As the highway narrowed to pass through the imposing gatehouse the three travellers joined the crowd which was slowly moving up the sloping cobbled road towards the open square beyond. Once they were in the thick of this local traffic a commotion started behind them. Turning as one they saw people scattering to clear the way. A party of Masters, armed for battle, were racing into the city.
Bilteg had noticed that Harriet was quite slow to react in such situations, it was as if she was caught up in the act of just watching the Masters rather than being mindful of the proper way to behave. As he and Caitlet stepped aside, he took hold of Harriet's arm and pulled her firmly with them out of the way.
The Masters passed at a fast trot and without hesitation headed away across the square. As the covered thoroughfare quickly filled with people again Caitlet noticed one of the gatehouse guards standing nearby. She tapped him on the arm to get his attention. 'What was that all about?' she asked.
'I suppose they're hunting rebels' the boyish guard replied with something of a bored shrug, 'some of them have been caught trying to hide in the city in these past few weeks.'
She wanted to ask more about the rebellion, but Bilteg and Harriet were already moving ahead with the flowing mass of people. In the crowded square, momentarily interrupted by the swift passage of the Masters, a bustling ordinary life had resumed. Caitlet was momentarily afraid that she might lose her companions altogether. Without another glance at the guard she threw herself into the close-packed crowd; she twisted and turned, pushed and cajoled. She cleverly negotiated her way at twice the speed of all those around her and soon she was right behind Harriet again. Neither of the other two had even noticed that she had been gone.
Bilteg craned his neck, searching for a place for them to stop. He wanted to find a little space to think and to make a plan of what to do in this new city. After a moment he led on across the square to just such a spot outside of a sweet-smelling carpenter's workshop. He turned around to look back at the crowd, the sea of people they had just navigated.
Harriet, more confident now than she had been in days, did not wait for Bilteg to speak but just approached the first servant who happened by within a pace or two of where she stood. 'We are looking for the house of the Master Thackliss' she said to the lowly porter, 'could you please tell us the way there?'
Following the mumbled instructions of the porter took them away from the busy square and into the part of Ssirt dominated by the plain but imposing dwellings of the noble Masters. At one junction of broad streets they paused and stood all alone in the autumn sunlight; the low murmur of urban life drifted gently to their ears and the city smelled of cool dust, smoke and spices. Harriet breathed deeply.
Their solitude did not last long. A hundred paces away they saw the hunt emerge from a side alley. The Masters had found their quarry. They walked with deliberation now, taking care to preserve a cordon of bodies and weapons around the pathetic group of humans in their midst.
'I hope their deaths are swift' Caitlet said. Bilteg looked at her but made no reply. Harriet looked away until the hunt and its prisoners had passed out of sight.
* * `* * * * * * * * * *
On a wide stone pillar at the front entrance to Thackliss' house they found a carved relief the size of a shield. It was a duplicate of the one that adorned the black door to Shistzintlaa's hall. Bilteg and Caitlet waited for Harriet to take the initiative. She reached up and briefly touched the stone scrolls, surveyed the monolithic house in front of them, composed herself and at last walked towards the outer door of their new Master's home.
Thackliss' steward Cerion was a tremendously welcoming woman, warm and with none of the self-importance of Mil. Once Harriet had explained their arrival, Cerion told them that the Master was away on one of his frequent journeys. She would make them feel at home until his return.
'I understand that these are dangerous times for travel' Cerion said with concern as she led them deeper into the house, 'I am so glad that you have arrived safely.' She bustled down the long corridors showing her new charges where to find their quarters and the refectory used by the human members of the household. Along the way she pointed out the doors which led to the Master's chambers.
Thackliss' house had a library and a small scriptorium. Immediately next door there was a little cell which had once been home to another scribe; now Harriet was quartered there. She revelled in the chance to be alone. On that first day she tidied the dusty room and from time to time, letting her curiosity get the better of her, she went to look through some of the works in the library. Later on she finally soaked away the dirt and the weariness of the road in the servants' bath house.
At a little before midnight, when hers was the only lamp in the house still burning, she pulled the little book from the bottom of her pack and sat closely studying its crowded pages until fatigue pulled her tired eyes shut.
Bilteg and Caitlet were to share the small barrack room with the other human soldiers in Thackliss' service. With the Master away there were only two other soldiers left behind, grizzled veterans who, whilst they kept their own company, seemed not to resent too much the intrusion of the newcomers into their tranquil lives.
The first few days in the house of Thackliss passed easily enough. They were tired from the long journey and that kind of fatigue can take days to unwind even in the bodies of soldiers. Bilteg and Caitlet rested and cleaned their gear; Harriet acquainted herself with the library by day and, though it cut deep into her hours of sleep, pursued her own studies by night.
It was not long however before the two soldiers began to feel decidedly underemployed. The old guards had iron rigid routines and were content to while away their days thus, but their younger colleagues needed to stave off boredom. They saw little of Harriet. They wandered the streets of Ssirt until they had seen all that it had to offer. They concluded that it was little more than a smaller, slightly more militarised version of Cropansil. Finally they fell to practising until they ached with fatigue, until their limbs burned, until sleep came easily. They trained, they ate and they slept. They didn't count the days.
Autumn gave ground to the icy southerly winds of winter. On a steel grey afternoon under a heavy sky the back courtyard of Thackliss' house rang once more with the clash of swords. As Caitlet called a halt to yet another simulated melee the small wooden gate that led out on to a narrow alley swung open, through it sprang a dirty and dishevelled man. He did not even look into the courtyard, but turned quickly and pushed the gate shut. He stood there completely still and listened for noise in the alleyway beyond.
Caitlet and Bilteg looked at one another and then Bilteg said with a harsh tone 'Who are you?' As he challenged the intruder he strode towards him sword still raised in his hand.
There was such a look of terror on the face of the man as he turned to face Bilteg that it made Caitlet wince. Even Bilteg stopped and waited for the trapped creature to react. 'Please' he said in a panicked whisper, 'please'. He seemed either incapable or unwilling to say more for a time, he just stood with his hands held out; his face a picture of imploring fear.
'Tell me who you are and why you are here' Bilteg instructed, making the point forcefully with the tip of his sword. The warrior had already taken this man to be a rebel, but he certainly didn't look dangerous.
As reluctant as he would have been to admit it, even Bilteg found the rebellion fascinating. He wanted to know what possessed these simple-minded farmers to destroy themselves in this way. At the same time he knew that his first duty called him to throw this wretched man to the ground and to call for the hunters who were no doubt already in the city searching for him.
Caitlet walked up slowly beside him and put her left hand on his arm. Very gently she restrained him in case the call to duty suddenly became overwhelming.
'My name is Tomass' the rebel said suddenly, 'if you don't help me I will be killed.'
'What is that to us?' Bilteg demanded loudly. The rebel winced. 'You are a dead man like all the rest of them nailed up by the roadside.' He pulled a little at Caitlet's grip and the rebel pressed his back against the gate, quailing, wondering if he should go on talking or take his chances in the alley again.
'Wait Bil' Caitlet said softly, 'let him talk.'
Tomass looked a little less scared. He allowed himself to hope that he might have found someone to help him on his way. 'It's true that I am Outcast. I was in the rebellion.' As he spoke his eyes cast around the courtyard and he jumped at half heard sounds at his back. 'I should have gone south. I know that now. All I want to do is go south. I don't want to fight or to die. I just want to go where the others went.'
'Where is that?' Caitlet asked. She was aware that with every passing moment Bilteg became more tense; readier to pounce on the outcast.
When Caitlet asked that question the spark of hope gave rise to a flickering flame in Tomass' heart. Now he unexpectedly had the opportunity to explain what had driven him on these past months. If only he could transmit some of the passion; some of the faith that had been passed to him when all of this had started, he might, he thought, have a chance.
'There is a place' he started, 'where there are no Masters; where people live without them. That is where I am going; to Khor; to the land of the High king Boltiss.' He smiled a weak and begging smile. 'Come with me. We can find Khor together.'
'He's mad' Bilteg spat fiercely. 'I'm going to knock him out and we'll call the Masters.' He shook his arm free and took a long pace towards the shaking outcast.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
During the many days before the return of Thackliss Harriet had the opportunity to read whatever she wanted from the library. She discovered that her new Master had many works of history and geography, as well as tomes from more obscure disciplines on his shelves. Shistzintlaa had been known by the scribes of Cropansil as unusual amongst the Masters for his taste in scholarly writings, but Thackliss' collection seemed if anything to suggest an even more eclectic and inquiring intellect.
Many scribes would spend their entire lives on nothing more stimulating than the records of city or household administration; the Masters demanded great precision in all such matters. Some might graduate in later life to copying ancient texts of history; others might even be instructed to create new works through the combination of other unwieldy sources. But from an early age, Harriet had been prepared for the most advanced work; she had always excelled. Now that she had such free time as she had never known before she energetically set about furthering her education. She gave no thought to the role she would be expected to play once the new Master returned.
The weather grew colder. Sometimes Harriet opened the shutters to allow the crystal clear light of an autumn day on to the pages she was reading, only later noticing that she could see her breath and that her hands had grown numb with the biting chill of the air. Each night, once the rest of the household was asleep, she would still take out her little book and work on. Now there were nights when even exhausted she could not sleep. The impact of what she was learning and of what she thought she understood made her head spin.
Bilteg and Caitlet noticed the change in the scribe. On the increasingly rare occasions when they did see her she was pale and looked to have lost weight. To talk to she was at times excited, chatting away about fragments of history that meant nothing to the soldiers, at others she was subdued and quiet. They had no clear idea how she spent her days and neither did Ashel the household scibe. He continued to keep mundane records of his Master's affairs and he recognised Harriet as a serious scholar. Still to the rest of the household he suggested in good enough humour that the newcomer closeted in the library was enjoying having no real work to do.
One morning as a light snow was falling outside Harriet was sitting with her finger running along a line of text, this was the manner in which even the most talented of scribes read, when she noticed a symbol she recognised in the illuminations at the page margin. Her finger left the line as with a will of its own and moved on to the symbol, a round abstract in swirling pale blue. Round and round her finger traced as she tried to recall where exactly her memory of this shape came from. Concentration brought warmth and a gentle tingling to her temples and in that instant Harriet realised that she had read a description of just such a marking in her secret book. To her horror the symbol began to give off what at first was a gentle glow.
The glow increased rapidly in intensity. Harriet slammed the heavy covers of the book together, held it closed for a moment and then stumbled awkwardly away from the bench. This was dangerous; a confirmation of things she had doubted profoundly until that moment and a gateway towards a form of rebellion that could only end in death or madness. Yet some scribe, long since dead, had left that marginal key for someone who might one day have the aptitude to recognise it. Fear and fascination both held Harriet in their sway, but hers she realised was not a path untrodden.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
'I thought we could have let him go' Caitlet said later to Bilteg. They were alone in the small dormitory they shared.
Bilteg, who had sent the scrawny rebel flying with one swift blow to the face, replied with characteristic simplicity, 'Why?'
'He was no threat to anyone Bil; just a mad man.' As she spoke Caitlet looked sad. Bilteg's brow furrowed but with confusion rather than with anger. 'Anyway' she continued, 'I felt sorry for him. I am sure he does not deserve to be nailed to a cross.'
'That's not up to us Caitlet. We did our duty. If we had done different we'd be worried for our own lives tonight.' Bilteg sat back and looked away from his friend. Caitlet could see that he was thinking about the events of the day. She knew him to be kind, but above all he was a soldier, a dutiful soldier. That was a code that had helped to keep him alive. Finally he spoke again: 'Caitlet what's a king?'
'I've got no idea Bil' Caitlet replied, lying down and pulling her blanket up over her shoulders, 'no idea at all.'
The next morning brought both snow and the long awaited return of Thackliss to his house in Ssirt. Immediately the pace of life changed for all three of the “gifts” from Cropansil. The guardroom filled up with soldiers who had been away with the Master. They laughed and chattered about their travels and about the strange collection that seemed to provide the spur for Thackliss' expeditions. Bilteg and Caitlet sat and listened not knowing what to make of these strange tales of visits to ruins and hunts for pieces of stone.
Harriet was summoned for a brief audience with the Master within hours of his arrival. The vocaliser was old for one of his sub-caste; those who spoke for the Masters kept themselves very much apart from other folks, but they were known often to die young. 'Approach scribe' he said and as he spoke the Master raised one of his four hands and beckoned slowly for Harriet to come forward.
'The letters you brought with you from Cropansil tell highly of your talents. I understand that you have been making use of the library during the tens of days that I have been absent.' The white haired vocaliser's eyes were half closed; his words were clear and deep, but behind them there was a wheezing breath.
Harriet waited for a moment to see if the Master's words had stopped and, with guilt racing through her mind she replied simply 'Yes my Master, I have.' She cast her eyes down and hoped that she was not really as transparent as she felt in that instant. The awesome presence of a Master affected her less than some she knew, but still she felt cowed and all the more so under the spell of sleeplessness and secrecy.
'I require you to create a catalogue of artefacts that I have brought back from my travels. You will seek to identify the more obscure finds and you will make use of the writings I made whilst I was in the field.' The vocaliser drew a ragged breath; Harriet looked up at him but he said no more. She was not sure exactly what Thackliss wanted but she allowed herself to become a little excited at the prospect of working directly from his notes and helping with some original scholarship.
After he had taken a few more breaths; the only audible sounds in Thackliss' hall; the vocaliser spoke again. 'Have you any questions scribe?' the Master had him ask.
Harriet looked down at her feet and composed herself, then she said 'My Master, I have not done this kind of work before; I may need help.'
'You will be provided with an example of the type of catalogue I require and within that framework I expect you to exercise your own instinct for clarity and reasoning. The items and writings that will provide the basis for your work are already being taken by porters to the library.'
As she heard these last words Harriet could not stop herself looking up and directly at the Master. She quickly regained her composure and looked down once again, trying to convince herself that no porter would realise the significance of the symbol in the margin of the book she had left on her reading stand.
Once she was outside of the door and out of sight of the Master Harriet shivered. She was suddenly cold and realised that she was drenched with sweat. Never before had she been so scared in a Master's presence because never before had she had so much to hide.
Cerion came around the corner and into the corridor. She saw Harriet standing by the grand door of the hall and gave her a kindly look. The scribe looked stunned, perhaps even a little ill; there was visible perspiration on her pale forehead. As the steward had appeared Harriet had been startled, but then she forced a thin smile and hurried off towards the library. Cerion was used to the serious and quiet scribe by now but still thought that she seemed exceptionally distracted on that occasion.
In the library there was already an accumulation of small packages on the longest of the library tables. On the floor there was a gathering of heavy looking stone fragments, clearly carved but not immediately recognisable as representative forms. Porters were coming in and going out either in pairs sharing some heavy burden or one at a time with more packages. Soon the library which had been Harriet's quiet sanctuary was as full as a storehouse after harvest.
The scribe sat down as the last porter left and surveyed the daunting task that crowded around her. There on the table next to the reading stand was the example catalogue the Master had mentioned; Harriet opened it now and hoped for some clear guidance as to how to proceed.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Even during the winter Thackliss did not stay long at his home in Ssirt. He took long journeys around the province as far south as the coastline of Gorblechii Sound; to the north as far as the walls of the city of Chitchenk; through the extensive woodlands of the central region and to Tsachenchak on the edge of the Great Barrier Forest that some of the old texts called the Forest of Chorif. Now, where he went Bilteg and Caitlet went as well.
Through the snows and into the teeth of the gales that seemed to come straight from the Southern Ocean they marched all winter long. Thackliss had them explore ruins by the brooding Pearl Sea; he had them take charge of porters carrying packs of finds back along the roads to Ssirt, roads that led all the way to the crammed library and to Harriet's growing catalogue.
In the course of their travels the two soldiers came to know a great deal more about the landscape and wildlife of the province of Ssirt than they had ever known about any land, and instrumental in their education was another who was in the service of Thackliss, the forester Jacabo. He had known neither the cities nor the comforts of a large house and when they had first met Bilteg thought he was a farmer – he told the forester as much – but in fact the stocky man, with skin tanned to the colour of earth and clothes the shades of the landscape, was a hunter and tracker of the warrior caste, he was a skillful bowman who did not argue at length with the big soldier but always let his talents speak for themselves.
One day the three of them were escorting a gang of porters back to a nearby hostel. 'I have some business with some bones' the vocaliser had said at the moment when Thackliss had left them on the winding track and gone his own way. Snow was deep on the ground and the trees were dormant black outlines against a close white sky. In the distance they heard a deep and baleful howl.
At the sound the porters became uneasy and Jacabo immediately picked up the pace. 'Come on' he said, 'we must hurry away from here.'
Caitlet broke into a trot for just long enough to come alongside the hunter and to match his long purposeful strides, 'What is that howling Jac?' she asked. Jacabo did not answer straight away, instead he stopped and looked down at the ground, the snow was disturbed and he knelt pointing at the sign. Bilteg, who had first made sure that the porters were all together , came up and stood behind his companions, but he paid less interest to the tracks than Caitlet, scanning the open ground to the south instead.
'That's a garlet' said the hunter nodding his head in the direction of the howling, 'and judging by these tracks there are two of them, probably a breeding pair.' He stood up again and said more authoritatively 'Now come on; there are not enough of us to scare off a pair of garlets.'
Jacabo did not let up the pace until they all stood inside the front door of the dreary little frontier hostel. The howling had seemed to follow them and two or three times Jacabo had looked over his shoulder with evident concern. Soldiers and porters alike now were bent double, hands on knees, or collapsed to the floor breathing hard, Jacabo alone seemed still ready for action. He went back into the doorway with his bow in his hand and scanned the landscape. Bilteg watched and silently admitted to himself that this man was indeed worthy of his respect.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Harriet also worked hard that winter but in a very different way. The catalogue began to take shape although,, as if Thackliss was deliberately trying to test his new scribe, more subject matter would regularly arrive. As the work progressed Harriet quietly honed a new and subtle skill of her own.
She found that she could examine items in a new way, searching them for the kind of trace power that had resided in the pale blue symbol she had found before her Master had returned. Most of the shards and fragments were mundane; she described them as best she could by cross-referencing from other catalogues and searching histories for clues of generations long gone.
Every now and then however she discovered an item, usually with some ancient and, to her, indecipherable script carved on it. These would suddenly become hot in her hands, or would begin to glow brighter than the oil lamps that lit her work. She resolved that somehow she would have to learn the ancient script, but she had no idea where to start. Instead she redoubled her efforts to understand the little book and even as she compiled the catalogue her thoughts would drift to its strange double meanings, its eldritch poetry and its hints of pathways into realms of danger and power.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
For Bilteg and Caitlet the winter had not been experienced through a window but rather as an implacable adversary; ever-present and unconquerable. Jacabo had helped them cope with the conditions but it was still a great relief to them as the signs of the retreat of that harsh southern season began to appear.
The buds fattened on the trees and the snows relented; often the thaw made travel slower, but then the sun would shine and warm their bodies. They would forget for a brief time that they were up to their ankles in mud and a long way from home.
It was a brilliantly clear day and the perfume of blossom was thick in the air when they came back to Ssirt with Thackliss for what would prove to be the last time. Their Master had achieved all he had wanted to over the winter and had tried and tested his best slaves. Although they did not know it, he would now let them rest awhile.
So it was almost midsummer when Bilteg and Caitlet were once again called from the training yard to attend Thackliss in his hall. At the outer door they found Harriet waiting for them. Much to their surprise Jacabo stood uneasily at the scribe's side. The hunter looked as if he had spent the previous night in a ditch outside of the city walls, in other words he was not too much changed from the last time they had seen him on the edge of the woodlands on the road to Chitchenk.
When the four stood together Harriet knocked on the door. A moment or two later the reply came from within, deep and sonorous: 'Enter'.
Thackliss sat on his high backed wooden seat on a low dais at the back of the plain hall. Only a very small minority of people ever entered the hall of even one Master and this was certainly the first time Jacabo had ever been in one. He was not aware as the others were that this chamber was in every respect identical to that of Shistzintlaa in distant Cropansil. The diffuse light fell from the same high windows and Thackliss' vocaliser stood within a pace of where Shistzintlaa's was wont to do.
The Master beckoned the four to come towards the dais. They looked at the vocaliser but as yet he did not speak. He had looked aged before the winter, but now he gave the appearance of decrepitude. He was haggard and somewhat hunched; he seemed to have been drained of his life. Finally, as the four came to a halt with Harriet a little in advance of the others, the wreck of a man spoke up.
'Over the past seasons' he said and shuddered as he did so, 'I have come to view you all as adequate.' The words, apparently too powerful for his weakened frame, were accompanied by a sweeping two-armed gesture from the Master. 'As you may realise, for you seem intelligent for your species, I have a great interest in the antiquities of Cropan, the land scribes have often called Westland.'
Bilteg and Jacabo were already struggling to understand what they were being told; Caitlet listened intently and Harriet was transfixed. They all understood the significance of such an audience. Rarely, if ever did a Master choose to explain his decisions and certainly not along with a word of praise. The vocaliser paused and put the tips of his fingers to his nose ; almost immediately he began again to speak the words of Thackliss.
'I tell you this because I have a task for you to perform and I will not be coming with you on this journey. You will go to the frontier garrison of Tsachenchak and from there beyond the realms of your Masters into the darkness of the Great Barrier Forest.' Now there was a longer pause; Thackliss it seemed wanted them fully to grasp what he was telling them. 'You will follow a map prepared for you in Tsachenchak by the map-maker Collins. When you reach your goal, a ruin on the coast of the Pearl Sea, you will merely collect an item, a picture of which you will be given, and you will return it to me. By the time you return I hope to be in Tsachenchak and you will find me there. Scribe, you will record all that occurs on the journey and prepare your writings for my perusal.'
The vocaliser fell silent and Harriet looked at him, waiting for more. He was in obvious pain. He put his hand to his face again and as he did so Harriet saw that blood was starting to trickle from his nose. The vocaliser touched it and looked in horror at his fingertips. Harriet could see that Thackliss had turned his head to look at the old grey speaker; now the others watched him as well. The trickle quickly grew to a stream that splashed to the stone floor; the vocaliser tried to speak, he seemed to want to say something, perhaps something of his own, but he choked; as he began to fall, Bilteg side-stepped Harriet and caught his feather light frame just before it hit the flagstones. The vocaliser was dead before he came to rest in the soldier's arms.
Thackliss watched the man fall and then turned his attention smoothly back towards the group of four. He raised one arm and pointed to the door. The four hesitated, just for a moment, Bilteg after all was cradling the just dead man in his arms. Without warning they all felt a searing pain in their temples, enough to make them straighten up and give absolute attention to the Master. Bilteg dropped the body by reflex alone.
'Leave!' seemed to resound in their heads and they backed away towards and through the door. Only once they stood again in the corridor did the pain recede. They stood in silence together there for a long while. The Master's direct communication had come to each of them like a hammer blow. It was Harriet who finally broke the spell: 'We must ready ourselves for the journey' she said, 'and await the Master's order to depart.'
