Okay, she told herself, I’ve figured out how to walk. Great. She laughed out loud at the thought, and a woman beside her, only a few years her elder and carrying a child in some sort of sling across her chest, stared uncertainly.
Might as well take advantage of the opening. “Pardons, young lady, but might you know where—”
Startled, the woman immediately darted away when Sayri spoke, confusion darkening her face.
“Great,” she muttered to herself. “I’ll just wander around the city until I find one.”
“Ask na store clerk for directions,” a voice said behind her.
She glanced back and saw a young man, perhaps two years her junior. He was attractive for his age (Sayri couldn’t help but think of him as a child, lacking the muscle a man developed in adulthood), with a tussled mop of black, curly hair and a long, thin nose.
“Why did that woman ignore me?” she asked, dropping back to walk beside the young man.
“Nobody talk to strangers on na street,” he said. “And she probably could na understand you,” he added, though he apparently had no difficulty doing so.
Sayri raised her eyebrows at him quizzically. “But you don’t seem about to flee,” she observed.
“A man should na be a fool not to talk ta you,” he said, with an overly solemn expression. It was, she decided, his attempt to appear confident.
“How wonderfully kind of you to say, young man,” she said, adding with a flowery lilt. She affected a brief curtesy, the best she could while they continued to be swept on by the crowd.
“I’m not so young,” he said, his expression darkening. “My fifteenth summer comes next.”
Sayri immediately recognized the misunderstanding. “Forgive me, young—ah, it’s an expression of respect, used for all ages. How should I address you here?”
“Ma name is Koz,” he said with a smile. Apparently her explanation erased the insult. “And you?”
“Jasenth,” she replied automatically. Silly, no one knows you here, and you aren’t wanted. Old habits die hard.
“Well acquainted, Jasenth,” the boy said, somehow affecting a marvelous flourish while still walking, complete with hand to chest and opposite hand swept out low. “Say, I should na like ta inform you that there is to be na grand performance of the eighth village, this very eve. It may be that na lady would wish to attend it with me?” He reddened slightly as he said the last, and Sayri knew that it had been a fright for him to say the words.
She remembered being so young that she was terrified to speak to boys in the village. That was barely over a year ago, she reminded herself. It seemed like a hundred years ago.
She didn’t know what the eighth village might be, but she certainly wasn’t planning to stay for the evening. Let him down easy. “The young—pardons, Koz is very generous to offer his company to a lady such as myself. But sadly, I must depart this city immediately. Otherwise,” she added, fluttering her eyes just so, “I should certainly accept.”
He was clearly disappointed—no doubt imagining his friends’ expressions if he showed up with her on his arm—but she had succeeded; his ego was intact. “It saddens me ta hear that. I would na have liked to show you ma city.”
“As would have I, Koz.” Now, the payoff for my compassion, she thought to herself hopefully. “But I must inquire; might the, ah, might Koz show Jasenth the way to a caravan heading north?”
He was shaking his head, and laughing. Whoops, too thick, she chastised herself.
“You speak in such na strange manner,” he said. “A caravan? Do you mean to take passage?”
“Yes, that’s it,” Sayri nodded.
“Caravan,” he laughed again. “What ya want is a coach. Those headed north depart from Stanik Hill.” He pointed in what seemed a random direction to Sayri.
“Stanik . . . How do I get there, Koz?” She tried to see over the crowd in the direction he was pointing, but it was no use; she was below average height, even here where people seemed to be shorter than in the Lords’ Lands.
He was chuckling and shaking his head again. “How did you end up wandering na streets, Jasenth?” he asked. “You are certainly lost.”
Consternation must have been displayed on her face, because he stopped suddenly, putting his hands on each of her shoulders. Surprisingly, the crowd smoothly flowed past without bumping and shoving or, as she feared, trampling them.
“No worrying, Jasenth,” the boy said. “I, Koz, shall na escort you there and see ya safely into a coach bound north to your desired destination.” He took her arm then, and again plunged into the mass of humanity flowing by, pulling her with him.
A brilliant piece of luck, meeting him. But will I ever be able to do anything for myself? she wondered. Still, she wasn’t about to frown on good fortune. She smiled, holding tight to Koz’s arm, and allowed him to escort her through the crowd.
・ ・
Stanik Hill was exactly that; a hill. It seemed that Yalcinae occupied flat lands surrounding a number of small, sharp-sided hills; this one was similar to the one that Arad had drawn her up, and from the summit she could see many other such hills scattered among the metropolitan landscape. They were, Sayri imagined, rather like the small green copses of swamp-growing trees that littered the yellow croplands of the Lower Valley. As the swamps were infertile for planting crops in the Lower Valley, so these hills were too steep, and thus infertile for planting houses.
The top of this particular hill was flattened, and a horde of coaches—large, covered wagons with doors on the side, and harnessed to teams of four, six, or even eight of the Somrian horse-like beasts—covered the flat space in disarray.
Koz pulled her along, engaging in brief and incomprehensible exchanges with each of the carriage drivers who stood beside their carriages. To a man, they chewed something bitter-smelling—Sayri could smell it from two paces away—and occasionally spit a glob of yellow-white whatever-it-was upon the ground before them.
Finally, Koz stopped beside a carriage with six beasts harnessed and a burly, middle-aged man with a thick belly and a cleft lip. If the others were incomprehensible to Sayri, this man seemed to be speaking an entirely different language.
“He’s going to the North Province,” Koz told her. “It’s twelve coin. Do ya have Yalcineds?”
Sayri assumed he meant the local coin. “No, foreign coin,” she answered, shaking her head slowly.
“Give me yours, and I’ll pay him. They won’t na take foreign coin,” he said, fishing in his purse.
Sayri counted out twelve coins and gave then to him. Koz walked over to the driver, gave him the money, and stood chatting with him for a few moons before returning to her.
“When does it leave?” she asked him.
“When?” he repeated, his expression bewildered. “When it’s full, of course.”
“Ah,” Sayri nodded. She glanced at the carriage; through the doors and the small, square windows, she could see several people already sitting inside. “How long would that be?”
“It is half full, and now is morning, so ma guess is fairly soon. Don’t they have na coaches when you come from?”
Sayri shook her head. “Should I sit inside?” she asked.
“No, he will call out when he’s ready to go. He might na wait until he’s full,” Koz said, shrugging. “If he thinks he can pick up more on the way, he may na leave early.”
“So, we didn’t have to come all the way here? We could’ve caught the carriage on the street?” she asked, confused again.
“Never mind, poor Jasenth,” he replied, chuckling at her. “This was the fastest way. Ah, he is calling out now. You’d best go, lady. Peaceful travels,” he finished, affecting another graceful bow.
Sayri attempted to return an equally graceful curtsey, but the local gestures were so elaborate she felt it deficient. She hadn’t heard a sound from the driver, despite listening for it, but she didn’t doubt that he was correct. There was still a lot for her to learn before she would b
lend in with the locals!
“I am deeply in your debt, Koz,” she told him with a shy smile. Then, daring to violate an unknown cultural taboo, she darted forward to kiss his cheek. “Truly,” she added, her breath in his ear.
When she stepped back, his face was bright red, but his smile was even brighter.
“A good trip for you, fair lady!” he called out, bowing again, even more elaborately. “Whatever land awaits ya, is in na receipt of ma envy!” He nodded at that and, waving a last farewell, turned on a heel and strode purposefully down the path back to the city.
It appeared she had not done wrong and had, as intended, made the boy’s day—he would doubtless embellish the story for his friends. Smiling softly and feeling optimistic, Sayri opened the door to the coach and stepped up inside.
15 WELGRAY
Shadows lay long in the Titan’s Thumb. The valley was aptly named; an explorer in the distant past had likened its shape to the gouge a thumb might scrape from mud. Indeed, the very rock that formed the majority of the valley’s basin was smoothed as if it were mud, or as if the might required to carve out the valley had pulped the rock into liquid in the process.
The ridges on each side of the valley were very sharp, so much so that few climbers had been brave enough to attempt traversing their lengths. Facing up the valley, the right ridge plummeted immediately to the valley floor, opening that side to the plains beyond. The left side, however, lunged out into the landscape as it continued its dizzying rise to a pinnacle, then collapsed to the floor in a spectacular pile of rocky debris. The peak formed at the ridge’s terminus was Mount Crush, named for the splay of broken rock scattered at its base, and at its summit the Spire of Rising pierced a ring of clouds to glisten majestically in the azure mid-afternoon sky.
Of course, farmers and other villagers of the plateau below assumed that the spire was named for the incredible heights to which it reached, but Welgray knew better. Astride Cardinal, his dappled grey pony, he paused in his journey to gaze up in appreciation of the Spire, and of its true meaning; the rising of the spirit to higher aspirations, and the rising of man’s purpose to higher morals.
It was, he mused, to this purpose that the Collectors employed their studies of human nature and arts of mind-twisting, and weaved their web of manipulation and dominance. An end that, though he deemed worthy, he did not consider justification for the extremity to which they oft took those means.
With a click he nudged Cardinal back into motion. There was still a lot of trail to climb, most of it quite treacherous, and it was mid-afternoon already; though the sky was clear, humid air bespoke of rain to come in the evening. Camping halfway up was undesirable, but would be necessary if he didn’t reach the summit before sunset; after dusk, travel on the steep rocky path approaching the Spire would be suicide, snaking as it did along the edge of the precipice.
As was tradition, Welgray rode alone up to the Spire of Rising. Warders were not allowed on the mountain, an ancient rule that had, in the many centuries that the Collectors had occupied the stronghold, never been violated.
Cardinal turned the first corner at the base of the debris field and began climbing. The trail was wide and clear of rubble for the most part, with regular maintenance religiously attended to by the Caretakers of the Spire, but on such a mountain landslides were common. He trusted his steed—they had seen much together, over the years—but he watched the trail ahead carefully, nonetheless. While he did so, he also fell into a contemplation that he often exercised when approaching the mountain; regarding the mysterious past of the Spire and of its denizens.
Welgray had studied history, as was the responsibility of all students aspiring to become Collectors (though in reality, those who passed did so more out of natural talent than intense study). He knew the documented word, going back nearly half a millennium, through which the Collectors had gradually extended their influence first over the plateau below the Spire, then further into the Lords’ Lands, and finally all the way to the coast. The list of succession for the Chamber of Grand Collectors was clear within that timeframe, and the actions they took well written.
Prior to the time of the first documented chamber, the histories became less precise. The Collectors were not indicated by that name, and how it came about was unclear. Only annotations from the first few decades of the chamber existed to shed light on the time before, and those were written down by early historians, who sourced from the verbal histories that were passed on from before.
It seemed that in that time, the Collectors had been wise men who had taken up residence at the Spire after centuries of roaming the land, dispensing wisdom. Before these arrivals, which seemed to stretch over several centuries as the wise men filtered in, only legends existed.
Interestingly, though Collectors of modern times used a variety of tools to discover and manipulate a subject’s thoughts, writings seemed to suggest that it had in ancient times been easier. Welgray suspected that this was due to improvements in education over time; the average citizen was much better informed these days than in the dark past.
However, it was difficult to ignore some past accounts—bordering on legends, and called such by the more critical historians—that spoke of Collectors with a far more intuitive grasp of the knowing and twisting processes.
Knowing was the first, and most feared, stage of the Collector’s art. It encompassed all methods used to gather information from a subject; research, interrogation, intimidation, stupefaction, and psychological manipulation. Through these techniques, a Collector learned intimate details from a subject’s mind.
Twisting was the second, and hidden, stage of the Collector’s art. Through a combination of all of the arts above and the Collector’s mental and intuitive prowess, the subject’s mind could be adjusted. In most cases, adjustments were very minor; a change in attitude from neutral to suspicious, or a change in intent from focused to uncertain.
What the Collector could not do, yet was probably their most feared ability, was read the surface thoughts of people nearby. This fell into the purvey of myth and fancy.
In modern times, that was. The so-called legends suggested the existence of ancient wise men and their predecessors who could do just that, and more. Some legends even suggested physical manifestations!
It would be easy to discount these stories, but for their numerous and varied descriptions. Also, unlike typical historic myth, the stories of manifesting Collectors actually described the process of losing that ability, gradually over several centuries. Something had changed in the world, so the legends told, that was causing the decline of such powers. A slow loss that had inexorably led to the current state, where Collectors had to resort to more . . . mundane means.
Welgray’s internal rumination was interrupted as he spotted another of his order making her way down the trail. She was on foot, wearing a black cloak with grey trim—the same colours Welgray wore—and a hood. As she approached, he stopped Cardinal to allow her safe passage.
“Health and clarity,” he said as she came within earshot.
“And for you,” the woman replied. Glancing up in the direction of the mountain’s summit as if to make certain it wasn’t raining, she pulled her hood down, revealing straight, light brown hair, cut to the shoulders and greying in strips framing her face. She was, Welgray estimated, in her thirties, and was attractive in a harsh way despite the gentle smile that curled her lip. It was her eyes, he realized; they were very dark.
“The path, it lies clear and bright?” he asked, his eyes flicking up at the clouds above. The Spire, from this vantage point, was no longer visible.
“If you hurry,” she replied. “Shadows lengthen. And below? Does the young man speak of the sun, warming the valley?”
Welgray frowned slightly; such formal speech was generally reserved for the libraries and council chambers. “So it does, though for little longer. Does the young lady have far travel ahead?”
It was a probing question, and he expected an
impatient reaction. Clearly the woman was overly formal for a reason; her time of departure, particularly afoot, was odd, and she was being evasive. Yet they were both experts at reading others, and no conversation could be more complex than that between Collectors, one holding a secret the other wished to know.
How easy it would be if I did have the supposed powers of the ancients, Welgray mused. But then, would she possess comparable defenses?
“Not far,” she was answering. “Nor is the young man’s journey, so near its end. But with the dusk’s approach, he must hurry to arrive, lest he be by it engulfed,” she added with a nod uphill.
Welgray sighed; whatever secret the woman possessed, she was right—he didn’t have time to probe for it. In any case, it would be at her pleasure, since she was under no obligation to indulge him. She was not under suspicion of a crime, and was his equal. “May your path lead to enlightenment,” he said politely, if somewhat perfunctorily.
She laughed; his words were more used by Proselytes than by Collectors. “And yours,” she replied with a curt bow, and slipped past Cardinal to move down the path behind him.
Now what was that about? he wondered, watching her go. She didn’t look back, though the trail was easy and clear enough that she could have.
Shaking his head, he nudged Cardinal back onto the trail, and up.
・
Passing though the cloud layer was always enjoyable for Welgray. Somehow, it seemed like disconnecting from the world, to float in a peaceful oasis of silence and calm; like meditation, but effortless.
It seemed longer, but was actually only a short time, before he passed out of the cloud layer and onto the ridge. Though the Spire of Rising now sat below him, slicing the air above the valley on a knife-like edge of rock, it towered over him. Cardinal seemed pleased with being able to see rock beneath his feet and increased pace. The trail ahead wound its way along the ridge, passing around and between great boulders and sharp projections of stone that occasionally rose all the way up to form an angled roof over their heads. If the area had been subject to earthquakes it would have been a perilous trail, but no such occurrence had been recorded in the Spire’s historical archive.
Sayri's Whisper: The Great Link Book 1 Page 16