by Tim Jones
"The people had waited in darkness long enough, and so the Council decreed that the kaer be opened. It cost the life of one of our two magicians, and the health of the other, to disarm the traps that protected the way to the outer world, for they had been made and set by hands and minds of far greater skill and subtlety, in the days before the Scourge came. When the path was clear, the members of the Council and their families led the way to the gates. The picture is still in my mind of the great gates opening, and the sunlight pouring in. And then the screaming began.
"I do not know how the Gnashers found our kaer, or why, mindless beasts that they are, they should have waited so patiently for the door to open. All I know is that they were on us at once. My father's final act, before the jaws of one of the great creatures closed on him, was to throw me from him. "Run!" he screamed, and I ran, the dying following close at my heels.
"A badly disarmed trap saved my life. I ran, and a Gnasher ran after me. Before its long arms could reach me, we fell, the Gnasher and I, into a pit that opened at our feet; and a great weight of rock fell on top of us. It crushed the Gnasher just as its scaly arm closed around my leg, but left me alive: scratched and bruised, but whole, in a small gap between the wall of the pit and the rock that almost filled it. I had no food, no water, no mother or father. I was alone in the darkness.
"I do not know for how many hours or days I remained there, mired in my own filth, slowly dying of thirst and hunger, my leg still held in the clutch of the dead Gnasher's talons. When I first fell in the pit, I could sometimes hear noises from above; perhaps the Gnashers sensed me, or perhaps they were devouring other prey. But the noises ceased after a while, and to fill the silence, my mind began to supply sounds to fill the void. Sounds, and visions: my mother's face and breast, my father's laughter.
"My captivity ended suddenly. Without sound, the rock was lifted from around me, and a moment later, the body of the Gnasher dissolved into thin smoke. A man reached his hand down into the pit, and lifted me up.
"What is your Name, child?" he asked.
"I was too petrified with fear to speak. He smiled and nodded at me, and offered me food, something sweet and yet bursting with moisture, so that my two greatest wants were satisfied at once. Surely, I thought, such a kind man cannot be bad, and so I told him my Name. 'My mother and my father are dead, sir,' I added, then 'Did you drive all the Eaters away?'
" 'They are called Gnashers', he told me. 'I am sad for your loss, Anarya, and though I have spent little time with children, I will do my best to make it up to you. Come with me.'
"He led me outside, shielding my eyes from the worst of the carnage, and took me to his horse—though I screamed and tried to run at first, thinking it another type of Horror, for though I had seen pictures of such beasts, I had no idea of their true size. We rode for many hours, and at length came to his home, a tower on the mountain's side."
"The magician's tower!" said Kendik. "We—"
He was silenced by the heavy boot of Atlan, which landed on his instep with agonizing force.
Anarya smiled. "I understand," she said. "You heard about this tower, abandoned these many years, and you came to see whether anything of value might still be found there. I am sorry to say that others have been there before you, myself included, and that there is nothing left but stones and wood."
"How about this kaer?" asked Mors.
"Nothing but bones," said Anarya softly. "Nothing but bones."
"We heard the tower was guarded," said Kendik.
"There are no guards but distance, inaccessibility, and rumor."
"Rumor?"
"Dinazhe was a powerful Wizard, and about such as he, rumor will always swirl. But he was a good man, though he knew little enough about children."
"Where is he now?" asked Mors.
Anarya bowed her head. "I do not know. It soon became clear to him that the tower was no place to bring up a child. But Dina-zhe had—has—a sister, Medzhina, a trader who lives in the town of Borzim, three days' march to the north-west. Medzhina had two sons but no daughter, and she was happy to take me into her house and treat me as her own daughter, even when I showed more interest in the arts of the blade than those of the marketplace. Once, Dinazhe came to visit, to see how I progressed, and I was delighted to see him, though he was always a reserved man; but when I came back home from my training, and returned to these mountains for the first time since my childhood, I found Dinazhe's tower deserted, his many treasures gone, and no sign of what befell him."
"But didn't his sister know?"
"She did not—at least, she said she didn't, although I have a feeling she knew more than she said. But whatever the truth of that, I have never seen Dinazhe again, nor heard any word of him, in all my travels."
"What brought you back to Kaer Volost?"
"I was lonely."
"Funny place to look for a friend," said Mors.
Anarya smiled. "It may seem strange to you, but despite all that happened there, Kaer Volost is the one place I truly feel at peace. Nevertheless, no one can live there, so now I intend to return to Borzim and wait for adventure to reach me, or I to find it."
"Anything in this Borzim that might interest a prospector?"
Anarya smiled again. "The town and its environs have been quite thoroughly prospected, but should a Troubadour, an Archer, and a Swordmaster come to the East Gate and request employment, something might well be found."
"I don't 'request employment'," spat Mors. "That's not the way the Turgut brothers do things."
"Nevertheless, there is likely to be work—paying work—available there if you want it."
"I will come to Borzim with you," said Kendik.
Atlan shot him a glance. "Let me talk with my brother for a bit," he said. He drew the still scowling Mors over to the far side of the clearing, where much muttering and waving of hands ensued.
Kendik was left with Anarya. He could think of nothing to say to her, and he didn't want to stare—more precisely, he did want to stare, but he didn't want to be seen staring. So he set to polishing his sword.
"That is a fine blade," said Anarya, coming to stand next to him.
"It is? Oh, it's nothing special, really. My mother, you know, wanted to make sure I had the best of everything—not that I rely on her, of course, I make my own way in the world ... May I see your blade?"
It was as slim and as beautiful as its owner.
"The dwarfs reforged this sword?"
"Yes."
"Where did it come from originally?"
"It was a gift from Dinazhe. His way of showing love. I do not know where he got it, or how."
Anarya sat down beside him, and they both went to work, polishing, the dark hand and the fair moving in harmony.
"All right, have it your own way!" came a protesting voice from the far side of the clearing.
"Do they always fight like this?" asked Anarya.
"I've only known them for a few days, but it appears so. Brothers, you know?"
"Do you have a brother?"
"Had." He did not want to talk about young Sikil, who had lived barely long enough to be Named. "How about you?"
"Few children were born in the kaer in the latter years. I had neither brother or sister."
Kendik was feeling quite comfortable with this level of getting-to-know-you chat, and would happily have carried on with it, but they were interrupted by the return of Mors and Atlan. "We will come with you to Borzim," said Atlan. Mors said nothing, but he joined with the rest of them in striking camp. It had been a quiet campsite, and a pleasant one. Kendik was sorry to leave it.
X
A few hours later, in mid-afternoon, a woman came to the campsite, following their trail. She was tall and slim. Her hair, once blonde, had been browned by sun and weather to the shade of honey in the comb. She was dressed in battered leather, with a bow on her back and a short and deadly blade at her side. She moved cautiously and bent often to the ground. Here they had camped. Here w
ere the remains of their fire. There were footprints in the soft ground by the stream: a woman's footprints and two or perhaps three men's. Boot prints next to a log, and lying forgotten nearby, a polishing cloth. She picked it up and sniffed it. Cheap polish, but it would do the job.
She left the campsite and went downstream a little. A trail of broken twigs, and more boot prints, made it clear which way they had headed. She doubled back and checked upstream, then in both directions across the stream, to make sure they had not split up.
She measured the woman's footprints against her own, and nodded somberly. These men had gone to the kaer. They had met the woman there and now she was leading them—where? Anarya Chezarin did not know, but she was determined to find out.
Chapter 3
Four dusty travelers approached the East Gate of Borzim through fields of grain. Anarya was in the lead, Kendik followed close behind, and Atlan and Mors brought up the rear. Mors was muttering again. The closer they got to the walls of the town, the louder his muttering got.
"Too many guards about for my liking," he said.
Looking at the fields on each side, Kendik had to agree. For every worker getting in the harvest, there seemed to be a guard. They were all dressed in a uniform—dark brown, with a dark blue diagonal stripe on the tunic for relief—but that was where the similarity stopped, for, as the travelers passed row upon row of grain, Kendik could see a variety of Name-giver races represented: orks scowling through a faceful of teeth, trolls towering over their charges, even, once, an obsidiman, solid and still as stone, lost in meditation.
The East Gate was closed. The four of them joined a short but ill-tempered queue waiting in the hot sun to get in: a pair of dwarfs on horses, peasants pulling a cart, and some other travelers on foot, as dusty and disheveled as themselves. Even Anarya's armor had lost its pristine gleam.
Four ork guards stood in front of the gate, two on each side. No one dared complain to them. The focus of the irritation was a small door to the left of the gates, with a window above it. The window was open, but untenanted. As they watched, one of the dwarfs dismounted, stumped across to the window, raised himself on tip-toes, and yelled into it "How long do you sons of Dis need to examine two stinking permits?"
"Permits?" Kendik whispered to Anarya. "I don't have a permit."
Anarya smiled back at him. "Don't worry, you won't need one."
After a delay just long enough to be insulting, a face appeared at the window. "Looks like they're in order," said a bored voice. "You can come in." The massive gates groaned slowly open, and the dwarfs rode in to the town, followed by the sweating peasants with their load of produce. Anarya and Kendik followed the peasants, and had almost stepped into the shade of the wall when two ork guards appeared in the gateway and barred their way. The bored voice from the window reappeared in the gateway, attached to a short, stocky body and a supercilious face.
"Where do you think you're going? Nobody said you could come in. Where are your permits?"
"We do not have permits," said Anarya, "but I live here with the widow Medzhina, and many will vouch for me, for I am Anarya."
"Oh, are you?" said the guard. "Well, I've never heard of you, and if you live here, you should have a permit. And if you don't, you'll need a temporary permit to enter. We don't want any vagabonds here."
"Vagabonds!" erupted Mors. He wriggled out of his brother's restraining grasp, ignored Kendik's anxious expression, and marched up to the guard. "I'd have you know we're a Troubadour, an Archer, and a Swordmaster, come to offer our services to your stinking town! But if you don't want us, we'll take our services elsewhere!"
The guard's expression did not change, but his voice became slightly less hostile. "We can always use a few good men. But I'll have to ask my superiors, and you'll still need permits. And as for you," he added, turning back to Anarya, "where do I find this widow Medzhina? If she's respectable, and she's prepared to admit she knows you, I might find a way to let you in."
"I am a Swordmaster too," she said.
"Well, why didn't you say so? Wait here while we decide what to do with you."
So they waited. The gate remained open, and a trickle of peasants with carts, dwarfs on horseback, and travelers with permits were permitted to enter Borzim. A procession of farm workers with loaded baskets passed inside, and their guards followed them. The shadow of the gray stone walls grew, casting welcome shade over the four travelers, who sucked the last drops of water from their wineskins, talked among themselves, and waited some more. Finally, the guard reappeared. "Permits," he said, handing three rough rectangles of parchment to Kendik, Atlan, and Mors. "Report to the main guardhouse at the crossroads. And you," he said, turning to Anarya, "come with me."
His chest puffed out with self-importance, the guard led Anarya along a path that led back towards the river just inside the wall. "I'll see you soon," she said, and then she disappeared from view. Clutching their permits, Kendik, Atlan, and Mors walked together into the town.
"Doesn't look like much," said Atlan. But to Kendik, it was a wonder: the largest town he had ever seen. His mouth gaped open as he passed the two- and three-story stone and wooden buildings that crowded the roadway on either side. In fact, he stared around so much that Atlan had to tell him twice to watch where he was putting his feet. Mors looked around with a speculative air, calculating the cheap pickings on offer behind these walls. The smells of food and sweat and shit competed for space in their nostrils.
The road ran straight and mostly true, and foot traffic increased as they got closer to the center of town. Swept up in the hurrying throngs, they emerged into a square dominated by the statue at its center: a human male, fifteen feet tall if he was an inch. Lean and strong, he had a mighty sword in one upraised hand, and was using the other to shade his eyes from an imaginary sun as he stared fixedly into the north.
"Looks ridiculous," said Mors. "Who's it meant to be?"
"That's Tesek, the Father of the People, and don't you forget it!" said a dwarf dressed in the brown and blue uniform of the guards, who scowled up at them, feet planted wide apart.
"We are looking for the guardhouse," said Kendik. "Might you be able—"
" 'Might I be able'!" interjected the dwarf. "Of course I'm able, because the guardhouse is right behind you, as you could see if you used your Horror-fried eyes. What do you think that thing is, eh? Eh?"
The building was impressive, in a dispiriting way. Four stories of brown stucco wall and small dark windows frowned over the square.
"That's the guardhouse, see?" said the dwarf, answering his own question. "And I'm a guard, and I say, get yourselves over there now!"
Mors opened his mouth to say something, then closed it and shrugged. The three of them made their way through the press of the crowd and entered the guardhouse door. They found themselves in yet another line. This one consisted of citizens with complaints.
"—pushed me," the citizen at the front was telling two guards who sat in a small booth inside the entrance hall, "and while I was getting up, he stole three gourds and ran off into the crowd! So I said to Azha, begging your pardon, I said 'Why can you never find a guard when you need one?", and she said—"
Kendik tuned out the drone of complaint and looked around him. After a few moments observing the hurrying figures going about their business, so important to them and so incomprehensible to him, he found his head starting to swim and his heart starting to pound, so that he had to look down at the packed earth floor at his feet until his head cleared. There were too many people here, too much strangeness.
"Don't worry, lad," said Atlan. "We'll be out of here in no time."
Half an hour later, they had reached the front of the line. Atlan spoke for them, laying on the treacle, explaining their noble desire to serve the town of Borzim and their varied but impeccable credentials for doing so. He did not mention Anarya.
"So you want jobs," said the senior guard.
"Yes, we want jobs. Honest work and a warm
bed for the night. What's so wrong with that?"
"First time I ever heard of a Thief—no, what was it again ... a Troubadour—wanting honest work. But there might be—yes, there might be something you could do." The guard rose from his chair, said "Ilnit, hold the fort," and disappeared down a corridor.
"Move out of the way," said the other guard. "We're not all here for your benefit."
So they stepped to one side and waited as the harassed Ilnit fobbed off a succession of cries for help. Eventually, the other guard returned. He walked up to them and handed over a parchment square. "Here. Go to Vyaka Longtusk's tavern—you'll find it south of the Opthia, up the hill a bit—and wait until a dwarf called Akil comes to your table. Give Akil this parchment, and then listen closely and do what you're told. You got coin?"
"We have coin."
"You'll need it, to pay for the food they serve at Vyaka's!" The guard waved them away and turned to the next supplicant.
The sun was setting on a long day. Kendik's stomach rumbled uncomfortably as they trudged past the statue and took the road heading south to the river. The crowds had thinned out a little now, and Kendik felt able to look around him rather than down at his shoes. The nearer they drew to the river, the smaller and shabbier the buildings got.
Atlan coughed. "Bloody awful smell down here."
It was rising from the River Opthia. It had once been known as the Volost, but no one had wanted to be reminded of that Name after the Scourge had come to an end. They had camped by the Opthia last night, before following it out of the mountains and along the base of the foothills to the town. At their campsite, it was a clear, sparkling stream. Here, halfway along its passage through the town, it was brown, and dirty, and it stank.
As they crossed the wide bridge across the river, Kendik lifted his eyes to the road ahead. It climbed out of the river valley and ended at a massive building, fully equal in size to the guardhouse, which winked and sparkled in the last of the setting sun. Other buildings, also massive and ornate, clustered just below the end of the road. There was money, real money, on display here.