The door opened.
A group of figures stood in the shadow of the gate; they were robed, and some held swords in their hands. One man stepped forward into the moonlight.
“This one recognizes you, son of Frostel, master at Rulon Mors. Since you will brook no delay, we will escort you to our leader. Lay your weapons aside, if you brought any.”
“We brought none.”
“Then follow. Our master lies within the Hall of Sky this night. The rains have washed the air, and the stars are out in force.”
As they hurried up the steps, to the peak of the karst, they were escorted by some ten or twelve robed figures. Three carried oil lanterns. Looking back, Sandun could see more people following them.
The man they were following moved at a rapid pace, almost leaping up the stairs. Sandun found his own strength rapidly failing. The energy that had carried him up to the gateway was but a faded spark.
“I must rest,” he said, and sat down on the white stone step, breathing heavily. He felt light-headed. Basil sat down beside him and fished the waterskin out from Sandun’s pack. Sandun accepted it gratefully, and between the two of them, they emptied the container.
The commander who had opened the gate said to Frostel, “This one would learn the names of your companions. They are not from this land, I deem.”
“They are Sandun and Basil, both opmi of Kelten. I recognize you, Scribe Vellen.”
The robed man bowed slightly. “The same. That men of Kelten had arrived in Tokolas was known. To find two at our gate is…unexpected. The waterfalls must have made the path more difficult than normal.” To the two sitting Keltens he said, “We will continue when you are ready.”
Scribe Vellen whispered something to one of the people holding a lantern. That one hurried up the stairs and was soon gone from view. A crowd of about fifty was on the steps below. Sandun heard the words “opmi from Kelten” whispered several times.
Sandun thought about what he was going to say to the master. He felt he had to take the lead from this point. In Kelten, Blue Frostel’s bombastic demands at the gate would have met with some hard blows from the temple watchmen. The king’s guards in Seopolis would likely as not have killed all three of them before investigating any further.
After passing by several buildings, they stopped before a square-sided structure; it was taller than the others they had passed. It looked like a scaled-down version of the Tokolas lighthouse, the burning tower that was painted bravely on their shields back at the embassy.
The thought of the embassy brought the purpose of his journey to the center of his mind and heart. In a few minutes, he would learn if this had all been a waste of time or if there was reason to hope.
A figure came out of the tower and whispered to Scribe Vellen. Sandun stepped forward and said firmly, “I have a written message from Governor Jori Vaina of Kunhalvar to the master of the Great Sage Temple.” He set down his pack and found the ornate metal tube that contained the letter Scribe Renieth had written just before they left the embassy.
He handed it to Scribe Vellen, who looked at the tube closely using the light of one of the lamps and tapped the cylinder thoughtfully several times.
“It goes against long tradition, but I will allow one of you to speak with the master right now, in his private study.” This was met with hisses of surprise from some of the people around him. “Which one of you wishes to speak to the master? You, Frostel?”
“Nay, my companions’ true purpose is not known to me. Only its urgency.” Frostel said this with a hint of pride in his voice. Scribe Vellen bowed again to Frostel.
“You’re the man for this.” Basil put his hand briefly on Sandun’s shoulder and then sat down on a bench near the door.
Sandun was escorted up the stairs to a narrow hallway on the second floor. Scribe Vellen knocked on a door and then, at a word, went inside. Two men with swords drawn stood at either side of the door. They looked wide awake and unsmiling; Sandun did not doubt they were deadly if provoked.
Scribe Vellen then opened the door wide and said, “Please come in. Here is Master Parvo Donath, head of the Great Sage Temple.”
Sandun came into the room. Master Donath sat on a low chair beside the small fire. He was an older man, but not ancient, with a long head and a very carefully combed beard that reached down to his chest. Master Donath motioned to Sandun to take an unoccupied chair while he unscrewed Sandun’s tube and quickly read the letter. Scribe Vellen remained standing in the back of the room next to the bed.
“This is dated three days ago. I was not aware that it was possible to travel from Tokolas to this karst in three days.” Master Donath looked up at Sandun and then continued reading.
“White-nose wort?” Master Donath let out a sigh and waved Vellen over to him. “Please wake Doctor Tomi and ask him to attend me.” Then he changed his mind. “No, take a note to him. Let us not waste time this night.” Master Donath rapidly wrote a brief note with a deft hand and gave it to Scribe Vellen, who took the note and left.
Master Donath finished reading Renieth’s letter and sat for a moment with his eyes closed.
“I remember the old history,” he said softly. “How King Banatar of the Gold Kingdom grew frustrated at the many people in the capital who were being poisoned by the Doorway to Heaven’s Repose. How he banned all cultivation of that plant and gave orders that the noxious flower was to be uprooted and burned throughout the kingdom of Serica. That was 730 years ago. To think that this scourge has returned to Serica after so long.
“What is happening in Daka these days?” Master Donath continued, speaking more to himself than Sandun. “It is no accident that three so-called emperors of the Kitran have died in the last six years. They are tearing each other apart like wolves in the winter, but how many more will die before the last one staggers away to lick its wounds in a cave?”
Master Donath then turned a piercing gaze on Sandun.
“Who would have guessed the Doorway had been rediscovered and used again? I think not one scholar in a thousand would have made such a deduction.”
“Valo Peli whispered the words to me just before he succumbed to the poison,” Sandun replied.
“Not a man I am familiar with, but there are doubtless many scribes in Tokolas who I know nothing of.”
Sandun said, “His previous name was Arno Boethy.”
At this, Master Donath’s eyes grew wide, and he stood and paced around the room.
“Arno Boethy? In Tokolas? That is a man I have long desired to meet. And he has been poisoned by the Doorway plant?” Master Donath paused for a few moments; he then returned to his chair and sat but then immediately stood up again. “Come with me, please. Much that was mysterious is now made clear.” He wrapped a long gray cloak around himself and strode out of the room. Wordlessly his guards followed.
As he walked out of his study and down the stairs, Master Donath said, “It is time to act. The lord of Tokolas has invited me to visit, and we shall come.”
Master Donath gave orders to people that came up to him; they then went off at speed. Sandun’s impression was of a military camp suddenly apprised of the arrival of the enemy’s main force just a day’s march away. It was still the middle of the night, and increasingly Sandun felt disconnected from the events taking place around him. It was like a vision or a dream. Time became increasingly fragmented.
Suddenly he was in a large room; there were drawers in wooden cabinets in rows through the middle of the room and along the walls. Master Donath was talking to a small, dark-skinned man with delicate features.
“Yes, of course we have some. It is one of the thousand efficacious herbs, is it not?” The small man spoke to Master Donath with a trace of irritation in his voice.
The herbalist opened a small box already sitting on the mixing table. Sandun came over and looked at the contents inside. It looked li
ke the same fungus material he had seen in Hofanta’s apothecary shop in Tokolas, but firmer, fresher.
Sandun put his forehead on the herb master’s high table. It smelled of cinnamon and nutmeg and pepper. Relief flooded through him. It was here. There was white-nose wort in the Great Sage Temple. At least this much of the journey had not been in vain. He needed to tell Basil this news, but he had no idea where to find him.
Doctor Tomi continued, “These pieces are perhaps three, not more than four years old. The older specimens are, of course, saved in jars down in the warehouse.”
“Have these packed up for travel. How long will it take to find the old wort in the storeroom? Time is fleeting.”
“Two hours at the most. The storeroom is not a complete disaster, though some would claim otherwise.”
“Find it,” Master Donath ordered.
The next thing Sandun knew, Master Donath was talking to Scribe Vellen. They were outside again, walking along a white stone path that faintly shimmered in the starlight.
“What have you learned about the situation down at the river’s edge?”
“The man from Rulon Mors, Frostel, says there is a fast boat from Omot waiting, and with it a courier of Kunhalvar. He says they could leave an hour after the medicine was delivered to the foot of the karst.”
Master Donath considered this and then said, “I will send two to carry the medicine. More would attract unwanted attention. One guard, one scholar. Do you think Doctor Tomi’s apprentice can make the trip with needful haste?”
Vellen said slowly, “The task is critical. I would prefer to take this mission upon myself.”
Sandun slowly came to the realization that these people were planning on going back to Tokolas right now, and without him or Basil. He thought about objecting, but the words to say this in Serice were all jumbled in his head. He sat down on a bench and tried to corral the correct words, which had scattered like a flock of panicked geese.
Master Donath approved Vellen’s request, and the scribe had disappeared into the night before Sandun managed to utter his objection: “Basil and I need to return with the medicine. Our friends and our women are dying.”
Master Donath came over to Sandun and put his cool hand on Sandun’s forehead.
“Rest now. No man could have done more than you in getting here in such a short time. You must trust that Scribe Vellen is himself no ordinary man. He will arrive in Tokolas in less than four days, and the medicine may arrive even sooner.”
Master Donath looked intently into Sandun’s face, gently turning it so the moonlight shone on him. “I see that you are very nearly at the end of your spirit. For too long we at the temple have been still and patient, but I have decided our…inaction ends this hour. We will once more play a role in this world. We will take a side. My people now take up your quest. If Arno Boethy and the others poisoned by the Doorway can be saved, they will be.”
Master Donath picked up Sandun’s right hand and felt his pulse. “Lie here awhile. Set your cares aside for but a sliver of time. See the stars! You will not see skies like this for many a day.”
Sandun lay back with his head on the bench, and he looked up at the sky. The stars were terribly brilliant, and there were so many of them. Even on moonless nights in the Tiralas, Sandun had never seen stars like this. He lay there, and the world dropped away from him, vanishing into empty air. He felt disconnected from the ground, as though his spirit were floating above his body. Soon there was nothing but inky blackness dotted with stars, uncounted, flickering, waving, spinning.
Now groups of stars were wheeling about, performing slow, elegant pirouettes. Sandun couldn’t look away; he was mesmerized by the sight, by the vision he had been granted. All the stars were in motion, dancing so beautifully across the inky sky. The astronomers in Tebispoli, when they had drunk a few beers, waxed lyrical about the music of the spheres. For the first time, Sandun saw the stars in their majestic dance, and he heard a faint, beautiful note that wavered at the edge of sound. For a few seconds, he felt something. It was everywhere, it was in him and outside him. He was…connected. Though that word was just a pale shadow of meaning for what he felt.
Then it was gone. As suddenly as the light fades from an underground chamber when the candle is extinguished. He saw the stars, brilliant but unmoving, and he felt the cool wind on his face. He heard sounds, voices, people talking nearby: Basil’s deep voice, Frostel’s voice like a mountain goat racing through green fields, Scribe Vellen, and Master Donath. He heard words like pebbles dropped into a pond; they meant nothing to him.
A person, someone he did not know, took him by the hand and led him to a bed inside a room. He lay down and knew no more.
Sandun woke in a strange room, simple yet well apportioned. Paintings of birds resting on flowering branches were on the walls. A window covered by thin silk curtains let in some daylight. Beside his bed was a small end table on which rested an apple, a bowl of rice, and a Serica-glass cup filled with tea.
He sat up and ate everything slowly. After half an hour, an old woman came in, her gray hair twisted in a long braid that went around her head like a decorative hat. She asked him if he wanted more to eat or drink. Sandun declined and asked about Basil.
“The other opmi of Kelten is nearby, but still fast asleep,” she said. “He was up late, till Scribe Vellen departed.”
Sandun now understood that Basil knew as much if not more than he. So he dressed and went out to look around. Based on the position of the sun, it was just past noon. There was a good deal of activity, as people, both men and women, went up and down the stairs between buildings. Sandun was surprised that a few of the scholars greeted him as Opmi Sandun; word had spread fast while he had slept.
It was sunny for the moment, but like the previous day, clouds were building up in the mountains eastward. He wondered where the cargo crane was and if he could see the river and if Vellen had already set off downstream for Omot. He wondered if Zaval had recovered, and then he thought about Tokolas and his friends. At this point, their lives were out of his hands.
He stopped one young man, who smiled at him as he came up the stairway, and asked about the location of the crane. The young man escorted Sandun to the construct, housed in a deceptively small building near the gate on the east face of the karst. Inside, the crane was a grand machine, twenty feet high with a formidable wheel wrapped with a thick rope and another lesser wheel connected to gears that transferred motion. Sandun could see part of the river far below but not the boathouse nor any sign of the fast boat from Omot.
Going close to the edge of the platform, Sandun looked down and saw another building a long way below the one he stood on. Undoubtedly that was the housing for the midpoint cargo crane.
Although the Great Sage Temple could not be attacked—unless the attackers could fly—Sandun thought laying siege to the place would be the work of no more than a hundred soldiers. Hunger could conquer what no warriors could do by skill at arms. But then he recalled his experience under the stars last night, and he knew with an unlooked-for certainty: that is why they came here, and that is why they stay.
Outside the crane house, Sandun sat under a tree and eyed the billowing clouds for an hour. His contemplation of the sky was interrupted by a young woman who approached boldly and asked if he would have tea with the master. Sandun agreed and followed the woman to a large, round building, elaborately decorated with carved beams painted in shades of green and blue. Large wooden panels were held open with metal bars so that on warm days it became like a pavilion.
Sandun joined Master Donath and Frostel, already seated at a low table. After some small talk about the tea and the warm afternoon, Frostel announced that he was going to leave soon, heading down the karst to the river. “From there, I shall return to Rulon Mors Temple.”
Sandun had not expected Frostel would stay, but he was sorry to see him go and said so. �
�Will you come to Tokolas? If Sho’Ash favors us, our master of arms should be up and about in less than a month.”
“I am considering such a trip. I cannot speak for the other masters at my temple, but usually my travels are my own affair. Perhaps they may argue that a trip to Tokolas is unwise this year.” Frostel sipped his tea. “I in turn invite you to visit Rulon Mors; it is not far up the river from here. Although I believe you are eager to return to Tokolas, there is much to see here in the Towers of Heaven. Visiting all the temples would fill two solid months.”
Frostel stood and bowed to Master Donath and then to Sandun. “I leave you with the words of our founder: ‘Be bold, heed not your fears! Victories are not won through caution.’”
Sandun bowed in return. He felt ashamed that he had nothing to give Frostel, but he had brought little more than his own clothes. Then he thought of the spear of Sho’Ash that he wore always around his neck. He slipped the chain off and gave it to Frostel. “Please take this in remembrance of yesterday’s journey.”
Frostel took the chain, looked at it carefully, and hung it around his neck. Then he marched off down the stairs en route to the distant gate, without a backward glance.
“I cannot say I think much of other Kulkasen,” Master Donath said quietly, “but the warriors of Rulon Mors are the best, and they carry on a noble tradition. In these days, who can wish for more?”
“What is a Kulkasen?” Sandun asked. He was not certain he had heard the word before.
“It is a general term that we apply to all who worship the various folk deities,” Master Donath replied smoothly. “The people in the Rulon Mors worship Temo Tio and other martial gods, which is proper. However, other Kulkasen dress up in strange costumes and claim they can cure diseases by driving away ghosts or demons who have somehow taken possession of the afflicted. This is not medicine as we practice it.” He poured more tea for Sandun and then put his hands together under his chin. “I believe that we have let the excitement of last night carry us too far. Now, let good manners and proper methods be our guide. I am Master Donath, and this is the Temple of the Great Sage on Torsihad Karst. I bid you welcome, Opmi Sandun of Kelten.”
The Fire Sword Page 8