by David Drake
“Good work, Baga,” I said as I tried to bring my mind back to the present. I’d been threading zinc atoms into the silicon matrix I’d built up during previous days. The crystal structure overlaid my present surroundings and only slowly faded. “Now wait a moment while I take a look at things.”
Fox was saying something and Osbourn asked, “When can we go out?” The answer to that was, “When I’ve got my composure and I say to.” I let myself drift back into a trance instead of snarling that.
I was irritated with Lord Osbourn, but all he’d done was act like a young nobleman a long way from home with too much money. That didn’t please me, but it wasn’t a reason to start snarling.
My real problems were the way May was behaving and I guess my own behavior too. If I’d been paying attention, I’d have gotten Osbourn away from Lord Felsham long time since. Instead I’d washed my hands of him because he hadn’t behaved like I wanted him to behave.
The boat was nothing but smooth metal on the outside, but it could look around itself. I wasn’t a boatman and couldn’t control the vessel, but in a Maker’s trance I could see what the boat itself was seeing.
What I was really doing was slipping back into a trance so that I could smooth the jagged bits of my mind before I dealt with people. Being shaken out of a deep trance was really hard on a Maker. I’d have been furious with Baga if he hadn’t been so proud of the run he’d made: he’d brought a fully loaded boat to its destination in half the expected time—and in a single reach.
There’d been no reason to push that way. Baga had just done it because he could, or anyway he’d hoped he could. I wasn’t going to squash him for being proud of doing something exceptionally well; that was basically why I’d become a Champion, after all.
Landingplace in Severin wasn’t any more exciting than the landingplaces of the scores of other nodes that I’ve seen. Several peddlers were goggling at the boat.
As I watched, a group of rural-looking folk led by excited boys came from around the squat fort nearest where we’d landed. There was a much larger dwelling visible beyond the fort. I guessed the children had seen us arrive and had run to tell adult members of the community.
I let myself ease back into the present. Sam inserted his nose between my arm and torso. Everyone but Baga, slumped in the boatman’s seat, was staring at me. Folks aren’t using watching Makers in a trance. During the voyage I’d worked in my closed compartment.
When I smiled at them and carefully sat up, Osbourn said, “Is it all right to get out now? I’d like to stretch my legs.”
“Yes,” I said. I thought I’d have to open the hatch myself—I can do all the mechanical chores aboard a boat, though I can’t guide it—but Baga was still alert enough to hear me and obey. I’d occasionally spent the better part of a day working on an artifact, so I knew how a trance could take it out of you.
The hatch sighed open. All three dogs tried to get out, jamming briefly in the hatchway. I’d have to work on Sam, though as he got used to the boat he’d probably settle back into normal voice training. As it was, I was pleased to see that he’d gotten the jump on the other dogs and hadn’t snarled during the contact as Andreas’s Kyrie had.
I gestured the others out, then said to Baga, “I’ll be back when I figure out what’s what.”
Baga didn’t move in his seat. “I’ll be here,” he muttered, his eyes shut.
I went out the hatch. Sam capered around me, not jumping but shouldering into my legs in his excitement. He’s a big enough dog for that to be a problem, but I just rubbed his neck and shoulders.
I felt better than I had in a long time. I had a real dog again.
Fox and Andreas were on their way toward the buildings, accompanied by most of the locals. Two men and a woman wearing a bonnet—she’d just arrived—remained looking at the boat. I waved toward them and said, “When I come back, I’ll take you aboard her if you like. It may not be safe now, though.”
The woman nodded. None of the three spoke.
There was nothing dangerous about the boat, of course. I doubted whether the onlookers could even hurt anything aboard. It was still better that they keep off, even with Baga aboard, and I figured the hint of risk was a better way to do that than a threat would have been.
Osbourn and I started after Fox and those around him. “They’re going to the manor,” Osbourn said. “That’s the building you can see beyond the old keep.”
“All right,” I said. We were shoulder to shoulder; our dogs walked outside of us.
In the corner of my eye I saw Osbourn look at me; I turned to meet his eyes. He said, “You don’t like me, do you?”
“I don’t have any real opinion of you,” I said. I hadn’t expected that but I wasn’t going to let it floor me. “I guess I’d say that you’ve disappointed me.”
“I see,” Osbourn said. He sounded calm but I think there was a hesitation in his voice. “And what’s your opinion of Master Andreas?”
None of your business, I thought; but it kind of was Osbourn’s business, since we were talking this way. Aloud I said, “He’s moderately skillful. Probably not as much raw talent as you have, but he’s dead keen. And you’re a lazy drunk.”
Osbourn swallowed. After a moment he said, “I suppose I deserve that. Master Andreas wants to become a Champion in order to become rich, you know.”
“A Champion’s in a very good place to become rich,” I said, keeping my voice emotionless. “If that’s what he wants, and some do.”
Osbourn came from money and probably thought wealth was an unworthy goal for a gentleman. I’d been raised poorer than Andreas had, but wishing for wealth would have been as silly as wishing to become Arch-Priest in Dun Add. Neither of those things happened to kids from Beune.
“You gave Andreas the shield he’s carrying now,” Osbourn said. Neither of us was raising his voice nor showing open emotion.
“Yeah, I did,” I said. We’d reached the old fort; the Keep, Osbourn had called it. It seemed to be abandoned. “He’s along to back me if there’s trouble, and his shield wasn’t much better than the one I first came to Dun Add with. The new one didn’t cost enough for me to notice.”
“How did Andreas’s shield compare with my weapon?” Osbourn asked, keeping his tone carefully even.
I shrugged. Fox and his group had reached the manor, so called. It was a solid house with stone walls and glazed windows; not fancy but sprawling. Parts of it were two stories high.
“They’re both crap,” I said, “though his shield can be beefed up enough by somebody good that it’s probably worth more as a trade-in.”
I looked directly at Osbourn again. “You could have bought a weapon at least as good as the shield I got for Master Andreas for two thousand Dragons. Probably fifteen hundred if you’d let me bargain for you, though that might have offended your noble pride.”
Osbourn swallowed again. He said, “I regret that you thought that way, though you may have been right. Just so you know it, at present I’m in debt to Lord Felsham for an amount I’m not certain of. I’ve been signing IOUs, and I’m afraid I haven’t been keeping good track of them. I’ve regularly been in the condition in which you found me the other morning.”
I looked away from the young man, the boy, and said, “Ah.”
I cleared my throat and said, “I believe that’s my problem. I’ll take care of it when I get back to Dun Add.” I thought further, cleared my throat again, and added, “If by chance I don’t get back to Dun Add before you do—”
By which I meant, “In case I die here.”
“—please inform Lord Morseth that I hope he and Lord Reaves will solve the problem.”
“Sir!” said Osbourn. “Mock as you wish, I am a gentleman and I will pay my debts as a gentleman should!”
I stopped, putting a hand on Sam’s shoulders to hold him also. Looking at Lord Osbourn, I said calmly, “Milord, when I came to Dun Add the first time, I was as naive as you are and much worse equipped. I was very f
ortunate to have been befriended by Master Guntram and your cousin Lady May.”
“I know that, but—” Osbourn said. His face was getting red, I think with embarrassment. Some of the locals were drifting closer to listen to us.
I waved him to silence. “Your cousin, for whom I would willingly die, asked me to stand in the same relationship to you that she had to me,” I said. “Instead I left you to that wretched parasite Felsham. I can’t change my past behavior, but I bloody well will correct what I can. The money doesn’t matter—”
Osbourn tried to break in, but I gestured him to silence.
“—but my honor, milord, and your cousin, very definitely do. Felsham should have known better than to treat a relative of Lady May in this fashion, and by the Almighty he will not do it again.”
Osbourn swallowed and nodded.
Fox and Andreas watched us doubtfully as we joined them at the entrance of the manor. What we’d been discussing was none of their business, so I ignored their obvious curiosity.
“I suppose you want to see your rooms now?” Fox said.
I shrugged. “We can take care of that, sure,” I said. “What I really want to do is see the opening in the cyst onto the Road.”
“You can do that, of course,” Fox said, “but there’s not much to see. Just a discoloration in the Waste. I wouldn’t have even noticed it except that Master Croft’s report to my uncle said that’s what it was.”
“It’s just been there this past ten years,” put in a spectator. His rough clothes could have been anyone, but the mark of a tumpline on his forehead meant he was a porter. “And it’s getting clearer. Not fast, though.”
“I’ll want to see Master Croft’s report,” I said. I turned to look over my shoulder and added, “Then I’ll go out and see the opening.”
Because it caught my eye, I said, “What’s the fort there? The keep?”
“The keep was the first structure on Severin,” Fox said. “When my Uncle Frans succeeded twenty years ago, he built the manor because life is so much safer now under the Commonwealth. Frans put the Maker, Master Croft, in the keep because that’s what he wanted, but nobody’s lived there since Croft died.”
He coughed and said apologetically, “I don’t entertain much myself, so I’m afraid the rooms I’m putting you in have been closed for most of a year.”
“If it’s too bad, I’ll sleep in the boat,” I said, “but I don’t expect a little dust to be a problem. I will want to see the keep, though. This Maker may have left more information there.”
“As you will,” said Fox. “I don’t think you’ll find anything, though.”
Only half the rooms on the ground floor of the house were open. Furniture in others was under drop sheets or the doors were simply locked. “Uncle Frans was seriously in debt,” Fox muttered. “I had to cut back considerably; and after all, why not?”
The only servant I’d seen in the house took us to an adequate suite of rooms, recently straightened if not exactly clean. I picked a couch which I thought would be long enough for me to stretch out. The Aspirants could have shared the main bed, but Andreas asked to have a cot brought in.
With that taken care of, we returned to Fox in his office. I said, “I’d like to see the Maker’s report to your uncle now.”
Fox nodded. He had a worried look as he handed over a sheet of heavy paper folded and cross-folded.
“I hope it’s clear,” he said, “that this cyst is part of Severin and that any treasure found in it belongs to the fief.”
I smiled, marvelling at such bare-faced cheek. “Neither of those things is at all clear,” I said, opening the folds carefully so I didn’t damage the old paper. “I suspect the Leader’s advisors would have to determine where the cyst is legally. They’ll decide separately the ownership of its contents.”
I looked up from the document and met Fox’s stricken eyes. I knew that because I didn’t like the guy, I was deliberately making him uncomfortable. Frowning at myself I said, “That’s if and when the matter goes to judgment. So far as I’m concerned, it’s clear that whatever treasure may be in the cyst is none of my affair.”
“Well, I’m sure the Leader will be reasonable,” Fox muttered. I pretty much agreed with that, but I wasn’t sure that Jon’s reasonable and mine would fit Fox’s definition of the word.
I read Croft’s report. It was clear except that I didn’t know what the central terms meant. Andreas and Osbourn were watching me with worried expressions. I managed a half-grin, wishing that Guntram was here, and said, “Lord Fox, Croft says that he’s removed the core of the cyst and has questioned it without result. What is the core?”
“Master Croft died three years ago,” Fox said. “I don’t know what he meant. I found this report in my uncle’s papers. I never met Croft, and I’m not a Maker.”
Being a Maker wasn’t helping me very much.
“He says that he can’t enter the cyst through the cell from which he removed the core,” I said. “The flowering is too thick. What is the flowering?”
“Lord Pal, I have no idea,” Fox said. “How could I have?”
I didn’t have an answer to that, but there didn’t seem any way to learn except by asking. I sighed and refolded the document. “I don’t suppose you know anything about the great jewel which Croft said was near the core either?”
“No,” said Fox. “I never met Croft, and my uncle didn’t say anything about either the cyst or a treasure the few times I met him before his death.”
I sighed. I sure wished I saw a way to learn something useful, but I knew better than to say that. It was bad to be clueless, but telling other people that just gave them permission to chew on you to their hearts’ content.
“We’ll go out to find the place where the cyst was opening onto the Road,” I said. “Fox, I’ll want you to come along. But if we see that porter who knew where it is, we’ll bring him too.”
“Is it possible to walk in the Waste, sir?” Andreas asked as the four of us, our dogs, and a few spectators trooped toward landingplace.
“Oh, yes,” I said. “I’ve done it a lot, prospecting for artifacts. You’ve just got to remember which way you went so that you can get back. You’ll overheat and die if you don’t.”
I was a little surprised at the question, but there was no reason somebody from one of the larger nodes would have known anything about the Waste. On a little place like Beune—and narrow besides—it was pretty common for infants to wander off the edge of Here, just as they walked off staircases in places that had higher buildings.
“Besides me just going into the Waste,” I said, “the Road starts to close up if it doesn’t get any traffic. I’ve forced my way through half a dozen paths over the years, and found a barren node at the end. The difference is that you can find your way back easier if there’s a Road there. You don’t see anything but gray, though.”
“Lord Pal?” said Osbourn. “Why would you follow a track that goes nowhere? That is, I mean no disrespect.”
“No, that’s a fair question,” I said. Osbourn was making a point of being a quietly polite companion. I hadn’t been sure how he would react to being strong-armed out of Dun Add. Badly, I’d expected. I didn’t have any better idea, though, and May and I weren’t going to be together long until I found something. “The one time I found a castle, but that was different. Something from the Waste had managed to close the path to it, rather than it just happening naturally.”
I thought about the question a little more. When we reached landingplace but before we stepped through the veil onto the Road, I said, “Those overgrown tracks are a good way to find artifacts. The currents in the Waste wash things up just as they do against better travelled Roads and the edge of nodes, but there aren’t as many people passing by to find them before I do.”
I took a deep breath and said, “Well, let’s go find a cyst.” I slipped into Sam’s mind and stepped onto the Road.
We hadn’t seen the p
orter again, but as soon as Sam realized what I was looking for, his mind highlighted patterns in the Waste that I’d never noticed before. Fox was with us, but I didn’t bother asking him. The discontinuity was as obvious as a thunderbolt in the night sky not a hundred feet from the junction with Severin.
Sam saw the Waste here as stunted birches, blue-gray in color as though they were in shade. In the midst of them was a blackened scar stretching higher than I could reach on tiptoes. It looked more like the result of disease than it did fire, though of course the whole thing was constructed in a dog’s mind rather than being part of reality.
“So…” said Osbourn. “We can just force our way through this?”
He sounded doubtful. He had every reason to be doubtful.
“No, we can’t,” I said. “Give me a moment to look at this in a trance.”
I lay down on the Road and let my mind enter the structure of the scar. I could have done it standing, but my companions were more likely to leave me alone if they were sure I was doing something instead of staring blankly at the Waste. A Maker in a trance didn’t seem to be doing anything, and I’d noticed that an awful lot of people didn’t make the connection between an empty stare and the work which they could see had gotten done in the past.
This scar was part of a living thing. It was as dense and complex as a tree burl or an ox thighbone.
The Waste existed without structure. I’d assumed that cysts were formed from the Waste; instead, they—this one, anyway—appeared to contain a portion of Not-Here.
I came out of my trance and stood up again. Sam had been worried and bumped against my legs again; I rubbed his shoulders without thinking about it.
“This is amazing,” I said. “But it’s not what I expected, and it’s going to take more work to get in than I thought it would.”
“But you can get in?” Fox said, frowning.
“I think so, yes,” I said. “But I’ll want to think about it for a while. Let’s go back to Severin for now. I want to look at Croft’s living area besides mulling things over.”
As we started back, Osbourn moved close to me and said, “Sir? Would it be possible to cut our way into the cyst? With our weapons, I mean? Since we know where it is, I mean.”