The Phoenix Unchained (38 page)

ALL of the Counting Houses were built in much the same style. He went first to the desk of the Junior Clerk and identified himself—presenting his signet ring as proof—and signed the book.
From there he was passed to a Senior Clerk—to whom he confided his business—and from there to a Director of the Bank, who took him into an inner office.

“Quite a large withdrawal for a young man such as yourself,” Director Bernun said idly. “You are making inroads upon your principal.”

It was a master merchant banker’s talk, and Tiercel was familiar with it. “I expect to recover from it soon. Meanwhile, I am traveling, and my expenses are heavy.”

There was a knock at the door, but it was only a clerk carrying a tray. On it were several bags of coin—the funds Tiercel had requested, and he had specified that most of it should come in small denominations—stars and unicorns—as few folk could make change when confronted with a Golden Sun. But there was a bag of Golden Suns as well.

There were also two thick bundles of wax-sealed parchment. With a thrill of shock, Tiercel recognized his father’s seal.

“Letters,” Director Bernun said. “For you and a Master Harrier—your traveling companion, I presume. They arrived a moonturn past—by post-rider, so the news from home will be fresh.”

“Thank you,” Tiercel said. He picked up the two letters and tucked them into his tunic. They were heavy, and thick, and he could not imagine what it must have cost to send them by post-rider all the way from Armethalieh. If they had come a moonturn ago, they must have been written soon after his and Harrier’s letters reached Armethalieh. Though the letter was proof of the fact that his father accepted what he was doing, they didn’t really make him feel much better.

He tucked the money away into his belt-pouches—it made a heavy load—and thanked Director Bernun once again for his help. He could tell that the man was puzzled by the mystery that he represented but—in the tactful fashion of all good men of
business everywhere—Bernun asked no further questions. Still, Tiercel didn’t really breathe easier until he was outside once more.

“LETTERS from home,” he said, handing Harrier his as he walked down the steps.

Harrier took it, looking as if he’d rather have been handed a live snake. “My Da wrote me a letter?” he asked.

“Someone using the Harbormaster’s Seal did. My father wrote me, too. So we know they got our letters.”

Harrier swallowed nervously and made no move to open his letter. “So. Where shall we go now? The Great Library?”

“No.”

“I need to report a death,” Tiercel said to the clerk on duty.

“This is the Guildhouse of the Forest Watch, not the City Watch. I can have someone conduct you—” The clerk was about their own age. Like Simera had, he wore the unadorned green leathers of a Student Forester. He regarded Tiercel sympathetically, obviously thinking him some lost visitor to the city.

“She was a Forester. Her name was Simera.”

The boy got to his feet. “Please come with me.”

He led them further into the building, to another room where a graying bearded Centaur stood behind a high table. He, too, wore the green tunic and tabard of the Forest Watch, but there was an elaborate silver brooch on the shoulder of the tabard.

“These men have come to report the death of a Watchman, Watch Commander Nevus,” the boy said.

“Very well,” Nevus said, nodding. “I’ll take care of it.”

The boy bowed and retreated, closing the door to the room behind him.

“It’s a hard thing to lose one of our Watchmen. When we do, so often we never hear anything at all. I shall be grateful for all that you can tell me. Were you able to recover his badge?” He tapped the gleaming oval of silver metal on the left breast of his tunic.

Harrier and Tiercel looked at each other.

“I don’t think she had one yet,” Tiercel said quietly. “She was still an Apprentice. Her name was Simera.”

Under Nevus’s careful questioning, the story was quickly told. They left out Tiercel’s spells, saying only that Simera and Harrier had managed to kill all of the attackers with sword and arrows. It was almost true.

“At Windy Meadows?” Nevus asked.

“A little outside it, I think,” Harrier answered. “We might have made it a mile up the road before they took down our pack-pony. But everyone in the town was gone when we arrived there.”

“And you say they were . . . Goblins?”

There was a faint note of incredulity in Nevus’s voice, though not outright disbelief.

“I’m not completely sure.” This time it was Tiercel who spoke. “But we—all—saw them move through the earth as if it were water, and their bite was poisonous. I’d read about Goblins in some old books. The description is pretty close.”

Nevus shook his head. “We’ll send people to look for her body—and for your Goblins. I’m glad you sent word to Sentarshadeen. We’d had word of what happened in Windy Meadows already. It’s not the first isolated hamlet from which everyone has vanished without a trace recently. But this is the first time we’ve ever had anything approaching witnesses. You were very lucky to have survived.”

“We would have been luckier if we’d all survived,” Harrier said bleakly.

Nevus sighed. “We cannot choose the hour of our death, only,
by the Herdsman’s Grace, the manner of it. Simera died in the service and the honor of our Guild, and so she will be remembered. When Passing Court convenes a sennight from now, to honor the names of all those of the Forest Watch who have gone to walk the Herdsman’s Path in the last Quarter, Simera’s name will be read out. We would be honored if you would attend.”

“I don’t like the sound of all this,” Harrier said, when they reached the street. “Whole villages vanishing? And—I didn’t tell you about this before—Selken ships vanishing, too. I heard a couple of carters gossiping about it in one of the inns we stayed at.”

Tiercel simply sighed and shook his head. “Even if we could get a hearing before the Chief Magistrate of the Nine Cities—and she believed us—what could she do? Roneida knows everything I know. She won’t just do nothing.”

Harrier didn’t say anything. Neither of them believed that Roneida had sent them into the Goblins’ path at Windy Meadows, but it hadn’t seemed very much to Harrier as if Roneida was in any hurry to ring warning alarms about the danger Tiercel had told her about. The more he thought about what she’d said and done during their brief time together, the more he was left with the impression that she thought things were going along just fine. Or if not fine, then at least in the way that they had to go.

And even if he was wrong about that, the last they’d seen of her, she was traveling alone across the Great Plains where they’d seen the Goblins. And if whole villages could just vanish, if he and Tiercel had barely escaped from the Goblins with their lives, even a Wildmage might not be safe. Roneida might not do anything because she might not be alive to do it.

“Where to now?” he said aloud.

“New clothes,” Tiercel said decisively. “If I’m going to go to the
Library tomorrow, I’d better not go looking as if I’ve been on the road for the last several moonturns. And then . . . I suppose we should see what our families have to say.”

THEY’D put it off for as long as possible. They’d bought clothes—and new boots—and a good hot dinner, and even a jug of cider to take back to their lodgings. But now they couldn’t put it off any longer without admitting that they were delaying. By the light of several large and expensive candles (one of Tiercel’s purchases) in their rented room, the boys settled on their beds and opened their letters from home.

Harrier puzzled over his father’s cramped script—Antarans Gillain had a clerk for when he wanted his documents to be legible, but had obviously written this letter himself. Harrier had expected . . . well, he didn’t know
what
he’d expected, but what he got was a dry recitation of news, as matter-of-fact as a report to the City Council.

Brelt was continuing to do well as the Harbormaster-Apprentice (Harrier winced). Brelt’s wife, Meroine, was expecting their second child, likely to be a Kindling child, and lucky. Divigana was well, and looking forward to becoming a grandmother yet again. Eugens’s wife had been delivered of yet another set of twins, and a new Apprentice had been Bonded to assist him in the Customs House, since he would not have his brother’s assistance as he had expected there. Port traffic had been light through the Summer—fewer Selken ships than usual had called, and ships from Serjokka, Averi, and the Jaspan Islands had not called at all, and the rumor was that Armethalieh was being named across the sea as an unsafe destination, so that fewer lands were willing to risk sailing across the ocean to the Great Harbor. The roster of Missing and Overdue Ships was longer than Antarans had ever seen it—longer, indeed, than it had
ever been in his father’s time, or his grandsire’s time, and several Coastal Patrol ships had gone missing. . . .

Reading on through the dry recitation of events and family news, Harrier realized that if he was expecting his father to write directly about what he had said in his letter: that he was following Tiercel to the end of the world, and he had no idea when—or even if—he’d be back, he would probably wait in vain. They’d never spoken outright about the important things in life. His father had simply expected Harrier to do his duty, just as every generation of the Gillains back to the Founding of the City had.

And Harrier realized, with a lump in his throat, that this was his father’s way of telling him that his choice was all right. Letters cost money. His father hadn’t had to write at all, much less to go on for page after page about just the same things that he would have if Harrier had been standing right beside him on the docks at home. He didn’t know what place there would be for him at the Port if—when—he returned, or even if he wanted one, but he was sure—now—that there would always be a place for him at his family’s table.

At the bottom of the last page there were a few lines in his mother’s flowing ornate hand:
We love you. We miss you. Stay safe, and come home as soon as you can. All my love, and all your father’s love as well
.

Harrier never doubted it for an instant.