person to find him was Joti, who asked if he needed any help. Wit was enthusiastic and asked the orc to bring him lunch. Joti looked disappointed, but went and returned with some meat, bread, and a carafe of wine. Once they had eaten, Joti again asked if he needed any assistance, and Wit looked puzzled.

  "Shain said that you were undertaking a great work of the Warp. I was wondering if I could help you with that."

  How much help the orc could be would depend on first, if the "orc Gift" was at all useful for this task, and second, if Joti actually possessed the orc Gift, which was still oddly unclear to Wit. He suspected that figuring out the answer to either question would be more work than simply proceeding by himself.

  He gave Joti the first pages of the outline he had written and asked if he could read over the parts of Wit's book from his first year in the capital that dealt with similar matters and check for blatant contradictions.

  Joti, understandably, had lots of questions, and Wit's strong instinct was to lose patience. However, the orc's questions were both logical and perceptive, and the task that Wit had given him was impossible, so Wit referred him to an earlier part of his book, which went over the basic theory of Binding. Joti read happily and quietly for a while.

  Enexiyo showed up in the late afternoon, wanting to discuss arrangements. There was no question in the dragar's mind that he would go on to Youngkent for the confrontation with LinLaugh—and he wanted Wit's permission to travel with him and Wa'llach on the road instead of with Shain and the orcs in the woods—Shain adamantly did not want him, being convinced he would get in the way. Wit agreed readily enough.

  "There is another very small matter that you might oblige me with."

  "By all means."

  "Well, when we get to Youngkent I obviously would like to take LinLaugh's dragon with me, I think back to the dragar-land, Skalaban."

  "What?"

  "Well, there are dwarves who I would like to study it as well and the mountains are closer, but Skalaban has several important advantages—for one, if we were to try to fly it, it would be best to have a soft surface, such as a swamp, for landings. Anyway, Shain, most unreasonably, won't lend her men to help me with this…"

  "Unreasonably?"

  "But Wa'llach has helpfully told me of some dwarves in the area, who have been so unjustly persecuted that they will do most anything for gold…."

  "Damn him…"

  "Anyway, there is a merchant in Tirry who owes me three hundred gold for work I did some years ago, so if you could write me a Contract transferring my right to collect that debt to Wa'llach's political refugees—"

  "They're bandits, you ass."

  "—in exchange for helping move my dragon, I would be very obliged."

  "Joti, you want to help me, right?"

  "Yes."

  "Well, you would help me very much by throwing this lunatic down the stairs."

  Enexiyo began to apologize.

  "No, I'm sorry," said Wit, "but you're asking a lot: a Contract transferring a third party's debt is tricky, and I haven't got the time for it. Besides, I don't think that a group of dwarf outlaws dragging a mechanical dragon over the Alliance is going to end well, and I won't be part of it."

  Enexiyo launched into a complicated and loud defense of his work.

  "Be quiet," said Wit. "You know the layout of LinLaugh's compound better than anyone, at least how it was five years ago?"

  "Yes."

  "Well, if you want to travel with me and Wa'llach, you need to spend every moment before we leave communicating everything you know about the place to Shain and her people. Otherwise, it will be more practical for you to go with the orcs."

  Enexiyo nodded ruefully.

  "But, I think if we are going to be attacking a place where there are mechanical dragons, it would be wise for us to neutralize them at an early stage. If I let you and Wa'llach lead an assault on the dragon installation will that satisfy the two of you enough that you will stop pestering me with ridiculous schemes?"

  Although Enexiyo had hoped for more, this prospect was appealing to him.

  "And furthermore, in exchange for your help planning your assault, I'll make sure that you get to keep anything in the way of papers or plans relating to the mechanical dragon that me or the orcs come across. And I promise that I'll give you as much of a chance to study whatever you find as circumstances allow."

  After the dragar left Wit turned to Joti. "If you really want to be useful you might try murdering that damn dwarf: I am positive that he will be the death of me sooner, rather than later. I'm shocked that we made it this far without his getting us killed somehow or another."

  "You had a difficult trip?"

  "It would have been easy if it wasn't for him. There was a bandit that he had out-bandited, somehow, so he spent eighty years saving up to hire cutthroats—and they almost killed me to get at Wa'llach. And there was the time that I was almost stoned to death by some vile urchins who he'd talked into digging up the Leone cemetery."

  "Why would he want a cemetery dug up?"

  "He thinks there's treasure buried in one of the graves: he doesn't know which one, so his idea was to dig the whole thing up."

  Joti had a very serious look on his face, which worried Wit.

  "I don't really want you to murder him: the truth of it is that he's more than useful, in his way. And if we are going to be involved in a brawl with a dragar lunatic with mechanical dragons, he's probably one of the best beings in the Alliance to have along. All the gods, though: you know you've made a mess of it rather spectacularly when you're grateful for Wa'llach's company."

  Another orc came to get Joti several hours later and he showed Wit the work he had done before he left. He had not made it very far in the outline, but had identified one area where Wit's book conflicted with Phreer. It was an important point that Wit had missed, and although he probably would have gotten it before undertaking the Bindings, Joti had saved him a considerable amount of time. Wit thanked him profusely.

  "It was easier when I read the part about what the words meant, written by the cat-girl."

  Wit nodded: Mantyger had written a glossary for him in his book, which was one of the most concise and useful writings on magic Wit had ever encountered—he probably should have directed Joti to it in the first place. He thanked Joti again, and the orc left.

  Joti's footsteps were faint down the tower's staircase when Wit realized that, while the glossary was clearly in someone else's handwriting, Joti should have had no way of connecting it with the story that Wit had told about Mantyger, her father, and the cat.

  He did not have long to think about this before he was interrupted again. This time it was one of the soldiers who had come up from the Cohos Pass. The man begged Wit's pardon and then launched into a rambling tale about his desire to do something for his ailing mother, his great talent for baking, and the difficulties of getting started in the bakery business. Wit eventually realized that the man's point was that he was very glad of the chance to earn a lot of money, even at the price of the memory of a month of his life.

  The problem, when the soldier came to it, was that one of the other soldiers would not consent to Wit's proposal under any circumstances, and was determined to return to Cohos Pass and be done with the whole business. The man in front of Wit was worried that this refusal would mean that the deal would be off for all of them, which he was opposed to due to his desire to buy a bakery and support his mother.

  "No," said Wit, "everything will be fine. If you would get the lot of you together in Shain's room, we can work this out rather quickly. I see no reason why this man can't just go back home: Shain might have a different opinion, but I'll talk her into it. I'll be down to speak with the lot of you in an hour and a half."

  Wit left the wizard's room shortly before the appointed time. He found Wa'llach loafing outside of Shain's room, and the dwarf nodded in the affirmative when Wit asked if everyone was assembled.

  "May I borrow
your axe?" The No-Clan had let Wa'llach resume carrying his weapons.

  Wa'llach put his hand on the axe in his belt. "I'd do it, if you want."

  "Thank you," said Wit sadly, "but I imagine that things will go a bit more smoothly with our new friend if she sees me do it."

  Wa'llach nodded. "You're right. And if we don't kill him, that orc bitch will kill all six of them. I'd still do it, if you want me to."

  Wit shook his head and took the axe.

  He walked into the room. The soldiers were standing facing away from the door, looking at Shain, who sat behind Hogan's table. Wit had the axe raised over the dissenter's head as he turned to look at him. He was able to block most of Wit's first blow with his arm, but Wit landed the second and third on his skull and the man was dead. Wit handed the axe back to Wa'llach, looking at Shain, who nodded approvingly.

  "I am sorry it has to be like this," said Wit to the men, "but our terms are absolute. We must have perfect secrecy about the work we do."

  Wit had been worried that seeing the murder would lessen their enthusiasm, but he could not have been more wrong. When the survivors learned that the dead man's share of the gold would be distributed amongst them, they were only disappointed that more of them had not developed scruples and gotten killed for them.

  As one of the No-Clan was dragging the body out of the room, Wit told Shain that Joti had been very useful, and he would be glad if he could be sent back to the wizard's tower, if it ever was convenient.

  Shain apparently had not known what Joti had been doing, and asked about it suspiciously.

  "He's just been reading over some things for me," Wit told her.

  "If you need reading, I'll send you someone with more letters," Shain told him. "Joti is young and we've just started his instruction."

  Wit went back to the tower with an older orc who assured Wit that he was the most educated member of the troop, excepting Shain herself. After fifteen minutes he gave up Wit's outline as unreadable and left.

  The Bindings took the next day and a half. Joti watched when he could, apparently whenever he was not on guard. Wit wondered how much of the intricate weaving that he was doing Joti could actually see, or if he was merely watching the physical world—the men sitting nervously in a chair in front of Wit, as the wizard grew more and more tired.

  The Bindings took all of Wit's concentration, and he was secretly immensely pleased to have done all five of them without hurting any of the Bound. It had been a preposterously ambitious project which he had only conceived out of utter necessity. Not only was it far beyond anything he had ever done on his own, but also he was acting alone in a way that he never had before.

  In the presence of other wizards, and when the project was more clearly in line with the Order's objectives, some of the strain would have been borne by the collective power of the wizards, modulated through the Order. Here, acting alone on a renegade project, the only power that Wit could use came from himself. Guiltily, it occurred to him that it was just as well that he had killed the sixth man: as the fifth was completed Wit realized that he was exhausted and if he had had to go on, the next person he worked on would likely have suffered a fate worse than death.

  Joti was in the room as the last of the trackers left. He had been leafing through Wit's book and looked at him questioningly.

  "Can I borrow this, until we reach Youngkent?"

  "No," said Wit. "I actually will need it, and whatever your intentions, I can't be sure of getting it back. And if you were somehow caught with it, that would make things awkward for me."

  Joti nodded, understanding, if disappointed, and started to leave with the book on the desk.

  "Also, from what Shain tells me, you shouldn't even be able to read the damn thing. And how in all the hells did you know who wrote the glossary?"

  Joti looked at him uncomfortably and then started for the door.

  "Wait. Explain it to me, and I'll let you carry the book to Youngkent."

  Joti shuffled in the doorway. "I hesitate, not because I am unwilling, but because I don't know what to say."

  Wit nodded.

  "The Marshals of the No-Clan can all use the Warp. I couldn't, and was forbidden from becoming a Marshal."

  "What are you then?"

  "A soldier of Dolloc Castle, a fortification which guards our main sanctuary. I am on loan to the Marshals for this mission."

  "Since I got in your head at the balcony, you've had the Gift?"

  "Yes."

  "Why didn't you tell Shain?"

  Joti frowned. "Because she has enough to concern her here and this does nothing to further our mission."

  Wit sighed. "It's not just that you can do magic, though—you know things that I do: how to read, who wrote the glossary…you called her the cat girl, what's her real name?"

  "I don't know. I know she's your friend, and you both need each other."

  Wit took the pendant Wa'llach had made out from under his shirt and showed it to Joti. "What does hers look like?"

  Joti thought for a while. "She doesn't have one."

  Wit nodded. "Do you know who does?"

  Joti shook his head, and Wit found himself very relieved.

  "I don't need to be a wizard to know that you can't talk to Shain because she'll have your head for trying to kill me. You need to come up with a better story about what happened to you, and you haven't thought of one yet, although you are hoping you will…I don't know how it is with orcs and your Warp, but the 'Gift' is a damn optimistic name for what the humans have. Even if you've studied it for decades, it can still catch you off guard, and do you wrong. And if you haven't been trained, you're just like a child wielding an axe: far more likely to do harm than good, and as likely to hurt yourself as anyone else. All the gods, I haven't got the time for you either."

  Joti nodded, and again turned to the door.

  "Take the book," said Wit.

  "You said it would be dangerous for me to continue."

  "I also said you could take the book, if you want to."

  Joti thought, but not for long, and picked up the book.

  "Give it back to me in Youngkent," said Wit. "There's a very terrible curse that befalls people who steal a wizard's books, and I'm not joking."

  29

  Carriages, carts, and wagons left Kroywen at all hours of the day. By the city's main gate was a place where people willing to pay for a place on a cart would wait until someone drove by going their way. Near, there was a small, slightly overpriced store for last minute purchases, with a small counter selling food and drink and a few small tables.

  Haniel found herself sitting at one of these tables drinking cheap wine an uncertain number of hours after the boy died in the blood fight. Through a window, she watched carriages and passengers come and go. She was sharing the shop with a tired storekeeper and an old dragar who kept falling asleep at one of the tables.

  Two men having an argument by one of the carts caught Haniel's attention because of their bags: they were few and cheap, and one was just a grain sack, but there were also two thin boxes of extremely high quality, of the type that very serious archers would use for their bow and arrows.

  One of the men was tall and young, his black clothes carelessly worn; the other was older, flashily dressed, exhausted and angry, doing most of the talking. The young man would respond in brief emphatic bursts, but seemed to only be half paying attention. Eventually the driver of the cart turned around to yell at them and the old man spoke at length to the younger, who simply shook his head and extended his upturned hand.

  The carter yelled again. The old man took out a purse and handed the young man some coins, which the young man counted bitterly and carefully, handing some of them back. The old man took them, shaking his head and cursing. The young man helped the old man and the bags—except for the archer's boxes and the grain sack—into the cart, nodded to the old man, picked up the cases and the sack, and walked into the store without looking back. The cart drove off, the old
man not taking his eyes off of the younger.

  The young man walked to the counter and got a glass of beer. He did not pause, but studied the room while he moved, which he did deliberately. There were three tables and four chairs. The man took his bags and sat at a chair that was exactly between Haniel's table and an empty one.

  He had slightly curly hair, deep blue eyes, and a face that was long but not too long, and angular but not too angular, and a sharp, charmingly sarcastic mouth. Either that or the wine was finally working.

  Haniel considered batting her eyelashes, but opted for what she hoped was a beguiling smile. "Are you a sharp-shooter for a lord?" she asked, knowing that he was not.

  He pretended to look her over for the first time and gave no hints as to his verdict. "No," he said. "Big game hunter. Griffins, manticores, dragons, basilisks, whatever."

  "Dragons?"

  "Yeah. They're hard, but not as hard as manticores. Trick with a dragon is to get the right part of the underbelly, once you know where to look for it, it's not that hard."

  "No shit."

  He shrugged. "It's not that hard, none of it, if you're used to it. Name's Gondorf. What about you?"

  She grinned at him. "I'm a wizard, Haniel."

  They both laughed.

  The laughter seemed to take him through a decision. "You got somewhere to go back to?"

  Haniel took another shot at beguiling. "Can you buy us a bottle?"

  He looked her over more earnestly, trying to make sure that a bottle would be a good investment; Haniel might have been offended, but she saw where he was coming from, and was pleased with his decision.

  They bought a bottle of cheap rum from the store. He carried the archer's gear, and she took his sack and the bottle.

  A long walk took them to the now-empty Doll House. He looked up at the building, impressed. "This your family's place?" he asked.

  "No."

  Someone had tied the broken door closed with a rope. Haniel got her folding knife out of her bag and cut the rope. Gondorf watched her nervously, but followed her into the building.