Sunset of Lantonne (43 page)

Sometime in the night, Ilarra felt her heart begin beating again and closed her eyes, forcing herself to sleep before anything else changed.

No one is above another, except by virtue of wisdom. The station of a person may rise or fall on the skill of their mind. A mind matters little for the body it inhabits. All wisdom holds a place among our people.

Remember this in foreign lands, as a respect for wisdom will go farther than any attempt to seek peace and will often accomplish the same ends. They will try to be more clever than you, and if they succeed, fall back to your homeland and learn from this lesson.

Assume that anyone without wisdom will betray you and you will rarely be disappointed. They should be pitied for their lack of foresight rather than hated for their ignorance. This simple view will avoid a great many wars.

War will always destroy wisdom. Seek another way and be revered.

-
Fifth law of Turess, lost original phrasing

Those of Turessi are elevated among men by virtue of their wisdom. The station of a Turessian may rise or fall on the skill of their mind. The body matters little, but the mind is all-important. All wisdom holds a place among our people and must be brought in from the darkness it is often shrouded within elsewhere in the world.

Remember this in foreign lands, as your wisdom will be the greatest tool in enforcing peace. Outsiders will try to be more clever than you, and if they succeed, fall back to your homeland and learn from this lesson to return stronger another day.

Those not of the clans will betray you at every turn. They should be pitied for their lack of foresight. This simple view will win a great many wars. Anticipating a foe’s betrayal will shield you through warfare and lead all lands to revere the clans.

-
Fifth law of Turess, modern Turessian teaching

“Get every available soldier back to this city,” Therec demanded, walking quickly enough that Dorus could barely keep up with him. “We both know that Altis is retreating and I don’t know why. Until we can find out, I want everyone within walking distance of the city inside the month. Whatever the lord of Altis is planning revolves around that girl, and I will not have the city fall while under my watch.”

“She is just a child,” noted Dorus. “She hasn’t even been fully trained in magic. Her father trained with me here at the tower and is a personal friend of mine. I can vouch for her lack of experience. I doubt she presents any threat whatsoever. I believe the man you met is using her as a decoy of some sort. Besides…your watch?”

“Dorus, I felt something when I helped her into that wagon that I cannot put words to. She has power of some kind, and I truly believe she is here to guide the Altisian army into the city and that wildling filth is helping her do it. What you think you know may be a lie, Dorus, or something has changed since you last knew her family.”

“Be that as it may, she has no access to information about the city that isn’t in her room, ambassador. The soldiers stationed there are under strict orders not to let her out of the keep’s walls and certainly not to tell her anything about the city. Per your original suggestions, they are treating her as if she were a spy.”

“I doubt it’s that simple,” Therec thought aloud. “Tell me something, Magister Dorus…”

“Anything. You and I can hardly keep secrets at this point, lest we trip over one another.”

“The king told me that you were to protect something with power in this city. I will not ask what it is, but is there any way this mysterious power could be stolen or taken for use by another, or worse still, used against us?”

Dorus stopped walking abruptly, forcing Therec to stop as well. “I am not supposed to talk about that,” Dorus reminded him. “I am not to give you or anyone else any information about it. The king was quite clear in his instructions, as I told you after you had me burn his remains.”

“That’s fine. I just want to know if a spy from Altis could take it from us, given the right situation, without actually having to conquer the city first. This is about preparing for whatever they might try, not about using whatever it is you are hiding.”

“Yes, I suppose they could. An infiltrator could do what their army could not.”

“So whatever it is could be carried out by the girl and her guards?” Therec asked, probing for more information. He would love to allow Dorus his secrets, but it was in his nature to peel away the defenses of those he spoke to and this topic was too important to treat differently.

“It could be, yes.”

“Should I be concerned?”

That question seemed to make Dorus more uneasy than any of the others. “It is that powerful, I assure you, Therec. If Altis gained control of it, the entire region would fall to them within days. That is more than I should tell you, but given the circumstances…”

“Then deploy as many soldiers as you feel is necessary to guard it. Feel free to tell them anything you think will work, and I will sign off on the order if it requires my involvement. I don’t need to know anything about it, other than that it is protected. Keep me in the dark if you must, but I want to know there will be no surprises.”

Dorus nodded and put a hand to his sweaty forehead. “I’ll get a contingent to the wall within the hour,” he told Therec, leaning with his other hand on the hall’s stones. “I assure you, the girl will not set foot within a quarter mile of the item. That is the best I can offer.”

Coming closer than Therec was overly comfortable with, Dorus patted him on the shoulder in what he guessed was meant to be some kind of affirmation. In doing so, he opened up the inner folds of his long coat, revealing his coin purse, pouches with any number of tools for his profession, and a single scroll tube. Therec had been given a similar scroll by the king to mark his right to lead the armies. That scroll was the single bit of proof that they had the authority to act on the king’s wishes.

On a whim, Therec patted Dorus’s arm in return, slipping his other hand under the man’s coat. With a flick of his wrist, he undid the strap of the scroll case at the same moment his hand slapped the man’s shoulder. He slipped the case into his robe’s sleeves, not entirely sure why he had done it, but trusting his instincts enough to carry through on his actions.

Therec waited until Dorus had calmed himself and hurried off to dispatch the soldiers. Then, walking up to the next floor up in the keep, he sat down at a window on the western side of the tower, placing the scroll tube in his lap as he waited. With the window open, Therec could watch nearly a third of the city, and most importantly, the barracks.

Less than an hour later, he saw a large force of soldiers marching out from the barracks, taking a direct route toward the southwestern section of town. From so far above them, it was not difficult for Therec to watch them nearly to the wall itself, getting a better idea of the area Dorus wanted protected.

“I may need to find the item for Turessi,” Therec thought to himself, wishing that was not the case. A brief thought of his family intruded, but he pushed it aside. “All this secrecy with no skill to maintain it. When this war ends, if they will not help me save my family from whatever has happened, I may need to take matters into my own hands.”

He watched a little longer, narrowing the possible area in the city to one particular plaza that tended to be deserted much of the day. It was far from the common shops and had no inns or housing near it. With the winter snows, it was generally abandoned unless children went there to play.

“Let’s see what you’re hiding, Dorus, and whether you have good reason. Here’s hoping I do not need to save Lantonne from itself,” he added aloud, smiling.

Therec watched until the soldiers had dispersed throughout the region they were protecting. Just as he started to get up from his seat, Therec spotted Dorus hurrying toward the southwestern part of town, his hood pulled up to hide his appearance but his clothing marking him clearly as a magister. Gold and red were hardly colors that the commoners wore. The magister could be seen halfway across the city from Therec’s vantage point.

“And what do you think you’re doing?” asked Therec, leaning forward to watch the man. “Stop giving me reasons to suspect you are a traitor, you fool.”

Therec pulled on his gloves and raised his hood, slipping the stolen scroll casing into his belt as he got up. He started to head toward the door, but then stopped and turned to examine himself in the nearby mirror…something he could not remember having done before.

The heavy black robes were customary for all of his people, but Therec knew they marked him as a foreigner as much as the tattoos on his face did. For him to continue acting with the king’s authority, he would need to show some willingness to be like these people, no matter how much it bothered him. He had to change himself, especially if he would rely on the willingness of Lantonne to aid him in the months to come.

Changing into a set of elegant trousers, shirt, and doublet that fit the style of the nobility in Lantonne, Therec went back to the mirror. The style was certainly not one he had grown up with, but it seemed to suit him. Deep down, he felt it somehow looked the part of a man who should be king in lands like these, even if he had no intention of being one.

Hurrying from the room, he made his way out of the keep and down into the city streets. The item Dorus was hiding had taken a secondary role in Therec’s concerns, with Dorus’s actions ahead of it. The man had been warned already…if he was hiding something more than the item itself, Therec had every intention of confronting him about it. The fact that the man went scurrying off made Therec wonder if perhaps Dorus was actually conspiring against the city. All it would take was Dorus offering the item—whatever it was—to the enemy and Lantonne might be beyond saving.

Without the height of the keep to aide him, finding his way to where Dorus had gone was more difficult than Therec had expected. Even in the relatively sparse district, the man could have disappeared nearly anywhere, and Therec had no intention of asking directions of anyone there. It was hard enough to be subtle bearing the tattoos of his station among the uneducated. Drawing further attention would only start rumors that Therec did not need.

Checking the alleys and open areas near the wall first, Therec continued to double-back and search for any clue of where Dorus had gone. More than once, he had to step off the road to avoid being seen by the soldiers that he knew would recognize him even at a distance. Each time they came near, he let his fur-lined hood cover his face until they were past him. If those men were loyal to Dorus and not to him—regardless of the king’s orders about who led which aspects of the city—Therec needed to keep them from reporting until he knew for sure Dorus was loyal.

Nearing one of the older parts of the district, Therec came to a stop close to a dry fountain in a plaza area where merchants sold their wares to anyone who would listen to their shouts, though there were few out in such cold weather. At the back of the plaza, a vast sculpture of a tree had been built on the surface of the city’s wall, rising nearly to the top of the battlements. Near it, six soldiers sat on the edge of the fountain, watching the crowd. The men were situated such that they appeared to be off-duty and lounging, but Therec could see by their faces that they were very much ready to act at any time and watching the passers-by.

Therec thought to his long walks within the city and to the other plazas that were found near other sections of the outer wall. There were four, all with similar fountains and sculptures, but this one was the only one with a direct road from the keep and certainly the only one with a district outpost for the military right alongside the sculpture of the tree. The layout of the city was erratic at times, but given Dorus’s deployment of the men here, Therec doubted it was coincidence. The item was hidden somewhere within the plaza itself.

Giving up on hiding from the soldiers and making his way from the street to the open area at the base of the sculpture, Therec let his vision blur and shift to show him any magical auras in his path. It made walking more difficult, as the swift-moving citizens of the city were inherently non-magical and tended to all muddle together in a grey mass, but he knew once the soldiers spotted him he would have precious little time. Given how few people were out there, he had relatively little risk of running into anyone other than the soldiers.