A Mighty Fortress

by David Weber

  Wind howled around Summit House’s eves, and despite the fires on the hearths, his breath steamed. It would be an excellent night for freezing to death, he reflected.

  He turned back to survey the bedchamber in which he would not be sleeping to night after all. He understood why his decision to make a retreat up here had dismayed Gharth Gorjah. Summit House’s primitive facilities, its isolation, and the possibility of weather exactly like this night promised had been more than enough to make his secretary worry about his well- being. For that matter, Cahnyr was forced to admit he shared some of Gorjah’s concerns. On the other hand, he knew something about Summit House which he doubted his secretary had even considered while he was thinking of things to worry about. There was no reason he should have thought about it, given how carefully Cahnyr had kept the younger man ignorant of the worries crushing down upon him. And the very things which had made Gorjah worry about Cahnyr’s spending a couple of five- days up on the mountain had actively reassured Bryahn Teagmahn... who very definitely did not know about Summit House’s special features.

  It was possible Bishop Executor Wyllys did know the aspect of Summit House which had made it so suitable to Cahnyr’s present purposes, despite the season and the weather. He’d served the last Archbishop of Glacierheart for over eight years even before Cahnyr had been confirmed as archbishop, and he’d used the residence frequently himself, during the hottest five- days of the summer. As such, it was possible he’d made the same discovery Cahnyr had. Of course, even if he had, it probably wouldn’t have occurred to him to worry about it.

  Probably.

  Cahnyr didn’t know if the bishop executor had been actively recruited by the Inquisition. He doubted it, yet he was also aware that he wanted to doubt it because of how much he liked Wyllys Haimltahn. The bishop executor was hardworking, dedicated to the well- being of the archbishopric and its people, and remarkably restrained in the graft he skimmed. He wasn’t immune to the peculation which had infected the Church, but that would have been a bit much to expect. In fact, it was expected he would find the odd way to slip a few less- than- legal marks into his purse. However much it might sadden the archbishop to admit it, that practice had become so accepted that the Treasury allowed for it when establishing a bishop executor’s official remuneration.

  And the fact that Haimltahn was part of that system was the only real criticism of him Cahnyr could have levied. Unfortunately, he’d never evinced any particular awareness of, or zeal to attack, the far greater and uglier corruption at the heart of the Temple. It wasn’t that he approved of it. Cahnyr was certain of that much, at least. But Wyllys Haimltahn was a provincial bishop executor assigned to one of the poorest archbishoprics in all of East Haven. He was never going to find himself serving in Zion or the Temple, what ever happened, and so he’d resolutely set his focus on his world and his responsibilities in it, leaving the concerns of the greater and more powerful to the greater and more powerful.

  Cahnyr couldn’t really fault him for that, but it was the reason he’d never approached the bishop executor about his own activities. Which meant he could hardly have asked Haimltahn whether or not he did know Cahnyr’s true motive for “retreating” to Summit House.

  Oh, stop it,he told himself. First, you’re probably doing Wyllys a profound disser vice even considering the possibility that he’s been conspiring with Teagmahn. Secondly, even if he is, Teagmahn obviously didn’t object to your coming up here. So either he doesn’t know about your little secret, or else he doesn’t see how it could have any bearing on the current situation.

  Despite the seriousness of the moment, Cahnyr snorted in dry amusement. From Teagmahn’s reaction to his decision to spend several days up at Summit House, the intendant had clearly decided exactly what Cahnyr had hoped he would decide: that having the archbishop safely tucked away in an isolated vacation lodge reached only by a single, narrow road (little more than a trail, really, in many places) suited the Inquisition’s needs perfectly. There was no way Cahnyr could possibly sneak back down from Summit House and creep through Tairys without Teagmahn’s knowledge.

  All of which, Cahnyr thought, was quite true . . . and completely irrelevant to his own plans. Such as they were and what there was of them, at any rate.

  Knuckles rapped on his bedchamber door, scarcely audible over the storm howl raging about Summit House, and Cahnyr turned from the window as the door opened.

  “It’s time, Your Eminence,” Fraidmyn Tohmys said, and held out the heavy parka.

  Glacierheart was mining country, and always had been. No man living had any clear idea of the full extent of shafts, galleries, and excavations which had been sunk into the bones of the world by generation upon generation of miners. There were charts and maps, yet no one was foolish enough to believe they were anything like comprehensive. Or, for that matter, accurate.

  The mine which had been run under what eventually became Summit House was on none of those charts, none of those maps. It was very old, and Cahnyr had often wondered who’d driven it. It was obvious that it had been following a thick bed of coal, but it was equally obvious that the coal had been playing out by the time the mine reached this point, and Summit House was literally miles away from the Graywater or the Tairys Canal. For that matter, Cahnyr suspected this particular mine had been abandoned long before the canal had been built or the river’s locks had been constructed. So even when it had been productive, just getting the coal to market must have been a back-breaking task.

  What mattered at the moment, however, was that one long- ago summer, Zhasyn Cahnyr had fallen through the well- rotted timbers covering one of the mine’s escape shafts.

  The shaft had been driven very near the end of the gallery directly under the lodge, with the result that it had been no more than thirty or forty feet long. More importantly for Cahnyr, it was steep, but not vertical. He’d been bruised and winded by the fall, but he’d also been younger at the time, and curiosity had quickly displaced the urge to sit in the dark nursing a barked shin and muttering words of which Mother Church would not have approved. So he’d gotten back to his feet, returned to Summit House, and commandeered Gharth Gorjah and Fraidmyn Tohmys (both of whom had already discovered his passion for spelunking), a bagful of candles, a piece of chalk, and a ball of string.

  He still didn’t know why he’d never mentioned his discovery to anyone else. It wasn’t that he’d ever decided he’d best keep it secret against some desperate future need to escape from the Inquisition. And, to be honest, he should have mentioned it to someone else, especially if he intended to go on poking around inside the mountain. He hadn’t grown up here in Glacierheart, but as an experienced cave- crawler, he’d been only too well aware of the dangers of cave- in, gas, water, accidental falls—all of the manifold ways the world could crush the life out of men rash enough to seek to steal its treasures. He’d been careful, and he’d never been so foolish as to go by himself (although, to be fair, neither he nor Tohmys would ever again be able to claim the adjective “spry”), but he’d steadfastly kept the discovery to himself.

  Part of it, he’d later realized, was the quiet down in the mine. The stillness. The hush. The old coal mine was a far cry from the natural caves and caverns which had first drawn him into spelunking. It wasn’t even very interesting, when one came right down to it. It was simply a very long, very deep, very dark hole in the ground.

  Yet it was a very old hole, and one which had been made by the hands of man, and not the patient wash of water. There was that sense of stepping into the past, of touching the lives of the miners who’d labored here scores—hundreds— of years before Cahnyr’s own birth. In an odd sort of way, that mine had become a cathedral. Its hushed, listening stillness had become a perfect place for him to simply sit, and contemplate, and feel the presence of God. It had become, in many ways, his true spiritual retreat, and he’d shared it with no one except his secretary, his valet, and God. He’d never actually ordered the other two not to mention the
ir discoveries to anyone else, but he’d realized long ago that both of them had recognized his desire to keep it to himself.

  He hadn’t spent all of his time in the mine in meditation, however. In fact, he’d spent many an hour exploring, rambling through the galleries and shafts. The mountain was solid here, and he’d discovered little of the timbering which could yield to rot and age and create death traps. There was one gallery he’d assiduously avoided after one look at its roof, and he’d encountered several flooded sections which had, obviously, ended exploration in those directions. Still, he’d hiked more than a few miles under the earth’s surface, marking the walls as he went, always trailing his string behind him in case of disaster.

  Now he paused, just inside the shaft he’d discovered so many years before, brushing matted snow off the front of his parka with mittened hands. The short hike from Summit House to the shaft entrance had been enormously harder than he’d let himself expect. The wind was even more violent than he’d thought, listening to it howl around the lodge, and the temperature was still falling. He and Tohmys had transported a small stack of essential supplies to the shaft the day after they arrived at the lodge, and it was just as well they hadn’t waited. Just the knapsacks each of them wore had been burdensome enough under the current conditions.

  He finished slapping off as much as he could of the thick skim of snow, then tugged off one mitten and dragged out his fire- striker. It was cold enough, and his hand was shivering enough, that it took him longer than usual to get the bull’s-eye lantern lit, but its glow once he got the wick alight was ample compensation for his efforts. Most people might have been excused for thinking that the bare, cold rock of the escape shaft’s walls could be considered a welcoming sight, but “most people” weren’t Zhasyn Cahnyr and didn’t know the Inquisition was simply biding its time before it pounced.

  “Well, so far so good!” he said cheerfully. “Aye?” Tohmys regarded him skeptically in the lantern glow. “And how far would ‘so far’ be being, Your Eminence?”

  “The Writ tells us the longest journey begins with the first step,” Cahnyr replied serenely.

  “So it does, Your Eminence, and I’m not one to be arguing with the Archangels. Still and all, though, it occurs to me we’ve quite a few other steps to be taking.”

  “Now that, Fraidmyn, is a very sound doctrinal point.” Cahnyr picked up the lantern and lifted his pole of the two- man, two- wheeled cart on which their supplies were stacked. “Shall we go?” he invited.

  Several hours later, Cahnyr’s legs felt about as tired as they’d ever felt.

  It had been some time since he’d been this deep in the mine, and he’d forgotten how far it was. Or, rather, he’d been younger the last time he’d been here, so he hadn’t allowed for how much longer it had become in the interim. And it was going to be a great deal longer before they came out on the other side. In fact, it was going to be evening again by the time they could get there.

  He smiled wearily at the thought, sitting on the edge of the cart, gnawing on the sandwich Tohmys had offered him. The bread was thick- sliced, and the meat, cheese, and onions were delicious. He’d have liked a little lettuce, as well, but lettuce wasn’t something one saw a lot of in Glacierheart in the winter. He’d considered for years having a green house added to the archbishop’s palace, and he’d always meant to get around to it. Now, though...He brushed that thought aside, dug out his watch, and tilted it enough to make out its face in the lantern light. It was always easy to become disconnected from the world’s time down here deep in the earth. With no sight of sun or sky, no contact with weather, it was more difficult to estimate the passing hours than someone who’d never made the attempt might have guessed. At least the mine maintained a constant, unwavering temperature, although he would never have made the mistake of calling it “warm,” and despite the need to weave their way through the complex pattern of underground passages, they’d made much better time than they would have made into the teeth of the blizzard howling around the outside of the mountain. Still, they had to reach their destination within the “window of time” his mysterious letter writer had defined.

  “We need to move on,” he said after swallowing a mouthful of sandwich. “No doubt.” Tohmys handed him a deep mug filled with beer. “And as soon as you’ve finished that sandwich, it’s moving on we’ll be.”

  “I can chew and walk at the same time,” Cahnyr said mildly, putting his watch back into his pocket in order to free up his hand and accept the mug. “For that matter, I can swallow and walk at the same time, if I concentrate hard.”

  “The fact that you can do it isn’t to say as how you do it well, Your Eminence,” his unimpressed henchman responded. “Now eat.”

  Cahnyr looked at him for a moment, then shook his head—but meekly, meekly!— and ate.

  “And did stopping to eat put us behind schedule after all, Your Eminence?”

  There was only the merest trace of satisfaction, by Fraidmyn Tohmys’ standards, in the question, and Cahnyr shook his head in resignation. The only thing worse than Tohmys’ being right about something like this were the almost unheard of occasions when he was wrong. At which point, he could become extremely difficult for a mere archbishop to put up with.

  “No, Fraidmyn, we’re actually a bit early,” he admitted. “Fancy that, now,” Tohmys murmured. Cahnyr very carefully failed to hear the comment.

  “So now what do we do, Your Eminence?” the valet asked after a moment. “We poke our heads outside and see what the weather looks like,” Tannyr said, gathering up the bull’s-eye lantern, and proceeded to do just that.

  He had to crouch as he approached the mouth of the tunnel. As nearly as he’d been able to determine from his explorations, the tunnel through which he was now making his way had been driven—probably—many years after the main mine had been abandoned. It had come from the outside, and he wondered how the people digging it had reacted when they’d broken through and discovered that someone else had already dug out the coal they’d hoped to discover.

  Fortunately, they hadn’t had to go all that far to make the discovery. The tunnel was barely a hundred yards long, and it had never been more than a rough- edged shaft. He had to pick his way with a certain degree of care, especially since he didn’t want to get too close to the tunnel mouth with a lit lantern. About fifteen yards from the end of the tunnel, he closed the lantern’s slide and proceeded slowly and cautiously, one hand feeling along the wall.

  He felt the cold intensifying as he got closer and closer to the mountainside, and he wondered, once again, what had inspired the letter writer to pick the spot for which he and Tohmys were bound as one of the rendezvous he’d set up. It was a logical enough choice, in a lot of ways: a modest, backcountry posting house at a crossroads. Not on the main high road, but where two country roads—mountain country roads—met and nodded to one another in passing before they continued on their ways. One of those roads, although it was very little used in the winter, linked two minor cities, just over a hundred miles apart. The twisting, turning, climbing, and diving nature of mountain roads explained why people usually chose to use the high road which skirted the central mass of the Tairys Range and, while longer, traveled through what passed for bottomlands in Glacierheart.

  The second road was even less heavily used in winter. It headed generally southwest, towards the southern edge of the Tairys Range and the city of Mountain Lake on the shore of Glacierborn Lake.

  This time of year, there wouldn’t be much traffic for the posting house to serve. The owners would be delighted to see any customers they could get, and it was isolated enough to make it unlikely that news that a stranger was hanging about would reach Tairys before the “time window” closed and he was gone. On the other hand, it wasn’t exactly conveniently located from the perspective of the archbishop’s palace. In fact, it was almost eighty miles from Tairys as a wyvern might have flown, and over three hundred by road. Assuming there’d been a road from Summit Ho
use to the crossroads, Cahnyr would still have to have crossed the better part of forty- five miles of winter mountainside. Of course, thanks to the abandoned coal mine, he and Tohmys would emerge from their subterranean passage little more than fifteen miles from their destination, but someone writing from what had to be Zion could scarcely have counted on that. From that distant a perspective, this was clearly the least convenient of the three rendezvous points the letter writer had proposed, and the archbishop suspected it was actually little more than a last- hope fallback position. It seemed unlikely anyone could have genuinely expected Cahnyr to somehow reach the posting house.

  And now that we’re here,Cahnyr thought, picking his way cautiously through the blackness, I still don’t know how I’m supposed to walk into the posting house and make contact. It’s not exactly as if I’m the least well known man in Glacier-heart! I can always hope no one will recognize me this far from Tairys, but somehow I think counting on it might not be the smartest thing I could possibly do. So how do I discreetly—

  His thoughts chopped off, and he froze as his dark- accustomed eyes suddenly widened. Light! There was light ahead, and—

  “Actually, Your Eminence,” a voice said from ahead of him, “I rather expected you last night.”

  Cahnyr’s eyes went wider than ever. It couldn’t be! “Gharth?!” he heard his own voice say hoarsely. “Well,” his secretary said, emerging around the bend in the tunnel with his own bull’s-eye lantern and smiling broadly, “having me involved did make delivering that letter a bit easier, now didn’t it, Your Eminence?”

  “You’re mad, Gharth,” Zhasyn Cahnyr said with soft, firm emphasis several minutes later. “God knows I’ve spent years keeping you clear of all this! And you’re a father—and Sahmantha’s pregnant, for Pasquale’s sake!”