Vergence (6 page)

“I have something for you,” Fla said. “We'll need somewhere private.”

Around them the crowd started to break up, and as if sensing the shift in mood the trikawi behind him started hooting at each other.

Fla glanced over his shoulder to find Brack staring at him, an expression of growing realisation replacing the look of hatred. Fla hadn't left Brack's service just to pursue his own activities unhindered, part of the time he was employed by Orim — with money and all the other benefits that flowed from that arrangement.

Orim turned and ploughed through the people standing behind them, using his strength to force a path for Fla to follow. He ducked into a covered alleyway, and led Fla through a series of interlinked dark passages. Despite his size, Orim moved silently, pausing at intervals to see if they were being followed.

They emerged in a narrow lane, hedged in on either side by buildings three or four floors high with upper levels built leaning out over the street, and stopped next to a door under the battered sign of an ale house.

“In here,” Orim said.

The interior was cramped, gloomy, and reeked of mildew. A man behind the bar counter lurched to his feet as they entered, then, seeing Orim, grunted, and sat back down. The only other person in the place sat in an alcove snoring softly with his head lying on the table in front of him next to an upturned tankard.

Orim headed for the rear of the room. “A place at back — we talk there.”

Fla muttered the words for a far-sense under his breath, barely moving his lips.

It spread through the building, sweeping past doors, through walls and ceiling and floor. He thought it unlikely Orim would bring him here to kill him, the alleys they had just negotiated would have provided ample cover for that, but Orim no doubt had enough enemies of his own who would like to see him dead.

Most Ronyon before Orim had been murdered or maimed by the end of their first term of service. One particularly unpopular ruler of Vergence, Duca Lesector, managed to work his way through nine before succumbing to poison himself. In the end he'd been forced to pardon murderers facing execution to find volunteers.

Now approaching the end of his third term Orim had proved uniquely capable as a Ronyon, combining formidable skills as both caster and warrior with an unrelenting determination. Plenty of time in which to make many enemies.

“There is no danger,” Orim said.

The back room was small, barely large enough for a small battered table and four chairs. The air inside was stale and there were dried brown stains on the table and walls.

When they were seated, Fla took something from his pocket and placed it carefully on the table — a creature the size of a small cup. At first it looked like a crystalline stone, coloured in partially transparent shades of mauve and indigo, deepening to an opaque black around its base. It lay completely still.

Orim leant back in his chair and inspected the creature. Fla noticed Orim had avoided touching it, his hands were clear of the table surface.

“A true summoning, is this not?”

“Yes,” Fla said.

At the sound of their voices Fla's creature quivered. At first a slight tremor which lent its surface a gelatinous quality. A slim tentacle extruded a hand's breadth from its underside, like some strange glistening slug squeezing out from beneath a stone, and squirmed around the surface of the table.

“This thing what is it?” Orim said.

“It's a kind of mimic. I discovered it swimming in a sea of liquid darkness in a Szekyn border realm,” Fla said.

“And so, is it dangerous?”

Fla watched as his creature sent a second tentacle exploring along the table edge. “No, I think not. I put it in a cage with a few different types of animals and they were unharmed. I can't say it isn't poisonous, I haven't tried feeding one to anything … yet.”

“You keep good control of it?” Orim asked.

“Szekyn are not difficult for me,” Fla said. He found he couldn't resist boasting a little to Orim.

“Ha. What is the reason you bring this thing to me … this szekyn mimic?”

“What it can mimic is sounds. This one I have trained to remember voices, a private meeting.”

Orim nodded. “Who?”

Fla reached out with his good hand and ran his fingertips along the back of his creature, coaxing it to regurgitating the absorbed conversation of the day before.

After a few moments the mimic spoke, first one voice, then another, each as clear as it would have been had the original speaker stood next to them in the same room.

“The first voice was of Doctor Elali, a servant of the Ulpitorian ambassador, then the ambassador, and now Hibgud Urr—”

“The artificer?” Orim asked.

“Yes, the artificer and the three-headed god. A stranger alliance I couldn't have imagined.”

When Hibgud spoke he sounded like the grating of a rusty hinge. “
The bridge will be built to the plan. Then we test—”

“
How soon?
” a fourth voice asked.

“That was Phar Salsa,” Fla said.

“
No rushing, or failure is certain,
” Hibgud's voice said.

“
Don't worry,
” the voice of the ambassador said, “
when it is complete you will have our gratitude and your investment back a hundredfold …
”

Fla removed his hand from the szekyn, and the conversation died.

“What is this bridge they speak of?” Orim asked.

“I don't know. You paid me to discover what they were saying, not the meaning. Pay me again and I'll find out.”

Orim ignored Fla's open hand. “What other matters were raised?”

“Nothing of importance. This was the meat of it. There were hollow pleasantries, yet I would say affection was thin between them.”

“To Vittore I will bring this. Have you scribed the words to parchment?”

Fla pushed the szekyn across the table. “Take it. You paid for it, it's yours.”

“When I have finished, do you want it returned?” Orim asked.

“Do whatever pleases you,” Fla said. “You can eat it, for all I care. I can always get myself another.”

The World Ship

“Y
OUNG MASTER EBRYN—”

Ebryn woke to find Ansel shaking him gently by the shoulder. He looked around, bleary-eyed, feeling like he'd just that moment fallen asleep. People were moving near the wagon, and he could make out a large shape a hundred yards away in the light of the double half moons.

“What is it?”

“Your ship is here,” Ansel said. “You need to go now master Ebryn.”

Ebryn quickly scrambled to his feet and moved past the wagon to get a better view. He could make out few details in the dark. The vessel appeared much like a small ocean-going sail ship, perhaps half the size of a typical merchant, but missing a keel, and with spherical structures and fan-shaped wings where there should have been sails.

Nearby a short stocky man hoisted a collection of bags onto his back, and turned towards the ship. He spied Quentyn standing next to a very tall man wrapped in a heavy cloak, and on his other side a second wearing heavy robes, with the hood pulled up over his head.

“The bigger man is the captain of the ship,” Ansel said, as they approached.

“And the other?”

“One of the ship's crew, I'd say.”

Quentyn barely glanced up as he approached, but the men both greeted him with a nod.

“Good,” the captain said, “the second passenger. Welcome to your passage, youngster.”

“Then let's escape this cold. Much more and my feet will stick fast,” the hooded one said. He had a difficult, thick accent, as if talking past a hefty pebble in his mouth.

“I'm Norguye, captain of yon raft, and here is Hurubal — my navigator,” the captain said. He tipped his head at Ansel. “Thank-you master trader, for your punctuality. I wish you good fortune on your return.”

Quentyn said nothing to Ansel, but followed after them. Ebryn bowed awkwardly at Ansel, feeling he could curl up inside at Quentyn's rudeness, and wishing he had something to give him as a gift for the trouble he'd taken.

Ansel looked from Quentyn's receding back to Ebryn. “Don't concern yourself over the likes of me young master. You'll need be minding yourself in the company of the great and powerful, the good folk of Vergence, as you read in your book.”

Ebryn nodded. “Thank-you Ansel — but I swear I won't ever forget where I come from. Can you say goodbye to Matille for me?”

“That I will, young master.”

Ebryn turned and hurried after the others. As he drew level, Hurubal gestured, spoke words under his breath, and three pale blue were-lights appeared, floating ahead of the small party, like miniature lanterns suspended in front of them by invisible hands, lighting their way as they crunched across the snow.

“You’re a caster?” Ebryn said.

“I am.”

“Working as a crewman on a ship?”

Hurubal turned his head and chuckled. Ebryn caught a flash of white teeth inside his hood, but nothing of the man's face.

“I'm the pilot. Few of our kind are occupied reading old books, and teaching others how to do the same. Like me, the greater number have duties. Mine is to guide this ship through the between. Trust me, it is better work than cutting wood, or ploughing dirt.”

Ebryn pulled his thin cloak closer and put his head down. The first thing he would learn after arriving in Vergence, he decided, would be a way to keep warm. Without thinking, he created light of his own, a muted glow which flowed through his clothes and clung to the surface as though from molten gold.

“That's a pretty trick you have there,” Hurubal said.

“It's the only kind of light I can make. Whenever I tried creating were-lights I did this instead,” Ebryn said.

“You have the better light.”

“My last teacher didn't think so. He wanted me to summon were-lights like yours.”

Hurubal made a dismissive sound. “The black cloaks will tell you what they have learnt from books. Do you know what is the difference between a thought in a book and reality? In the thought there is no difference.”

“Do you think books have no value then?” Ebryn asked.

“Now you are trying to catch me out. No, books are useful. Just mix the learning with good sense, I say. Here — I tell you what — when you have passed your selection test, I'll visit you when I'm in Vergence, and you can teach me the art of your golden light.”

“A test? What do you mean?”

“To become an apprentice caster you must pass the entrance test. Then you start the hard work of learning our craft, progressing to adept, and on to master, if you are lucky.”

Ebryn tried hard to keep the dismay out of his voice. “What kind of test? What happens if you don't pass?”

“You demonstrate to an assemblage of masters those three skills which are your best, and whatever other trials they set. When they've seen everyone, they each choose who they want. Very simple.”

“I see. What did you do?”

“I joined the Hemetuen order, and became an adept of the conveyors chapter. But look — while we talk your companion is half dead.”

Quentyn shivered violently, and his breath came in ragged gasps, a silvery thread — quickly snatched away. Yet with each step he seemed to slow.

Hurubal walked up beside him and took his elbow. “Come comrade, let me help you. The cold bites hard, does it not.”

Close at hand, the ship looked an impossible mix of mundane and fantastical, like any sea going vessel of its size, yet floating a few yards above the ground. Ebryn felt something rise up inside his chest, feeling elevated, and diminished at the same time by the sight.

The few things he had learnt to do seemed paltry beside the art and power it must have taken to build such a wonder, to allow something as big as the Conant manor house to fly free of the ground. He stopped and stared up as Hurubal bundled Quentyn up the boarding ramp.

Captain Norguye clapped him on the shoulder. “It's a wondrous sight the first time, isn't it, youngster?”

Ebryn nodded mutely, not trusting his voice.

“Let's get aboard. Plenty of time to have a look when we arrive, and not near as frosty the other side. If you're fortunate, you'll see a whole fleet of these stopped there, and some a side more impressive too.”

“How long will it be before we get to Vergence?” Ebryn asked, clambering up after him.

At the top was a protected walkway, running the length of the vessel. The captain ushered them through a narrow doorway into a small room, where the warmth burned on their aching cheeks.

“We're not taking you to Vergence,” he said. “We're travelling to Icisor. There will be another ship at Icisor to take you to Vergence.”

Quentyn stood, shaking uncontrollably, looking impossibly white, but seemingly unsurprised by this news. Ebryn frowned at him, wondering what other surprises he would discover before the end of the journey.

The captain noticed the look. “We don't take passengers as a rule, you see, excepting for pressing reasons. Mine is a courier ship, carrying letters and the like, and our destinations are decided. Fortunate for you that we have business this far north, here in Wassenard, else your journey would have been much extended.”