Embers at Galdrilene (36 page)

The apparent abundance of prosperity in the city surprised Mckale, as did the wide use of glass. He’d never seen so many of the expensive panes in his life and certainly never in something so simple as a storefront. In his travels to Trilene and Shadereen, as well as where he lived, he had never seen glass planes in anything other than a lord’s manor.

Finally they stopped in front of one of the six towers that reached high into the sky. A road, twice as wide as any they had walked, ran along the inside of the wall. It separated the tower and the rest of the city from the wall with fifty yards of paving stones.

Mckale looked at the tower, its base ringed with fenced gardens and chickens that scratched the ground inside secure pens. Two milk goats, one black with tan stripes on its face, the other cream and white, raised their heads and looked at him with interest from their pen. Their ears were so tiny at first he thought they had no ears at all.

Po led him past the gardens, chickens, and goats, and through a heavy wooden door. Inside, Mckale blinked to adjust his eyes to the darker interior. A room as large as the circumference of the tower spread out, its walls lined with shelves of books. In the middle of the room, a staircase began a wide spiral up through the center of the tower.

He followed Po up the stairs. Each level of the tower revealed a small landing and a door. The top level was no different and when they reached it, Po knocked softly.

They waited only a moment before it opened. A woman in long, deep green robes greeted them, her youthful face at odds with her thick, silver white hair. “Good morning, Headmaster Po.” She smiled and turned her hazel eyes on Mckale. “I see you have brought the young Earth Di’shan.”

“That I have, Mage Councilor Heleanna. I will take my leave. You have much to talk about and I have other things to attend to.”

Heleanna bade him goodbye before turning to Mckale. Taking his hand in a strong grip, she pulled him toward a small group of chairs. “Come in and sit, young man. I will send for coffee and tea.”

While he sat down, she walked over and pulled a cord several times in a pattern. He glanced around. Shelves of books lined the walls and a heavy desk occupied the other side of the room. “Do you live here in the tower?”

“No, neither I nor any of the mages live in the tower.” She stood and walked to one of the windows, beckoning him to follow. When he joined her at the window she pointed at a large collection of modest houses, with neatly thatched roofs spreading out around the tower in a fan shape that started at the edge of the road on one side and reached around to the road on the other.

“That is where I and my fellow Earth mages live. Students live in the houses nearest the tower and all take part in caring for the animals and gardens. We supply as much for ourselves as we can. Each of the mage towers is set up in the same way. The tower itself is a place for learning and for the offices of the mages who oversee various things.”

A knock at the door announced the arrival of the tea and coffee, and they returned to their seats. A young man in pale green robes set a tray with cups, a teapot, and small pitcher on a low table and left.

Heleanna smiled and sat in a chair on the other side of the table. “Tea or coffee Di’shan?”

“Coffee, but I can serve myself.”

She waved away the suggestion. “Nonsense. It is courtesy for me to pour it and you will not mess with my courtesies.”

He watched her pour coffee into his cup and tea into her own. Though her face held the appearance of youth, now that he was closer, he saw the fine web of lines gathered at the corner of her eyes.

She handed him his cup and smiled. “Now, we may talk and have a proper meeting.”

K
ellinar walked through the city streets with the five-point pendant tucked beneath his shirt. Hopefully people wouldn’t remember his face clearly from the brief encounters during the crowded celebration of the night before. People had a way of covering things up when they wanted to impress.

He’d left the hold as soon as Shryden fell back asleep and wandered the streets for most of the morning. A thorough search of the city revealed nothing that reminded him of the Mallay. Surely this place had a poor district and the best way to gage a city, was to get a good look at the underside of it.

Small children ran and played under the watchful eyes of their elders. The children bore little resemblance to the dirty, often unsupervised, scrawny things that ran amok in the Mallay.

Prosperity filled the city. People, hard at work, smiled and talked as they went about their tasks and everything spoke of each individual’s pride in a job well done. He saw no one shirking or cutting corners to get done with something faster. Each seemed intent on doing whatever task to the best of their ability.

A cloud of discontent always hung over the Mallay, the vineyards, out on the tiny fishing boats in the lake and in the fisheries. Workers did just as much as needed to get paid their meager wage and not a speck more. Even the supervisors, who hailed from the Dellar District, and the owners from the Trilene District, worked hard at doing as little as possible.

Here, Kellinar walked past smithies, granaries, seamstresses, outdoor markets, wood workers and more. Everyone worked harder than any in the Mallay and yet they appeared to be happy.

No one paid him any mind, not even when he went outside the wall, leaving the city behind. For some time he walked down well maintained roads past fields with workers. The smell of spring growth and rich, freshly turned earth mingled with the scent of horse sweat and manure.

They used a different sort of plow here. Pulled by teams of draft horses, they plowed as many as six furrows at a time. The plow itself was attached to wheels and the man driving the animals sat on a seat above the plow. A clever design. It looked much more comfortable than the way the farmers back home had to loop the reigns around their necks in order to grapple with the handles of plows that only made a single furrow at a time.

He lingered out of sight to listen to a group of field workers, sitting for their mid-day meal in the shade of a three-sided building. Here is where he would hear the complaints about their work. Here, away from the field and whoever oversaw the work, he would hear the discontent.

He hung around until they left to go back to their work. The only complaints he heard were about how certain new seeds weren’t working out as well as they thought they would. Soon after the workers left he caught a ride on a cart headed for the docks. The bay was a good ways away from the city, maybe things were different farther away.

The middle aged man, who let him ride on his cart and introduced himself as Harlin Devon of the Agricultural Guild, talked a lot about the agriculture of the place. It seemed the man’s life and love revolved around the growing of things. Kellinar didn’t think the man recognized him, at least he never let on that he had one of the new Dragon Riders sitting next to him. But yesterday had been a busy day and not everyone attended the celebration afterward.

Kellinar mentioned the plows and how much nicer it must be than the kind he was used to seeing. Harlin bobbed his head in agreement. “I’ve heard of those plows the downlanders use. I can’t imagine trying to make one of them do the plowing for me. Only one furrow at a time and made of heavy iron, too, I hear. Must be difficult to work with.”

“Aren’t the plows here made of iron?”

Harlin shook his head. “Oh no, too heavy. We’ve been using plows made of sharpened steel for over a hundred years. A young lad, named Baines Nearten, invented them.”

Harlin smiled then. “Isn’t it wonderful the eggs finally hatched after so many years?” Kellinar nodded, but said nothing of his own dragon. If Harlin knew, he might act different and hide things in an effort to impress him.

Harlin scratched his head and clucked unnecessarily at the horse. “Wish I could have stayed for the celebration. Not everyone can leave their work for dinner and dancing at the hold though.”

Ah, here is a rankle. Obviously only those rich enough could leave their work and go play for an afternoon and evening. “You weren’t allowed to leave your work and join in the fun?”

Harlin gave him a strange look. “Of course I was allowed. But everyone can’t leave work at the same time. We don’t just raise crops–we raise animals, too. There were two goats, four cows and a horse ready to drop their young ones. We couldn’t leave them unattended while we all left for the hold.

“A few others and myself volunteered to stay. In exchange, others volunteered to watch the animals while we went to the ceremony. Then we came back and those that missed the ceremony got to go to the celebration. Everyone has an equal right to go to any of the celebrations at the hold, or just to go up and enjoy a bath or speak with anyone there.”

He clucked at the horse again. The animal flicked an ear at him but moved no faster. “We all know our responsibilities and we wouldn’t feel right shirking them. Not a one of us would have been happy if we’d all left and then one of the animals died during birthing, or died of bloat or colic while we were away. It’s not in us to walk away from our duties.” He paused and looked at Kellinar. “I’m surprised you didn’t know these things already. Are you a new arrival?”

Kellinar nodded. “I’m still not used to all of this.”

Harlin shook his head and turned his attention back to the road. “Well, when you come from downland, it’s no surprise. I’ve met enough downlanders and heard enough stories. Nothing but hungry people down there. Hungry for money, hungry for freedom, hungry for food, hungry for everything they lack. There’s none of that here in Galdrilene. You aren’t the first to go looking for it. It seems as if everyone who comes from the downlands has to prove to themselves that what they see on the surface of Galdrilene also flows underneath.”

They rode in silence until they reached a fork in the road. One side of the fork ran level and looked like it curved off to the north. The other sloped down sharply to the enormous bay glittering in the sun. A small fleet of boats moved across the water, sails up and full of wind. Closer to shore more boats were tied up to numerous docks. A cool breeze carried the scent of the salt water and the marine life that lived in it.

“Here’s where we part ways, young man. I have to get on around this road. As you can see, that road there,” he indicated the one that sloped away, “will take you down to the harbor. Enjoy your day and try to relax.”

Kellinar smiled and climbed down from the cart. “Thanks for the ride, Harlin, it was nice meeting you.”

“Anytime, young man, it was nice meeting you, too.”

Kellinar walked down the road to the docks feeling more relaxed. There was a great deal of activity on the broad, floating walkways between the boats. Larger than he expected, streamlined and beautiful, the boats were a far cry from the raggedy little fleet that fished the great lake outside Trilene.

The same type of flowers that blanketed the outer rim of the hold also covered the slope down to the bay. The way became steeper the closer he got to the water until he found himself walking on wide steps cut into the side of the drop. He sat down on the steps to watch the organized bustle below. The smell of the roses mixed with the scent of drying fish, wet wood, and the harsh tang of fresh tar.

He thought of what Harlin said and found himself watching out of curiosity rather than suspicion. Below a tall, lithe woman seemed to be in charge. Her skin was the dark, rich brown color of the beans they made coffee from. Her black hair hung to her waist in a multitude of tiny braids with white and blue beads on the ends of each. Her eyes, crinkled at the corners with tiny crow’s feet, were an even darker and richer brown than her skin.