The Sable City (The Norothian Cycle) (17 page)

“
Thou art charged with monitoring for thaumaturgy, I take it?”

“
Thou art knowing it.”

The priest spread his hands, waiting. Phin had no duty to examine a priest, and probably not even the authority. But the dolt wanted a show. Phin stopped leaning on the staff though he remained in a slouch. He dipped the globe, spoke his words, and blinked as a white light flickered within the glass like a trapped firefly.

“
Just the shield, I am sure,” the Exlander said, and turned around to show Phin his back. Slung over his shoulder was a great iron mace and on top of that, worn almost like a backpack, was a medium-sized shield with a triangular bottom rim, shining steel that matched his breast plate. At present there was a faint, white nimbus of light in the air around the shield, answering that shining in Phin‘s staff. It also bore the same sigil as the old priest’s tunic, not the ornate standard of a knightly order or family but rather the simple, curved line known as both the Bridge and the Arch. It was the holy symbol of the Imperial Church of Jobe the Builder, First God of the Ennead.

“
You’re both priests?” Phin said, not bothering to conceal a sneer.

The younger priest turned back around as the light in the air and in the globe quickly faded. The only sign that he had noticed Phin’s tone was a slight lowering of his blonde eyebrows.

The older priest spoke. “I am Father Luis Corallo, and this is the Brother Kendall Heggenauer, Both of Jobe. As such, I suppose we are beyond the oversight of your Circle.”

Not this morning, Father.

Phin shook his head and waved a beckoning hand. “Afraid my charge is a bit more involved than that.” He turned to Heggenauer. “Acolyte. It is acolyte, isn’t it?”

“
It is.”

“
Hand over the device for inspection.” Phin snapped his long, tattooed fingers a few times. The priests exchanged a look but the young one finally shrugged and went about unfastening the straps securing the shield to his back, though doing so spoiled the artful hang of his traveling cloak. Shame, really.

Phin set the staff back down in the weedy basin and took the proffered shield in both hands. Though made entirely of steel it was very light, which was after-all the point. Phin held it face down to reveal the double set of straps for either use or transport. Under the straps in the upper left corner was an embossed symbol of a shield shape with a stylized, swirling S stamped in the middle.

“
This is the standard Shanatarian spell of strength and lightness, correct?” Phin asked, tapping the sigil. “Common to all Empire-issued shields, be they Legion towers, footman’s kites, or in this case…what, a horseman’s shield? You don’t ride that donkey, do you Brother?”

“
No, I do not.”

“
Because this is a spell worked by the Shieldmaiden’s faithful, correct? Not Jobe the Builder, as you guys don’t know that one, yes? Now, if we were building an outhouse…”

“
It is not a…what?”

“
A courthouse. If we were building a courthouse, I expect you would put your own spell on that. But not on a shield. Not your bailiwick, as it were.”

“
It is not a spell,” Brother Heggenauer finally finished a sentence. Phin blinked as though befuddled, and tapped the symbol again.

“
I am pretty sure that it is, acolyte. You see, without this mark your shield would be a lot heavier. Altogether less wieldy.”

“
It is a
blessing
,” Heggenauer clarified. “Not a spell.”

“
Well, that’s like saying it is a hen but not a chicken, but I take your point. A
blessing
then. Very much like a spell, but performed only through the vehicle of godly power. Whereas the power of a spell comes from the caster himself.”

Phin tossed the light shield back, and it clanged against Heggenauer’s breast plate even as he caught it. Almost as though the sound had been a signal, rumbling came from the northern side of the yard as the drawbridge began to ratchet down.

“
There’s your door, acolyte. Move along.”

Phin was aware he was looking smug, and he cared not in the least. The big blonde Exlander stared at him with a clenched jaw, while the Father only frowned at them both. At length Heggenauer returned the shield to his back and straightened his mace beneath it while giving Phin a minor stink eye. He took the waiting mule’s bridle and both priests took at step toward the opening gate.

“
Good day, Wizard,” the Father said.

“
And where do you think you are going?”

Both stopped and turned back, Heggenauer now looking openly annoyed. After five months at the short end of the stick Phin just could not let the moment go.

“
Excuse me?”

“
I ask to where you are bound, Brother. To where does Jobe bid you two nip off?”

“
To Galdeez,” Heggenauer nodded due north. “On the bluffs where the Blue River becomes the Red.”

“
Yes, I have seen a map.”

“
Thence on to Vod’Adia.” Father Corallo said quietly.

Phin jerked and his mouth fell open without any snide words coming out. The older priest continued.

“
Blackstone. The Sable City. It is not on any map, though I trust you know the name?”

“
Why are you going there?” Phin managed.

“
The Fifth Opening is due in two months,” Corallo said. “It is the intent of Jobe’s House in Galdeez to send a crew into the Wilds to erect a compound within Camp Town. We shall minister to such adventurers braving Vod’Adia as may find our services necessary.”

“
So you are not going into Vod’Adia,” Phin said. “Not into the city itself?”

Corallo shook his head once. “No. Though there is no injunction against such a course. Not for Jobians.” The older priest narrowed his eyes and his squint no longer looked friendly. “I do seem to recall that Circle Wizards are barred from even approaching the place, correct? Not even allowed to enter the Wilds at any time close to an Opening.”

“
On pain of death,” Heggenauer added. Phin could only nod.

“
I expect that would do it,” Corallo said. “Good day, Wizard.”

The wagon with the kegs was rolling toward the now open gate, and the pair of priests turned to follow it with their mule clopping along behind them. Ahead on the wagon the father had taken the reins to manage the narrow tunnel in the wall, and his daughter had scrambled up to perch atop the barrels. She was facing back toward Phin and as the wagon rolled into the shadowed stone passage she unmistakably stuck her tongue out at him.

Chapter Ten

In the end most of the Underway proved anticlimactic.

For the remainder of the first day, or rather until a time Tilda guessed to be after sunset, the column of nine moved through passages that varied from narrow clefts where Block and the men had to turn sideways to squeeze through, to great caverns with walls and ceilings that quickly disappeared from the meager circle of light provided by the lanterns. In the first of these the rock floor was covered with guano and high above the unseen ceiling was a chattering mass of thousands and thousands of bats. Fitz’s men lit foul-smelling torches, one for everyone in the group, and they were not bothered as they crossed the vast space. Boots remained slippery for a long time afterwards.

The other caves all seemed to be empty and after hours of moving through them Tilda stopped thinking about how daunting it was to be underground. Instead she thought about how hungry she was, and how bad her legs hurt. She had not eaten since a few bites of breakfast and though Dugan and Procost’s conclusion to that meal should have spoiled her appetite, Tilda had been walking steadily ever since then. Up and down hills, tunnels, and mounds of bat crap. Her knees and hips ached, the barrel of her carbine scraped the walls and banged against her shoulder, and her forehead had started to throb enough so that whenever Dugan’s sandals scraped the rock floor behind her she had the urge to throw an elbow back at his nose. When Fitz next called a halt Tilda did not notice that it was not the regular time for a short rest and some water. She leaned against the rough rock wall and rubbed her shoulder, then jerked as the gnome swung open a silent door on oiled hinges right beside her.

Like the door at the entrance this one was newer than its surroundings, being of stout wood with iron reinforcements. Beyond it was not another cave, but a room.

The floor was of tight-fitting flagstones and the walls were faced in smooth granite with the only adornment a decorative band all the way around at what would be eye level for a dwarf, cut with sharp, square writing. Fitz closed and locked the door while his three men with lit lanterns dispersed around the room, talking amongst themselves for the first time in hours. The men lit a number of regularly spaced braziers and the room filled with light to reveal stout chests stacked three high along one section of wall. Fitz and his other two men went to these and soon produced pallets and blankets for bedding, along with a variety of food including salted beef, dried vegetables and fruits, all sealed in jars.

The group spent the night in the room warmed by a fire built in a sunken central pit beneath a shaft in the smooth ceiling covered by a metal grill, through which all smoke was drawn off. There was a second door directly across from the first which Fitz also locked from the inside once the party was safely within, and in two corners were short alcoves. From a hole in the first Fitz’s men drew fresh water in buckets at the ends of long ropes from an underground stream. The second alcove was downstream from the first, the entrance covered with a hanging blanket, and the hole in its floor was used as a latrine.

Fitz and his men chatted amiably around the fire as they heated the food and ate, plainly familiar and comfortable with the strange accommodations. Tilda, Block, and Dugan ate in silence, then retired to their bedrolls. Tilda merely followed the Captain’s lead for Block still scowled deeply and scarcely acknowledged anyone around him. She had known the dwarf to overindulge in alcohol a time or two before on this journey, though the resulting hangover had never lasted this long. Either the full day of marching was not conducive to recovery or else, as Tilda suspected, the old Captain was silently furious with Dugan. The renegade had not spoken a word all day either, and likewise remained silent all evening.

Fitzyear did not post any of his men as guards overnight in the locked room, and though it bothered Tilda faintly she slept the sound sleep of exhaustion. If she dreamed she did not remember them when Fitz woke her for breakfast before the march was resumed, out through the second door of the room.

The new door marked a turning point, for beyond it the natural caverns and caves were left behind. While some of the tunnels that the group followed still had rough walls, the floors were all of leveled and polished stone. Most often the passages were bricked, if that was the right architectural word, with large stone blocks that fit together perfectly with no sign of mortar. When they met other passageways Fitz would stop and listen carefully down the crossways before leading the party ahead on what seemed to be a more-or-less straight course. Tilda supposed they moved ever south, though she had no real feel for direction underground.

Some time around mid day the party took a longer pause and bolted a cold meal. Tilda remained standing as it had taken most of the morning for the stiffness to work out of her legs, but at least her headache had not returned. After noon the tunnels changed again as the narrow corridor hit a much wider passage that the gnome took to the right, and as much of her surroundings as Tilda could see in the lantern light thereafter were astonishing.

She was on an underground highway, Tilda quickly realized, a subterranean street that surely had been heavily trafficked in the distant past. The passage was as wide as a boulevard in the Miilarkian capital and lined with round columns under a high, arched ceiling even taller than the route was wide. Ancient plaster on the walls had long since decayed, exposing rough stone and leaving inches of powder on the floor which came up in little clouds as the group passed. Fitz distributed scarves to tie around mouths and noses and the group pressed on, and Tilda noticed that the soldiers now moved more warily and with their weapons in hand. The men with the lanterns often narrowed the beams to shine around columns, or played the light over the dusty ground whenever tracks were seen. Most of the tracks were left by small animals, maybe lizards or rats, but some were much larger. Tilda did not recognize those by the quick glances she took in passing.

Their boulevard met several others along the way. Each intersection was wide and round, with circular stone stairways ascending into the ceiling through open shafts. At the base of some of the shafts rotted timber squares were still connected to massive chains that lay broken now, but had once hung from huge winches strong enough to hoist whole wagons up to the level above. Tilda could only guess as to what had been up there, for each of the stairways was choked with rubble below the level of the ceiling. There were piles of shattered stones and broken bricks, many blackened all over as if they had been through a great conflagration. Tilda was curious enough that she would have asked Fitz about it whether Captain Block liked it or not, but like his men the gnome was wary and careful on this part of the journey. His big amber eyes scanned the darkness all around above the scarf bound over his bulbous nose, and he carried a hand-axe balanced for hurling at his side. Tilda left Fitzyear alone, and carried her gun in the crook of an arm rather than on her shoulder.