by Sean Hinn
“Ahhhh, yer a hammerhead, Boot.”
“I’ll hammer yer head, ye fool,” Boot said, balling up a fist in mock anger.
“Hey J’arn?” asked Rocks.
“Yeah, Rocks?”
“How much longer ‘till winter gets here?”
Shyla interrupted. “Forty-one days.”
The dwarves all looked at the gnome.
“Well, forty really, but yeh don’t count the last one.”
“How in Fury do ye know that, Shyla?” asked Rocks.
“Well, look up.” The dwarves all looked up reflexively.
“Not tonight I mean, can’t see nothing tonight. But last night, the top Twin was kinda startin’ to hide behind the other. Well, that only happens once a year, and it happens in the eleventh cycle. So, we’re in the tenth cycle now. Now, there was also this one big star kinda sittin’ right there, under the bottom twin, all centered-like.” Shyla tried to make the shapes with her tiny hands. “That means it be exactly nine days ‘fore the end of the cycle, and when ya add up the nine days, minus today, plus the thirty-two days in the next cycle, that’d be forty-one. The eleventh cycle is over on the last and shortest day of the year, and that be when winter starts. But like I said, yeh don’t count the last day, if yer counting ahead from today.”
The dwarves all looked at Shyla incredulously.
“I thought she-gnomes never went outside, Shyla. How in Tahr do ye know all that?” asked Boot.
“Well, I maybe snuck out once in a while,” Shyla blushed. “Or every night. Depends on how yeh count it.”
The dwarves all laughed. J’arn asked, “Are ye sure yer’ not goin’ to study to be a Ranger, Shyla, and not a sorceress? ’Cause I don’t think any of us know how to look at the night sky and know what day it is. That’s what we have calendars for.” The company of dwarves muttered their agreement.
“What’s a Ranger?” Shyla asked curiously. “And what’s a calendar?”
---
Shyla woke early, an uneasy feeling poking at her. The dwarves had set up a private tent for the gnome, and she could see a bit of light creeping through the narrow opening in the flap, but it was somehow…wrong. The morning was eerily quiet, and she did not believe anyone else was awake. Wolf slept soundly beside her. She rubbed her eyes, pulled on her boots, and stepped outside.
Shyla was not the first awake. The eight dwarves stood silently, gaping at the world around them. That entire world was grey.
Not merely the sky. The ground. The trees. The air. Even the river. Everything. An uncountable number of particles of light grey ash drifted slowly down from the skies, coating Tahr with a thick blanket of soot. Shyla shuddered. As wondrous as the sight was, she knew it was bad. Very bad.
No one spoke. Boot walked over to the kettle to peer into his stew, and shook his head.
“Ruined.”
For several turns nothing else was said, as the company wandered about in a daze. Jender finally broke the silence.
“Looks like the river’s still flowin’. Got a bit of a sludge to it, but she’s movin’.”
J’arn nodded at the soldier, now also mottled in grey. He did not bother to inform Jender that it would take more than a few fingers of ash to stop the Morline, sensing that the frightened dwarf had just needed to say something. “Aye, seems to be. Well, we’ll be needin’ to head out, boys. Leave the tents, we’ll never get ‘em clean. Pack yer gear, and let’s float.”
Shyla went back to her tent, and awakened Wolf. The animal stretched languorously, and made his way out of the tent. Shyla could not see his expression as she gathered her belongings, but she heard his plaintive whine. He stood waiting for her, ears laid back, as she exited the tent.
“Go on, Wolf.” She patted him gently. “Go empty yourself, we’re gonna be floatin’ all day looks like.”
Wolf would not leave her side.
The dwarves quickly loaded up with gear, the larger items already tied onto the rafts, and J’arn made the boarding call. Wolf was the first to the rafts, eager to be gone from the eerie clearing. He howled a long, unnerving note as Shyla and the dwarves secured their gear, urging the company to hasten away. The lines were dropped, and the rafts floated freely. While all knew on some level that the river had not slowed any since the night before, they all watched the shoreline pass before their eyes, and the sense of time decelerating was palpable.
Boot finally said it. “I hope Manera is safe,” referring to his wife.
“She is, Boot,” J’arn replied, his hand cupping his friend’s shoulder. “Probably safer than we are.”
Shyla did not find that idea particularly comforting, but understood how Boot might.
J’arn made a declaration. “We will sail until we reach the docks, purchase fresh mounts and dried foods, and head north at the Highmorland Crossing. We will not stop to visit the markets. We will rest only as much as is absolutely necessary. We must make the Grove as quickly as possible. If there is help to be had, we must get to it.”
No one argued, all agreed.
They all watched the Fang fade behind the tree line as the shoreline narrowed, its black and yellow clouds of sulfurous poison continuing to belch into the world, angry red fissures now hidden behind the greyed forest canopy. The skies continued their unrelenting coating of Tahr, weaving a dense carpet that would soon silence and suffocate the land beneath it.
Shyla wept.
XXVIII: MOR
Sartean stood passively before King Halsen in the great marbled throneroom, hands folded before him and hidden within his rarely-worn set of maroon and brown robes. The tirade had been issuing from the frothing monarch for several turns, and no end seemed forthcoming. Four cowering heads of treasury, trade, labor and agriculture stood beside the wizard in their frills and fineries, two on either side, flanked by a pair of stiff Defenders. An additional five pikemen stood behind the assembled supplicants, their presence making it clear that the rules of The Game were in full lethal effect. Eight more flanked the king, and the twenty-one men comprised the whole of the audience. Hundreds would regularly assemble in this hall, Sartean considered, and never had he been formally present before the king in the throneroom with so few in attendance. The resonance of that realization mingled with the echoes of the king’s bellowing rant through the empty chamber, and the effect was unsettling, even for the formidable sorcerer.
Sartean must await the king’s query before speaking, he knew, and thus busied himself admiring the marble columns and fine-woven tapestries that hung alongside the soaring stained glass windows. On a typical morning, the light from the windows would be sufficient to brighten the hall, the architecture of the throneroom and curvature of the glass designed to diffuse the sun’s beams uniformly throughout. There were no beams this day; the glow of the sun was scarcely existent, the clouds and ash emitting from Fang choking the light, only a filmy remnant of murky light penetrating the clouds sufficiently to reach the windows. Sconces therefore were lit along the columns of the hall, the scent of burning pitch lending an even more ominous feel to the gathering.
Sartean sensed that a question was threatening to surface, and returned his attention to the king.
“Tell us then, Master Alton,” the king addressed the head of infrastructure, “WHY has nothing been done to repair the walls and address this damnable ash?”
The tall, bulky man was the only person present besides Sartean and the Defenders that was not shuddering in fear. He cleared his throat and replied. “Much has been done, your Highness, but the problems exceed my allotted manpower. I have been doing all that is within my power and more to recruit more laborers, Sire, but without coin, I am helpless. My next and final option is to empty the prisons, and I have sent several requests to do just that, but as yet I believe your Highness has not had occasion to approve them.”
The king waved his hand dismissively. “You have my approval, Alton. But will it be enough?”
The head of labor deliberated briefly, then replied. �
��No, Sire. It will not be nearly enough.”
“Coin, then,” the king turned his gaze to Treasury. “Can you not make it available, Fennar?”
The head of treasury shook his head. “Not without starving your soldiery, Highness. Our greatest expense is our military. As I understand it, the morale among the men is already dangerously low, and the majority of the army has already turned to the submarkets for additional income.” The master of Treasury swallowed. “Your Highness, our pay scale is woefully insufficient, and at the current rate, the coffers of Mor will be empty by the spring in any case.”
King Halsen eyed the treasurer and held out his hand. Yan appeared from nowhere, placing a crystal goblet of wine in the monarch’s fat fingers.
The king sipped slowly. “You are my treasurer, Master Fennar. If the treasury is empty, tell me, whose blood should spill?”
Fennar’s knees unlocked; the man barely remained upright. He replied unsteadily. “That is a decision only you can make, your Highness, and I will say only this in my defense. I am tasked with collecting taxes, counting coin, and distributing it as you dictate. There are no taxes to collect when there is no trade, and I cannot count and distribute what does not exist.” The trembling man bowed his head and closed his eyes, bracing himself for what would come next.
King Halsen allowed the man’s terror to take root for a moment, then spoke. “Don’t soil yourself, Fennar. You may yet survive this day. Master Harris, however, your continued existence is not so assured.” Halsen turned his gaze to the master of Trade. “Does Fennar speak the truth? Is there no trade?”
The slight man stuttered in response. “I, ah…well Sire, the, the fact of the matter–”
“Collect yourself and speak clearly, Harris, or we shall replace you with someone who will.”
Harris inhaled sharply and did his best to calm himself. He only just succeeded. “Of…of course, Sire. The problem is this.” Harris took another brief moment to steady his voice. “The chief export of Mor has traditionally been food and spice, Highness. We export cloth and crafts to the dwarves and elves as well, but those items are mostly bartered, with little tax revenue resulting. Our production comes primarily from the farmlands, and thus our influx of coin is most directly tied to the outputs of agriculture. In the past eight seasons, Sire, our volumes of food production…well, Sire, they are barely enough to feed our own people. There is little left to export. We...”
“ENOUGH!” Halsen screamed shrilly. “Our walls crumble from tahrquakes. The blasted sun is blotted out, and ash blankets my kingdom. We need LABOR!” Halsen smashed his goblet to the floor, and even Yan did not move to retrieve it. The king stood, angrily leering at his kingdom’s leadership. “Yet labor blames treasury, treasury blames trade, trade blames farming…we suppose that farming will blame the heat, or the cold, or lack of rains, or rabbits, or some damned insect next!”
The head of agriculture spoke. “Your Highness, a great deal of the farmlands has been–”
Sartean silently congratulated himself on his choice of attire as fragments of skull mingled with brain matter and other gore splattered his garments. The halberd had sliced through the air smoothly at the silent urging of King Halsen, only a shifting of his eyes needed to prompt the Defender into action. The blade cleaved Master Barrington’s head in two from behind, embedding itself deep within the man’s chest cavity. The remainder of the man lay crumpled on the marble floor, and the Defender stepped on his back to yank his weapon free, returning to attention.
“It would appear we have a vacancy in agriculture.” Halsen returned to his throne. “Sartean, will you be so kind?”
“Certainly, Sire.” With a series of gestures and mutterings from the wizard, the blood and gore now spilling from the corpse boiled and evaporated, the gaping wound cauterizing itself to prevent further leakage. The scent of burnt flesh rose form the corpse. Sartean nodded at the soldier that had done the deed, and the man dragged the carcass from the throneroom. Within moments, a fine dry pile of ochre-colored dust was all that remained of the man’s spilled life, and with a flourish, Sartean waved the dust into nothingness.
The king was amused. “You have become practiced at the task, Sar. Well done. Now, will you tell me precisely what we are to do about these issues?”
The Head Incantor nodded. “As you command, Sire. In our last meeting, I had conveyed that I believe I have a solution. I have begun field tests, and the results are promising. With a bit of luck, I believe we will have solved our overarching problems of labor and taxes by midwinter,” Sartean turned his gaze to Fennar arrogantly, “well before the treasury runs empty. I will also quickly resolve the small matters of the wall damage and this infernal ash.”
“How?” Fennar asked incredulously. Sartean raised an eyebrow at the man, then looked to the king. Fennar’s eyes widened, and immediately raised his hands protectively over his head…too little, too late. The Defender’s first blow was insufficient, owing to the man’s feeble attempt at defense, but his second quick strike ended the screams.
King Halsen chuckled, and waggled a finger at the sorcerer. “You set him up for that, Sartean. We are appalled.”
Sartean bowed his head slightly in deference, knowing better than to issue a response. The remaining councilors flanking him trembled.
“Well, as much as I am inclined to take you at your word, Sar, I am going to need to see some evidence for myself that you’ve got this all under your thumb. What can you show me?”
“Much, Highness. May I suggest that you adjourn this assembly, so that we may speak freely…and privately?”
“Best that we do so, or at this rate I’ll have the damned Defenders hacking at each other when we run out of councilors. Adjourned. Sar, attend me in my chambers in an hour.”
Sartean stood silently as the other councilors quickly departed. “Something else, Sartean?”
“You may wish to call for a cloak, Sire, and assemble an element of Defenders,” Sartean suggested.
“Dammit, Sar, can you not simply tell me what you wish to tell me in my chambers?”
“You had asked to see evidence, Sire. That will require a short walk to the outer wall.”
“The outer wall? Not so short a walk, wizard. And I do not ask for evidence, I demand it. Yan, send for my horse. I will meet you at the drawbridge, wizard.”
Sartean nodded, bowed, and made his exit.
---
Walking through the passages of the palace towards the drawbridge, Sartean smiled at his remarkably good fortune. Barrington was a moment away from informing the king that a sizeable percentage of the farmlands had been appropriated by Mila, and no amount of deflection on Sartean’s part would have proven sufficient to stay the king’s wrath. He had been tasked with finding a solution to the kingdom’s woes only this cycle, and if Halsen discovered that the wizard’s plans have been in the works for ten seasons, his suspicions would drive him to immediate and absolute violence. Sartean had not attended the council without protecting himself; no single strike of a halberd would have penetrated his defenses. He would likely have survived the encounter and escaped the Palace, but not without initiating an all-out war between Kehrlia and the army. Sartean would accept such an outcome if it were necessary, but it was far from ideal.
The risk of that was now a thing of the past. Barrington had kept Sartean’s seizure of farmlands a strictly guarded secret, believing that his confidence would ingratiate him to the wizard, and assure his own wealth in the future. In truth, Sartean suspected, it was not his greed that had held the man in check for so long, it was his terror. The wizard had made clear and unambiguous the horrors that would visit the man if he spoke a word to anyone of their arrangement. His threats had lost their effect, however, when the man had faced the king’s wrath this day; better to survive the moment and worry about Sartean later, he must have reasoned. Perhaps he believed that if he had betrayed the wizard to the king, it would be Sartean’s head split in two, and the man would leave the au
dience freed of both his secrets and the wizard’s threats. Perhaps your gambit would have succeeded, Barrington, if you had only awaited your turn to speak. Sartean smiled at the thought. No, Sartean corrected himself. You would have been begging for death by nightfall.
Sartean had not needed to make similar promises of wealth to Master Alton. A steady supply of laborers were required to harvest the crops of phenarril that Mila Felsin had been growing, and that supply could not be secured without help from Alton, or at least without alerting him. His deal with the head of labor was much simpler. His daughter Callie had been an apprentice at Kehrlia, and Sartean merely needed to assure her graduation – and survival – to obtain Alton’s cooperation. He had barely needed to elucidate how dangerous an apprenticeship could be before the clever head of labor read between the lines. “Tell me what you require, wizard,” he had said, “and you will have it so long as my daughter lives.” Simple.
It had not been so simple to keep the disappearance of hundreds of laborers a secret, but Mila did a commendable job in that respect. She had orchestrated a masterful system of recruiting that met her needs gradually, as the size of her harvest increased. She had assigned several wizards to the task, and only unattached, unmarried laborers were selected, men whose lack of connection to the world around them would prevent their departure from Mor from garnering immediate and undue attention. Her laborers served in a second vital capacity as well, allowing the sorceress to test her Flightfluid potions continuously without raising suspicions.
Her final recipe was settled upon just over a year ago, and a significant supply of the drug was ready for distribution, but the climate in Mor was not quite ripe. Sartean bided his time, waiting for the king’s failures at leadership to give way to desperation and paranoia, all the while positioning himself as a trusted and indispensable resource.
One obstacle had remained. Treasury. Master Fennar was not the most capable accountant, but he did possess a mastery of political and economic machination. The man was connected to all manner of industries and markets, and had amassed a lifetime of favors and alliances that would make him a formidable opponent as Sartean made his play at the throne. He did not worry that the treasurer would side with Halsen against him in an eventual conflict; the man had his own designs, and would not brook any threat to the empire he had built for himself. Yet with a word, Sartean mused, a single, three-letter word, he brought his own ruin.