The Way Into Chaos: Book One of the Great Way

by Harry Connolly

  His gaze met Tejohn’s for a long breath. I have been discovered.

  But no. There was no spark of recognition in Tyr Gerrit’s face.

  Tejohn was invisible. Dressed as a servant, he was so far beneath the notice of the people he had known that they couldn’t even see him.

  The tyrs and their soldiers strode back to their carts. Tyr Finstel was insisting on something with a young man’s impatience. Tyr Gerrit assured him there was time enough for their plans to be finished.

  As Tejohn pulled the cart toward the tower gate, the guard at the front shouted at him, “You’d better have brought us enough this time. Last night was chilly!”

  “I bring what I’m given to bring, sir,” Tejohn said, flushing with shame as he spoke.

  The guard slapped him on the side of the head, but Tejohn saw the blow coming and rolled with it. Still, he knew better than to show he hadn’t been hurt; he sprawled to the side, rolling across the dried, packed dirt. The guard stood over him, the corner of his mouth turned up with satisfaction. “Who are you? Where is the usual man?”

  A familiar tension ran through Tejohn’s limbs. Not even days of servitude could stifle his urge to start killing. “Ondel Ulstrik, sir. I don’t know about the usual man. They don’t tell me anything.”

  “Pah. Get up!” The guard banged twice on the door, turning his back to Tejohn as he opened it.

  It wasn’t much of a tower. It wasn’t as high or as broad as the Scholars’ Tower in the palace, or even the commanders’ towers in the forts. It had been built with stones of every shape and shade of gray, all held together with mortar. Tejohn didn’t much trust mortar; it crumbled too easily, then what did you have? A pile of stones to mark your grave.

  The lower level of the tower was lit only by a fire in the open hearth and daylight streaming in from the second floor mezzanine. Tejohn pulled his cart into the main hall. The floor was same stone slab, but it had been swept of the dried mud and loose stone that covered the servants’ path. There were two guards in here, both standing bored at opposite ends of the room. In the exact center, a wooden grate was set into the floor.

  Tejohn began to stack the wood into the empty wooden platform beside the hearth. What excuse could he make to get close enough to the grate to look at the person down inside? His only idea was to drop a piece of firewood so it rolled toward the center of the room, but that was too obvious.

  “Bring a third of that upstairs,” one of the guards said.

  The stairs up to the second floor didn’t bring him near the grate. Two more guards walked around the stone mezzanine, slowing as they passed their little fire. The peaked roof above was supported by four stone columns. Tejohn wondered idly what it would take to break them, the way the ruhgrit had crushed their flying cart.

  From the inner edge of the mezzanine, he looked down to the first floor, but beyond the wooden grate on the floor he could see only darkness.

  Helpless frustration burned in him. Ellifer Italga could be right down there but Tejohn could do nothing about it. Still, it was time for a tactical retreat.

  As he turned the wagon around in the narrow hall, one of the guards called, “Hey! Come over here.”

  The other guard said, “Kyun, not again.”

  Kyun ignored him. “Pull up that man’s waste bucket and dump it in the hole outside.”

  “Kyun, that’s your job.”

  “Watch Commander delegated it to me, and I’m delegating it to this rock-wit here. It’s a rock-wit task, isn’t it?”

  “Kyun—”

  “Yes, sir,” Tejohn said, using the same slow voice he’d used among the refugees on the road. He padded out into the center of the room and crouched over the grate. It wasn’t locked into place. He lifted it and set it aside.

  Fire and Fury, it was deep and dark. Tejohn could see someone moving down there, but only barely. He certainly couldn’t tell who it was. Here he was, right where he’d said he would need to be, and he’d still failed.

  A rope was tied off to a hook set just below the rim of the pit. Tejohn pulled it up, raising a stinking bucket of waste up to his hand. He untied it, still peering down into the darkness but unable to make out the face there.

  From the darkness: “My Tyr Treygar?”

  Tejohn recognized that voice instantly. It was Doctor Twofin.

  “Hey!” not-Kyun shouted. “No talking allowed! Fire and Fury, this is what I was talking about, Kyun!”

  Tejohn backed away, holding the bucket in front of him.

  “You!” not-Kyun shouted. “What did he say? Did he give you a message?”

  “No, sir!” Tejohn tried to shrink himself down and appear afraid. “I don’t even understand what he said.”

  “Tyr Treygar!” Twofin shouted out of the bottom of the pit. “Tyr Treygar, release me! I’ve been loyal to the Italgas, I swear! Tyr Treygar!”

  Not-Kyun stared at Tejohn, and Tejohn gave him an empty stare right back. The other guard was directly behind him, of course, and Tejohn let his fear of a knife in the back show in his expression. After a breath or two, not-Kyun sighed bitterly and said, “Put that down and get out. And there better not be any gossip about this, or it will be your head. Kyun, why don’t you do your Fire-taken job?”

  Outside the tower, Tejohn saw that the flying carts were gone, and so were Tyrs Gerrit and Finstel. His head was spinning, but he knew two things: he no longer needed to find a driver, and he had to get Doctor Twofin out of that cell tonight.

  Chapter 30

  Compared to hauling stone, cutting and carrying wood was light work, but Tejohn still collapsed onto his little bunk at the end of the day. Even with his increased rations, he still hadn’t had enough to eat, and he needed time to recover from the grueling days on the parade grounds.

  It didn’t matter. Doctor Twofin was held in that pit, and he’d called Tejohn’s name. The guards might have thought he was delirious, but if they mentioned it to anyone--especially to Tyr Finstel or Tyr Gerrit—Tejohn would be discovered before the day was out. Having his head mounted on a spear outside the city was the gentlest treatment he could hope for. We’ll have nowhere to retreat.

  Tonight had to be the night, so Tejohn sat on the edge of the plank that was supposed to be a bunk, and he counted slow breaths. His stomach rumbled and his headache had returned. In fact, his head felt light--he wasn’t sure he had the strength to do what he needed to do tonight, but he would try.

  After he counted a thousand breaths, he slid quietly off the bunk and made his way through the dark.

  “Where are you going?” a voice whispered.

  “The ditch,” Tejohn answered. Servants were supposed to relieve themselves in a ditch behind their barracks.

  “No, you’re not.”

  “Don’t be stupid,” Tejohn snapped, as angry at himself for being noticed as he was at this man he couldn’t even see. “Go to sleep.”

  Tejohn went through the door and around to the back. He did have to drain his bladder, but when he finished, he headed for the road, not the barracks. He slumped his shoulders, shuffled his feet, and kept his head down. No one challenged him. No one cared.

  The kitchens were empty and so dark, the smoke hole was nothing more than a faint dark gray circle against the black roof. He left the door open so dim last-quarter moonlight could shine inside. It took time for his eyes to adjust, but he felt his way slowly through the room. It took him several breaths to find the meat-cutting bench and the long, slender bronze knife he’d seen hanging above it. There.

  No matter how comforting it was to hold a weapon again, it would be slim use against armored men with shields and iron-tipped spears. He stood in the darkness, trying to remember all the tools he’d seen that day. Had there been a platter he could use as a makeshift shield?

  The door swung open and two figures rushed inside. One held a lantern high, panel open at the front to illuminate the room. Even such a weak light was enough in this darkness. Tejohn had been discovered.

 
But these weren’t guards. He lowered the knife back and stood upright, letting the light shine on him in full. He knew who had come to meet him even before he recognized her voice.

  Weshka said, “What are you doing?”

  “It has to be tonight,” he answered. “I know who they’re keeping in that pit, and I have to get him out before morning.”

  “Who is it? And why?”

  Tejohn glanced at Weshka’s companion. He was just a silhouette, but from what Tejohn could make out, he was tall and painfully skinny, with a long fringe of hair around a bald scalp. Tejohn didn’t recognize him, but he assumed this was the voice in the darkness.

  A servant’s treasure became less valuable the more it was shared, but Weshka was asking and he wouldn’t withhold information from her. “His name is Oskol Twofin.”

  “My great-grandfather came out of Twofin lands,” Weshka said. “So, he’s some minor tyr’s favorite second cousin? That makes him important?”

  Tejohn shook his head. “Back in Peradain, he was the scholar who taught magic to the king.”

  “Fury guide us, we have another scholar-king?” Weshka’s tone was bitter.

  “Lar Italga is no... This isn’t the time for this. Doctor Twofin is one of the most accomplished scholars in the empire. If Tyr Finstel turns him... Twofin can create blocks and translation stones. With most of the Peradaini scholars killed, Finstel could establish a new Scholars’ Tower in Ussmajil and declare himself king.”

  “One king or another makes no difference to us,” the companion said.

  Weshka sighed and shut the door behind her. “But war in the Waterlands does. The tyrships to the east have already fallen to the grunts; could the others really be turning on each other?”

  “They already are,” Tejohn told her. “Witt spears took Fort Caarilit for a short time, and ranged throughout the Sweeps, scooping up mining scholars. Finstel soldiers only took it back when the Witt spears marched for their holdfast, probably to deal with the grunts.”

  “But why tonight?” Weshka asked.

  “Doctor Twofin called me by name. It meant nothing to the guards, but if Tyr Finstel or Gerrit hears...”

  “You will be tortured and executed,” Weshka said.

  “I still don’t see how this concerns us,” the companion said. Tejohn wanted to rush across the room and punch him in the throat. “We’re strained enough as it is.”

  “Lar Italga gave me a mission,” Tejohn said. “I need Doctor Twofin to complete it.”

  “Describe this mission.”

  “I can’t,” Tejohn said. “I swore an oath.”

  The companion hissed. “Every oath you’ve ever taken was forsworn when you became a servant and again when you entered our cupboard.”

  “Tejohn,” Weshka said, silencing the man with a wave of her hand. “This mission of yours will hold together the Italga empire, won’t it?”

  “It will defeat the grunts,” Tejohn said, which was a bit of an exaggeration, but he couldn’t take it back. “I don’t know what would hold together the empire at this point. I doubt that anything could.”

  “Can this Doctor Twofin do healing magic? Can he create a sleepstone for us, in secret?”

  Tejohn immediately saw the wisdom in that. “No,” he said. “I don’t think so. I’m sorry. Medical scholars wear a special badge on their robes, and he doesn’t have one.”

  Weshka nodded grimly, as though used to disappointment. “I will help you, but in return, someday I will come to you to ask for a favor, and you will grant it to me.”

  Why not? “Agreed.”

  She set the lantern on a work bench. “Being servants, we have heard the stories about you. Can you take all five guards? We have no armor or bows to give you, nor can we return your youth.”

  Tejohn would have been stung by that comment a few months ago. “I’m hopeless with a bow, but if I can get close enough and fight them one at a time, I can kill them.” Or they could kill him.

  “You can not use a knife from this kitchen,” Weshka said. “The overseers keep track of our tools, and if you killed a guard with one of these knives, it would cost the life of every man, woman, and child who works in this room.”

  A small price to pay was his first thought, but he dismissed it immediately. He’d killed more men and women than he could count in battle, and he’d ordered more to take positions he knew would likely lead to their deaths. A series of faces flashed back into his memory--people he hadn’t thought of in years--all of them dead because he’d ordered them to hold a particular position or mount a diversionary assault.

  But they had been solders. Having lived among the servants, he couldn’t toss away their lives. Not like this. He set the long bronze knife on the bench beside him.

  “I can get you close, I think. Come here.” Weshka led him to the back door, then pulled a folded black cloak off a shelf. The hood was large enough to hide the wearer’s face, and there was a large white circle on the top.

  “Sometimes,” she said, “when a servant is desperate for money or food, he--or more often, she--will visit a guard post wearing this. Sometimes, she earns enough to bribe the medical scholars to let her use a sleepstone, or to acquire extra food for her child. Approach the tower wearing this and they will not make you stand and announce yourself. If you survive, it would be best if this was not found anywhere near the tower afterward.”

  Tejohn took it from her and threw it over his shoulders. The hood was long enough to shadow his face, but he had to crouch so the hem covered his large feet.

  “Clasp it here,” Weshka told him, “to hide your beard. Men are sometimes turned away. Women almost never are. Do you need food?”

  “This is ridiculous,” the companion said.

  “Food would help.”

  She offered him a hunk of cold lamb that was as large as his fist. Just a few bites were enough to steady his hands and clear his head. He wrapped the rest in a piece of old linen and tucked it into his shirt in case Doctor Twofin needed it.

  “Remember your promise” was all Weshka said to him as he slipped out of the kitchen onto the cart path.

  The journey to the meadow, which seemed so long when he pulled a cart of firewood behind him, now seemed to take no time at all. He was so surprised to come upon the edge of the meadow that he paused there, staring at the looming, blurry shape of the tower ahead. Fire and Fury, the wind off the river was cold.

  Tejohn forced himself to keep moving forward. He couldn’t see how many guards were ahead of him. What if they tripled their numbers after dark?

  But no, as he came close, he could see that wasn’t so. There was still the one guard standing outside the entrance and two more patrolling the open second floor. All held the ridiculously long spears that seemed to be in fashion here. Jeering came from up above as Tejohn shuffled toward the guard at the gate, his body shrunk as much as possible. But inside, his desperation was churning, becoming that old feeling again. I am going to kill you.

  “You’re visiting late tonight,” the guard at the gate said. “You two up there! Get back to your rounds. You’ll get your turn, if you have the coin for it.”

  Tejohn slowed as he approached, expecting to be led into a secluded place. Instead, the guard waved him closer, toward his guard position. He had no intention of leaving his post.

  “New, are you?” the guard reached up to throw back the black hood. “Let’s see who—”

  Tejohn punched him in the throat. The man didn’t have a chance to make a sound. His hands went to his throat out of instinct, and Tejohn yanked his sword from his scabbard and plunged it deep into his armpit.

  There was no way to hide the sound of a sword being drawn or an armored body falling. Tejohn grabbed the spear before it hit the ground and lifted it upright, so the tip was near the ledge of the second floor but not above it.

  As expected, one of the guards leaned over the wall. He was several paces to the right of Tejohn’s spear point.

  “What are you fools
—”

  Tejohn lunged to the side, holding the spear awkwardly by the very end. There was some sort of metal ball on the back end of the shaft. A counterweight? The guard above seemed frozen for a couple of breaths as he tried to make sense of what he was seeing. Tejohn thrust upward with the spear and caught him below the chin.

  He gurgled and fell backward into the tower. Someone cried, “Alarm!”

  Tejohn yanked the short sword out of the guard’s chest and, with all his might, stabbed it through the gate latch into the jamb. It wouldn’t hold the soldiers inside for long, but he hoped it would be long enough.

  The guard above leaned over the ledge with shield and spear. Tejohn jabbed upward, but the man easily deflected his spear.

  Someone inside the tower yanked at the door. For a moment, Tejohn thought the sword would tear out of the wood, but it didn’t. It wobbled more than he’d like, but the door held.

  In the moment he looked away, the guard above struck. Only the fact that Tejohn had been trained to move constantly prevented the spear from stabbing through his collarbone. The weapon slipped between his chest and his left arm, the flat of the blade striking the side of his thigh.

  “Agh,” he cried, “my leg!” and began to crumple toward the ground. The guard above sneered in triumph and leaned far over the ledge to stab a second time.

  Tejohn leaped upward and to the side, stabbing all the way through the guard’s neck. The man made no sound at all as he slid forward, spear and shield falling nervelessly from his hands. The weighted end of Tejohn’s spear wedged against the ground; the falling body bent then shivered the shaft.

  Tejohn picked up the dead guard’s spear and shield, then his sword. Peradaini soldiers preferred their spears, but a fight inside would be sword work, just like at the mining camp. He took up a position beside the door, then stabbed the sword into the dirt. He held the spear near the blade and crouched, swaying side to side, watching the sword in the latch waver back and forth as the men inside tried to open the door.