Explorer of the Endless Sea

by Jack Campbell

  Keli shook his head. “The Empire couldn’t have kept such a secret for so long. And it wouldn’t have kept a secret like that. Every citizen would’ve been told about the glorious achievement, and how far the hand of the Emperor or Empress stretched.”

  “They don’t seem to be flying any flags over the town,” Liv added.

  “Why the wall?” Jules said. “They’re ready to defend themselves against a big attack. But we haven’t seen anyone else out here until now.”

  The Sun Queen came into port slowly, as a crew on one of the small fishing boats stared at the ship like people who’d never seen such a craft before. “Can we tie up, do you think?” Jules asked Ang.

  “The pier is for certain long enough to hold us,” he said. “But if all that ties up there are boats such as that one, the water may be too shallow.”

  “That’s a real chance, isn’t it? Let’s anchor out and take the longboat in.” Jules paused, eyeing the crowd beginning to form on the waterfront. A small crowd, less than fifty, with no sign of uniforms among them. Instead, it looked like a normal mix of adult men and women as well as children of various ages. “They must be hiding whatever soldiers or police they have. That’s not a good sign. Let’s make sure our boarding army is armed.”

  By the time the Sun Queen had anchored in the small harbor next to the town, and the long boat lowered, the afternoon was well along. A reception group had been formed on the waterfront of the town, the remainder of the town citizens standing a little ways off to make room for those who awaited the longboat.

  Jules carried her cutlass, her dagger, and had the Mechanic weapon in its holster on her hip. It seemed like a good idea to impress these people.

  Liv and Ang had stayed on the ship, ready to get her underway quickly if needed. In the longboat with Jules were Keli and Gord, as well as the sailors wielding the oars.

  As they rowed closer to the pier, Keli squinted toward the town. “Either the entire rest of the population is in hiding, or this is just about everyone they’ve got. Maybe two hundred all told.”

  “That’s an awfully big town for that few people,” Gord said.

  The town officials stood back as the longboat came alongside the pier, not moving as a couple of Jules’ crew jumped onto the pier to tie lines to stone bollards that looked worn about the middle from many years of use. That reminded her of the older piers at Landfall as well.

  Jules climbed onto the pier, trying to look dignified. Her shirt and pants were clean, her boots shined, though of course the scorch caused by Mage lightning couldn’t be buffed out. She walked over to the group waiting to greet her, none of whom were wearing anything like the suit of an Imperial bureaucrat. Even though their clothing was the same as that of the other commons, the way they stood and watched her made Jules certain that these were officials of the town. Stopping before the men and women, Jules belatedly realized that she hadn’t rehearsed what to say to them. A polite introduction seemed like a good start. “Good afternoon,” Jules began. “I’m Captain Jules of Landfall.”

  The officials exchanged troubled glances, before one man finally replied. “I am Kahya.”

  To her surprise, he had about the same accent as that of many of the Mechanics she’d encountered. Jules waited, and when nothing else followed prompted the man. “Kahya of…?”

  “Of?”

  “Where you’re from,” Keli said, having followed Jules. “I’m Keli of Alfarin.”

  “And I’m Gord of Sandurin,” Gord said, joining them.

  Jules saw no trace of recognition in the eyes of the officials as everyone named their cities of origin. “You’ve heard of those places, haven’t you? Landfall is one of the biggest cities in the world, and the oldest city in the Empire.”

  “The Empire?” a woman asked.

  “You—” Jules had to take a moment to recover from her surprise, gazing around at the old buildings. “You haven’t heard of the Empire?”

  “No,” Kahya said. “And you should leave.”

  “Why?” Keli asked.

  “That is forbidden,” Kahya said, pointing towards the Sun Queen.

  “Like at Dunlan?” Jules said. “Do Mechanics rule here?”

  “Of course Mechanics rule here,” the woman said, “though it has been long since…” She stared at Jules. Or rather, Jules realized, at the holster on her hip. “Lady! Forgive us! You weren’t wearing your jacket so we didn’t realize!”

  The other officials gazed at their companion in confusion, so she pointed. “Look! She bears one of the weapons!”

  Kahya’s attitude instantly changed. “My apologies, Lady Mechanic. It’s been so long since a Mechanic paid us the honor of a visit that we didn’t realize who you were.”

  Jules glanced at Keli, who wordlessly indicated he thought Jules should play along with the mistake of the townsfolk. “That’s all right,” she said, wondering if it had been right to accept the apology. If she was supposed to be a Mechanic, shouldn’t she act rude and superior? Give orders? “How about the proper greeting I should have received when arriving here?”

  “Welcome to Pacta Servanda, Lady,” Kahya said, he and the others standing straight while he spoke.

  “That’s better,” Jules said. She noticed Keli and Gord eyeing her and gave both a surreptitious wink before facing the officials again. “So…ships are forbidden here.”

  “Yes, Lady. Ships like that. We only know of them from paintings. We haven’t violated the rules given us. The only ships that have ever docked here have been those of the Mechanics Guild.”

  Mechanics Guild ships. Jules tried not to show any reaction as she nodded. “Of course. The metal ships of the Mechanics Guild. You said it’s been a while since any Mechanics visited?”

  “Yes, Lady,” the woman said. “Thirty years. No, thirty-one years. I was just a child when the last Mechanics left.”

  Jules realized she needed to learn a lot more about this place, but needed an excuse for asking questions that a Mechanic should already know the answer to. The officials facing her were all of early or late middle age. How much would they know of or remember about Mechanics who’d left thirty-one years ago? “I’ve been sent to check on this town, to ensure that you remember your history.”

  “If you seek history,” Kahya said, “you should speak with our former mayor. He’s old enough to remember when there were many Mechanics living here. We will take you to him if you will permit us to show you the way. I am Kahya,” he repeated, “the current mayor, and this is Corda, the assistant mayor.”

  “I will permit you to show me the way,” Jules said, thinking she sounded like a stupid Imperial court functionary when she tried to speak as arrogantly as the Mechanics with whom she’d dealt.

  And she thought that perhaps she glimpsed some well-hidden resentment in the eyes of some of the town officials, the same as that evinced by common folk everywhere. At least, you could see it if you knew how to look for it, and you only knew how to look for it if you felt that same resentment of Mechanics, and also hid it as well as you could when faced with them.

  “None of these buildings seem to be new,” Keli commented as they walked along a broad street away from the waterfront. “Many appear to be empty.”

  “Yes,” Corda said.

  After a pause to see if she’d elaborate, Keli continued. “Has there been disease here? A plague?”

  “Nothing beyond the usual illnesses. Most of these homes and offices were used by Mechanics, or by the common people who served their households.”

  “Most of the population was Mechanics?” Jules asked, looking at another apparently empty dwelling as they walked past it, the long-closed door and windows somehow seeming sad.

  “Not most, but at one time it wasn’t unusual for a few hundred to be here,” Corda said. “Our former mayor can tell you of those days.”

  They reached a larger building, fairly imposing compared to the rest of the town. As the group entered, Jules could tell this was the town hall. Walking
down otherwise deserted hallways where their footsteps echoed on the marble floors, they reached a large office with an open door.

  Kahya looked inside. “A Mechanic has arrived, Terrance. She doesn’t wear the jacket but she has a weapon.”

  Jules walked into the office, seeing an old man rising from his chair and bowing his head to her. “Lady Mechanic. Welcome back to Pacta Servanda.”

  “Thank you,” Jules said, looking about the office. It held an indefinable aura of age. On two of the walls were paintings, both bearing signs of age, one showing a ship like the Sun Queen sailing in a stormy sea, and the other a range of impressive mountains with an unusual sort of castle in the foreground. “I’m here to see how well you remember your history.”

  Terrance paused, eyeing her, before smiling. “Yes. I may tell her things the Mechanics Guild would not want widely known,” he said to Kahya, Corda, and the other town officials. “Could you give us privacy?”

  “Yes. Certainly.” The others backed out, retreating down the hallway, the sound of their footsteps seeming unnaturally loud in the mostly empty building.

  Terrance waited until the sound of a closing door told of the others leaving, then gave Jules a keen look that included Keli and Gord. “You are not a Mechanic, Lady. Why are you here?”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Jules tried to frown like a Mechanic. “Why would you say that?”

  “Because you thanked me for greeting you, and explained to me what you were doing,” Terrance said. “Mechanics never express thanks, and never explain to common folk. They simply demand what they want.”

  “Yes,” Jules said. “I’m not used to doing that.”

  “Where did you get the weapon?” Terrance asked, his voice carrying no hostility, just curiosity.

  “I’ve been working with the Mechanics to do a few things. They gave me the weapon to kill Mages with.”

  “Mages?”

  Keli started with surprise. “You’ve never heard of Mages?’

  “No. What are they?”

  “Strange people who always wear robes. You’ve never seen one?”

  “No,” Terrance said. “We know nothing about the world beyond our town wall. Well, that is, we’re allowed to travel up to ten thousand lances beyond the wall to hunt or farm, but that’s the extent of it. Please sit down.”

  Jules took one of the chairs, which was clearly old but still sturdy. “What is this place?”

  Terrance shook his head. “If you mean to ask why a good number of Mechanics once lived here, I can’t answer that. I’m old enough to remember when the town was full of Mechanics. Hundreds of them. About fifty years ago most of them left, leaving only a small group. And then about thirty years ago that small group also departed, with instructions that everything be kept as it was and all rules abided by.” His eyes grew distant with memory. “I was the mayor then. They gave their orders in a way that made it sound like they’d be back soon. Maybe they did expect to return soon. One Mechanic told me to look after his garden in the manner of someone planning to see it again before long. But it’s been thirty years. And not a Mechanic to be seen during that time.”

  “You still follow the Mechanic rules or orders?” Keli said.

  “Yes.” Terrance looked about him. “As I said, we’re not supposed to go more than ten thousand lances from the walls. Any buildings marked for Mechanics should be entered only to clean and repair, and any locked doors in those buildings must be left locked. No new buildings inside the walls. No building outside the walls. No digging up of roads or digging deep outside the walls. Things like that.”

  “And no ships,” Jules said.

  “And no ships,” Terrance repeated, his old face creased by a smile. “Is that how you came here? On a ship?”

  “Yes,” Jules said. “Like the one in that painting.”

  “Ah. I’d like to see it. I’ve never seen a real ship with sails, just the Mechanic ships that used to come now and then.”

  “What did the Mechanics do here?” Jules asked. “Hundreds of them?”

  “I don’t know,” Terrance said. “None of us do. None of the common folk who took care of the town ever knew. I told you that Mechanics never explain. We did what we were told, and didn’t try to learn what was forbidden.”

  “Didn’t anyone ever try to escape?” Gord asked.

  “Now and then,” Terrance said. “Some young hot head would take off. The Mechanics usually found them quickly and…killed them. As punishment and as an example to the rest. I don’t know what happened to the few who managed to not be found.”

  “Is that why you have that wall?” Gord asked. “Not to keep attackers out, but to keep you in?”

  “Maybe,” Terrance said. “To be honest, my memories as a boy were that the Mechanics simply liked that wall. They liked seeing it and walking on it. It seems a strange reason to put so much effort into building a wall, but that was done when the town was built so no one remembers anything about it. It does serve as a physical form of the rule that we must stay here.”

  “When was the town built?” Jules asked. “How old is it?”

  “About two centuries,” Terrance said.

  Keli frowned. “The town is as old as the Empire, then. But you know nothing of the Empire?”

  Terrance shook his head. “We know nothing of the rest of the world. Supposedly there are vast deserts inland beyond our horizon, but no one has ever gone to see and returned.”

  “Deserts?” Jules said. “At least the Mechanics were consistent in their lies. We’re from the lands around the Sea of Bakre.”

  Terrance shook his head once more. “I have no idea where that is.”

  “It’s north of here. The eastern part is ruled by the Empire. No one lived in the areas west of the Empire until recently. According to our charts, and legend, the western part of the sea was a deadly maze of reefs backed by desert wastelands.”

  “But you came anyway?” Terrance smiled again. “You break rules?”

  “I break rules,” Jules said. “I break cages. And now I am certain that the Mechanics were the ones to create those false charts, to keep common people penned in the eastern side of the Sea of Bakre, just as they kept your people penned in this town.”

  “Were there more of you?” Keli asked. “You don’t seem enough to have served that many Mechanics.”

  “There were a lot more commons in those days,” Terrance said. “Most were taken away with the Mechanics when they left. We’ve never known what happened to them.”

  “And that first group left fifty years ago?” Keli said. “Altis was once even smaller. Just a few hundred people and that big Mechanics Guild Hall. But I met someone who told me that suddenly a lot more common folk showed up and Altis grew quickly into a more substantial place. None of the new people would say where they’d come from. I think he said that was about fifty years ago.”

  “Altis?” Terrance said. “That’s another town?” He sighed, sadness in his eyes. “There’s so much I’ve never been allowed to see.”

  “Why didn’t you build a ship and leave that way?” Jules asked. “Once the Mechanics left?”

  “Because we didn’t know when the Mechanics would come back, which might be any day, and because we have no idea how to build such ships aside from what we see in paintings like that, and because we had no idea if there was any place else to go.”

  “Such a pretty town,” Keli said. “But it’s a prison, isn’t it?”

  “It was obviously something else,” Jules said, “if all those Mechanics lived here. Whatever it was, the Mechanics stopped needing it. Or decided they didn’t need it. But they left the rules in place. Do you think something might be hidden here?” she asked Terrance.

  Terrance shrugged. “That’s possible. Maybe likely. Only a fool would go looking, though. All of us know the Mechanics have means of knowing when someone goes somewhere they’re not supposed to be. Speaking of which, why did you come here if the Mechanics wanted everyone to stay on the
eastern side of that sea? Everyone except those of us here in Pacta Servanda, of course.”

  Keli answered. “For as long as anyone can tell, everyone lived in the Empire under its rules, and if anyone tried to escape, the Empire’s legions and ships would hunt them down and bring them back. Oh, there were some small groups in the Northern Ramparts, that’s a big chain of mountains, but otherwise everyone stayed in the Empire. Then, oh, fifteen years ago or so, something changed. For some reason or other, the Empire stopped hunting down and returning everyone who escaped.”

  “I think the Mechanics told the Empire to stop doing that,” Jules said.

  “Maybe,” Keli said. “But towns started popping up in areas a little west of the Empire. Things are changing a bit. No one knows why.”

  “Some Mechanics said in my hearing that the Emperor was too powerful and thought he could challenge their Guild,” Jules said. “I think the Mechanics, some of them anyway, want other places now, other cities that can keep the Empire from getting any stronger.”

  “Why do people want to escape this Empire?” Terrance asked. “It sounds as if it is much bigger than this town.”

  “Vastly larger,” Keli said. “Many cities with many thousands of people in each of them. But the cities can’t hold everyone. There are more people than the Empire can handle, so many want to go somewhere…um, less crowded. And some, like those of us here, want more freedom. We want to have a say in how things are done. Emperors and Empresses aren’t very big on people deciding things for themselves.”

  “Nor are Mechanics,” Terrance said. “Yet they are permitting this? It must be for reasons of their own, not out of regard for what the common people want.”

  “You obviously do know Mechanics,” Jules said. “A lot more people should be coming to this region once we get back with our chart. What are the rules here for when new people show up?”

  Terrance frowned in thought, the moment growing longer as the others waited. “There is no rule,” he finally said. “I’m certain of it. The Mechanics must not have expected anyone like you to ever get here.”