by Robin Hobb
“I expected that by the time I returned, things would be better. But this is too good to trust, in a way. ”
It was Chade’s voice. He leaned over a table in a darkened room, studying a scroll. A branch of candles lit his face and the unrolled map before him. He looked tired but in good spirits. His gray hair was disheveled. His white shirt was half open and loose of his breeches so it hung about his hips like a skirt. The old man was lean and muscular where before he was skinny. He took a long draw from a steaming mug and shook his head over something. “Regal seems to gain no ground in his war against the Mountains. In every attack against the border towns, the Usurper’s troops feint and then withdraw. There is no concerted effort to seize territory they have ravaged, no massing of troops to force their way to Jhaampe. What is his game?”
“Come here and I’ll show you. ”
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Chade looked up from his scroll, half amused and half annoyed. “I’ve a serious question to ponder. I’ll not find the answer to this in your bed. ”
The woman threw back the bedding and rose, to pad softly over to the table. She moved like a stalking cat. Her nakedness was not vulnerability, but armor. Her long brown hair had pulled loose of its warrior tail to reach past her shoulders. She was not young, and long ago a sword had left its tracks down her ribs. She was still breathtaking in a formidable, female way. She bent over the map beside him and pointed to something. “Look here. And here. And here. Were you Regal, why would you attack all these places at once, with forces too small to hold any of them?”
When Chade did not answer, she moved her finger to tap another spot on the map. “None of those attacks came as any great surprise. Mountain troops that had been gathered here were diverted to these two villages. Another second force from this location went to the third village. Now, see where the Mountain troops were not?”
“There’s nothing along there worth having. ”
“Nothing,” she agreed. “But once there was a trade route that went through the lesser pass, here, and thence into the heart of the Mountains. It bypasses Jhaampe, and is little used any more for that reason. Most traders want a route that will allow them to sell and trade in Jhaampe as well as the lesser towns. ”
“Of what value is that to Regal? Does he seek to take and hold it?”
“No. No troops have been seen there at all. ”
“Where does the trail lead?”
“Now? Nowhere save a few scattered villages. But it is good traveling for a small force moving fast. ”
“Where does it go?”
“It dwindles away at Shishoe. ” She tapped another spot on the map. “But it would carry that hypothetical band of warriors deep into Mountain territory. Well behind all the troops watching and guarding the border. West of Jhaampe and unsuspected. ”
“But what would be their goal?”
The woman shrugged casually, and smiled to see Chade’s eyes leave the map. “Perhaps an assassination attempt on King Eyod? Perhaps an attempt to recapture this bastard that is supposed to be sheltering in the Mountains. You tell me. This is more your trade than mine. Poison the wells at Jhaampe?”
Chade suddenly paled. “It’s been a week. They’ll already be in place, their plot already in motion. ” He shook his head. “What am I to do?”
“Were it I, I’d send a swift courier to King Eyod. A lass on a horse. Alert him that there may be spies at his back. ”
“I suppose that’s best,” Chade agreed. There was a sudden weariness in his voice. “Where are my boots?”
“Relax. The messenger was sent yesterday. By now King Eyod’s trackers will be working the trail. He has very good trackers. I can vouch for that. ”
Chade looked at her consideringly in a way that had nothing to do with her nakedness. “You know the quality of his trackers. Yet you sent one of your own lasses to his very doorstep, with a missive penned by your own hand, to warn him. ”
“I saw no good in letting such tidings wait. ”
Chade smoothed his short beard over his jaw. “When first I asked your aid, you told me you’d work for coin, not patriotism. You told me that to a horse thief, one side of the border was as good as another. ”
She stretched, rolling her shoulders. She stepped to face him, placing her hands on his hips in calm assumption. They were nearly of a height. “Perhaps you have won me to your side. ”
His green eyes gleamed like a hunting cat’s. “Have I?” he mused as he drew her closer.
I came to myself with a small start and shifted uncomfortably. I felt ashamed to have spied on Chade, and envious of him as well. I poked a bit at my fire and lay down again, reminding myself that Molly also slept alone, save for the small warmth of our daughter. It was little comfort and my sleep was restless for the remainder of the night.
When I opened my eyes again, a square of watery sunlight overlay me from the unshuttered window. My fire had burned to a few coals, but I was not that cold. In the light of day, the chamber I was in was dismal. I went and peered into a second room, seeking a stairway to the upper stories that might offer me a better view of the city. Instead I saw the sagging remnants of wooden steps I dared not trust even for a brief ascent. The damp was heavier as well. The dank cold stone walls and floor reminded me of the dungeons of Buckkeep. I left the shop, stepping out into a day that seemed almost warm. Last night’s snow was retreating into puddles. I took off my hat and let the gentler wind move against my hair. Spring, some part of me whispered. The edge of spring was in the air.
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I had expected that daylight would vanquish the phantom denizens of the city. Instead, the light seemed to make them stronger. Black stone with quartzlike veins had been used widely in constructing the city, and I had but to touch any piece of it to see the city’s life awaken around me. But even when I touched nothing I still seemed to catch glimpses of folk, to hear the murmur of their chatter and sense the tumult of their passage. I walked for some time, seeking a tall, mostly intact building that would offer me the view I sought. By daylight, the city was far more ruined than I had suspected. Whole domes of roofs had fallen in, and some buildings had great cracks green with moss running up their walls. In others, outer walls had fallen away entirely, exposing the inner chambers and filling the street below with rubble I must clamber over. Few of the taller buildings were totally intact and some leaned drunkenly against one another. I finally saw a likely building with a tall spire peeping up above its neighbors, and made my way toward it.
When I reached it, I wasted some little time in standing and staring up at it. I wondered if it had been a palace. Great lions of stone guarded the entrance steps. The exterior walls were of the same shining black stone I had come to regard as the common building material for the city, but affixed to them were silhouettes of folk and beasts all cut from some gleaming white stone. The stark contrast of white on black and the grand scale of these images made them almost overwhelming. A giant of a woman gripped an immense plow behind a team of monstrous oxen. A winged creature, perhaps a dragon, took an entire wall to himself. I slowly climbed the wide stone steps to the entryway. It seemed to me that as I did so, the murmuring of the city grew louder and more insistently real. A grinning young man came hastening down the steps, a scroll gripped in one hand. I sidestepped to avoid colliding with him, but as he hastened past I felt not the slightest sense of his being. I turned to stare after him. His eyes had been yellow as amber.
The great wooden doors were closed and had been latched, but so rotted were they that one cautious push tore the lock free. One door swung open while the other sagged gratefully down to collapse on the floor. I peered in before I entered. Streaked and dusty windows of thick glass admitted the winter sunlight. Dust motes from the settling door danced in the air. I half expected bats or pigeons or a scurrying rat or two. There was nothing, not even a scent of animal habitation. Like the road, the city was
avoided by wild beasts. I stepped inside, my boots scuffing lightly on the dusty floors.
There were the tatters of ancient hangings, a collapsed wooden bench. I lifted my eyes to a ceiling far above my head. This chamber alone could have held the entire exercise grounds at Buckkeep. I felt tiny. But across the chamber from me were stone steps marching up into the gloom. As I crossed to them, I heard the businesslike mutter of talk, and suddenly the stairs were peopled with tall robed folk coming and going. Most gripped scrolls or clutched papers, and the tone of their conversation was that of people discussing weighty matters. They were subtly different from any folk I had ever been among. The colors of their eyes were too bright; the bones of their bodies were elongated. But for all that, much else about them was ordinary. This must have been some chamber of laws or ruling I decided. Only such matters put lines upon so many brows and scowls on so many faces. There were a number of folk in yellow robes and black leggings, bearing a sort of insignia plate upon their shoulders, and these I judged to be officials. As I climbed first one staircase, and then another from the second floor, these yellow-robes increased in number.
The stairs were somewhat lit by the wide windows at each landing. The first showed me only the upper story of the next building. On the second landing, I gained a view of some roofs. The third floor I had to cross to reach another stairway. Judging by the generous tatters on the walls, this floor had been even more opulent. I began to perceive ghostly furniture as well as people, as if the magic were stronger here. I kept to the edges of the walkways, loath to feel the untouch of folk walking through me. There were many cushioned benches for waiting, another sure sign of officialdom, and many lesser scribes sitting at tables recording information from the scrolls presented to them.
I went up yet another flight of stairs, but was frustrated in my quest for a clear view of the city by an immense window of stained glass. The image presented was one of a woman and a dragon. They did not appear to be at odds, but instead stood as if speaking to one another. The woman in this window had black hair and black eyes and wore a band of bright red on her brow. She carried something in her left hand, but whether it was weapon or wand of office I could not tell. The immense dragon wore a jeweled collar, but nothing else in its stance or demeanor suggested domestication. I stared at the window, light gleaming through its dusty colors, for several long minutes before I could go on. I felt it had some significance I could not quite grasp. At last I turned away from it to survey this upper chamber.
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This floor was better lit than the other ones had been. It was all one huge open chamber, but substantially smaller than the main floor had been. Tall narrow windows of clear glass alternated with stretches of wall ornately decorated with friezes of battles and agrarian scenes. I was drawn to the artwork, but resolutely directed my steps to another staircase. This was not broad, but was a spiraling stair that I hoped led up to the tower I had glimpsed from outside the building. The city spirits seemed less numerous here.
The climb was steeper and longer than I had expected it to be. I opened both my coat and my shirt before I reached the top. The winding steps were lit at intervals by windows scarce wider than arrow slits. At one a young woman stood staring out over the city, an air of hopelessness in her lavender eyes. She seemed so real I found myself begging her pardon as I stepped around her. She paid no heed, of course. Again I had the eerie feeling that I was the ghost here. There were a few landings on this stair and doors leading to chambers, but these were locked and time seemed to have been more merciful here. The dry air of the upper levels had preserved the wood and metal. I wondered what lay behind their undisturbed fastness. Gleaming treasure? The knowledge of the ages? Moldering bones? None gave to my shovings, and as I continued up, I hoped I would not find a locked door as my reward at the top of the tower.
The whole city was a mystery to me. The ghost life that teemed through it was such a contrast to its utter desertion now. I had seen no sign of battle; the only upheavals I had seen in the city seemed to be the result of the earth’s deep unease. Here I passed more locked doors; I wonder if Eda herself knew what was behind them. No one locks a door unless he expects to return. I wondered where they had gone, the folk of this town who still moved here as ghosts. Why was this river city abandoned, and when? Had this been the home of the Elderlings? Were they the dragons I had seen on the buildings and in the stained-glass window? Some folk enjoy a puzzle; it gave me a pounding headache to compliment the nagging hunger that had been growing in me since daybreak.
I reached at last the upper tower chamber. It opened all around me, a round chamber with a domed ceiling. Sixteen panels made up the walls of the room and eight were of thick glass, streaked and filthy. They subdued the winter sunlight flooding into the room through them, making it at once lit and gloomy. One of the windows was shattered and lay in shards both within and without the chamber, for a narrow parapet ran around the outside of the tower. A great round table was partially collapsed in the center of the room. Two men and three women, all armed with pointers, were gesturing at where the table had once dominated the chamber, discussing something. One of the men seemed quite angry. I stepped around the phantom table and bureaucrats. A narrow door opened easily out onto the balcony.
There was a wooden railing running about the edge of the parapet but I did not trust it. Instead I walked a slow circuit of that tower, caught between wonder and fear of falling. On the south side, a wide river valley spread out before me. In the far distance was an edging of dark blue hills that held up the pale winter sky. The river wound, a fat lazy snake, through the near part of the valley. In the distance I could see other towns on the river. Beyond the river was a wide green valley, thickly treed or populated with tidy farmsteads which blinked in and out of existence when I shook my head to clear my eyes of ghosts. I saw a wide black bridge across the river and the road continuing on beyond it. I wondered where it led. Briefly I saw bright towers glinting in the distance. I pushed the ghosts away from my mind and saw a distant lake with steam rising off it in the watery sunlight. Was Verity out there somewhere?
My eyes wandered to the southeast and widened at what I saw there. Perhaps there was the answer to some of my questions. A whole section of the city was gone. Simply gone. No crumble of ruins were there, no fire-blackened rubble. Only a great and sudden rift gaped in the earth, as if some vast giant had driven in a giant wedge and split it wide. The river had filled it in, a shining tongue of water intruding into the city. The remains of buildings teetered on its edge still, streets ended abruptly at the water. My eyes traced this huge wound in the earth. Even at this distance, I could tell that the great crack extended beyond the far shore of the river. The destruction had plunged like a spear deep into the heart of the city. The placid water shone silver under the winter sky. I wondered if some sudden earthquake had been the death blow to this city. I shook my head. Too much of it remained standing still. No doubt it had been a great disaster, but it did not explain the city’s death to me.
I walked slowly around to the north side of the tower. The city spread out at my feet, and beyond it I saw vineyards and grainfields. And beyond them, a forested stretch with the road running through it. Several days’ ride away were the mountains. I shook my head to myself. By all my bearings, I must have come from there. Yet I did not recall the intervening journey at all. I leaned back against the wall and wondered what to do. If Verity were somewhere in this city, I felt no tingle of his presence. I wished I could recall why I had left my companions and when. Come to me, come to me, whispered through my bones. An overwhelming dreariness rose up in me and I longed simply to lie down where I was and die. I tried to tell myself it was the elfbark. It felt more like the aftereffects of near-constant failure. I went back into the central chamber to get out of the chill winter wind.
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As I stepped back in through the shattered window, a stick rolled
under my foot and I nearly fell. When I recovered, I glanced down and wondered that I had not noticed before. At the base of the broken window were the remains of a small fire. Soot had smudged some of the hanging glass remaining in the side part of the window frame. I stooped to touch it cautiously; my finger came away black. It was not very fresh, but neither was it older than a few months; otherwise the winter storms would have weathered more of it away. I stepped away and tried to make my weary mind work. The fire was made from wood, but it had included sticks as from trees or bushes. Someone had deliberately carried small twigs up here to kindle this fire. Why? Why not use the remains of the table? And why climb this high to make a fire? For the view?
I sat down beside the remains of the fire and tried to think. When I leaned my back against the stone wall, it gave more substance to the arguing phantoms around the table. One shouted something at another, and then drew an imaginary line with his pointer over the collapsed table. One of the women crossed her arms across her chest and looked stubborn, while another smiled coldly and tapped with her own stick on the table. Cursing myself for an idiot, I leaped to my feet to look down at the ancient ruins of the table.
The second that I perceived it was a map, I was sure Verity had made the fire. A foolish grin spread wide across my face. Of course. A tall-windowed tower looking out over the city and surrounding countryside, and in the center of the room, a great table holding the most peculiar map I had ever seen. It was not drawn on paper, but made of clay to mimic the rolling countryside. It had cracked in the collapsing of the table, but I could see how the river had been wrought of shining chips of black glass. There were tiny models of the buildings of the city beside the arrow-straight roads, tiny fountains filled with blue chips of glass, even twigs leafed with green wool to represent the greater trees in the city. At intervals throughout the city, small crystals of stone were fixed in the map. I suspected they represented compass points. All was there, even tiny squares to represent stalls in the market. Despite its ruin, it delighted the eye with its detail. I smiled, very certain that within months of Verity returning to Buckkeep, there would be a similar table and map in his Skill-tower.