The Cycle of Arawn: The Complete Epic Fantasy Trilogy

by Edward W. Robertson

  The lesson was that in times of crisis, there was no such thing as too much food. On the conclusion of the war, Dante brought this lesson before the Council. Like everything else, the institution had been depleted by the fighting, but it still boasted many formidable members. Olivander was the commander of the military and currently the acting regent, and possessed a strong logistical mind. Somburr, the spymaster, had traveled extensively, observing all kinds of municipal programs and arrangements, and had the keenest understanding of politics and their consequences. And Tarkon was as old as the hills and had lived in Narashtovik all his years; his understanding of the city and its people was second to none.

  Between them, they'd hammered out a simple agreement: any citizen or immigrant who wished to farm the city-owned land could do so. Narashtovik's soldiers (who no longer had much soldiering to do) would even assist them in the construction of their homes and the cleanup of the land. This would cost the homesteaders nothing—but in the event of war or emergency, the city would be allowed to purchase all the farmers' excess food at a steep discount.

  It had worked out as well as they'd hoped. Hundreds of family farms cropped up around the city's borders. Thriving markets emerged in the formerly quiet streets of the outer districts. Merchants arrived to act as middlemen, porting the excess to Dollendun, Yallen, and the harsh lands of the northwest coasts, where storms and rough terrain made large-scale farming impossible.

  In one sense, setting up programs like this was extremely tedious. In another sense, however, administering Narashtovik and its lands was like a massive, real-life version of Nulladoon.

  With the Citadel located in the center of the city, Dante rarely had any call to roam around the edges of the city. As he and Lew rode in from the hinterlands, it was deeply rewarding to see the effects of his policy on the commonwealth. They passed through the Pridegate, the first of the two walls. These neighborhoods had prospered, too, rowhouses and storefronts packing people into each block. Dante wasn't wearing the black and silver uniform of Narashtovik, and despite being on horseback, he was often forced to maneuver around lumbering wagons and knots of haggling traders. The city was thick with the smell of dung, equine and human, mollified somewhat by baking bread, diverse perfumes, and the smell of hot black tea wafting from countless stalls, public houses, and shops dedicated to its consumption.

  Dante crossed beneath the Ingate into the heart of the city, a cluster of hills dominated by two structures: the Cathedral of Ivars, which flung its marble spire nearly five hundred feet into the sky, and across from it, the Sealed Citadel, a titanic block of granite encircled by a thirty-foot wall. The gates, as always, were closed, but the guards manning them were quick to spot Dante. The grille opened with an iron screech. The guards shouted greetings. The handful of troops, acolytes, and servants in the courtyard glanced his way and inclined their heads. Dante nodded back.

  Groomsmen hastened to see to the horses. Dante dismounted stiffly, sore from days of riding. He had hardly made it inside the front doors before he was intercepted by Gant, the Citadel's majordomo, whose pale skin and facility for seeming to be everywhere at once prompted speculation that he moved faster than sunlight.

  "Lord Galand," Gant said to Dante in his exquisite accent—sheer Narashtovik stevedore, yet somehow Gant made it sound as elegant as brushed nickel. The man himself was as thin and sinewy as a riding crop. "We are blessed to have you back. Was your trip satisfactory?"

  "We may have fulfilled some of our hazy objectives," Dante said.

  The majordomo turned to Lew. "And you?"

  The young monk shrugged. "Always nice to be allowed out of the city."

  "Excellent. Lord Galand, I am certain Olivander will want to see you at the soonest opportunity."

  "And I want a flying carpet," Dante said. "Or at least a narrower horse. Where's Nak?"

  Gant cocked his head. "I expect he is in his quarters. Should I let him know you will see him after you've spoken to Olivander?"

  Dante chuckled at the man's polite manipulation. "How about the opposite?"

  "I don't believe such an arrangement would please Lord Olivander."

  "Then you're just the man to smooth his ruffled feathers." Dante smiled at Gant and jogged through the cool stone foyer. Gant knew better than to make any serious attempt to stop him.

  Dante entered the stairwell to the upper floors where most of the Council kept their rooms. Sunbeams cut through the bubbly glass windows. His footsteps racketed up and down. After a long climb—too long, really, considering the age of many of the Council, though many of them rarely left their floor—he exited into a hallway. This was lit by lanterns and sparsely decorated with tapestries woven with the image of Barden, historical battles, and so forth. Dante barely saw them as he approached Nak's door and knocked three times.

  Nak answered promptly. He wasn't the most dashing figure on earth: short, pudgy, middle-aged, and almost but not completely bald. Nor was he the brightest theologian or the most powerful sorcerer. Not an obvious candidate to elevate to the Council. At the time, some of the other monks had whispered he was a mediocrity at best.

  But he was cheerful, dogged, and thorough, traits that allowed him to pursue matters more deeply and effectively than a man of greater talent but lesser focus. A lot like Lew, in fact, or rather, what Lew might turn out to be, if he pushed himself to the limits of his ability. Dante thought Nak's promotion had been an excellent decision, adding a sturdy keel to the ship of Narashtovik's governing body.

  Nak smiled smugly. "You got here fast."

  "I've made an amazing discovery," Dante said. "Did you know that if you move your legs, you can cross distances?"

  "I'm sure news of Blays had nothing to do with your haste."

  "Where is she? The woman who thinks she saw him?"

  Nak's smirk shrank. "Oh, she's here. Ish."

  "Ish? Which room, Nak?"

  "Here," he gestured vaguely. "In the city."

  Dante's scowl was as dark as the hailstorm they'd endured in the mountains. "She brought news credible enough to loon me about—to call me home early—"

  "Leaving early was your decision!"

  "—and you let her run off as she pleases?"

  "I couldn't very well lock her up in a cell, could I? Merely letting her inside the Citadel was a breach of protocol. Would you like me to send her a note at the inn she's staying at?"

  "Please," Dante said levelly.

  Nak adjusted his black robe. "I bet you'll hear from her within the day. You can thank me then."

  "Deal. And if she's gone, I'll put you in the stocks. A wheeled form of my own invention that can be carted around by a team of diarrhetic goats."

  Nak frowned, then waved a stocky hand. "You're awfully skeptical for the future leader of a religious order."

  "How can you trust a thing until you've interrogated it within an inch of its life? Including priests."

  Nak rolled his eyes. Dante exited and headed down the hallway to see Olivander. As he grabbed the handle to the Council regent's chambers, the door swung inward, revealing a surprised-looking Lew.

  "Ah, found you," the young monk said. "Olivander's right here."

  "In his room?" Dante said. "Good thing I have you around as a guide. How else would I find my way around this Citadel I live in?"

  Lew reddened and examined a corner of the room. At its far end, Olivander rose with a grin. "Dante! Finally decided to heed your superior's summons, did you?"

  Dante entered the chamber. Olivander was a soldier and a hunter and his quarters were adorned with antlers, bows, boar spears, and tapestries depicting famous hunts of myth, including the harpooning of the dodecapus by Viadella. Before seating himself in one of the stuffed chairs, Dante turned on Lew with a stare that bordered on a glower. Lew gave a little wave, exited, and shut the door behind him.

  "Do you spend a lot of time chatting with the monks?" Dante said.

  Olivander shrugged a broad shoulder. "Since you refused to see me, I
thought I'd see Lew in lieu." He looked surprised. "Look, I've made one of your jokes."

  "And you've also made me regret my decision to come see you."

  "But you're here, and there's nothing we can do about that now. Did you find the source of the signs?"

  "Didn't you get the recap from Lew? Don't trust his powers of observation?"

  "He's keener than you believe," Olivander said. "But it never hurts to have a second perspective."

  Dante summarized the trip, beginning at Soll and continuing through their trek into the wilds, their encounter with the kapper, and their witness of the lights that took the shape of Barden. Olivander's face was lined from sunshine, battles, and forty-odd years of existence, and as Dante explained what they'd seen, those lines grew as deep as the ravines of the Woduns.

  "Kappers are real?"

  "I doubted, too," Dante said. "Then one mistook me for a walking breakfast."

  "I knew they once existed." Olivander gestured at the walls. "We have some of their relics around here somewhere. I thought they'd been rooted out centuries ago."

  "What does it mean that they weren't?"

  "That we ought to stay out of the Woduns?"

  "Stop stealing my ideas," Dante said.

  "How did Ast Modell perform? I found him an admirable guide when I was rallying forces in the east."

  "Hesitant to get started, but effective once we got on the trail. Or, more accurately, once we got on the rickety piles of rock that may never before have been scuffed by human soles."

  Olivander leaned back in his chair and clasped his hands over his stomach. "Now that you've seen it for yourself, what would your recommended course of action be?"

  "Is this a test of my leadership?"

  "So is every decision we make. Except perhaps those we make in the water closet."

  "You're getting cruder. I think we're spending too much time together." Dante tipped back his head and considered the ceiling. "I think we should send a monk with a loon to Soll. If there are further developments, I want to know about it right away. Additionally, I'd like some of the senior monks—or a Council member, if there's a volunteer—to study the scales I removed from the kapper. I don't like anything I don't know how to kill."

  The regent watched him. "Studying puzzles sounds like something you'd typically do yourself."

  "I will, too," Dante said quickly. "Like you said, it never hurts to have another set of eyes."

  "If I said it, it must be true. Agreed on all counts. I'll put together an escort and send a monk to Soll. Thank you for making the trip. It may have felt pointless, but building our relationship with the mountain people could pay off handsomely should it turn out Moddegan's plotting his vengeance against us."

  "Is that possible? What has Somburr heard?"

  "Nothing to twist your skin about," Olivander said. "But it's a mistake to assume the enemy's standing still. I'm sure he's scheming and strategizing no less than we are. Strengthening our alliance in the east can only help to dissuade him from poor ideas." He reached for parchment and a quill. "I believe we're done. You'll be around if I need you?"

  "Sure," Dante said. "After a week of banging around the mountains, my feet would mutiny if I tried to march them another mile."

  The lie was so egregious he didn't even feel bad for telling it. He killed time in his room examining the kapper's scales. He didn't do anything that might impact or damage them—merely touched them with the nether, which slid off as cleanly as water from the scales of a fish. Though each try yielded the same results, he repeated it tirelessly, trying to watch a different part of the reaction each time and thus understand why it was happening.

  Partly, he employed this method to pass the hours while waiting for word from Nak, but it was his preferred approach to all investigations. When confronted with a thing he didn't understand, he liked to quietly watch until that thing began to make sense. Only then did he dive in with active prodding, poking, and attempts to change, test, or break the object or concept in question.

  He wasn't always able to go about things in this manner, particularly out in the field, when time was scarce and lives were on the line, but for once, time wasn't at a premium. So he sat on his balcony overlooking the city, the afternoon light glinting from the bay washing the north shore, the smoke of chimneys and forges mingling with the damp sea air. Despite his complaints, he enjoyed traveling—seeing new corners of the world, accomplishing things at the front of the action—but he also enjoyed being alone like this, ensconced in his room with an object of interest. When the knock came at the door, he was actually annoyed.

  He cracked the door. Nak stood on the other side, looking smug again. "I told you I hadn't lost her."

  Dante threw the door open. "Which room?"

  "You're in for a crash course in the ways of our sharp-eyed lady. She's not in the Citadel. She wants to meet at midnight. At the King's Folly."

  "The King's Folly? That's more than a little inconvenient. Think she plans to assassinate me?"

  Nak rolled his eyes. "I imagine Narashtovik's top nethermancer might be able to handle a run-of-the-mill assassin."

  Dante gazed down the hallway. "What if she does mean to kill me? Coming here with 'news' of Blays is a sure-fire way to get me to leave the Citadel."

  "Which you never, ever do otherwise."

  "Point taken. Thanks, Nak. If I don't come back, take my revenge?"

  "Along with all your property."

  At ten-thirty that night, Dante descended the stairwell, lantern in hand, and exited into the courtyard. A chilly seaborne breeze flowed over the walls. The guards at the gate opened the reinforced side door and he walked north. The plaza between the Citadel and the Cathedral was well-lit, but the streets beyond were often as dark as the skies. He didn't truly believe this mysterious woman was here to kill him, yet he couldn't shake a paranoid mood, and found himself glancing over his shoulder at every intersection.

  The streets within the Ingate were placid. Respectable. Past that, the night grew more boisterous; people leaned outside taverns, talking with great enthusiasm. Sometimes to people who weren't there. Dante wore an unmarked jacket over a plain doublet. He drew no more eyes than anyone else.

  It was a long walk to the docks. The piers smelled of salt and the kelp that belched onto the shores in voluminous quantities. Masts spiked from the docks. Lanterns shimmered on the waves. Longshoremen called back and forth, loading ships, drinking, or both. Dante turned west along the shore, putting the noise and lights behind him. He pulled up his collar to shield his nose against the smell of the fish guts cast back into the water by the tons every day.

  The piers stopped and so did the city. Jumbled black rocks bordered a thin white stripe of beach. The King's Folly rested a hundred yards from shore, a dark mass on the waves. Dante stumbled and fell into the sand.

  He'd tripped on an oar belonging to a rowboat beached above the hissing surf. He glanced at the King's Folly. Three times, a light winked from it, then vanished. Dante pushed the boat into the water, glad the tide was at its ebb, and rowed.

  The Gaskan invasion had been primarily land-based, but Moddegan had dispatched a small fleet as well, as much to distract the defenders as to actively battle them. Narashtovik's navy had been nonexistent, however, and on discovering the waterways were clear, a clever Gaskan general had embarked a portion of his troops on the king's ships, meaning to sail into the bay, circumvent the city's main defenses, and break through the Ingate before Narashtovik could reposition its forces.

  But while Narashtovik had had no official navy, it did possess a thriving class of folk who might or might not be labeled pirates, depending on how conservative you preferred your maritime law. While Dante and the others had battled to hang onto the city's walls, these merchant-bandits had taken it upon themselves to meet the king's armada on the seas.

  Moddegan's fleet hadn't expected any resistance, and the battle ended after the briefest exchange of hostilities. In attempting to turn about,
the king's flagship became mired in a maze of sandbars. The crew and soldiers were taken prisoner. Narashtovik's pirate-defenders attempted to claim the ship, but it was stuck fast, and during the argument about how to float it again, part of it burned down. The remainder had been out here ever since.

  When Dante closed within fifty feet, a silhouette appeared on the railing and aimed a bow at him. "Who's there?"

  Dante pulled the nether close. "Who do you think?"

  "Tens of thousands of people live in this city," the woman said, "and most of them are capable of manning a rowboat."

  "Dante Galand, High Priest-in-training blah blah blah."

  The woman lowered her bow. "Welcome aboard."

  Another rowboat was tied at a makeshift dock that had been hammered into the hull. Dante paddled to the dock, tied up, and leapt onto the ignominious carrack, which swayed and creaked gently in the perpetual currents. Boots clomped down the deck. A rope ladder whacked the side of the hull. Dante climbed it to the deck and was met by a young woman. It was too dark to make out much else.

  "You've got my name," he said, rubbing his palm, abraded by the climb. "Why don't you give me yours and we can get to business?"

  "Cee," she said. "And I'm here to work for you."

  "You said you found Blays. How do you know it's him?"

  "On the lead up to the war, I saw you two in Dollendun. In times of chaos, business is always good for people in my line of work."

  "Which is?"

  "Finding things. How do you think I got my name?" There was an edge to her voice that might have been teasing. "I spend a lot of time in public houses. Because that's where the business is. And because I like to drink. I watched you play that norren game. Saw Blays, too. A few weeks ago, I saw him again."