The first sign we were finally nearing a place to bathe off all the damn sand was when the guides and two of the traders separated from us to enter a large oasis controlled by a friendly tribe. Days later and an actual town with intact buildings of stone and wood was reached. This sight uplifted everyone’s spirits back to what they were when we found Kitiri’mor. We stopped by that afternoon and filled up a small tavern to the brim, wasting the few coins we carried to buy anything with alcohol in it. I didn’t get drunk, but it was the closest I had ever been. Despite the day of good business, I was sure the owner did not enjoy the sweaty stench that seeped into every wooden plank in his building.
Two and a half months after leaving Behar-Dural, its torches lit the eastern horizon on the cool night we came upon it. Our cheerful curses awoke every comfortable bastard in their bed as we marched down the city streets. Only Yang Hur kept his joy within himself, though I had no doubt it stirred somewhere inside him.
Anyone inside the college was awake, so there was no worry about our shouts disturbing dreams. Of course, that wasn’t to say some old men weren’t disturbed when they learned Fardin had found the legendary city. The testimonies and artifacts were almost not enough to convince the other enchanters of our feat. It was at the college where the procedure to account for every relic began. This was particularly important for the mercenaries, as they would need official documents to make a clay pot as valuable as a small house to art dealers and other academic institutions.
I wanted to immediately find any body of water to wash off the sand and dirt chafing in every fleshy crevice, but one of Fardin’s pile of letters was addressed to me. It was a small piece of paper with no identifying marks, except for a week old date. The start of its short message was “A Business Proposal II.” Three lines followed. The first said, “Both fit the description. They’re fairly close to one another, so I hope this doesn’t cause the scholar much confusion. Clarissa sends her regards.” Below this line was a row of numbers, town names, and geographic points.
I would have given it to Ghevont right then, but I wanted to give his drained body a chance to recuperate. I thus went ahead with my bathing plan first. Before I stopped over at a communal bath, I and many of the pirates dropped off most of our desert clothes at a washhouse. It was the middle of the night, but the unwalled building by the small river stayed open at all hours. Given the lack of other customers, the women there said they’d be done with everything in a couple of hours. As planned convenience would have it, the communal bath was a short walk upriver. After a long soak, I realized I would need a week more of baths to wash all the grime out.
Ghevont awoke in the inn bedroom we shared near noon. Not wanting to discuss what we needed to in public, I showed him a tray of food I had brought up for him. Leaning against his cup of lemonade was my letter.
“What’s this?” he asked on picking up the note.
“Look for yourself.”
He unfolded it and read the minimal contents. “So they found two possibilities, then.”
“Will that disrupt your calculations?”
“Yes, but these coordinates are no more than fifty miles apart, so my ‘confusion’ will only slightly expand the circle of error that was always going to exist.”
“How long until you can get a location?”
“Assuming I find the map I need at the college, then I suspect my calculations will take half a day’s time.”
“It’ll take that long to line up some points on a map?”
“Tell me, Mercer, what is the shape of Orda?”
“A ball?”
“And of a map?”
“A square or rectangle.”
“A flat rectangle. For me to correctly line up points separated by thousands of miles, I’ll have to take into account the curvature of Orda and of the ancient techniques used to account for it two thousand years ago. Not to mention I now need to examine two different coordinates.”
“And someone did all that centuries ago?”
“Impressive, no? We are obviously dealing with a mind as brilliant as my father’s. I can only pray my work lasts as long.”
“Just do me a favor and don’t become as obsessive about a dead god as they did.”
After eating what would likely be his last meal of the day, Ghevont and I headed back to the college to find the appropriate map. With easy permission from Fardin, the scholar rifled through dozens of ancient maps before finding three he liked. Fardin also gave Ghevont an office one of his few enchanter allies wasn’t using. I didn’t have to stay with him, of course, but realizing we were so close to finally discovering the grave site had me fixed to Ghevont’s side as he worked. Gods forbid I leave him a minute only return to find a lodged grape had killed him.
The benefit of being in a building with only old cranks was that everybody minded their own business as quietly as they could. Not many sounds rose above Ghevont’s scratching quill. I couldn’t blame Marcela in those times I saw her sleeping as her friend worked away. The scholar occasionally spoke out loud in five or ten minute bursts, but this was always in the hushed tone one used to speak with themselves. I told Lorcan beforehand that only he was allowed to bother Ghevont, so he used that consent to bring us a few fruits every three hours or so.
Riskel’s son worked well after the sun went down, but neither he nor I showed any hints of drowsiness, not when his quickening quill stopped his random sessions of audible contemplation told me he was near a resolution. The scraping of his quill stopped seconds after the clock tower tolled eleven times. Ghevont pushed back his chair and stretched. The act triggered a big yawn.
I stood up from my chair by the door. “Ghevont? Did you find it?”
“Find? No, I’ve merely isolated a relatively narrow area the grave likely lies.”
“How narrow?”
“A little less than six hundred square miles.”
“That doesn’t sound narrow.”
“Neither does twelve hundred miles, but that would still be within my definition of success.”
“I’ll take your word on that. Where?”
“In Efios. It’s officially within a strip of land owned by Uthosis, but no one really owns the jagged mountains the grave appears to be in. I couldn’t have thought of a better place to hide a tomb… Well, maybe the bottom of an ocean, but the execution of such an act would require-”
“What do you know of Uthosis?”
“Only that it was much more important to history before all its port cities were seized by anyone with a boat. I’m implying they had a weak navy, you see. The mountain range begins at its eastern edges and twists and turns for two thousand miles more. Dotted throughout the range are several volcanoes that are regularly spewing ash and magma at one time or another.”
“So within an area of sharp rocks, ashen skies, and angry mountains lies a grave fit for a god. Will you follow me here as well, scholar?”
Ghevont moved his lips to the side and cocked his head the opposite way. “Hmm, there’s a high chance we’ll meet with forces beyond our capabilities at the grave, isn’t there?”
“Yes. I know you want to see what your father died for, what he was killed for, but is it worth adding yourself to the list? You can always study the aftermath of whatever happens, you know.”
“All I’ve read are aftermaths, Mercer. In any event, our personal stakes are quite similar, are they not?”
“How so?” “Well, the Advent have taken the memory of your family, no? This circumstance isn’t much different from my own. The Advent have taken future memories of my family.”
“Aye, I suppose that’s true.” I didn’t point out the fact that I could at least make new memories with what remained of my family.
“In truth, ever since leaving Gwen I’ve had theoretical visions of my parents returning. How would that have changed things? What would Vey have been like? Or myself, for that matter.”
Ghevont’s logical monotone was the same as it always was, but I had a f
eeling the day I heard his emotions conveyed in his voice would be the day he became more like his sister. “I know how this sounds, but I’m not sure a complete Rathmore family is a pleasant prospect for the rest of us.”
“There’s no evidence to dispute the contrary. I’m only selfishly contemplating, don’t mind me. So you have no arguments against my joining you?”
“I’d say you’ve earned the right for a thunderbolt to blow us all to bits.”
“Why a thunderbolt?”
“I don’t know. What do you imagine when you see a god rise from the dead?”
His eyes looked up for a moment as he imagined it. “Hmm, fascinating. The skies are in illumination in my vision as well. This can’t be a coincidence, can it?”
“Ask a hundred other people and ninety of them… Forget it, this isn’t important. I have to let Lorcan know what you found.” Just before I closed the door, I said, “And good work, Ghevont.”
“I thought so.”
The Dragon Knight's Curse (The Dragon Knight Series Book 2) Page 23