The Water Road

by JD Byrne

  “Very well,” said Pyrsal.

  Gaven recounted the encounter with the Neldathi and told Pyrsal of the musket. He didn’t include any of the speculation he had shared with Klaron earlier. Analysis was not his role. He had learned, the hard way over the years, to deal only with objective facts when sending reports.

  After Gaven had stopped sending out words with his mind, Pyrsal asked, “Is that all you have to report, Gaven?”

  “Yes,” Gaven said. “That is all.”

  “Very well. Keep safe. May we soon speak again,” Pyrsal said, sending also the signal to Gaven that it was time to decouple their minds.

  “Keep safe,” Gaven said, before cutting the connection. In that instant, they were again separated by miles of night. Gaven exhaled deeply and stared out from the platform down the mountain.

  “Is something wrong, master?” Klaron asked with obvious concern.

  “No, no,” Gaven said, rousing from his fixation. “You know that reaching out to the mind of another is very taxing. I just need a few moments before we climb down.” He decided to change the subject while they waited. “It’s a beautiful sight, isn’t it, Klaron?” Gaven swept his hand across the vista in front of them.

  “Yes, master.”

  “How long have you been a Sentinel, Klaron?”

  “I have been with the program nearly four years, sir.”

  “But how long have you actually been a Sentinel? An active agent in the field? How long have you been south of the Water Road?”

  “You are my first assigned partner, master,” Klaron answered, a small note of pride in his voice. “So I have been in the field since I joined you five months ago.”

  “That long?” Gaven laughed. It seemed as if they had been together for a lifetime. “What do you think of it? Of the land. The mountains.”

  Klaron stepped up to the low shelf beside Gaven and gripped it tightly. “Some places are very beautiful, master.”

  “Is that all?” He was trying to pull something a little more subtle out of the young man.

  Klaron sighed. “Honestly, master?”

  “Of course. I wouldn’t ask you a question if I didn’t want an honest answer, would I?”

  Klaron took a deep breath. “On a night like tonight, master, it depresses me to think that a land of such beauty is left to the barbarians. It does not seem right, sir.”

  The young man’s answer took Gaven by surprise. He had never heard him speak of the Neldathi like that in their time together. “It doesn’t? Tell me, do they still teach the old myths in school these days?”

  “Of course not, master,” Klaron said proudly. “Ever since the gods were revealed to be nothing but the constructions of our own minds, they are of no importance.”

  “Really? Even in Telebria? I always heard that the Telebrians would hang onto any tradition just for the sake of it.”

  Klaron was too stunned to answer directly. “You… you do not believe in the old stories, do you, master?”

  “Of course not,” Gaven said, giving the young man a reassuring pat on the shoulder. “But that’s not the same as saying they lack any value. Some of those stories are beautiful in their simplicity. They are good stories. Any educated person should know about the Maker of Worlds and how she tore the land in half in a fit of rage. That created the Water Road and caused the rift between the Neldathi and us. It is poetic, even if it isn’t true.” He paused and then said, “Besides, the Neldathi most certainly believe them.”

  Klaron said nothing in response.

  Gaven smiled. “Don’t worry, Klaron. It is not that important. Come. It’s cold, and I am tired. We should turn in for the night. Maybe tomorrow morning we can begin your mythological education.”

  Part I

  Chapter 1

  Tolenor was a planned city that had experienced unexpected growth. Laid out after the Great Neldathi Uprising had been put down more than a century ago, it was designed to be the administrative center of the Triumvirate. It was not to be a “capital city.” At least the diplomats who worked there, and the sovereigns who sent them, would not call it that. The Triumvirate was an uneasy alliance. Making Tolenor a true capital would only fuel those who sought to break it up. It would also indicate that the Triumvirate was something like a nation unto itself, while it most definitely was not.

  The city was laid out on a small island in the Bay of Sins. The Water Road, which flowed out of Great Basin Lake hundreds of miles away, flowed into the bay, which had made it a destination for travelers and pilgrims for centuries. Now, even though the old gods were dead, the people still came, but instead of seeking redemption they sought work or power or favors from those who have either.

  The theory of placing Tolenor on the island was that the limited space would naturally keep the population down. Only those doing business with the Grand Council of the Triumvirate would bother reaching the island, connected to the mainland only by one great causeway and a few ferries.

  Regardless of the designs of the city founders, and of the alliance, what was meant to be a small administrative center of limited importance quickly blossomed into a major city. People from all over Altreria, in addition to the occasional Islander and others, flocked there. They came for opportunity, for commerce, to influence the powerful, or for less savory reasons. Those people, the ones who jammed its grid of streets and gave the city its buzz, freely called it the capital.

  Antrey Ranbren had come to Tolenor simply to try and make a life for herself. It was the one place in the world, north or south of the Water Road, that she might be able to do that. Neither the Neldathi nor the Altrerians were kind to what Antrey’s employer and those in polite society called “children of mixed parentage.” Those on the street used a less kind, and more brutally direct term: halfbreed. Fewer still used the term from the old tongue, “ranbren,” that gave Antrey her surname. Born of a Neldathi mother and an Altrerian father, Antrey was out of place in both societies. Tolenor, which existed as a part of that world but also as something apart from it, provided a small patch of middle ground on which she could survive. After these years, she was content with that. She had no dreams of actually thriving.

  It wasn’t as if she could blend in with the crowds. The city was jammed full of Altrerians of every shade of green, from the pale northern Telebrians to the dark-hued Arborians. With her pale turquoise skin, Antrey was distinctive, a small patch of clear sky on an overcast day. At least she inherited her father’s slight Altrerian frame. It was difficult enough looking different. Having to poke out above the heads of everyone else by a foot or more would have been unbearable. She did her best to try and conceal her otherness. She kept her black hair, from her mother’s side, closely cropped so as to be almost unnoticeable. She did her best to ensure that as little skin was visible to the public as possible. Despite her best efforts, she stood out.

  The crowds themselves were impressively diverse, made up of people from all across the land. Most came from the member nations of the Triumvirate: the Kingdom of Telebria, which ran along the east coast; the United Guilds of Altreria, its counterpart on the west coast; and the Confederated States of the Arbor, sandwiched in between. There were a few Islanders, too, although they tended to come and go with the ships in the harbor. Antrey had even once met a pair of Azkiri nomads from the Badlands in the far north.

  At the heart of Tolenor was the Triumvirate compound, where the administrative buildings of the alliance were situated. It also contained a lavish collection of small homes and apartments for those who worked there, along with guest lodging for visiting dignitaries. The main buildings formed a large square in the middle of the island, with a collection of neatly kept gardens and courtyards in the center. There, in the safety of the compound, Antrey was merely another underling, one among many who tended to the business of the alliance. Her unique appearance and shadowy past did not matter to anyone with whom she regularly worked, except perhaps as a source of back-room gossip to which Antrey was never privy.
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  The streets of the city spread out like spokes from the Triumvirate compound, carving the island up into nearly proportionate squares. Out at the edges, where the main roads encountered the rocky island shore, the rigorous planning broke down. Streets curved and took odd angles as necessary to weave around the coast.

  It was in the unplanned places where the excess population, those who came to seek fortune and found none, went to live. The people who lived out in those hinterlands were often bitter, beaten down by years of crippling poverty and subjugation. Tolenor had no governance aside from the Grand Council itself, which was never intended to manage the day-to-day problems of a growing city. The people out there thought, with some justification, that they had simply been forgotten. The business of the Grand Council was disputes among nations, not ensuring that the poor had food in their bellies.

  On some days, Antrey’s job required her to leave the safety of the Triumvirate compound and venture out to the hinterlands. On those streets was where Antrey felt the most vulnerable, exposed and alone. She planned those trips with great care, combining errands to try and make them as rare as possible. As she walked the streets, she kept a tight grip of the leather bag slung over her shoulder with one hand. In the other, she clutched at the papers that identified her as an employee of the Grand Council. After six years here, she knew many of the Sentinels who patrolled the streets, but the consequences of an encounter with an unfamiliar face were not worth the risk if she left those papers at home.

  Today was one of those days. She had already been to the printer to check on the status of Alban’s latest collection of essays on the alliance’s economic policy. In addition to his official role as the official clerk of the Grand Council, her employer Alban was a well-regarded analyst, particularly on economic issues. However, because his analytical writings were not part of his official role, they could not be printed and bound by the staff attached to the Grand Council. Instead, Antrey regularly visited a printer’s shop in Tolenor’s northwest sector with a collection of papers. The printer would then collate them, set them in type, and print them as pamphlets. The current project had taken longer than expected due to a breakdown of the press last week.

  After visiting the printer’s, Antrey walked to the open-air market near the end of the Grand Causeway that connected Tolenor to the Telebrian mainland. She went there to pick through the first of the spring’s fresh fruit that had been brought in from the Guildlands. There was no agriculture to speak of on the island, so the city’s inhabitants were completely dependent on importing food from the Triumvirate member nations. Fresh fruit was a delicacy that Antrey cherished. It reminded her of the brief summers of her youth in the southern mountains. It was worth saving and scrimping a bit to enjoy the pleasure of a fresh strawberry as she hiked through the streets on her rounds.

  ~~~~~

  Before she returned to the compound, Antrey had to make one last stop, at a small shop perched on a rocky bluff on the island’s northeastern shore. From the shop’s back door, a person could stand almost at the edge of the world and look out over the never-ending ocean and the horizon that seemed to stretch on forever.

  Under normal circumstances, Antrey would appreciate the view and the quiet contemplation it forced upon her. But the reality of her life meant that she did not like going there. It required her to pick her way through several back streets in a poor and ugly part of the city. The people there were packed in like pickles in a jar. It was impossible for her to pass by without feeling their eyes latch onto her, exploring every aspect of her odd appearance. It didn’t help matters that this outsider, this halfbreed, was dressed as if she came from some means. The attention unnerved Antrey and made her quicken her steps.

  This was a regular visit because it was the only place in the city that carried the particular kind of parchment and ink that Alban preferred for his work. He had explained to her one day, in mind-numbing detail, about how important the proper match of parchment, ink, and pen was to keeping the official notes of the Grand Council. An ink that was too heavy, or a parchment that was too thin, would cause words to smudge as he wrote them. Ink that was too light, or the parchment too thick, he would have to work harder to ensure that the notes were dark enough to be legible later. Alban wrote furiously during the course of a heated debate, to keep track of the competing arguments. He owed it to history, he explained to her, to make sure he did not have to worry about the supplies he used. Antrey was not certain that she needed the detail Alban gave her, but it did give her an appreciation for how seriously he took his work.

  The shop appeared to be empty when Antrey went in. There was no one at the counter and she did not detect anyone lurking in any of the aisles. Antrey walked up to the counter in front and rang the small brass bell. When there was no immediate response, Antrey busied herself with an examination of the store’s inventory. After all this time, she was certain she could find precisely what Alban wanted without any assistance. There were stacks of paper and parchment in various forms. There were quill pens and inkwells, of the sort Alban insisted on using, although they took up a smaller amount of shelf space each time she was there. Antrey had to admit she loved the smell of the place. It reminded her of the books in Alban’s library, the ones she read when he wasn’t looking.

  From behind her, Antrey heard a voice. “I am sorry, we could not hear you come in. How can I help…” The sentence fell away without completion as Antrey turned and faced a young boy. He jumped subtlety, but Antrey had learned to notice such things. “Um, er,” the boy stammered, unsure how to continue.

  Antrey did not recognize the boy from her earlier trips. He must be new, a child from one of the homes in the neighborhood, forced to work at this age to support the rest of his family. She smiled at him and was keen to not make any suggestive movements. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you. I’m here to pick up a few things for my employer. I have a list here, in my bag,” she said, before slowly taking out a piece of paper. “Can you help me?” She held out the list to give it to the boy.

  “I… I… I am sorry, miss, but… I… I do not think I can help you,” the boy said, thinking on his feet and doing it badly.

  “Why is that?” Antrey asked. She knew the answer, but wanted to see if the boy would admit it.

  “I…just do not think we have what a…what a person like you is looking for,” he said, slowly backing away from her with small steps.

  “But that cannot be,” Antrey said as politely as she could manage. She stepped towards the boy, keeping the space between them even. “You haven’t even looked at the list I have,” she said, waving it at the boy.

  “I… I…” he stumbled again, trying and failing to come up with some polite way to get away from her.

  “And what did you mean when you said you couldn’t help ‘a person like me’? What kind of person am I?” She was getting increasingly fed up with the situation.

  “Well, I mean… I mean… you are… you look…”

  To the boy’s great relief, their exchange was interrupted by Rasinah, the stooped old Telebrian man who ran the shop, when he came out of the back room. “Who is it, boy? What is the matter?” he asked as he rounded the corner of the aisle in which they were standing. He looked first at the boy and then at Antrey, to whom he flashed a warm smile of recognition. “It is very nice to see you again, Antrey,” he said to her, dipping his head slightly. He turned to the boy with eyes of fire. “Boy, this is Antrey Ranbren, assistant to the official clerk of the Grand Council. She and her patron are fine and long customers of ours. Take her list and gather what she needs.” His voice was forceful, but measured, until he realized that the boy was still frozen where he stood. “Quickly!” he yelled.

  The boy’s body released the tension it had accumulated in an instant. He snatched the list from Antrey’s hand and began to expertly snatch parcels off various shelves.

  Rasinah turned back to her. “My deepest apologies, Antrey,” he said, shaking his head. �
��It can be so hard to find a good assistant these days, one that will not run away at the first dream of adventure or some such nonsense.”

  “There was no offense,” Antrey said, being more gracious than she felt. The old man had always treated her well. She remembered how stunned he was when Alban first brought her here years ago. “I know how people react to me when we meet for the first time. I’ve grown used to it.”

  Rasinah waved his hand, as if to swat away an errant fly. “Balderdash!” he yelled, in the same tone with which he dispatched his young protégé. “You are no monster, Antrey, no creature of myth sent to torment this boy. He needs to learn that. All of his generation need to learn that.”

  Antrey smiled and chuckled softly to herself. If anyone were to give lessons on not judging books by their covers, it would be Rasinah. By all appearances, he was an old fool set in his ways who looked askance at anything different from how things used to be. Instead, he was as open-minded as the young assistants who flooded the Triumvirate compound every summer.

  Antrey and Rasinah exchanged small talk while the boy collected the supplies. Her last errand complete, Antrey was ready to head for home.

  ~~~~~

  The sun had begun to set over the city by the time Antrey left Rasinah’s shop. The taller buildings towards the center of the city cast long shadows over the twisting streets near the coast. The bag that Antrey had slung over her shoulder was heavy now, laden with the supplies she had procured for Alban. The extra weight made her shoulder sore and slowed her steps. As a result, she became particularly wary about her surroundings.

  As she weaved her way through the streets back to the main avenue that would take her to the compound, Antrey became aware that someone was following her. More than one someone, she thought. It was only a hunch, but over the years she had developed a keen sense for when the eyes of others were following her. It was part of her daily life as someone who looked out of place with the world around her. She picked up her pace as best as she could.