A Secret Atlas

by Michael A. Stackpole

  Three miles in, the canyon opened onto a narrow valley that continued for another couple of miles before closing in again. Moraven could not see to the far end, but found it easy to imagine that the trail led to the top of the escarpment. It looked to be a fairly convenient way to move to the highlands, and doubtless was used by people and animals alike.

  It was not without its perils, however. Three hundred yards into the valley sat a small pool of water roughly thirty feet in diameter. Not a ripple showed on its surface, and the sun reflected brightly from it. Given that much of the water in the Dolosan lowlands had a brackish quality to it, this pool looked quite inviting.

  The only thing that spoiled the image was the circle of bleached skeletons and fresh bodies around it. Most lay with their heads facing the pool but a few, including one of the bandits, had been running from it. The circle touched the valley’s east and west walls, and several skeletons huddled against the stone—including a couple of warriors in armor.

  Moraven reined up, and the others spread out in the small safe zone nearest the canyon, with the Viruk squatting in a thin slice of shadow to the east. The horses stamped and shied, not wanting to linger in this place of death.

  Keles patted his horse’s neck. “I don’t blame you for not liking it here.”

  Ciras rode up beside Moraven and pointed his quirt at one of the bandits. “That is Pegleg and the dead bay is his horse. The other two are Cutheel and Solehole. Pegleg went down first, and Cutheel next, knocked out of his saddle. Solehole went down with his horse and tried to run. He may have even dived for Cutheel’s horse—that, or fell—then tried to crawl away before dying.”

  “I think your reading is correct.” Moraven used a hand to shield his eyes from the sun and peered more closely at the bandits. From where he sat, he couldn’t see what had killed the horses, but Solehole had a hole in his overshirt right over his spine. It appeared to be a burn mark, with considerable scorching around it. One of the armored skeletons also seemed to have a hole in his breastplate, but it was too far distant for Moraven to figure out what had caused it.

  He slid from the saddle. “There definitely seems to be a perimeter. Stay back. I want to see what happens when—”

  “If I might make a suggestion, Master Tolo?”

  Ciras spitted Borosan with a harsh stare. “Quiet, gyanridin. My Master knows what he is doing.”

  Moraven laughed. “Actually, I don’t. I would welcome a suggestion.”

  “It would have been easier had we not abandoned my wagon at Telarunde, but I’ll make do.” Borosan climbed down off his horse and walked back to the packhorse he’d been leading. He opened a pouch and pulled out the mouser. “We can use this to see what is out there.”

  The swordsman nodded. “Excellent idea.”

  The gyanridin bowled the mouser into the circle and it snapped its legs out the instant it stopped rolling. The little metal ball scuttled forward, then left and right, slowly closing with the dead bay.

  The pool reacted. As if a rock had dropped at its heart, a ripple spread out in a perfect ring. It hit the edges, but instead of lapping over, it reversed and sped back in. It picked up speed, and when it converged at the center, a column of water shot ten feet into the air. A spherical drop leaped up and hung there, glistening in the sunlight as the column flowed down again.

  The sphere throbbed and altered its shape. It flattened into a disk, then thickened in the middle. Sunlight flashed through it, and suddenly the mouser began to smoke. The little gyanrigot continued its dash toward the dead horse and the zigzagging course forced the disk to shift shape and reposition itself. Several black char marks dappled the mouser’s shell, but it reached the dead horse and hid between haunch and tail.

  A final puff of smoke matched the curling of tail hair. The disk became a sphere again and floated there. Light played through it slowly and languidly. It appeared almost inviting and certainly benign.

  And had I not seen what I have just seen, my thirst might have driven me to accept the pool’s hospitality.

  The Keru crouched at the edge of the death circle. “I don’t know what it is. I don’t know if it is alive, so I don’t know if we can kill it. I don’t know if we should even try, but I’ve grown to be fond of that little mouser.”

  “It would be a pity to lose it.” Moraven ran a hand over his jaw, then glanced right at Ciras. “What are you doing?”

  His apprentice neatly folded his overshirt and began to draw off his shirt, despite the chill air. “I am the swiftest among us. I will run to the mouser and retrieve it. If I dodge as it did, the sphere will be unable to kill me.”

  Sacrificing yourself for something you despise? Perhaps there is hope for you, Ciras. Moraven held a hand up. “That may be a bit premature. Master Gryst, can you not recall your mouser?”

  Borosan frowned. “I’m afraid I can’t. The last thing I used it for, if you will recall, was going into a hole to see if there was any thaumston secreted there. It went for the horse because, I would imagine, the saddle pack has some thaumston. Once it has detected it, it will keep going for it and I’ve not enough here to bring it back in this direction.”

  The clatter of armor and bones sounded over by Rekarafi. The Viruk tossed a helmeted skull at the sphere, but missed. As the missile flew past, the water flowed into a disk and concentrated sunlight melted the helmet.

  “No matter you are faster than us, Master Dejote, you need to be faster than it.” The Viruk shook his shaggy head. “You are not that fast.”

  Ciras ignored him and began to stretch. “I will not fail, Master.”

  “Wait, I have an idea.” Keles started to rummage around in his saddlebag, then dismounted. “Borosan, that thing was focusing sunlight to burn the mouser, right?”

  “I believe it was.” The gyanridin smiled broadly. “Yes, how incredibly efficient. As long as the sun is shining, it has a limitless source of power, and if it can do the same with moonlight and starlight, which it must do since some of those skeletons are of purely nocturnal animals, then . . .”

  Ciras shook his head. “There isn’t a cloud in the sky. Speed will be the key.”

  Keles shrugged his shoulders. “You could be right. Let me look at something here, though.” He tossed his horse’s reins to Tyressa, then jogged around to the west along the perimeter of the circle. Almost opposite where the Viruk crouched, he dropped to a knee and studied the pool. He weighed the leather pouch in his left hand, then undid the thongs tying it tight. He clearly measured the distance to the pool, and Moraven had no doubt the cartographer could estimate it down to the inch.

  Then, instead of coming back to tell them how far it was and calculating how fast Ciras would have to run, Keles sprang to his feet and sprinted. He drove straight at the pool, leaping over piles of bleached bones and cutting around the half-melted helmet. His legs pumped and sand flew with every step. With his head down and arms swinging, he ran faster than Moraven would have thought possible.

  His speed really didn’t matter, though.

  The motion in the sphere quickened. Ripples formed on its surface and the light swirled through it. The disk flattened as it had before. The center swelled. Sunlight silvered the edges. Because Keles charged straight at it, the disk didn’t have to swivel to aim. It just tipped down effortlessly, tracking him with all the cold deliberation of a raptor soaring above a rabbit.

  Moraven would have shouted a warning, but a cry of “Brilliant!” from Borosan stopped him. For a heartbeat the swordsman thought the gyanridin was describing the disk’s performance, but then he saw what Borosan was seeing.

  “Faster, Keles, you’re almost there!”

  Keles laughed in triumphant panic. His chosen path started in sunlight, but carried him into a narrow wedge of darkness. An outcropping of stone high up on the canyon’s wall cast a slender shadow into the pool’s heart. Another minute or two and the sun would have shifted enough to rob him of this passage, but Keles had seen it and acted instantly.


  But what will he do when he reaches the pool?

  Chest heaving, the cartographer dropped to his knees, powdering an ancient skull at the pool’s edge. He flicked the leather pouch skyward. A black jet of powder shot out and peppered the disk. The disk boiled and darkened as Keles upended the bag and emptied its remaining contents into the pool. The same inky blackness that had flooded the disk flowed through the pool, rendering both opaque.

  Tyressa clapped her hands. “Of course, ground inkstone.”

  Keles, his face blackened by ink dust save for his teeth and eyes, laughed aloud. “If light can’t move through it, it can’t burn anything.”

  Moraven applauded. “Well done, Master Keles.”

  The swordmaster’s companion scowled. “How did you know that would work?”

  Keles shook his head. “Running into the shadow just made sense.”

  Ciras nodded. “I know. I had seen it, but it was not near the mouser. I meant the inkstone.”

  The cartographer sat back on his haunches. “I didn’t think if it would work or not.”

  “Perhaps we need to consider how long it will continue to work.” Moraven climbed into the saddle again and reined his horse around. “If it is alive, it might purge itself of the ink. If it is just magic, it may do so faster. I would suggest haste.”

  Nodding, Keles scrambled to his feet and retrieved the mouser. “Do you want the thaumston, too?”

  “Please, yes. Never can have too much.”

  “Ciras, get what you can from the bandit bodies, including any other thaumston. Maybe there will be clues to let us learn who they are.” Moraven took the reins of Ciras’ horse. “Be quick about it. If this canyon does go through, we’ll be in the uplands ahead of them. Knowing where they are going and what they are planning will make our journey much easier.”

  Chapter Forty-two

  10th day, Month of the Tiger, Year of the Rat

  9th Year of Imperial Prince Cyron’s Court

  163rd Year of the Komyr Dynasty

  737th year since the Cataclysm

  Wentokikun, Moriande

  Nalenyr

  Prince Cyron read Prince Eiran’s ire as if it were written in the blackest of ink on the most pristine of papers, but he did not care. Snow had fallen during the day—fallen pure and white, no longer something to scare children. Cyron could see it as a thing of beauty, not a harbinger of evil times, and greatly enjoyed walking in it in his garden sanctuary.

  The rising moon made the snow glow, and provided enough light for him to see the nocturnal animals begin to stir in their enclosures. Some of them did not tolerate the cold well and remained nestled in their burrows until their keepers came to feed them, but his favorites heard his tread and his voice, emerging to watch him pass in hopes of a treat.

  Cyron paused before one small cage and smiled. In it, a clouded linsang had crawled into a wooden branch. Tan-furred with thick black stripes and dots running the length of its sinuous body, it struck the Prince as a cross between a cat and a weasel. Much like you, Eiran, save you lack its grace, poise, and charm. Cyron clicked his tongue at it and the creature’s narrow head came up.

  “This one, Prince Eiran, came from the southernmost reaches of Ummummorar. Jorim Anturasi brought it and its mate back for me. Though it tolerates being caged, it would much prefer I give it the run of the garden. I can’t, however, because it likes to eat eggs and that disturbs the birds I have.”

  Eiran, looking poorly for his fast ride to Moriande and the fact that he’d not been received the night before, did not even attempt to feign interest. “It has something in common with my sister, then.”

  “Your sister sucks eggs, does she?” Cyron opened his cloak and brought out a small basket that held a clutch of tiny blue eggs. He lifted one to the bars of the cage and the linsang sat up. The creature accepted the egg in its forepaws, then cracked it and began to lick at the oozing albumen.

  “No, Prince Cyron, she, too, is a captive. Prince Pyrust has her. They are probably back in Felarati, living as husband and wife.”

  “Thank you for reminding me. I shall have to send them a gift.”

  Eiran began to tremble with rage, his pale face purpling. Had Cyron not long since mastered his own anger, his face would have been similarly contorted. He had not anticipated that the Council of Ministers for Helosunde would choose a prince to lead them so quickly, and he certainly never would have thought Eiran would be their choice. Jasai would have been a better choice than Eiran; but Helosundians only seemed to revere women as mothers, concubines, or the Keru, and she fit none of those categories. He had no doubt that Eiran had been advanced so someone else could move into the succession through marrying her, and Pyrust was doing just that. And the only way to blunt his claim on the Helosundian throne would be to keep Eiran alive, when he wanted nothing more than to toss the idiot and those who elected him to the tigers.

  Cyron had thought that if the ministers were going to make a quick choice, they would pick General Pades. He had the military background to make him the logical choice. Pyrust had seen how dangerous he was, and had doubtlessly taken great delight in charging Eiran with bringing Pades’ severed head to Cyron.

  The retaking of Meleswin had killed the most able military leaders outside the Keru, and had harvested the most able-bodied of the Helosundians. The mercenaries—termed Honor Guards to assuage the gods and appease human vanities—remained in their fortresses in the mountain passes. Pyrust still would be neither strong nor foolish enough to venture south, especially with snow falling, so the situation in the north would remain static until the spring.

  I could but hope for a long and deep winter. Not only would it keep him home, but would give me an excuse to skip a shipment of rice. Cyron sighed as he dismissed that thought. The Desei people were as much captives as the linsang, and if Cyron did not feed them, they would starve. He did not want that happening.

  He shook his head and moved on, hearing Eiran crunch snow beneath his feet as he followed. In the songs of heroes there usually was a verse or two about some great hardship a hero witnessed that prompted him to do great good later in life. Were he worthy of such a song, a bard somewhere would manufacture some incident that explained why Cyron did not let the Desei starve. Perhaps it would be his having rescued some exotic animal from the Moriande bazaar and nursed it back to health. He would have seen it as his calling to do that for the Desei and, perhaps, eventually, the whole Empire.

  Cyron would have found it a comfort if such a thing had actually happened. If it had, he could have put it in perspective, defined it, and seen its limitations. He could work around it when necessary. Having his enemy weakened by starvation would be a benefit, but he could not bring himself to do that.

  His father or grandfather could have, without batting an eye; but they’d grown up in a more difficult time, when ruthlessness was a virtue. For him, with his father’s program of exploration, he saw the world as one of expanding resources, not a limited supply that necessitated rationing. Trade was making his nation strong and providing benefits to all, which made most of his people happy—and those who were not were just impatient because wealth was taking its time in trickling down to them. Even they, however, had to admit that he was spending money on projects that benefited them, like dredging the Gold River.

  Because his nation was master of a growing world, he had the time to look past the divisions that had separated the parts of the old Empire. During the Time of Black Ice, the Principalities had become fiercely nationalistic. They needed that sense of self to give them purpose and unite them in common adversity. The snows that fell all but isolated them, so they really had little news of and contact with the rest of the world. People barely had enough to survive, so trade was seen as a luxury, and wood more useful for heat than for building ships to explore.

  The other Princes, when they did give thought to the old Empire, saw it as a place split up by a warrior-Empress and one that, therefore, would have to be reunited by the s
word. There was no doubt that Cyrsa had divided the Empire among families that would compete with each other for power. She had done that because she assumed none of them would become ascendant and be able to oppose her on her return. What was expedient for a year or two, however, had become entrenched and unworkable after the Cataclysm.

  Cyron didn’t see the need for conquest by the sword. The Helosundians seemed content to remain bought. Erumvirine enjoyed the expansion of trade and didn’t seem to mind that their access to the rest of the world came through Nalenyr. Their more moderate climate lent itself to a lifestyle that rewarded lazy indolence. The Virine slumbered like the Bear that represented them and, at this point, Cyron doubted the Bear would be much of a threat were it ever roused.

  In another generation I could join the houses through marriage and merge our nations.

  “My brother, you have heard nothing of what I have said.”

  Cyron stopped and regarded Eiran coldly. “Look about you, my brother. What do you see?”

  “Snow. A garden. Cages. Animals.”

  “Now really look.”

  Eiran slumped his shoulders beneath a snow-flecked cloak. “I see what I have told you.”

  Cyron nodded. “Then tell me what you don’t see.”

  “I don’t follow.”

  “No, you don’t, which is why you are in the muddle you are in now, and why your nephews and nieces will have a half-handed man as their father.” Cyron waved a hand along the row of cages. “Do you know what you will not see here, Eiran? You won’t see a dragon. Everything else, you will see. A Desei hawk, a Helosundian dog. Do you know why you won’t see a dragon?”

  The Helosundian snorted. “Because your vaunted Anturasi hasn’t found one?”

  “Oh, I daresay that if I asked Jorim to find me one, he would. He would find me a dozen and bring them all.” Cyron lowered his hand and let his cloak close about him. “It is because I would not cage a dragon. A dragon would wither and die in a cage. A dragon cannot be caged, for a dragon has larger concerns.”