That’s not a problem, these days. No clocks, for one thing.
Still, sunset hit me just as I was settling in for a good bout of post-coital cuddling. This is a bad thing, on the order of spending a summer day mucking out animal stalls before grabbing your significant other in a bear hug. It’s messy. It’s stinky. It’s just not good.
I sat under the waterfall while Tort leaned on the doorframe, smiling at me.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
Why do women do that? It makes me nervous. I’m nervous enough as it is.
The mountain’s most recent project, four new gates to the undercity, had gone perfectly. We now have a gatehouse at each compass point, down in the main city proper. Just inside is an airlock arrangement of two pivot-doors, each big enough to pass a wagon.
Improved traffic flow will become important, hence the new gates, but I draw the line at allowing animals into the undercity. Rain will clean the streets of the surface, but a pile of horse manure in a hallway will stay there until someone comes by to scoop it, sweep it, then mop it—and the smell will still linger.
Under the watchful eye of the City Guard, people can go through a pivot-door and have it swung shut behind them. Once that was done, the second pivot-door, the one in front of them, would open and allow them to proceed into the undercity. It slowed down traffic, yes, but it seemed like a good security measure, especially if we were about to be involved in a major war.
With that thought, I mentioned to Tort about getting the City Guard beefed up and ready for sneaky saboteurs. She assured me that she, T’yl, Thomen, and Kelvin were already on it. When I asked about Rendal, she sniffed. Apparently, he wasn’t part of the planning, just part of the implementation. Not really an ideas man, just an organizer.
I refrained from pointing out how important organizers are. Ideas come to nothing without someone to make them real.
Anyway, with the mountain’s most recent project finished, I took a moment to give it some new ones. It was delighted; I think it likes doing something besides sitting there like a rock.
One of the changes I wanted was running water. We already have four springs coming down off the central spire for turning waterwheels. I wanted to expand on that, allowing water to run along stone channels in a network all through the city. It would form the foundation of, eventually, a system of running water for everyone.
I also needed a bridge that I could put over the Averill river. I didn’t explain how I wanted it to work; I let the mountain decide that. I wasn’t sure exactly how it would accomplish it. It might start a new road through the Eastrange, starting from wherever the northern canal terminated. But, if there was an easier way, I was sure the mountain would find it.
I also imprinted a vision of the New York City Hall in a playback spell and handed it to the mountain for use in Mochara. By the time it extended a layer of stone into the right area, we should have enough clear space and a lot of rock already piled up. It would also be nice to see some streets in Mochara actually paved, instead of rocky mud.
Come to that, sewers and streets for Mochara wouldn’t be a bad deal, either. I wasn’t totally sure what the mountain did with sewage, but I had a feeling it involved some incineration and an underground connection with the sea. Don’t ask me for details; I decided I didn’t want to know that much about industrial levels of sewage. But Mochara, while it didn’t have the same incineration capabilities, certainly had a much easier connection to the ocean.
Another thing I have to check. Can we just dump waste into the sea? Are there any mer-people who will be inconvenienced? Or will they be pleased to have free fertilizer drifting over their latest kelp farms? Nobody else is going to go down there and ask.
Streets, though. We can do streets. At least we can manage that. Rainwater can run off into underground pipes and into the ocean. That’ll decrease the mud and the smell.
Having spent a few minutes in my spellcasting, I then kissed Tort, headed up to the throne room, mounted Bronze, and headed west. I passed Baret without slowing; sentries waved from the top of the wall and I waved back. That was a nice feeling.
Then I had to rein up and pause. No, it looked as though I needed to detour to Baret. I just had a feeling.
They let me in without undue fuss. It takes a while to unbar a main gate; Bronze won’t fit through a typical person-sized door.
Once inside, I borrowed pen and parchment from the guardsman in command, sent a note to Banler, and then hurried on to find someone. Sure enough, I found a number of people scattered all over the city. Each of them was ready to go, but not quite able to depart. People don’t usually have an off switch. I did my duty, tried to be reassuring to any loved ones in the vicinity, and departed.
It may have cost me two hours. I guess I shouldn’t complain.
We left by the western gate and stuck to the coast road after that. We passed through or by a number of small towns and villages, then skirted Brentwood. A few more villages went by, and then we reached the mouth of the Quaen river and the city of Formia.
Formia occupied a good position at the rivermouth. They built bridges inside the city, forcing travelers to go through instead of around. Good for taxing and tolls, of course, but not so good for travelers. Ah, well. Bronze and I sink like rocks, and I don’t need to breathe at night. We detoured around Formia by simply going through the river. It was slow going, but the worst problem was the mud. Bronze powered through it and I experimented with spells to thicken and stiffen the mud for her.
On the far side, I waved hands over her to remove the clinging, black silt. She felt a lot better after that. I made a note to avoid swamps, bogs, and anything else with softer footing. We can go through it, but it’s slow and unpleasant.
We made much better time after that, sticking to the roads of Rethven. It was slightly better than cross-country, at least. And, delight of delights, all I had to do was keep going north. It’s hard to get lost when you don’t care where you are or where you’re going, just heading in a direction.
And Bronze… well, Bronze loves to run. I got her aerodynamic air-shield up, tilted gravity a trifle so everything was more or less downhill, and we made the world roll by.
We managed to thunder our way across the entirety of the old kingdom in a single night, despite twisty, muddy roads. She was amazingly happy, and I was proud of her.
Crag Keep wasn’t unoccupied, just undermanned. We got there close to sunrise, so I camped out for the transition rather than have to deal with it during the process of greeting the guards. It also gave Bronze a chance to cool down from her run. I thought it good to stay low-key and mostly mundane, if possible.
The last time I rode up to Crag Keep, it had a thriving little town behind it. Admittedly, most of it was there to tend to the needs of a military base. Finding a whorehouse used to be easy; finding someone to teach you to read was somewhat less so.
Now, Crag Keep was mostly surrounded by farms. There were a few small huts, but it looked as though most people lived in the castle proper. The farms were much too large for the people I saw living on the land. I wondered if the soldiers did most of the farming, or if they just helped with the planting and harvesting. At least the water-wheel was cranking water up from the river. I’m not sure how they would have managed to grow anything without it.
Surprisingly, the keep let us in without much more than asking my name. Once in the courtyard, a stableboy tried to take Bronze; Bronze was gracious enough to permit it. He seemed a bit bemused that Bronze simply followed him without any need for reins.
I was greeted by a subcommander, some guy who introduced himself as Leareth. He was a medium-sized man with a close-cut beard and a slightly officious air.
“Pleased to meet you,” I returned. “My name is Halar.”
“What city sent you?” he asked.
“Beg pardon?”
“What city? We need to mark you off against someone’s obligation.”
“People still get sent up here?” I asked, surprised. “I would have thought, with the bridge gone—”
“That doesn’t change the requirements,” Leareth interrupted. “They’re all still obligated to send men to defend the keep.”
“I see.” I looked around. The place wasn’t falling apart, but it could use a good mason, a dozen assistants for him, some carpenters, and about three months of maintenance and repair. It also needed about eight more sentries; the two on watch weren’t enough to cover the approaches.
“I hate to tell you this,” I said, “but I’m not here as part of anybody’s obligation. I’m here to cross into the
viksagi
lands.”
“Impossible.”
“Um. Why?”
“The bridge is destroyed. Nothing can cross.”
“Yes, well, that’s my mission. I’ll have to try.”
“And I tell you that you can’t,” he insisted.
“Could you at least show me the bridge?” I suggested. He shrugged and gestured me toward the main gate. We walked together.
“Why do you need to go there?” he asked.
“Got to find out how many of them there are, if they’re planning to invade, what they’re doing in general, that sort of thing. Find out whatever I can, really.”
“They’ll kill you and eat you, you know.”
“I’ve heard that,” I lied. He gestured me to help and we muscled the gate open enough for us to pass through.
The bridge was partially there. The far side was intact; the near side was intact. The middle section was missing. Altogether, it looked like an empty span of fifty or sixty feet. With a good run-up and may a little gravity-bending, I was certain Bronze could clear it.
A number of ropes hung from the near portion of the bridge. A half-armored soldier hauled up a funnel of interlaced branches, a sort of fish trap. We walked out and he nodded to Leareth. Leareth nodded back and we looked over the edge of the bridge. It wasn’t that far to the water, but it was farther than I’d care to dive even in the days when I could swim. It was much too deep for me to walk across in daylight.
“See? There’s no way across, unless you brought a boat.”
“I left it in my other pants. Do the
viksagi
ever attack here?”
“No. We just try to keep a watch, really. We can only man the first few stations along this bank, but it’s worth it to spot raiders coming south.”
“Get a lot of that, do you?”
“No. They’ve learned not to cross around here.” He shrugged. “At least we’re useful.”
I doubt that very much,
I thought. Still, it would have been impolite to say so.
“Well, here’s hoping that they’re not planning a major invasion,” I said.
“Indeed. Now that you’ve seen the bridge, do you want to stay to breakfast, or do you need to go back immediately?”
“I could stand breakfast, but I still plan to cross.”
“Oh? How?”
“I’m a wizard.”
“Oh.” He looked at me speculatively, eyeballing my armor and sword. “You don’t look like a wizard.”
I gestured and produced a glowing ball of light in my hand. He shrugged.
“Okay, you’re a wizard. If you say you can get across, I’ll want to see it.”
“Certainly.”
“Come along. The Captain will want to see you.”
So we went back and inside the keep proper. The Captain was sitting at breakfast when I was shown in.
The Captain was a spare man, made almost entirely of bone and gristle with some skin to hold it all together. If a smile ever crossed his face, it consulted a map and realized it had a long walk ahead of it. I wondered what he’d done to get stuck here.
Still, he was courteous. He stood up while I was shown in and introduced, traded bows with me, invited me to sit at the small table. I sat down, carefully, not wholly trusting the chair, but it was a durable old thing and only creaked under my weight.
After a few minutes of food, he opened the conversation.
“Leareth mentioned that you intend to go inspect the
viksagi
.”
“I do,” I replied around a mouthful of scrambled eggs. Duck eggs, I think, with goat cheese. Pretty good, actually.
“It’s been quite a while since they bothered to attack in force. What makes you think they might be planning such a thing now?”
I thought for a moment, both on how to be tactful and, at the same time, what lies to tell. I certainly wasn’t going to tell the man tasked with keeping the
viksagi
on their side of the river that I was planning to give them a whole new bridge to play with.
“Are you familiar with the city of Byrne?” I asked.
“Vaguely,” he admitted. “Some second-rate city in the northeast, isn’t it?”
Yeah, they were a little out of touch up here. I explained about Byrne’s expansion.
“The thing is,” I continued, “from a practical standpoint, they’ve got to take either Bildar or Formia to cross the Quaen. Considering that Byrne is a rather bloody-minded bunch, they might be planning to divert attention by encouraging the
viksagi
to invade. We’re west of the Quaen, after all, and if everyone sent their troops north to fight an invasion, Byrne would have an easy time of it.”
“If everyone sent a proper tithe of troops to garrison the watchtowers, an invasion would be stopped almost as quickly as it was mounted.”
“I agree, but as things stand, if ten thousand screaming
viksagi
row across the Averill, climb out, and start southward—could they do that downstream, where your men wouldn’t see it? Could they just go around you and into the southlands without opposition?”
The Captain frowned. It looked as though he was done with breakfast; I may have spoiled his appetite.
“Yes, they could.” He folded his hands on the table and looked at me. “People say we’re useless,” he said, softly. “Without the bridge, what’s the point of a garrison? This isn’t a place that defends a kingdom anymore. It’s a place to send fools and incompetents that lords can’t—for whatever reason—justify kicking out of their service. Family ties, money, personal reasons… most of those sent here never arrive; they just disappear—desert—along the way.
“Nobody seems to understand what we do, and that we can’t do it without help. Now, with this news… if Byrne organizes the
viksagi
, they can bypass us. Raiders sometimes sneak by, anyway; we can’t man enough watchtowers to cover the whole river. If a few thousand screaming barbarians make it across, they could do untold damage.”
“Yeah, that would be bad,” I agreed. And I meant it. It hadn’t occurred to me until that moment that Byrne might actually be planning something like that. It might not be worth it, really; it depended on factors I didn’t understand. How much of a horrified reaction would the news garner from the southern cities? Would they immediately launch a counterattack? Or would they let the cities north of them act as buffer states and only worry about it when the
viksagi
came knocking on their own doors?
“That’s one of the reasons I’m going there,” I told him. Now, at least, it was. “I have to find out if there’s anything of that sort going on, and gauge the
viksagi
strength.”
“Very well. You have my leave to cross, if you can. I don’t know how you intend to manage it. We have no boats, and the bridge has crumbled.”
“Thank you. I’ll manage.”
“When do you plan to make your attempt?”
“After a visit to the privy. That tea seems to have gone right through me.”
“It does that,” he agreed.
A few minutes later, the same stableboy lead Bronze to the north gate. I stroked her nose and she blew warm air into my hand.
Leareth and the Captain—Captain Dinuad—were with me, watching as I cast spells in their courtyard.
“Is… is that horse made of metal?” Leareth asked, sounding odd.
“Yes,” I agreed. “She’s made of a type of bronze.”
I noticed the glance exchanged between the two men. A crowd of people started to gather atop the wall. People wanted to watch; I didn’t mind.
“What did you say your name was?” Captain Dinuad asked.
“Halar. I was once known in these parts as the Wall of Blades.” It still sounds stupid whenever I say it. At least, it sounded stupid to me; they seemed to be taken a bit aback.
“Are… are you…?”
“Yes,” I agreed again. “That’s me. Now, could you please order someone to open the gate?”
The Captain did so. The gate started to open.
“Before you go,” he added, “just one thing.”
“Yes?” I asked, waiting for the inevitable.
“When you’ve finished, will you come back? Please? We could use the help.”
I blinked at him and didn’t know what to say. That was so far from what I expected that I needed a different map to find it. When I did, I had to give him kudos for asking. It took guts to admit he needed help, and more guts to ask
me
for it.
Then again, the last time I was here, I did do nice things for the place.
“What sort of help?” I asked.
“Anything,” he said, mouth twisting.
“I’ll give it serious thought. I’ve got a lot on my plate just now, but if I think of something I can do, I will.”
“That’s closer to a promise of help than we’ve had in the last year,” he admitted. “Good luck.”
“Thank you. Hold the fort.”
Bronze turned toward the gate and started her run-up. She had the whole width of the courtyard and about a third of a bridge; she might not have made it to top speed, but it was close. She leaped, springing upward and allowing momentum to carry us forward. We must have hit a new record for altitude on that leap; I really put some effort into my gravity-bending.
Of course, that meant it was a long way down, too.
We hit the far side of the bridge with a ringing, cracking sound, but Bronze landed running and powered for the bank like a rally-racer, hooves scraping and grinding with a terrible metal-on-stone sound. I glanced behind us, under one arm, and saw a sizable chunk of stone toppling away from the edge of the bridge, broken free by the impact. The rest of the bridge seemed stable enough, though.
We ground to a halt on the far bank and half-turned. I waved at the men on the far side while they cheered. Then we turned north, over the grassy hills, and soon vanished from their view.
My sand table satellite view already gave me a rough idea where to look for a
viksagi
settlement. I bore right, eastward, until the hills settled down a bit and forest started to appear. Then I kept between the river and the treeline. The gap narrowed slowly as we trotted along, and the land started to show signs of cultivation. I passed a number of people and sod-covered buildings, probably homes, and attracted no small amount of attention.
We came to a village. I guess it was a village. Maybe it’s more accurate to say we reached the center of the community.
The place had one building of heavy timber construction. There were a number of outbuildings, all constructed out of multiple materials and roofed with grassy earth. The place didn’t look like it held much of a population, but, judging from the farmsteads we passed on the way to it, most of the population lived in the suburbs. The dozen or so people in the village center looked at me with guarded expressions.
We walked right up to one of them. I looked at him; he looked at me. I tried to think of what to say in
viksagi
. I ate a lot of them; I should at least understand what they said. But, try as I might, I couldn’t bring anything in that language to mind.
“Good afternoon,” I said, settling on Rethven. He just looked at me, as though waiting for something. I tried again in the language of ancient Zirafel, then again in one of the
orku
dialects. Still nothing. Either he didn’t understand me, or he didn’t care to answer.
I don’t think he understands you, Boss.
You think?
Don’t you have translation spells, or something?
Yes, but it’s rude to reach into someone’s head like that.
I thought it was just surface stuff?
It is, but it’s still rude. Especially since I want something from these people. You don’t just go around casually making psychic connections with strangers.