Merchant and Empire

by Alma T. C. Boykin

  As if thought summoned beast, Lord Hugan plodded past, but slowly, head down and tail not moving. Tycho braced for a bird eruption. The lead great-hauler looked at the cat. Hugan ignored the female's regard and continued plodding. Even the wheel birds pretended the cat was not present. Once Hugan disappeared from view toward the imperial wagon, Tycho studied the great-haulers. "Had I not been here, I'd not believe you," he told them.

  "Seen and witnessed," Sigered called quietly from beside his team. "Perhaps Yoorst Himself had a word with them yester even'."

  "Or they are waiting until we relax and begin to congratulate ourselves on how well all goes, and someone suggests that we will arrive early and without any difficulties," another teamster grumbled. "Then they'll run wild and pay us back. Probably go lame on a bridge."

  "Aye, and then someone's wheel-beast will lame herself the moment we start movin' again, and the fuel wagon break an axel," Sigered replied.

  "And then two tires, and no smith able to make the repair," Tycho added. Radmar might be listening, after all.

  "Bwoa-urp." The ovstrala's fetid breath made Tycho's eyes water, and the teamsters groaned and waved their hands afore their faces.

  "Trweesssssss," the lead great-hauler complained, and the wheel birds echoed her sentiment. Tycho felt no compulsion to disagree with them.

  After a moment of gasping for fresher air and fanning, Sigered said, "Should a beast-mage discover a way to sweeten yon breath, t'would be a true gift."

  The guilty ovstrala wagged his tail and looked pleased with himself, or so it appeared through the flop of thick hair and wool over his eyes and down one side of his nose. Yoorst willing, the great-haulers would not take that as a challenge. When they burped, it meant that their food was not passing as it should, and they needed a purging drench, then a gravel feed. Borghind and Jokith would probably insist that Tycho take the afflicted bird at least a mile downwind before treating it, or they would if they had ever smelled the results of that particular malady. He was willing to pay prime silver to the beast mages for that sort of care, since he'd done it himself several times. Even the mere memory of the stench made his nose and sinuses ache.

  After a half mile or so of quiet, the teamster on Tycho's left opined, "Yoorst gave us beasts to keep men humble."

  The other men nodded. The lead great-hauler voiced her agreement with a piercing "Twreeee." And that was that.

  The sun had passed noon before the female mage in Tycho's wagon began to stir. The Progress stopped not long after, and he helped her down. She staggered and went from wagon to wagon, leaning heavily against them, as she made her way to her customary conveyance. Several men did likewise, and Tycho wondered if Trollanus had also suffered, or if he'd been allowed to withhold his strength so he could confirm that the water was clean that night. Not that a mage had to do it, since eyes and nose plus boiling the miasmas out of filtered water served almost as well.

  Where did the miasmas go when water boiled? Did the steam carry them away and the sun and fresh air destroy them the way they bleached linen and cured mildew? Perhaps fire purified water the way it helped the smiths purify metals. Were miasmas like base metals in good iron or gold? The doctors claimed that unbalanced natures made men and women weaker and more likely to be afflicted by miasmas. One of the master smiths had said that smelters had to be very careful or some ores released copper into iron, and that a man could never remove in the forge. Was it copper? Tycho remembered copper. Since men burned food inside themselves for heat, and bad fuel made smelting difficult, an unbalanced nature allowing miasmas to enter a body made sense. Besides, boiled water tasted better. Beer tasted even better than that.

  Tycho found a number of the other men and women lined up at a well when the Progress stopped. They took turns raising and lowering the bucket for those behind them, each only filling two water skins. The cool, clear weather didn't drain a man the way the southern heat, or mid-summer's long sultry days did. Tycho drank the rest of the water in his second water bag, then refilled both of them. The birds and ovstrala had a separate watering place, and everyone went in order of march, so the teams had a chance to rest a little while the others drank and were re-harnessed.

  Indeed, as he had suspected, they camped without magic. Tycho shrugged and ate, went to weapons practice, then slept well. It would be nice to have use of magical things, he mused before dozing off, but the gods had their ways and he couldn't.

  The next three days took them farther south, parallel to the coast. Trees grew scarce, something he did not recall from his last visit. No, he realized, young trees had not grown. The old trees remained strong, but nothing new replaced the old. The grass too appeared weaker, thinner, and tired. "I like this not," he said to Trollanus late that afternoon.

  "What?" The mage sounded tired, and had not spoken much all day.

  Tycho gestured to the land around them, but carefully. The animals acted uncomfortable, as if to make up for their quietude in the days before. "Everything seems weak, as if the life had left the soil, or miasmas have sickened it. No new trees, no young animals, the very grass seems thin."

  "You are not far wrong, Master Tycho. Were you a magic worker, you would see that the vital nature of the land is far less than it should be. Something has taken the life from the soil and all that depends on it, and I fear that may be the answer to why the strange animals. Things should begin to improve soon, now that a barrier protects the life in the land, but it will take time." He touched the red saka in silver that he wore around his neck. "Whoever has chosen to do this... the gods do not tolerate such abuse of their ground for long."

  Tycho cringed. The Lady of Waters was harsh enough when men simply grew careless. What would Gember, Korvaal, Yoorst do to men and women who deliberately slighted them and corrupted the gifts the gods had given to all men? He knew very well what they did, and he wanted to be far, far away from any man or woman who dared that insanity.

  "Those from south of the mountains have much to answer for," Trollanus stated. He stared ahead, the set of his mouth and shoulders suggesting to Tycho that the topic had come to an end. For his part, Tycho did not care to learn more. To mistake the will of the gods' for one's own, well, all men had that difficulty or so the priests often warned. But to commit such blasphemy against gods and men, knowingly? No, such knowledge should have been buried along with the Great Cold. Tycho turned his thoughts to other matters, such as how probable higher prices for hides and timber were, and if it would be worth investing in a brood-stock farm to re-supply the lands to the south if demand grew that strong. He still had not come to a decision by the time they reached the pfalz that evening.

  The pfalz resembled nothing so much as a large farm, or so it seemed as Tycho guided his wagon into place that evening. A long, two-floor building crouched atop a hill with some trees around it. Fruit trees sat to the side, as did a series of chapels to several of the gods. One bore a symbol Tycho did not recognize, four sweeping lines that angled from upper right to lower left and that bore traces of blue paint on the white stone. They seemed faintly wave-like, or wind-blown water, and so perhaps they were a local variant that marked Donwah's abode. He would look later, after he found the place for the great-haulers. They had become more and more subdued but watchful as the day had passed. He too felt uncomfortable, as if a storm lurked below the horizon—too far to see but close enough to draw scents from the ground and waters.

  No one slept well that night. "You know where we are?" Amund the courier inquired the next morning as they broke their fast.

  "Near the Moahne, but I don't know how near, sir. This is far from the main trade roads." The senior merchants did not venture here. Smaller traders and locals catered to this sort of trade, buying from the trafelds or fairs and then adding a little for themselves as they took the wares to even smaller towns. He left that sort of thing to locals and to his factors and agents.

  "Two hours by foot from the river. We stop here. His Most Imperial Majesty received word
that this was the place to wait for a sign." Amund sounded glad. Tycho decided that he'd look for a place for the birds to dust. He did not care to curry them if he did not have to. It was dirty work, the sort of thing apprentices were for.

  He took his staff and waterskin and set out in growing circles from the pfalz, looking for something suitable. He found one possibility, and poked the dirt with his staff. It felt hard as the surrounding rock. No, not what he needed, and he most emphatically did not care to come back with a pick and loosen the soil. He traded, not mined. The Scavenger likely took exception to a merchant doing a miner's task. A second possibility also proved unworkable but for the opposite reason. The foul, steaming water oozing into the low place reeked of disease, and he hurried away. He glanced at a third spot and shook his head, but a fourth proved workable. it was a bit farther from the camp than he wanted to be, but half a loaf satisfied far better than no bread.

  He returned to camp in time to find Trollanus looking for him. "Ah, Master Tycho. I go to see the new mouth of the Moahne. Come with me. His Majesty wishes to have non-magical eyes look at the river as well, and report what we see."

  Tycho hesitated, then decided. "Allow me to refill my water skin and I will come." He also exchanged his smaller hat for one with a larger brim, because the glare on the bare rocks had become harsh. No wonder no one had claimed the land around the pfalz—only grazers could be happy here, and then not so many. Summer... ugh.

  The two men walked due south, then a little west. Ahead, he could see a blue line to the west that marked the sea, and a second darker one due south. "I have heard that men shun the Moahne," the mage half-asked.

  "Aye. If the gods made a less useful river, I have not heard of it. In summer it runs too low for boats, and when the spring flood comes, the rocks and cataracts make it deadly even if there is sufficient water. Only at Moahnabrig can man cross it with any ease." Tycho nodded toward the darker line. "And it flows hundreds of feet below the land. Hard to tie up and rest on vertical rock."

  "True."

  Tycho picked his way around some larger rocks, mindful of snakes. "The mouth is to be avoided, or was until last year. The water flows into the sea unevenly, churns the waters and makes them hard to read, and hides rocks. A last insult, as it were."

  "I believe it is different now." Trollanus nodded to the dark line. "Very different."

  Tycho had only seen the mouth of the Moahne once, and that from sea and a safe distance away. Now he approached the edge of the chasm warily, poking and prodding the pock-marked ground ahead of him with his staff. None of the holes seemed deep, or to have residents, but ground should not look so. It reminded him of one of the kitchen graters, the kind the smiths made by driving a pointed punch through thinner metal and leaving rough edges. What had pushed through the soil, kicking out rocks and dirt both?

  Beside him, Trollanus looked left and right the way some hunting dogs searched. His nostrils flared and he leaned back, glanced at the sky from beneath the edge of his hat, then returned his gaze to the ground ahead of them. "Water," he stated. "Something brought the water below the ground up to the surface, pushing through all at once, like water boiling in a pot of grain."

  The very idea made Tycho consider reversing his steps and hurrying back to the camp. But he'd decided to see the river for himself, and had agreed to report what he saw, so he continued on. Even so, he tried even harder to avoid looking into the holes or stepping too close to the raised mounds of dirt. The soil was yellowy-brown, not rich black like the fields in the north. What made it so? Ahead he heard more water noises. He glanced up. A large bird circled over the river, climbing up and up on invisible stairs, as if it would soar to the very sun. He looked down again, and saw something shimmer and flash. Without thinking he stopped, reached down, and picked up what appeared to be a coin. No, it was a round, flat rock with a silvery sheen to it, and smooth. It felt heavy for the size, and Tycho guessed it was false-silver. He dropped it into his belt pouch and walked on, catching up with Trollanus.

  The men climbed up a small roll in the land and stopped. "I believe we should go no farther," the mage said.

  "Aye." That was all Tycho could find breath to say. He'd never seen anything like the river below them. Water, brown with soil, licked and surged, racing between black-green cliffs polished by the water's force. Or were they? Something about the stone struck Tycho as unnatural. The water now flowed smoothly, no longer choked by enormous blocks of stone. He leaned forward and peered upstream, as if he thought he could see the six cascades that blocked the river farther to the east. Instead he saw brown water, still flowing steadily with only the most modest of swells and pools. An entire tree floated into view, the top still green and leafy, and Tycho's jaw sagged open. Either the smallest tree south of the ice bobbed on the water, or the river was far, far larger than it had seemed from the sea those years ago. His eyes followed it until it departed through the end of the land and into the sea, where brown waters met blue.

  "Should Sanchohaakon wish to belabor the problem of the Moahne as a point against His Most Imperial Majesty," Trollanus observed after a long silence, "I believe he will be laughed out of camp."

  Tycho snorted. "I fear, sir, that he will acknowledge the improvements and then complain because the water is not sufficiently high to permit ships to dock here," he pointed down at the ground between them and the edge of the cliff.

  "He should be careful what he suggests. It is said that during the Time of Cold, as you call it, the sea fled the shore for tens of miles, retreating from the cold. Should Donwah or Sneelah ever choose, the ice might retreat farther and the sea seek space farther inland." Trollanus blinked a few times. "A small part of me wishes to see just such an event, and to watch his face as his land disappears under the waters. A very small part."

  "No, thank you, sir." Tycho had seen that very thing and preferred never to watch it again. They'd been blessed—the wares-house had remained above water, although the back garden suffered the inundation. "When the gods move, men do not fare well, at least that I have seen." The Lady of the Waters did not have a reputation for mercy, or for leaving the land she touched undamaged.

  "As I said, a small part. Let's look west, and see if that new beach is truly there, then return to camp." Trollanus turned and began picking his way downstream. Tycho followed, keeping in the mage's footprints.

  From the northern edge of the cliff, they could see the enormous new beach, and indeed, it appeared as if the land had been cut into stairs, leaving easier access to the top of the cliffs. Tycho did not care to be the first to climb down, but the site had far more promise than the original sheer drop. Nothing could fall onto your head from the top of the headland now, he observed. That alone would be a blessing from ships trying to hide from storms. In fact, it would make trade with Chin'mai far easier, because they could build a port right here, and ships could water and refit, assuming someone cared to build and to bring in timbers and iron and all the other things needed. That was, if the Moahne's waters did not reveal some new problem, and if a way could be found upstream to permit access from the land to the river. Tycho shuddered to imagine what porters would charge to carry barrels of fish and bales of hides up stairs cut into stone this high. Perhaps Moahnebrig would become a great river-sea port, if the gods could be persuaded to blow the wind from west to east hard enough, long enough. That would show that nasty bit of a toll taker. Tycho savored the prospect for a moment, then sighed a little. Radmar would likely see that the man purchased the repair concession at the new port and became wealthier than the Duke of Milunis.

  The men walked back to camp. The ground along the sea-edge did not have the same pock marks and felt more solid, although Tycho didn't trust it entirely. He recalled the stories about entire chunks of cliff crashing down as Donwah's waters gnawed on the land, extending her claims. Had that also happened when the Great Northern Emperor brought down the land to the south of the river and smoothed the river's bed? The stone had to go som
ewhere, unless he had shattered it the way lightning shattered trees, and even then chips and fragments of wood and bark remained. Such things were too great for ordinary men to understand, Tycho mused once more. They found a sweet stream and followed it inland, past the edge of another stinking pool, and to the spill of blue and white that marked the imperial tent city.

  9

  News and Warnings

  Tycho let Trollanus lead the way to the imperial tent. They waited for a moment or two, then washed their hands and faces before entering the imperial presence. Two men in strange garb waited there as well, and Tycho blinked a little as he recognized the loose trousers and long vests of Chin'mai. Before he could do more than startle, the Great Northern Emperor saw him and Trollanus, and nodded. A courtier beckoned them to come forward.

  "What have you found?" the emperor asked. Lord Hugan sat up, leaning forward a little, as if equally interested.

  Trollanus spoke first. "Most Imperial Majesty, we went south first. The ground is marked as where earth shakes bring water up through the soil. The river now flows smoothly, although still through a chasm as far east as eyes can see. The mouth has opened well, and the rocks appear smooth. A large tree floated past, so the spring rise has reached the mouth, as was expected. I saw no remaining traces of magical working, and no sign of anyone building a crossing point yet."