Vergence (39 page)

The plants around the edge of the garden seemed to fade away, while the grass surrounding them crept higher with each step, until it swayed about their knees, and the familiar city colours of honey, sand, and stone-grey leached away, replaced by dark green with tones of cool blue, and purple. For a moment, Ebryn imagined they were stepping from Vergence, directly back to the familiar forests of Goresyn.

Above them, the light drew together, gradually consolidating into a single point, a pale afternoon sun hanging in the sky.

“We are fortunate that we started in Vergence, as it is bound closely to a number of other worlds, and this makes them much easier for us to reach. Our progress will be much swifter because of this, and the experience of our guide,” Cormer said, his voice coming from behind them, and sounding oddly flat. “Also, a word of caution. As some of you who travelled to Vergence by world-ship may have discovered, when you're here in the between, from the moment you start your journey to the moment you arrive, your ability to perform casting will be lost.”

After a brief period of time, in which they spoke little, but followed behind, Brydeline stopped. “We're nearly there … any moment and we'll see the first signs that we're passing through the Guele world skin.”

Looking round, Ebryn could see many details of the plants had changed, and in the distance there were hints of hulking mountains and deep woodlands, as if seen through a thin haze. Nearly all traces of the greater part of Vergence had disappeared. Without any warning the shadowy impressions became solid and real, and Ebryn found himself walking through knee-length grass next to Addae.

A freshening breeze blew across them, bringing the finest hint of drizzle to their faces, and bunched-up dark grey clouds scudded across the sky, like a strange herd scattering ahead of a hunter. Ebryn inhaled air so crisp he could almost taste it, mingling with the sharp smell of grass in his mouth.

They stood on a broad mound, sloping down on all sides to an extensive flat plain, covered in the same long grass as far as the eye could see. In the distance there were mountains stretching across a third of the horizon, to the left a listless ocean, and behind them forests.

On all sides of the mound were hundreds of low walls, no more than knee high, all long since overgrown. Most ran in straight lines, and in places intersected to form enclosed spaces. They looked like last remnants of an old settlement which might once have stood on the higher ground.

Ebryn felt as if he'd fallen asleep, and stepped into a very real dream. It seemed impossible they'd walked barely a tenth part of a league, and yet found themselves standing in an entirely different world. The small party of students gathered round, grinning at each other, feeling almost drunk with the possibilities.

Ebryn joined in as they all laughed, the way children might at something wondrous and surprising. Cormer and Brydeline smiled back at them, as if they'd expected the reaction — had seen it many times before.

“Whatever others may tell you,” Cormer said, “no other accomplishment in our craft can match this. Enjoy the feeling, this is true freedom.”

Brydeline stepped to the front and faced the group. “You may wander about for a short while, before we return to Vergence. A small task I'll set you — try to find a small object, a souvenir that feels like Guele, something to remind you of the sense of being here when you are gone. It is wise to do this wherever you go, if you might one day need to return. A pebble, or even a weed will do, as long as it carries something of this place with it. Don't think too much, try following your gut.”

“You will need this keepsake for future lessons,” Comer said. “Guele is one of the easier worlds to get to from Vergence, so we will return here frequently when you are practising some of the more difficult aspects of this art. Spend some time looking, but not too long.”

Ebryn and Addae walked down the slope together, picking their way over the low tumbledown walls, with the wind blowing into their faces. To Ebryn, they felt like the first squalls of an oncoming storm, similar to the ones which frequently blew in from the sea in Fyrenar, except here he could see no banking clouds on the horizon.

“Is this not a fine place for running? Do you find the streets too close in Vergence City?” Addae asked.

Addae broke into a trot, then a sprint, angling along the side of the rise. Ebryn followed, struggling to keep up as Addae accelerated, barely managing to stay on the heels of the larger man for the first hundred yards.

“My friend, you must learn to run swiftly if you are to visit my homeland,” Addae called back over his shoulder. “If you do not, you will be eaten.”

I'd probably starve first, Ebryn thought. He slowed to a walk as Addae pulled ahead effortlessly, hurdling a low stone wall, and sprinting along the brow of the slope. Moving too fast for any man, Ebryn realised, as he sensed ripples from a casting fanning out across the hillside, bouncing around like echoes, as abrasive to his awareness as a storm of dry wind-blown sand.

He used a far-sensing to track the shifting patterns in Addae's castings, trying to understand each as it unfolded. None felt familiar to Ebryn. The power wrapped tight around Addae, as close as a second skin, as intense as a violent gale, and as bright to him as looking directly into sunlight.

Addae returned and stopped in front of Ebryn, showing two rows of brilliant teeth, his breath slowing almost at once. “It is good to run once more, my friend, in a place without such a number of people, and the iron.”

“Yes, you start to forget how crowded the city is until you return to a place like this, although I imagine this is very different from your homeland in Epitu. I expect you have no forests or sea.”

“In the place where I live with my people we have no sea,” Addae said. “Far away, beyond the mountains, where the lands of my people end, there is a great sea. I went there once when I was a boy. I did not go back. My people do not live there.”

Ebryn surveyed the ruins along the side of the hill. Once there had been a sizeable settlement here, he realized, and the location looked good enough for a small town.

“I wonder what happened to the buildings, and the people living here?”

Addae made a sharp clicking sound with his tongue against the roof of his mouth. “Look closely. You will see all the people died, or they fled together. Look here, and here — this wall and that fell all at once, in the same manner.”

“How can you tell?” Ebryn asked, stepping onto a knee-high pile of rocks.

Addae turned over a rock, revealing something which looked suspiciously like a roofing slate. “It can be seen the stones of this wall have fallen together here. Each wall is as this one, do you see?”

“It looks like they've all been crushed from above?”

“Yes, my friend.”

“I'll ask Cormer. Perhaps we'd better get started on looking for the token,” Ebryn said.

He looked back towards the placid sea with a pang of longing. He'd ridden down to the beach below the Conant estate at least one day each week for years. As much as he missed some of the people he'd left behind, the lack of a forest for riding and a sea to swim in, cost him more.

Nothing of interest lay within easy reach of the hill, and mindful of the instruction to keep their exploration brief, he reluctantly turned to look amongst the fallen walls for something to take back to Brydeline.

Addae joined him, and together they swept back and forth inside the ruins. Ebryn rummaged around near a low wall for a fragment of stone, and eventually found something he thought felt right, a small chunk of rock he could hold in the palm of his hand, a piece of the wall which had fallen to the ground. He didn't know if there should be more to the selection than random choice, but he dutifully took his piece to Cormer and Brydeline, and they seemed happy enough with it.

When they'd all gathered back around their instructors, Addae holding something resembling a root as long as his forearm, Brydeline turned and led them back through the between.

Sooner than expected, the small party found itself back in Vergence, stepping neatly into the same garden, at almost exactly the same spot they'd left from. Brydeline turned to them without any hint of fatigue on her face, and smiled. “Simple really, when you have mastered the art.”

“Good,” Cormer said. “That went well. Now, for our following lessons, we'll be breaking into smaller groups. Each group will be taught on a different day for the next four weeks. Forward from here, we are going to have you initiating and guiding your own journeys, so please ensure you bring your piece of Guele with you when you return.”

He read out their names in turn from a list, and assigned each to either a day at the start or middle of the week, or one at the end. Ebryn and Addae were both assigned to the last group, with a handful of other students.

When he'd finished, Cormer rolled up the paper. “To begin with, each group will be lead by either Brydeline or me, and one or two other senior members of our order, until we have confidence in your abilities.”

It wasn't until he returned to his quarters that Ebryn remembered, too late, his question about the ruins in Guele. Inside, he found a note slipped under his door, addressed to him in Plyntoure's hand-writing, containing a few lines of neat script with a name for Addae — the last known person Khet'Tuk had seen before leaving the Aremetuet order.

The walkways were busy with people who passed quickly, hoods drawn up, avoiding their eyes. Ebryn picked his way carefully past small mounds of rotting rubbish and reeking puddles of waste, covering his nose against the smell in the worst places. Addae walked behind him where the space narrowed.

They followed the wrong path, losing themselves a few times, before realising the “Chuble” was a small river flowing through and under the centre of the district, and not a lane as they'd expected. Eventually, Addae bribed a passer-by for directions.

He and Addae found the money trader hidden in a back street, amongst dark, tangled lanes and tall buildings, in an area called the Chubles, a small dingy set of rooms with stained windows, almost hidden from the street but for an iron-wrought sign bearing the name Shiggle And Son above three rusting disks, which, Ebryn assumed, were there to represent coins.

Inside, a bleak light filtered through the cleaner patches in the windows. Addae ducked to pass under the door, and stooped to avoid brushing his head on the ceiling. A pouch-faced man with yellowing eyes watched them carefully as they navigated past tables piled with strange assortments of objects, taking in their cloaks, and broaches. He stood behind a makeshift counter, which sat square in front of an open archway to a second room.

A second man sat at a narrow table, just in sight, in the back room, carefully counting coins and writing on a long piece of parchment. He had long greasy black hair with a thin bony face, and teeth which protruded past his lips.

“Are you Mister Shiggle?” Addae asked.

“That's right, and what can I be doing for such fine fellows as yourselves?” Shiggle asked, narrowing his eyes.

“We are seeking a person,” Addae said. “We do not know the manner of his appearance, but his name is Khet'Tuk.”

Ebryn noticed Shiggle's assistant look up at the name, but not a muscle moved on Shiggle's face.

“Never heard of him. What you want him for?” Shiggle asked.

“I wish to learn from him,” Addae said.

“S'cuse me, Master Shiggle, I was needing to be doing business at the back,” Shiggle's assistant said, standing up and miming a squatting motion.

“Go on then,” Shiggle said. “Mind you're quick, or I'll dock you.”

“Are you sure you don't know him? We were given your name,” Ebryn said.

Shiggle looked back over his shoulder, and Ebryn could almost see him realising he was alone with two strangers, one of them very big.

“I don't know who you've been talking to, but they're lying. I don't know any Khet'Tuk. Never have. You can't just come around here accusing me. I've got protection.”

Addae looked every bit as baffled as Ebryn felt. He had no idea what Shiggle was talking about. He wished they'd waited for Sash. She'd have understood what Shiggle was saying.

“Protection?” Ebryn asked.

“You best be careful. I'm paid up with Kylnes. Any trouble and he'll hear about it.”

Outside they retraced their steps, walking side by side down the narrow street.

“What do you think?” Ebryn asked. “Do you think he's lying?”

“He has not been truthful,” Addae said.

“What are you going to do now?”

“In my land there is a saying,” Addae said. “To have sense from a soldier, speak to his king. I will speak with this man called Kylnes. First, we must find him.”

“Isn't he the owner of The Etched Man?”

“Well, my friend, that is where we shall go—”

Mid-sentence, Addae nudged Ebryn into a gloomy alleyway they were passing. “There is one who follows us,” Addae whispered.

They walked into the dark passageway a few steps and Ebryn looked up to find Addae was gone. By his side the hollow, shell-like semblance of a dust-brown cloak strode along, a loose-edged glamour bound to look like the form of Addae from the rear.