Emissary

by Thomas Locke

  Hyam pushed through the front portal and shouted, “Timmins!”

  The maid bustled in from the kitchen, wiping her hands upon a flour-spackled apron. “They’re all in the rear yard, your lordship. Every one of them dropped tools and quill the instant the colonel arrived.”

  Hyam raced down the flagstone hall, past the four grand chambers that served duty as chart room, record room, and two libraries. Normally a city’s keeper of records would hardly occupy such a villa. But Falmouth’s chief scribe was also the earl’s older cousin. The two had been friends since childhood. Bayard, Earl of Oberon, was a fighter and keen strategist who treated history as a road map to his next victory. Timmins was a scholar by choice and temperament.

  Hyam slammed through the rear portal to find the scribe and three offspring and six apprentices clustered about a dusty wagon, joined by Timmins’s thickset wife and a dozen grinning soldiers.

  The scribe cried, “There you are at last. I’ve searched everywhere!”

  “You haven’t done anything of the sort,” his daughter Shona chided. “Good morning, Hyam. How is Joelle?”

  “Fine, she’s fine.” He nodded a greeting to Colonel Adler, once the officer in charge of Hyam’s band and recently appointed head of the earl’s castle guard. But Hyam’s attention remained fixed upon the wagon. He pushed his way through the crowd and leaned over the wagon’s side.

  “A veritable treasure trove!” Timmins tended to speak excitedly over anything to do with the written word. “The legends have come alive before our very eyes!”

  The soldiers were mud-spattered and road-weary. They held mugs of cider and munched happily on bread and cheese, enjoying the scribe’s antics. Timmins was a favorite of most who called the palace home.

  Adler said to Hyam, “Meda tells me you slept straight through an attack.”

  “Of course he did!” Timmins bent down to lift a grandson clamoring at his feet. “That’s all the man does! Most mornings Hyam walks into the scriptorium and asks for a quilt and pillow!”

  “You talk utter rubbish,” his daughter said. “Hyam works harder than all of your apprentices together.”

  “Well, that’s hardly saying a thing, is it.” Timmins peered myopically at Hyam. “How could you possibly have slept through a blast that woke the entire city?”

  Hyam paid him no mind. Timmins was as outrageous as he was poetic and rewarded his friends with fierce affection. The youth of Falmouth vied for apprenticeships, even when they spent their first two years out beyond the city walls, turning the skins of butchered animals into the softest vellum. For even these youngest were taught morning and night, and Timmins was counted among the city’s finest teachers. He instructed in history and law and proper writing and brought in mathematicians and builders and others for the subjects where he had no ability. He called everyone dunderheads, including the earl. He was never satisfied, no matter how great the effort. He was happiest when peering over a lost scroll and or a book abandoned for centuries. He made the past come alive and put flesh to the long-dead bones of myths and legends. The wizard Trace counted him the wisest of men. He had friends everywhere.

  Hyam had no idea what he expected to find in the wagon bed. All he could say for certain was the source of power lay there before him. The dusty tarp was thrown back to reveal several dozen scrolls scattered amid clay shards. Four intact clay vessels were propped on blankets and lashed to the wagon’s sides. The vessels would have stood taller than Hyam if held upright. But such a position would have been impossible, for their bases were curved and pointed like crude clay spears.

  “These dunderheads actually broke one of the precious amphorae,” Timmins groused. “Didn’t you know you carried the wealth of centuries?”

  “The pot was already broken,” Adler replied. “And they’re nothing but a bunch of scrolls so old their script has vanished with the years.”

  Hyam reached for the nearest scroll and instantly felt the power course through him. He shivered with palpable delight.

  “Never mind that lot,” Timmins cried, and pointed at the top of the nearside vessel. “Observe the crest on this amphora! The past is come to life!”

  But Hyam would not draw his eyes away. The scroll was so ancient the act of unrolling caused tiny flecks to fall off like dry scales. Even so, the unfurled document stole away his breath. His fingers trembled so badly he feared he would rip the vellum further. So he propped himself on the wheel spoke, leaned over the side, and settled the scroll on the wagon bed. Gingerly he unfurled it one handbreadth at a time.

  Adler set down his mug and leaned over to study the nearest clay vessel. Shona stepped over to stand alongside him. She was sixteen, the youngest of Timmins’s brood, and a beauty. The scribe doted on her, though he complained to all within reach that she remained the one scroll he could never read. Her three older brothers were all married with children of their own. If Shona had any interest in men or matrimony, she hid it well.

  A crest was stamped in gold leaf upon the vessel’s rim, and then repeated twice in the clay itself. Adler read, “Property of the merchant of Alyss.”

  “Not Alice, you dunderhead. This is no maiden’s diary, no matter how fair she might once have been. Ah-liss. The most famous of cities.”

  “Never heard of it.” Adler traced a hand about the sloping base. “Why is this jug shaped so oddly?”

  Shona replied, “Amphorae were shaped to fit snug along a ship’s curved hull. Imagine hundreds of these clumped together like eggs in a crate of their own making. They were used to carry the most valuable of liquids, finest wines and rare oils and refined fragrances.”

  One of the apprentices asked, “So where is this Alyss, anyway?”

  “You really are the worst dunderhead who has ever tried to eat me out of house and home,” Timmins replied. “Come over here so I can thunk your thick skull.”

  Shona was blessed with her father’s questing mind and her uncle’s fair looks. She also held Hyam in something akin to awe. “Alyss was the largest trading city of the lost realm.”

  Adler said, “You are speaking of the empires destroyed by the Milantian invasion?”

  “The very same. Alyss was a city of unimaginable wealth. Poems describe how many of the palaces were roofed in pure gold.”

  Adler said, “So these scrolls . . .”

  Timmins finished, “Are over a thousand years old!”

  Shona traced one finger along the nearest amphora’s wax stopper. “The question is, why would they use amphorae to store scrolls? Even the most valuable were transported in chests.”

  “Perhaps some of the scrolls in the vessels that remain intact and sealed will be legible.” Timmins almost danced in place. “Would that not be a wonder to carry us through the winter!”

  Hyam reluctantly broke away from his study. “You can’t read this?”

  That turned them all around. Timmins demanded, “Read what?”

  Gingerly he lifted the vellum. “It’s clear enough to me.”

  Timmins and his daughter crowded in to either side. Shona asked, “You see text? Truly?”

  “And designs.” Hyam resumed his inspection of the ancient vellum. “Do they not seem to move before your eyes?”

  Timmins leaned over until his nose almost touched the scroll. “I see nothing save blank vellum.” He slipped back to earth and exchanged a long look with his daughter. For once, the scribe was both somber and still.

  Shona said doubtfully, “Perhaps it is the sun’s angle. Move aside, Hyam.” She slipped into his place, squinted, declared, “Still nothing.”

  Hyam touched one of the scroll’s designs. The image was traced by the same fire that accelerated his heart rate. “Truly, none of you can see what’s written here?”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Shona replied.

  Timmins said softly, “Tell us what you see.”

  “The script is Milantian,” Hyam replied. “It appears to be a teaching scroll.”

  “Fo
r what discipline?”

  Hyam looked from one perplexed face to the next. “War.”

  Thomas Locke is a pseudonym for Davis Bunn, an award-winning novelist whose work has been published in twenty languages. Critical acclaim for his novels includes four Christy Awards for excellence in fiction. Davis divides his time between Oxford and Florida and holds a lifelong passion for speculative stories. Learn more about the author and his books at www.tlocke.com.

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