Vergence (5 page)

They followed the south road at a steady pace, soon taking Ebryn further from where he'd grown up than he'd ever been in his life.

The most northerly of the Collenard kingdoms, Goresyn, stretched along a narrow strip of land sandwiched between rough seas to the east, and tall mountains to the west.

The dense forest and steep hills of the northern borderlands were sparsely populated by small communities dedicated to growing oats, herding the small but hardy goesh — much prized for its fine wool — woodcutting and mining. Fifty leagues of difficult countryside, barely distinguishable from the furbeg inhabited wilderness beyond.

They travelled along the sea road where fishing villages clung to the rocky coastline whose inhabitants harvested the icy coastal waters for shellfish, eels, giant crabs, and seaweed. In some places the road amounted to little more than a mud track, in others broad and dry with well-maintained ditches on either side, winding through narrow valleys, and traversing bracken filled heaths.

Most nights were spent in moonlit clearings, or farmsteads with hospitable farmers. A few times they managed to find rooms in one of the villages straddling their route.

Quentyn grumbled at the wagon's slow progress until Ebryn tried to persuade him that riding would be faster, then lapsed into a sullen silence, and spent the rest of the journey in the back of the wagon reading books he'd taken from Lord Conant's library.

For the first few days Ebryn watched him constantly, waiting to see what kind of marvellous castings he might produce. But Quentyn created nothing more interesting than a pallid were-light, which floated in the vicinity of his head producing an irritating buzzing noise — like some flying insect trapped in a tiny box. Ansel and Matille were so impressed by this minimal accomplishment that Ebryn concluded they'd never witnessed anything of the kind before.

In the evenings, Ebryn took to entertaining them with minor castings, setting a golden glow around small objects, or making them disappear from one hand, and returning them to the other.

Seven days out from Conant village a small band of mounted soldiers rode by, heading north, slowing to exchange cheerful insults with Ansel as they passed.

“Where are them soldiers heading for?” Matille asked, watching their retreating backs through a gap at the rear of the wagon.

“Pelle Keep,” Ebryn said. “It's a small castle guarding the northern border.”

“What is the guard set against?”

Ebryn shrugged. “I don't know. Dollard called it 'pillory keep'. He used to say it's a place where the King sent noblemen who'd annoyed him.”

“Is that right?” Matille said.

“I don't think there's anything north of there, just a few tribes of furbeg, and they don't cause us any trouble.”

“Who is this Dollard? Is he a nobleman?” Quentyn asked.

“He was the horse-master, he died a few years ago.”

Quentyn snorted. “Taking the word of a servant employed to look after horses, eh? You'll need to listen more to your superiors to know about such things, if you want to make your way in Vergence. Not gossip from peasants.”

Later, as they started to climb the foothills marking the eastern border of Goresyn, Ebryn took to reading aloud to Ansel and Matille. He read them tales from Ullvenard's Travels, one of the books he'd brought with him from the Conant library. At first Quentyn retired to the privacy of the wagon as soon as he'd finished eating. But as nights grew colder Quentyn joined them.

He sat there, pale-faced and shivering, sitting as close to the fire as possible, while doing his best to ignore his hosts.

On the twenty-third day they travelled above the snowline, and Ebryn realised they must be near their destination as the wagon wouldn't be able to venture much higher in the mountains. The track narrowed, with steep drops on one side or the other where they passed along mountainside paths, and in places Ansel left his seat to guide his horses by hand.

At last the slope flattened, and they came to a broad mountain valley surrounded by tall white peaks. At the far end the valley sloped up to a white line, sparkling in the evening light.

“It is a glacier,” Matille said, when Ebryn pointed it out.

“A glacier?”

“It is like a river, frozen all the way through,” she said. “It flows very slowly. In warmer times it melts, so you can see only the water running away. When the mountains are colder the ice comes down the valley, and then it grows by a yard a day.”

“Here we are, this is the place. We wait here for your ship,” Ansel called back, reigning in the horses.

They stopped near the edge of the empty expanse and Ebryn helped Ansel with his horses, covering them with heavy blankets against the cold, and providing each a grain-filled nosebag.

Matille built a fire in the lee of the wagon for shelter, and they all huddled near. As darkness fell, frozen air swept down from the glacier, a frigid torrent which swept around the wagon, pressing close and drawing the heat away from the flames.

That night, after their meal, Ebryn read from Ullvenard's Travels, the part where Ullvenard wrote about his first time in Vergence. The description fascinated him.

“…
such civility seldom encountered. A farer place I have yet to lay my eyes upon. Here is a rare glimpse of that thing I call true civilization, where the people are kind and honourable.

“The servants serve willingly, and the rulers are fair and just, being true heirs to the greatness that was old Volane.
”

Ebryn closed the book slowly, savouring the last sentence. When he looked up he found Quentyn staring at him, open mouthed.

Fla

T
WO GUARDS APPEARED
through the doorway, dragging a smaller man between them. They forced him bodily down the steps, ignoring his attempts to grab the door frame on the way out, and pushed him towards the prison wagon.

The prisoner wore a torn shirt and short britches. A small cut above one of his eyes bled freely. Blood ran down the side of his face to his chin, and small bright droplets scattered onto his clothing as he struggled. A third guard followed behind them carrying a crumpled light grey cloak

“I done nothing — I done nothing,” the prisoner said past a swollen lip.

Fla had been caught up unwillingly and pushed ahead as he ventured out in the late morning, lacking the strength to resist the flow as locals surged through the narrow street to see the spectacle.

Bundled carelessly along, he ended up in the front row of a small crowd, mostly apprentices, and a few passers-by who'd gathered to watch. He stood near one of the dozen guards deployed in a rough circle to keep watchers away from the wagon.

The prison wagon was little more than a large open-sided cage atop a flat-bed wooden four-wheeled base. At the front, facing Fla, was an elevated driver's seat with space enough for two more besides. A couple of trikawi were harnessed side by side in front, narrow hooves performing impatient little steps on the spot, hooting softly, and baring their razor teeth whenever the front edge of the crowd edged too close.

He could make out prisoners already inside the cage. One, a large man dressed in the ragged fashion of a street dweller, lay the length of the wagon — probably drunk. The other a six-limbed Selerian. It sat hugging itself with its four arms, its long tail looped around its legs

Fla had been forced into an ungainly trot to avoid being trampled by those behind him and now his knees and ankles, especially on his left side, were agony. He looked for a way through the press, but found himself hemmed in on three sides directly in front of the wagons right wheel, and near to the wall of the adjacent building. If the driver decided to drive through the crowd there was every chance he'd be crushed under the wheels.

Fla was busy casting about for a way past the crush of bodies when a heavyset man shouldered his way through the crowd opposite, face flushed an ugly purple, lips pulled back in a feral snarl. Unmistakably Brack, head of the Aremetuet order and Fla's former master. The guard nearest took a step backwards as Brack pushed past the front row.

“What's this?” Brack shouted. “Casters are for the Aremetuet to regulate. You have no business here.”

Another of the guards moved from behind the struggling prisoner to intercept Brack, helmet fluting indicating the squad leader, his triple plaid long hair marking him as one of the growing number of converts to the three-faced god.

“Not at all,” the armoured soldier said. “This man is charged with theft and perversions against a young lady too disgusting to state in public. We have an arrest warrant from the Margave. He will be tried and punished accordingly.”

“I didn't, I didn't—” the prisoner said as they forced him up the steps at the back of the wagon, and hurled him head first through the cage door.

Were it not for the pain in his legs, Fla might have found situation amusing. The guards arresting some insignificant and witless Genestuer scribe with barely enough skill to pick his own teeth, sending a clear message about their growing power and confidence, and Brack barking at them like some toothless old dog — impotent in the face of the sevyric iron they carried.

Brack started shouting at the squad leader, but at that moment somebody pushed hard against Fla's hip from behind, and his leg twisted out. The pain was so excruciating, Fla felt as if his body had been broken. It enfolded him from knee to thigh and hip, and encased that side of his chest to his shoulder. His senses went blank, and for the second time that morning he would have fallen without his staff to lean on.

For ten long shuddering breaths he leant forward. Another man might have cried out, but Fla wouldn't. Bad enough to be stunted and crippled in the eyes of others — better to die than show any weakness of mind.

Eventually the pain receded, like a wave drawing back into a sea, and Fla looked up in time to see the bolts being locked into place on the wagon. Brack stood staring at him with an expression of unmistakable hatred. Not at him, Fla realised, but behind him. Fla wheeled round as quickly as his bowed legs would allow, grimacing at the jabs of pain travelling up from his knees.

Behind him, he found Orim, arms folded, watching the unfolding events, his face giving no clue to his feelings. In the years Fla had known him, Orim's hair while still pulled back, had become shorter, and his beard neater. The intense copper red colour had faded slightly over time, and Fla thought he could see the first few grey hairs starting to show.

The exposed skin on his arms and face were weather-worn and showed dozens of scars, broad and small, some of the larger ones fairly recent too by the look of them. He wore a thigh-length short sleeved jacket of heavy leather, and dark trousers.

Orim carried a pair of hefty, functional looking short swords, each in a sheath, attached on opposite sides of his belt. Above each wrist Orim displayed a bracelet, around his neck a thin torc, and on the front of his belt a couple of flat palm sized discs covered in Haeldran runic writing.

Each had the appearance of a dark smoke patterned metal, but Fla recognised dormant ephemerals summoned and shape-formed to look like mundane jewellery. True summoning would be illegal for any but the Ronyon — the position Orim held lay outside the law, bound only to directly serve the ruler of Vergence.

Whatever Orim had bound would probably be capable of taking directions no more complex than you might give to a well trained hound. Anything with much greater reason or power would be impossibly dangerous for even a caster as skilled as Orim.

What interested Fla was how Orim managed to shape-bind his creatures and keep them. The true summoned were notoriously skittish, prone to running amok, or disappearing if you lost control of them for even a moment. But then, Fla thought, we each of us have our own secrets.

“I did not know you enjoyed such popular entertainment,” Orim said.

Fla scowled. “I don't, I thought I would find you here.”

He didn't like standing here, next to Orim, with so many eyes gathered. Already attention was drifting away from the drama around the wagon, and those nearest were noticing the odd couple. Orim the Ronyon, and Fla the dwarf. Hunchback would have been a more accurate description, but “dwarf” was one of the kinder things he'd been called in his youth and the name stuck.