by Dave Dobson
“Let’s do it.” I said, my voice strong. “Let's find a way.”
45
Pool Hours
Three objects lay on the first three runes around the pool. A belt, a dagger, and a wooden figurine of a man on a horse. I had none of the blue powder we used on the items back at headquarters, but I was mostly experimenting here anyway. I had never been sure whether the powder had much effect anyway. I pricked my finger and let seven drops fall into the pool. It roiled and bubbled just as ours did.
Gora observed from across the pool, far enough away not to set off our collars, but close enough to see the pool’s surface. As the water settled, I began the Arunian chant, surprised that I could recall it as well as I did, though I’d practiced a good deal in the hours before. Almost immediately, the water glowed, and an image appeared of a table covered with tools.
“My father’s workbench,” Gora cried. “Where these were made!"
I was surprised. I never had this kind of success at our pool at home. As I willed the image’s perspective to shift, we saw the interior of a wooden structure, a stone fireplace in one corner blazing away. A small girl entered the scene, and a bearded man placed a hand on her head.
“Papa,” Gora said, her voice soft.
The bearded man picked up a small wooden object – the figurine – and handed it to the girl. The girl galloped the little wooden horseman across the edge of the table and looked up at her father in delight.
At this point, the image blurred. I tired quickly, and I was unable to maintain control of the pool. “I’m sorry,” I gasped.
Gora looked back at me, her eyes wet. “It is all right. Thank you. I never thought to see him again.” She gestured toward the archway leading out. “Rest now. We can try again tomorrow. And you can teach me.”
When I returned to our chamber, Boog’s face broke into a broad smile.
“What is it?” I said.
“Just something I found while you were in there bleeding and chanting away.” His smile grew. “Some of us are trying to escape, you know."
I was too tired for this. “Just tell me, you idiot.”
He slid a hand under his mattress and pulled out something dark and metallic. He held it out, still smiling.
“Now that could be useful,” I said. He was holding an open metal collar, a perfect match to those around our necks.
***
“It hurts,” I whispered, clutching my stomach, my knees pressed uncomfortably against the stone floor.
“You have to try again,” said Boog.
I glared at him and stood again, my legs unsteady. The water of the pool swirled, then cleared. It was the middle of the night, and we’d stolen back here to try again with the spare collar we’d found. It was not going well. Our problem could have come from any of a number of factors – the lack of sunlight, or my fatigue from the earlier augury, or the fact we only had one item on the runes. In four attempts, I’d not produced one image, and now my head swam and my gut hurt.
“What if I stood on a rune?” Boog asked, his voice barely above a whisper.
“Ow.” I considered, rubbing my stomach. It was unusual but not unheard of to use a person on the runes. Our pool could sometimes pick up connections between people and objects, but it was rare. Some scholars speculated that people had too many connections to too many things, or that their unpredictable thoughts misdirected the pool. Others thought it was just because they couldn’t keep still. Still others speculated that it was the people’s clothing and other belongings that drew conflicting and false connections, but experiments with naked subjects hadn't worked appreciably better. Living creatures just didn’t work well.
But in this case, we had little to lose. Auguries with one object were almost always unfocused, and so far, it hadn’t worked. Having Boog there might show us a connection between his collar and this one, which could be useful. Or it might produce spurious, useless connections, or none at all.
“I think I could try once more,” I whispered back. “Stand on the second one. Take off all the clothing you can. And try not to move."
Boog wrinkled his nose, but he complied, stripping down to his collar and a single undergarment. His shoulders loomed large in the gloom, hunched a bit against the cold. He stood very still.
I picked up the bit of steel Boog had sharpened on the stones in our room. With it, I cut my abused finger once more. Blood welled up, sluggish, resenting yet another summons. I squeezed and rubbed, coaxing seven more drops into the pool, and began the chant once more.
The pool bubbled, then settled. In it, I saw a woman in simple dress, perhaps animal skins. She held in her hand a collar, which she placed on a shelf next to others. I was too tired to try to shift the image, but I watched, rapt. She did not look like either a citizen of Frosthelm or of the barbarian clans. She was stocky but well-muscled, her hair nearly white, decorated with colorful feathers dangling among the pale strands.
A moment later, the image shifted, and we saw the courtyard outside. But it was different –bright banners hung from the walls, animals and people bustled about, and the roadway leading up was free from the weeds and rocks we’d stumbled over. The gate and the giant stone door stood open. In the center of the courtyard, a row of ten people knelt, and behind them stood six soldiers with spears, their weapons pointed down at what must have been their captives. One by one, another spearman fit black iron collars on the kneeling figures, and the pool’s perspective shifted, unbidden by me, to two of the prisoners in particular. A spearman closed the collars carefully around their necks, and then touched them with a polished black stone he carried. They sparked briefly, and the prisoners winced.
The pool blurred and cleared. Boog broke from his stillness, stretched and then relaxed. “The stone he held. It must control them.”
“Mrff,” I replied weakly, my face pressed against the cold floor. Strong hands helped me to my feet, and then I lost consciousness.
46
Trust
“You don’t trust me,” said Gora. She pushed her bowl away from her and held out her hands, palms up, in a gesture of peace. "Let me work to gain your trust,” she said. “By stating an indelicate truth. I do not support this war between our nations, at least not anymore.”
“Why not?” I asked.
“The start of the struggle was useful to us, though more for the passion it inspired than the battles we won. Ganghira unified the tribes, something that has not been achieved in a century or more, and she established herself as leader. Most chieftains have sworn fealty to her, and she has set up lines of communication, standards of justice and trade, central authority, and strong military discipline. She is a good leader, and the changes she has made will serve our people well for many generations, if they hold.”
She lowered her hands to the table. “Now, though, the war has outlived its usefulness. Our young men and women are dying in battle, not hunting or farming or raising children. It drains us, and you, and benefits neither. We would gain far more from a resumption of trade and a cessation of hostilities than we will by pressing onward.”
“What if you win?” I asked. “Could you not plunder our towns and villages?” Boog looked at me as if I were a wart-encrusted toad, perhaps one who had just settled on his favorite pillow. I rolled my eyes at him.
Gora laughed. “We will never win, in any real sense,” she said. “We cannot. You are too numerous, too well-trained, too well-supplied. When we fight in small raiding parties, with unpredictable targets and on our own schedule, we do well. We have always been riders and raiders. This suits us. Attacking hardened positions, like your outposts or your camps, would be a fool’s gambit. We might succeed once or twice, through surprise or misdirection, but that is no way to win a war. And we could never in a thousand years take Frosthelm."
“Surely Ganghira knows this,” said Boog. “Why doesn’t she stand down, and parley for peace?”
“Our people often say that once you start a rock rolling down a hill
, it is a hard thing to stop it. Our people are not yet tired of war, and our blood has not yet cooled from the murder of Nera. And Ganghira pressed hard for war, with fiery speeches and bold raids. She cannot so easily reverse what she has wrought. Nor does she want to, at least not yet."
“Why are you telling us this?” I asked. “We could inform our leaders, or we could tell Ganghira, and you could, I don't know, be beheaded as a traitor or something.”
“I suspect your leaders know most or all of what I told you,” said Gora. Then she waved an arm around in a circle. “And I don't see many of them around here for you to tell. As for Ganghira, I’ve said the same to her, several times, and she’s wise enough to have known it even before I told her. I'm more valuable to her alive than dead, regardless.”
“Our leaders don’t know about the blue woman,” grumbled Boog. “At least not the ones who matter.”
Gora shot a quick glance at him. Boog pressed his lips together in a frown, realizing he might have said too much. “What do you know of Nera?” said Gora. “It was obvious when we spoke that you knew something.” She looked from Boog to me and back.
I thought hard. I could see no strategic value to hiding Nera’s fate, or rather, that of her corpse, from Gora. If what Gora said was true, and Nera was their rallying call, nothing I said would make much difference. I doubted I could inflame their passion more, or inspire more raiding than they were already doing. On the other hand, if they knew that she hadn't been taken as an official act of the state, but rather by a scheming criminal like Marron, there might be some basis to lessen the tension and remove heat from the conflict. I looked at Boog, and he shrugged. I pressed forward.
“While investigating a crime, we found a body matching your description of Nera – blue from head to toe, having suffered many cuts. We also found the criminals responsible for her abduction. Two of them were killed, and three escaped." I decided to let Gora believe we killed them if she were so inclined, and thus I left out the part about their being reduced to piles of orange powder while we cowered in the shadows. “The man who hired them also survived.”
Gora studied my face, her eyes bright and sharp. “Criminals? Do you still have her body?”
“We brought it — her, that is, back to our headquarters, but, uh…” I trailed off, wondering how to tackle the next part. I hadn’t thought this out very well at all, I realized.
“We left for the border shortly after this,” said Boog, looking at me carefully. “We don’t know who has the body now.”
“It wouldn’t still be at your headquarters?” asked Gora.
Boog looked at me, now. I swallowed again. “There were a number of irregularities surrounding those events,” I began, lamely. “Our, uh, departure was abrupt."
Gora stood, and took a step toward us, then stopped, perhaps remembering the collars. She was clearly agitated. Her wrinkled chin quivered and swayed as she formed her words. “If we had her body back, that could end the fighting,” she said. "That would be a powerful symbol. Ganghira could use it, tout it.” She looked at us, then pointed. “Can you get her back? Talk to your leaders? I could get Okhot to release you for that."
Our leaders would most assuredly throw us into jail and execute us if we tried talking to them. Beyond that, I had no idea where the tortured blue woman was. I was certain Marron would have taken her from Headquarters immediately upon taking control of the Guild. So, even if we got back to Frosthelm without being arrested, we’d still have to find the body, which would probably mean breaking into Marron’s home, or his Faeran temple, or secret lair, or whatever he had, plus killing him and defeating all of his guards. Including Tolla, who was far better with a sword than either of us, and Brand, who could turn people into powder with the flick of a wrist, all while avoiding the City Guard and the Inquisitors and trying to keep our heads attached to our necks. It was laughably impossible.
“Of course we can,” answered Boog, his confidence palpable. “When can we go?”
47
Off a Glyph
Getting to leave was not quite so easy as that. Gora was still bent on us training her to use the pool. Boog and I were desperate to escape, so the endless auguries grated on us. But, helping Gora understand the pool also helped me. As I conducted more auguries, mostly simple trials with sets of mundane objects, my stamina increased, and my ability to control the pool grew. This pool seemed much easier to control than ours back in Frosthelm. Either that, or I had become much, much better at it, but I’d have bet good money on the pool being the difference. I wondered if it had to do with the location, or the craftsmanship, or perhaps the water trickling in from the wall. Upon further inspection, I noticed a tiny drain hole in the bottom of the basin, a feature our pool lacked, and I surmised that this was why it never overflowed. Beyond that, its construction was a mystery. It was somehow cleaner, hardier, stronger than our pool, which required such delicate care and management.
I also learned from Gora. I was not sure how or where she had studied, but she had a wealth of information unknown to our scholars and unmentioned in our libraries. She was quite willing to share her knowledge with me. Perhaps she thought it would motivate me to help her, or perhaps she was just a natural teacher, happiest when discussing obscure facts and teaching forgotten lore. Despite her vast knowledge and the skill she’d demonstrated with the warding rods, she did not take naturally to manipulating the pool. It took her several days of work just to get the pool to respond to her at all. At first, her blood didn’t make the water bubble, and the pool barely stirred as she recited the chant. Even so, the experience drained her, and whether it was her age that weakened her or that the pool taxed her more than it did me, I didn’t know and couldn’t tell.
Gora told me that the chant, which I thought to be in the ancient Arunian tongue, was likely not Arunian in origin. The Arunians were apparently great cataloguers of knowledge, great librarians, great researchers, but most of the knowledge of magic we gained from their records actually predated their culture. The chant, Gora said, was written in Arunian characters, but the syllables were nonsense in their language. The Arunians had apparently merely transcribed something from an older tongue, being careful to preserve the words and sounds, but not their meaning. I wondered what the chant meant – was I summoning the power of some forgotten god, or promising my soul to a demon in exchange for using the pool’s power? Or was it merely a disclaimer? "I agree not to hold the owners of this pool liable for any injury I may cause or incur during its use.” I had no idea.
The runes around the pool, too, were of interest to Gora. The Augur taught that some represented the traditional elements – air, earth, fire, water – and that the others were just mysterious, their meaning lost. Gora decreed the whole concept of the four elements, supported and expounded upon at length by numerous Frosthelm scholars, to be, in her scholarly estimation, “goat turd.”
“These four elements of yours have no meaning,” she said, resting against a column across the pool from me. I could tell a lecture was coming on. “You flatlanders see them as four substances that make up all things. But they are not all substances. Air and water are simple fluids, just with different compositions. And yet when you say ‘air,’ you also mean to invoke wind, and weather, and thunder, all of which are completely different forces and processes that merely take place in the air. Fire is not a substance at all, but instead an energy – heat, light, and change. Nothing can be made of fire, the way things are made of water, or stone, or air. This is foolish – you fail to understand the nature of what you discuss, and your very framing of it creates false equivalences and misunderstanding.”
“And how do you know what we flatlanders think?”
“I spent six years studying in Frosthelm, didn’t I?” As I’d suspected. So this was how she knew our city and its ways. I wondered where she’d lived, with whom she’d worked.
Gora waved a finger in the air, and I was reminded of Master Tolson, always one to get on a rant, although T
olson was discussing the law and philosophy, not magic and science. “The Arunians, or more correctly, those whose knowledge they stole, were wiser than you." She pointed at the runes beneath my knees, as I lounged against a column. “Those, on that side,” she said. “There are far more than four, aren’t there? And what do they have in common? They are all forces of destruction. Fire, there. Weather. Death. Decay.” She pointed at the runes in turn, and her names for them were usually different from ours.
She continued. “Earthquakes. Violence. Anger. Freezing. Deceit. All of them, destructive forces. And these, over here?” She thrust her hands out, her fingers spread, pointing at the runes beneath her. “All forces or aspects of order, tranquility or growth. Life. Tides. Crystals. Gravity. Growth. Justice. The Moon. Seasons. Silence. Forest. Time. There are many runes, but there are only two fundamental forces. Order, and chaos. Building, and destroying. All the runes are just aspects of these two basic tenets.”
I saw an opportunity. “What’s this one, then,” I said, pointing to a rune with flowing lines crossed by a jagged stroke. It wasn't a perfect match for the rune on our collars, but it was close. There might be some artistic license with these things, much as handwriting might differ from person to person.
“Which side is it on?” she said.
I thought. “It’s close to the middle.”
“Correct,” she replied, seeming satisfied. “So, what does that mean?”
“It’s neither chaos or order? Or is it both? We call that one air.”