On a Crooked Track

Chapter 4

CHAPTER 4

“It been almost two hours. Where is he?”

Penrys sought Munraz’s mind but there were hundreds of wizards in Stokemmi to wade through. She still couldn’t believe that Najud had just sent him to spy on someone on his first day in a foreign city.

Vylkar glanced up. “He’s resourceful, that one. I wouldn’t worry yet.”

Penrys and Najud had spent much of the time waiting in their own room while Vylkar entertained guests in the main room of the suite. He’d let his name be posted as “in residence” at the entrance, and colleagues who were in town had been dropping by for some time. Vylkar invited each to dinner in a special hall downstairs, and several promised to bring friends. All wanted to hear the details about the Kigali expedition from which he had just returned.

He kept his foreign guests under wraps, planning to introduce them formally tonight. In-between the knocks on the door, Penrys worked with him on their plans for the evening. She hadn’t expected a reaction to her chain like that, and now she thought there was everything to gain by trolling the line out deliberately, trying to see who else might react, once they learned what she was and why she was there.

“I’ve talked to some of my colleagues about Gialfinnur,” Vylkar said, abruptly. “One of them muttered something about yrmkenrolek but that was all I’ve heard.”

At Najud’s puzzled glance, he explained. “That’s crooked learning, forbidden subjects—what Gialfinnur wrote about before they dismissed him from the Collegium. No one would want to admit what they know about something like that, for there could be consequences.”

He pursed his lips thoughtfully. “I’m not surprised no one volunteered anything, but I am somewhat disturbed that no one had to be reminded who I was talking about.”

“You think his influence is still alive, or he would have been forgotten by now?” Penrys said.

“Something like that. I’ve sent feelers out—I should know more in a day or two.”

The opening of the door to Munraz’s room startled them all. Syrlyggi came in with her case in one hand and a small velvet cushion holding two gleaming items in the other. She put the case down and handed the fabric with its two pinned badges to Vylkar, then stepped back to hear his opinion. Penrys got up from her chair to look over his shoulder. She could feel that the power-stones in the devices in the case had lost much of their charge.

The gold of the Emperor’s award was subdued, almost molten in color, rather than brash and new. There were subtle touches of Kigali styling to it that would make it exotic to Ellechen eyes, beyond the crossed swords themselves. On the back were the details of dates and names.

The minor honor in silver mirrored the Kigali styling though its subject was different. Despite the differences in size and material, they went well together, fruit of the same tree.

“I am well pleased,” Vylkar said. “May I offer you any refreshment for your trouble?”

The remark drew Penrys’s attention to the woman’s wan face. “No, I need to be going. The task was a bit more difficult than I expected, getting the engraving right for the mold.” She smiled wearily.

She looked Penrys in the face. “Be cautious when you wear this—a man might be tempted to steal it to melt it down.”

Najud chuckled. “The woman who won these both in personal combat will not be so easy to overwhelm.”

“As you say,” she said. “Is our business concluded?” she asked Vylkar.

“It is, and I will convey my satisfaction to the one who recommended you.” He pressed a small pouch into her hand, which she accepted.

She paused at the outer doorway, her case heavy in her hand. “Look to find these honors registered by me in the archives tomorrow morning.”

When she pulled the door open, she almost stumbled into Munraz, his hand lifted to knock. They sorted themselves out, and Munraz came in and shut the door behind him.

Najud belied his nonchalance about assigning the task to Munraz by leaping up and striding over to him, with a “where were you?” Vylkar twitched as if he meant to do the same before subsiding with dignity back into his chair.

Penrys noted that Munraz’s expression combined satisfaction in having completed a difficult assignment with surprise at so much concern for his welfare. Still not used to having a new family that cares what happens to him.

She resumed her own seat, leaned back, and crossed her hands over her stomach. “Tell us all about it.”

“I can’t believe he didn’t see you following him.” Penrys was impressed in spite of herself.

“I gave him no reason to look back, and he was in a hurry,” Munraz said. “Finding the building up on the hill wasn’t hard, but deciding what to do when he left… I wasn’t sure I made the right choice.”

“I’m sure,” Najud replied. “And I’m proud of you, nal-jarghal, for taking the chance and learning so much.”

“But I couldn’t read the message, and I can’t even be sure it’s the one he sent!”

Munraz had stopped pacing after he’d finished the story and was perched now on the edge of a chair, pulled away from a writing table in the central room of the suite.

Vylkar’s low voice chimed in. “That was most likely his. The merchants don’t use code unless it’s truly important, and official messages are usually sent in batches. No, we can’t be sure, but it’s likely.”

“But it doesn’t tell us anything.” Munraz lifted his hands in a half-shrug.

“On the contrary,” Vylkar said. “If we’re right in thinking we know who sent it, it tells us quite a lot. The timing tells us that he truly did react to the sight of Penrys’s chain, that we didn’t just imagine it. The relay designation makes it clear that this is a customary channel, one that he’s used before, perhaps many times. That, and the code itself, tells us that the message is both important and private, that there is a need for secrecy.”

“And it tells us that its destination is in the west,” Najud added.

Penrys raised a finger to slow him down. “Not necessarily. The destination could be another relay that sends the message elsewhere.”

“And there could be a chain of such relays,” Vylkar said. “It might even come back into Stokemmi from another direction through a different tower, so that no one notices the same coded message. But it’s best not to multiply unknowns. Until we have evidence to the contrary, I would take ‘west’ for the simple clue that it is.”

“The Collegium is in the west, and not far from that destination tower,” Penrys observed.

“So is a quarter or more of the nation,” Vylkar replied. “Let’s not jump too far ahead in our suppositions.”

He paused. “So, you got a tour of a signals tower, did you? What did you think of it?”

Munraz turned to Najud. “You’d have liked it, jarghal. All these people were organized, each with a task, and if you think about it the right way, all the documents were organized, too. Everything moved around through the system like, like…” He searched for a comparison. “Like grain through a mill. The message goes in at one end, and comes out the other having been sent and filed away.”

He watched Najud’s face. “And the devices… The way they were put together—so clever! Big ones to do complicated things, little ones to control the big ones. The men who thought those up… They were organizing things, too. Just different kinds of things.”

Penrys felt for Najud’s reaction, behind his deadpan face. Devices and all the physical magics were frowned upon in sarq-Zannib. Though Najud had not seemed disturbed by her own work in that area, his apprentice was another matter. Clearly Munraz had found the tour fascinating.

Vylkar must have been concerned about Najud’s possible response, too, for he spoke before Najud could. “The signals towers employ some of our most complex devices. Many techniques were pioneered there. You’ll find that the Collegium has entire courses of study that concentrate in that field.”

Munraz looked to Vylkar. “We Zannib must seem awfully primitive to the Kigaliwen and the Ellechen taurath.”

“You have your own expertises and your own complexities,” Vylkar said.

“But no devices. And no systems of men like that.”

“Not true, Munraz,” Penrys said. “Look at the taridiqa, the annual migration, with its tasks and roles. Everyone knows his job. Any military unit is organized the same way, and the caravans—think how complicated, and yet they run smoothly across two nations.”

Munraz nodded. “I thought of your caravan, jarghal, when I saw all this,” he told Najud. He subsided, but Penrys could almost here him repeat his “no devices” observation to himself.

Najud made no reply.

I’m bait, that what I am. Staked out like a bleating goat for everyone to get a good look at. Well, I asked for it.

Penrys tried to ignore the itch between her shoulder-blades where she fancied a knife might appear. No one in the guild’s smaller dining hall, the Founder’s Hall, Vylkar had called it, had been hostile, but they were certainly curious.

Vylkar had planted himself near the entrance, with his three guests, and greeted everyone who arrived, performing introductions before directing them to a serving area for a variety of beverages, not all of which were familiar to Penrys.

“Where do they all come from?” she muttered to Vylkar during a brief gap.

“Some live here most of the year, in this guild hall or nearby, and some just happen to be in town. We’re in luck to get so many with so little notice.”

They were interrupted by a deep voice. “So where’s that big one from, then? Never seen that one before.”

She turned to face a broad fellow with an unkempt gray beard and a mug in one hand. He was pointing his chin at the gold honor over her left breast, and she launched into a repetition of her abbreviated response. “I was able to perform a small service for the emperor in Kigali,” she said, with a neutral voice.

The touch of Vylkar’s hand on her arm drew her away to be introduced to the next new entrants, a redhead going bald this time, and his blond wife, both in their blues. “May I present the hakkengenni Penrys, back from her travels for a while?”

They bowed, and she bowed, all the time thinking, ‘Adept,’ is it? No one uses that title in the modern world.

“And this is her husband, the wizard Najud, son of Ilsahr, of clan Zamjilah, and his apprentice Munraz, come all the way from sarq-Zannib to visit our Collegium.”

The two of them were in their finest Zannib robes, with ornamented weapons on display in their sashes, and less fancy ones hidden elsewhere. Their turbans were another exotic touch that widened the eyes of the new visitors, before they wandered off for liquid refreshment.

Penrys had her own small knives stashed away, which was a comfort to her. Her robes on the other hand were a mixed blessing. She had to think carefully about her movements, for this was the first time she’d worn the formal robes, so much longer than the everyday ones, though with her lack of height, the borrowed greens at the Collegium had sometimes been almost as difficult to maneuver.

These robes were new—her first new ones—and she held herself straight in the pride of new clothing. Still, this was a lot of strangers to greet at once, to… expose herself to, and her shoulder blades continue to itch.

“I’m very pleased to meet you,” she said, bowing to people whose names she forgot as soon as they passed down the line.

A clamor of well-lubricated conversation rose gradually from the corner of the room nearest to the beverages. Penrys let her eyes drift there and then over to the table that occupied most of the long wall, in sections shoved together. She longed for the food to arrive, so that they could take a place and eat in relative peace. Such a lot of strange wizards—could I take them on in an emergency?

Najud commented on the room-wide mural that ran behind the table. “I see the Ellechen taurath carry their love of trees and wood indoors.”

Penrys shook her head. “That’s not what that is.” The painted carving depicted a grove of leafless trees with the tallest in the middle, straight as a waterfall. Their roots were exposed and intertwined.

“That’s a symbol, the drosnommystu, the woven roots of magic. It represents all the ways that wizards intertwine, from young ones in their schools, to teachers of the craft, to practitioners in the businesses, to the researchers. All have roots that support the craft, and each leans upon the others. That tree in the center… that’s supposed to be the axis upon which the world spins, the tree that connects the earth to the sky.”

She cleared her throat and looked at Munraz. “It’s an old belief, that one. No one much speaks of it anymore. Me, I always thought what it really meant was that no one understood quite how wizardry worked, so they threw in something even more impossible to believe in, out of embarrassment.” She chuckled at his startled expression.

“Anyway, that’s the path of redenrolek, the straight track. The orthodox teachings, what the Collegium offers.”

“Is there another kind?” Munraz asked.

Vylkar overheard him. “Several, with varying beliefs. Each is an yrmkenrolek, a crooked track. Don’t speak of this here, tonight,” he added. “Not in this company.” And he fixed his eyes upon Munraz until the young man nodded agreement.

The Kigali with their gods, the Zannib with their lud—whatever those are—and the Ellech with… hard to explain, isn’t it? And what the wizards think, most of them, is not necessarily what everyone else believes.

The woman in blue robes across the narrow table from Penrys made polite conversation. Penrys had forgotten her name—there were just too many strangers to keep track of, a sea stretching down to her right on both sides with extensive pools of blues and a few purples puddled up. There was a scattering of non-wizards, but fewer than half a dozen, and she would have wagered they were all married to wizards also present. She recalled some such couples from the presentation line.

“It must be pleasant for you, returning for your studies after being away?”

“It does feel a bit like home to me,” Penrys admitted. “I’m still somewhat disoriented, though. I seem to have misplaced winter somewhere.”

Najud at her side explained, “We crossed the equator, you see, and all the seasons have shifted. We’ve come back to spring a second time this year.”

The two of them and Munraz sat at Vylkar’s right hand, with their backs to the drosnommystu mural. Penrys eyed her patron to her left, at the head of the table. She felt sure this was a deliberate maneuver, Vylkar taking advantage of the symbolism to suggest that his byrindyrri walked the straight path, not the crooked one.

She looked past Najud at Munraz and overheard explanations about Zannib clothing and customs. Safe topics. In fact, it had been safe topics throughout the meal, up and down the table, a pleasant rumbling of voices and clinking of glasses.

Now the guild hall’s servants began clearing the plates and platters, leaving only drinks behind. When the last of them had vanished and closed the doors, the conversations subsided, as if in anticipation of the real purpose of the evening.

Vylkar pushed his chair back from the table and rose, and all eyes turned to him and granted him silence.

“You have all heard of the people we searched for, before I and the other ambassadors departed for Kigali. Dead men and women, wearing a chain like the hakkengenni Penrys here.

“Since then, the news will have returned ahead of us—the death of our ambassadors, and the presence of hundreds of wizards in wizardless Kigali, many of them wearing chains, and the rise of a new wizard guild there, out in the open. And dead wizards in chains scattered from Zannib to Rasesni to Ndant, as well as here in Ellech.”

The attentive silence was complete.

“We know more, now, than we did. We know the chains are devices, and we know they store power like power-stones.”

“Impossible!” The interruption came from a man of Vylkar’s age who stood up to protest. What could only be his wife grabbed his arm to pull him back down, but to no avail. “We all know it’s the nature of their crystalline structures that sets the power-stones apart from the true gems.”

Heads nodded around the table.

Vylkar paused a moment until he had their attention. “I say here that I have witnessed proof.” He waited a beat for them to recall his purple-robed dignity. “As any sword-smith can tell you, metals exhibit crystalline structures, too.”

At that, cries of “yrmkenrolek” rose from several places.

Vylkar raised his hand to request silence.

“Perhaps this is crooked magic, perhaps not. We are journeying to the Collegium in a few days to see if its archives can help us understand how this might be, and Penrys will join me in the investigation. She is after all a hakkengenni in this area, an Adept.”

Nothing about the wiped memories, or about the extra flourishes like animal ears and wings and other appurtenances. Nothing about the discrete period of time that covered the creation of all the chained wizards she’d encountered. Nothing about the whiff of a suspicion around the old banned Ellechen wizard Gialfinnur. Penrys shook her head faintly in admiration of Vylkar’s use of limited information to maneuver his audience.

“I hope that all of you will share with us anything you might know on the topic, before we leave, or send it on to us afterward. I would be most grateful.”

And there we are. Bait, indeed. They will know where to find us, when the word spreads, as it will, and they will realize we might be dangerous in our knowledge.

She turned her head and smiled tightly at Najud. Good. I want to get my hands on whoever made us, stole our past lives, and scattered us randomly and indifferently about the landscape to live or die.