Temple of the Traveler: Book 01 - Doors to Eternity

by Scott Rhine

  Tumberlin had long wondered if the energies cradled in such a fragile shell could be used to replenish his own. He knew that ki mages, with the proper equipment, could transfer years of life force to themselves or another. But he had little practical expertise in the area, no equipment, and little mana to pry the life force out with. Only his special sight and the desperation of hunger drove him to try. Normally, he wouldn’t have possessed the strength to move a feather, let alone to break the connection, the silver cord binding the sentry’s spirit to this plane. But this man practically begged to have the spark fall from his hands. Tumberlin obliged.

  The trick took several minutes to accomplish and felt like sucking a reluctant oyster from its half shell. The victim struggled, his body thrashing convulsively during the contest. As the astral wanderer glutted himself with new energies, the ball of light inside him expanded, but remained faint. His veins pulsed with power more satisfying than any erection or summoning had ever been. He could level towns with such strength. Were it not for the bloody sun, the apprentice would have had enough energy for weeks of free ranging.

  Tumberlin appeared, without effort, outlined as a glass figurine lit from below by some eerie candle. Bunji hid in horror as the shadow finished his meal and disappeared to his far-away lair for the span of another day. Bunji’s fear hadn’t been for the victim, destined for death already, but that he might’ve been recognized by the wizard.

  Navara sent an amazing thirty blades southward, having lost only three of his own men in the process. Humi promoted him to general with all the privileges and pay accompanying.

  Three days later, Navara’s troops were on the outskirts of Barnham, weary but ready for combat. Scouts reported heavy fighting. The garrison was down to ten battered swordsmen, some with serious injuries. His orders were clear. He had to take the riverbank and wait for the signal from Tumberlin. Then he was to seize the neighboring town of Westgate and interrogate its residents for clues about the tattooed assassin.

  Expecting a protracted battle with the residents, Navara was shocked to see the city gates open wide at the sight of the Kragen pennant and soldiers. Garrison commander Onira was even more surprised when Navara casually entered his ofice. Onira drew steel with a dramatic ringing, but the Kragen commander waved the annoyance away. “I’m not here for you, idiot. My orders are to take Westgate by morning. It’d be in your best interests to help me.”

  Recognizing his coat of arms, Onira spat, “I’ll never allow your treacherous kind inside my gates.”

  Removing his gloves and helping himself to the wine on the table, Navara said, “Too late for that, I’m afraid. Your gatekeepers seemed to welcome to the Kragen banner. We are, after all, allies against the Pretender in your time of need. My soldiers have this building surrounded. But I say again, I have no interest in your men. I promise to be out of your hair by first light if you sign a treaty of non-aggression against Lady Kragen and her agents.”

  Onira, glancing out the window of his office, noted several new soldiers standing guard. “Though I have no objection to such a plan, I’m still the king’s man, and must send for his approval.”

  “No,” Navara said brusquely, downing a shot of Onira’s best liquor. “It must be tonight, while we have the element of surprise. Our Lady’s messenger has gone to great extremes to arrange a distraction. Use reason, sir. I have five wizards and fifty fresh Honors to your ten wounded. I could capture you all and still make my schedule with luck. But if we don’t advance at the Shadow’s signal, he’ll demand recompense—and I’ll have no choice but to offer him you.”

  When Onira wrinkled his brow at this, Bunji explained from the doorway, “Her messenger isn’t human. It travels only at night and drains life force from the suffering of dying men like a swamp wraith. Please reconsider. I can’t bear to watch the Shadow eat.”

  Turning pale, Onira remained bold for the sake of his men. “We’ve faced worse in the desert.”

  Navara alternated the threat of the stick with the dangling carrot. “You drive a hard bargain. Sign and we’ll make you the new governor of this place. You can even keep the blades of any men in your regiment that still survive.”

  “Governor?” asked a confused Onira.

  A silent Bunji entered with a gold-limned scroll, tinged with a few drops of blood, and transferred it to the commander. Navara resumed, confident. “The position has been vacant for a few days. With the clear leadership you’ve shown in these difficult circumstances, I think all concerned would agree that you’re an excellent choice.”

  “But you tried to kill my entire command,” sputtered Onira.

  Navara sighed. “Your own king sent a message he knew to be a mortal insult to the most powerful and notorious Lord Wizard in the world. He didn’t expect you or your men to come back alive. Your death was meant to be a sacrifice to enable Lord Kragen to save face yet still remain loyal to the crown. Unfortunately, Lady Humi opened the letter first. This has never been personal between us. Are you so blind as to remain loyal to someone who has already reassigned your title to the highest bidder?”

  Onira wanted to argue, but found that he couldn’t. Too much of what the Inquisitor said had struck home. “But how can I trust you to keep your word? How can I trust you with the lives of my men?”

  Navara seemed offended. “I’m not a total bastard. I always keep my oath.”

  Onira looked to Bunji and asked, “Is this true?”

  “No and yes.” The adjutant smiled. “He is a total bastard, but he always keeps his promises. To that I can attest. Please, sir, to history this day will mean nothing. To you and yours, it’ll mean everything.”

  Onira blew out a heavy sigh nodded. Navara smiled. “A pleasure doing business with you, Governor Onira. Now, we have an invasion to plan.”

  Chapter 39 – A Trip to the Library

  It was a dangerous, six-day trip on the small watercraft for the smith and his friend Pinetto. The slender astronomer navigated, war

  ded, and captained the tiny sailboat. The smith provided what the academic lacked: muscle and unquestioning courage. Though his skin had been reddened by both sun and wind, the smith felt relaxed. After weeks of constant tension, he could, for the most part, sit back and enjoy nature. By contrast, Pinetto was growing tired of constantly deflecting spirits, steering around uncharted hazards, and instructing the oaf in every basic of sailing. His orders became increasingly shrill and impatient. Nonetheless, the promise of a university appointment outside Kragen’s rule spurred Pinetto onward. On the positive side, he’d learned more about spirit work in the past week of field experience than he had in the past two years of academic study.

  Each night, they docked against shore, far from any inhabited locale. There they could sleep unmolested. Each morning, Pinetto would refresh the wards, and the smith would drag their vessel back into the water to resume their voyage. It was during the final such vulnerable transition that the astronomer received his worst scare of the journey. A water snake wrapped around his leg and pulled him under. Without hesitation, his companion dove in and killed the reptile with a dagger. The smith’s only comment as he carved the animal into steaks was, “You’ll want to wash the gore out of your clothes now before it stinks.” But there was no way Pinetto was getting back in that water.

  Over breakfast on what looked to be their final day of the journey, it occurred to Pinetto that he didn’t even know the smith’s name. The papers for the university he carried for the fugitive had no clues either, only a blank space to be filled in later. “So what made you want to become…”

  “An executioner?” the smith finished.

  “No,” Pinetto said quickly, trying not to offend. “A smith.”

  His companion shrugged. “I don’t like talking much, giving orders, or killing. I liked fixing things and was strong like my dad.”

  “So your father was a smith, too?”

  “He specializes in making chains stronger and lighter. The chain attached to the anchor o
f our craft bears the mark from his shop. He has a dozen workers who churn out links day and night. Some are for armor, some for ships, and some for criminals or slaves. My father’s reasoning for his line of business was the more uncertain the world gets, the more people will feel the need for chains to bind it.”

  The smith stared at the turning spit. From his tone, he didn’t seem proud of his father. The astronomer dug deeper. “He sounds like a shrewd merchant, destined for wealth. Why didn’t you stay with him and inherit?”

  “Five older brothers. And shop work was repetitive and boring. I love the road, seeing new things, meeting new people.” Getting close to topics he wanted to avoid, the smith switched topics to a problem he had been chewing on for days. “I have a philosophical question maybe you could help me with.”

  Pinetto raised an eyebrow. “I’ve always enjoyed philosophy. Pose your dilemma.”

  The smith proceeded to tell his friend about the Sword of the Defender, from its acquisition to his present mission, leaving out the minor bit about the dwarf being the avatar of a god. When he had finished, and the snake was done being roasted, tasted, and flaked into sacks, the smith asked, “When we get to the Library, what do we say to the Prefect of the Vineyards?”

  The astronomer squinted, not seeing the heart of the problem. “What do you mean? We just hand his underlings the letters of reference and he never has to know we exist. Life is simpler that way.” The kingdom of Bablios was small, but compensated for this fact by knowing everything that happened everywhere. Borchart may have been king, but he was far more concerned with the making and rapid consumption of wine. Everyone knew that the real power was not in the capital city; rather, it centered on the Prefect’s information web and the defense of the enemy border.

  The smith squirmed. “Right. But how would we get the research done without telling them anything?”

  “Pish. You worry too much. Think of it as a game of tiles. We want to find out which players have the Winds without showing our own Phoenix. Some of it is strategy, but most of my success at tiles comes from knowing my competition.” Familiar with gambling himself, the smith conceded this point. Just sharing his concerns, he felt more at ease, especially since Pinetto seemed to be in his element. “There are hordes of clerks who live in the houses built against the outer walls of the Great Library. We point out that you’re a visiting noble and wish to have temporary apartments there while you’re waiting for the purchase of a suitable house in town to be finalized. Of course, no one buys a house until the weather improves. You get the idea. We could stay there for years with one excuse or another.”

  “They’d fall for that?”

  Pinetto shook his head. “You don’t know a thing about bureaucrats, do you? Everything in their culture is based on where you come from in the hierarchy. What you can get away with is determined by who you are or represent, not common sense. Nobles do this sort of thing all the time. It’s considered a courtesy. They must have a thousand rooms there. They won’t miss one or two. Be sure to ask for a runner, though. That place is pretty big and you won’t know your way.”

  The smith balked at this last comment as he cleaned his cooking gear. “That seems a bit extravagant.”

  “Forget how you were raised. We’re envoys from the Lord of the Mint! It’s expected. Besides, runners are also used for getting food at odd hours and tracking you down for important messages. If you make your request sound trivial or casual enough, these people can also find out anything about anyone for you. Runners are the life’s blood of that place. The best ones become stewards or archivists.”

  The smith wrinkled his brow. It occurred to him as well how little he knew about the man he was traveling with. “You seem to know a lot about how nobles travel. Were your parents rich?”

  Pinetto looked back at him like his friend ha mentioned walking through dog dirt. “No, they were runners for the palace in Zanzibos. Father sent me to Innisport to stay as far away from intrigues as I could and to have the chances he never did. Mother was a bit of a hedge witch with no formal training, but they saw the talent in me early.” Without warning, the astronomer dropped the big question. “So what’s your real name? I think I’ve earned that by now.”

  Sighing deeply, the smith weighed his options. He needed Pinetto to accomplish his mission, but hadn’t yet asked for help. If there were ever anyone he could trust, it would be this man. So, to avoid the big secrets, he told the little one. “Baran Togg.”

  As they resumed their voyage, Pinetto pondered this revelation. “Hmph. The last messenger. That’s what your name literally means in the desert tongue. Just like the man who reported the Great Silence to the kings of the south.”

  “Yes, that was my great-grandfather. Dad named me that as a grand jest. He had sired enough children and decreed I would be the last—Baran. We all used to be messengers at one time. The Togg clan was well-known as the Voice of the Gods. But what use is a family of messengers without a message? We were ruined. No one took the news well, not even the Brotherhood. They cut out my great-grandsire’s tongue for spite.”

  Pinetto gushed, “He was famous. You’re famous.”

  The smith grabbed him by the back of the hair and pulled him nose-to-nose. In an unmistakable voice used by men who broke knees for a living, he said, “Pay attention. Tell no one my true name.” Releasing his companion, he said in a more reasonable tone. “It’s enough that you know who I am and what I bear. More than that is between me and the gods.”

  ***

  That evening was very foggy as they poled through the shallows. Pinetto was looking for a place to land in safety for the night, while the smith lobbied to complete their journey. “You said the Library was close. Why can’t we keep going?”

  The atmosphere and their proximity to shore had both men whispering. From time to time they heard muffled activity from land: dogs barked, babies cried, woodcutters chopped, and the odd wagon rumbled. Pinetto shook his head. “That was before the fog rolled in. We can’t see ten paces in this soup. People who disregard these conditions end up in one of three situations: going past their destination, going in an unexpected direction, or wrecked on some submerged hazard that any fool could have seen on a clear day.”

  “Like that boat up there,” the smith said, pointing to a large, holed rowboat on the shoals ahead.

  “Yes, exactly like that,” confirmed Pinetto. The four-seated craft was stranded on a jetty of rock like a miniature island, half-sunken. The water was chest-deep in most places, but walking on the pile of jagged rock, one could reach the shore without wetting anything above the knees. The wreck had to be recent because bundles of cargo tied to the boat were still bobbing in the area. “Here’s another maritime rule I didn’t teach you. If you find another craft in need, you have to help it. That means no Library tonight. Get us closer to the wreck and see if anybody’s injured.”

  The smith poled alongside, and while the astronomer roped off, he climbed into the wreck with their hooded lantern. There was a little blood on the boards nearest the breach, but no bodies remained. He untied the strangers’ cargo and hefted it into the sailboat. The smith began examining the oarlocks and anchor chain with squinted eyes. “There’s not much left,” said Pinetto a few minutes later. “Room and oars for eight. It looks like they all carried what they could along with the injured. All we have to do is find them, and…”

  The smith lunged over to clamp his hand over the astronomer’s mouth. In a graveyard whisper, he said “Hush. They’re the Pretender’s men.” Because following the enemy over slippery rocks under those conditions would have been too risky, they poled ashore a short distance back to the west. On land, they got their bearings. The Imperial highway was only a few paces away, and they quickly found a milestone. From his maps and the low, stone wall along the road, Pinetto decided that the fishing village of Grunyun lay a short distance further east.

  The smith explained his plan of attack. “They’re bound to have a sentry. I’ll sneak up on
him while you cover my back. Then, I’ll keep watch on the rest of them while you rouse the farmers and fisherman in the town.”

  “Great,” agreed the nervous astronomer. “Where’s my weapon?”

  The smith faltered a little at this. He had no desire to have his new hammer broken this soon. Instead, he handed Pinetto the same dagger that had killed the snake. “Your goal is not to use this, understand? We’ll leave these invaders to a horde of angry villagers. I need you for your feet, not fighting.” Again, Pinetto nodded.

  Drawing the re-forged Sword of Miracles, the smith crawled along under cover of the stone wall, with the astronomer hanging behind. When he reached an archway in the wall, he knew the jetty lay to his left. To his right was a long, wooden shed with fishing nets hanging from the eaves. Judging from the chimney and the smell, it was probably a smokehouse. Many of the small, spiky fish available in the shallows weren’t the most palatable, but when dried and mixed with olive oil and the proper seasonings they weren’t bad. Sweating and struggling to quiet his own loud breathing, he poked his eyes above the stonework but could make out no one through the fog.

  He almost jumped out of his boots when Pinetto tapped him on the shoulder. The astronomer pointed to the back of the shed and ducked back down. Two things were immediately visible. The first was the glow of a fire at least twenty strides inland. The second was a man with his back to them, urinating against the rear section of the shed. The man wore a pack like the ones they’d found in the wreck, plus a black hood to conceal his face. The smith smiled. It didn’t get any better than this. He could easily club the man on the head, and no one in the camp would be the wiser.