The Water Road (2 page)

For all his years doing this work,
Gaven was not particularly comfortable on the platforms. Even very sturdy ones,
like this one, gave him an uneasy feeling. Those apprehensions were a small
price to pay for the view, however, which was ultimately the point of the
climbing, for the Vander Range also ran parallel to the Triumvirate forts that
dotted the southern bank of the Water Road. The garrisons in those forts stood
ready against another Neldathi uprising, if the Sentinels failed to prevent it.
The direct line of sight provided by the platform allowed for those Sentinels
working undercover to communicate directly with their counterparts in the forts
without the Neldathi knowing anything about it.

“What time is it?” Gaven pushed
himself off the tree trunk.

“Seven and one-half past apex,
master,” his apprentice replied, using the glow of the lantern to illuminate
his pocket watch.

“They should be in position, then.
Send the signal.” Gaven handed the young man the lantern.

Klaron took the lantern and walked
over to the edge of the platform that faced due north towards the Water Road.
The platform itself was surrounded by a low fence—not enough to keep anyone
from falling off, but useful as a place for setting things. Klaron placed the
lantern on top of the fence, then pulled a small telescope from somewhere in
his clothing. He extended the scope and looked out towards the north.

Through the telescope, Klaron could
see the great river off in the distance, shimmering like a ribbon on the other
side of a darkened room. Along the river he found a fort that had a beacon
hanging high above the ramparts, stuck in a tall tower. He repositioned the
lantern so that it beamed out towards the beacon. Still holding the telescope
in one hand, Klaron reached down with practiced ease and began to rapidly open
and close the aperture on the face of the lantern. He repeated the short
pattern twice before he saw a response from the other side through the scope.

After a brief exchange of coded
signals between them, Klaron stepped away from the fence. “They are ready to
receive you now, master.”

“Thank you, Klaron,” Gaven said. He
stepped up and positioned himself directly behind the lantern, facing the
fort’s tower across the land. Whatever his faults, Gaven had observed how
Klaron took to this task as if he was born to do it. It seemed like a cruel
joke, at times. Klaron lacked Gaven’s gift, to be able to speak with others in
their minds, yet he yearned for it so badly. Gaven, and those like him, most
often viewed the gift as more of a curse. Perhaps Klaron worked so hard to be
correct in his part of the ritual because it was the closet he would come to
this.

Gaven stood there for several
moments, merely reaching out his name with his mind, until he received a
response.

“Greetings, Gaven,” the other’s
mind said in his. “This is Pyrsal. Does this night find you well?”

“Greetings, Pyrsal,” Gaven answered
wordlessly. “This night finds me as most nights do. I do have news to send,
however.”

“Very well,” said Pyrsal.

Gaven recounted the encounter with
the Neldathi and told Pyrsal of the musket. He didn’t include any of the
speculation he had shared with Klaron earlier. Analysis was not his role. He
had learned, the hard way over the years, to deal only with objective facts
when sending reports.

After Gaven had stopped sending out
words with his mind, Pyrsal asked, “Is that all you have to report, Gaven?”

“Yes,” Gaven said. “That is all.”

“Very well. Keep safe. May we soon
speak again,” Pyrsal said, sending also the signal to Gaven that it was time to
decouple their minds.

“Keep safe,” Gaven said, before
cutting the connection. In that instant, they were again separated by miles of night.
Gaven exhaled deeply and stared out from the platform down the mountain.

“Is something wrong, master?”
Klaron asked with obvious concern.

“No, no,” Gaven said, rousing from
his fixation. “You know that reaching out to the mind of another is very taxing.
I just need a few moments before we climb down.” He decided to change the
subject while they waited. “It’s a beautiful sight, isn’t it, Klaron?” Gaven
swept his hand across the vista in front of them.

“Yes, master.”

“How long have you been a Sentinel,
Klaron?”

“I have been with the program
nearly four years, sir.”

“But how long have you actually
been a Sentinel? An active agent in the field? How long have you been south of
the Water Road?”

“You are my first assigned partner,
master,” Klaron answered, a small note of pride in his voice. “So I have been
in the field since I joined you five months ago.”

“That long?” Gaven laughed. It
seemed as if they had been together for a lifetime. “What do you think of it?
Of the land. The mountains.”

Klaron stepped up to the low shelf
beside Gaven and gripped it tightly. “Some places are very beautiful, master.”

“Is that all?” He was trying to
pull something a little more subtle out of the young man.

Klaron sighed. “Honestly, master?”

“Of course. I wouldn’t ask you a question
if I didn’t want an honest answer, would I?”

Klaron took a deep breath. “On a
night like tonight, master, it depresses me to think that a land of such beauty
is left to the barbarians. It does not seem right, sir.”

The young man’s answer took Gaven
by surprise. He had never heard him speak of the Neldathi like that in their
time together. “It doesn’t? Tell me, do they still teach the old myths in
school these days?”

“Of course not, master,” Klaron
said proudly. “Ever since the gods were revealed to be nothing but the
constructions of our own minds, they are of no importance.”

“Really? Even in Telebria? I always
heard that the Telebrians would hang onto any tradition just for the sake of
it.”

Klaron was too stunned to answer
directly. “You… you do not believe in the old stories, do you, master?”

“Of course not,” Gaven said, giving
the young man a reassuring pat on the shoulder. “But that’s not the same as
saying they lack any value. Some of those stories are beautiful in their
simplicity. They are good stories. Any educated person should know about the
Maker of Worlds and how she tore the land in half in a fit of rage. That
created the Water Road and caused the rift between the Neldathi and us. It is
poetic, even if it isn’t true.” He paused and then said, “Besides, the Neldathi
most certainly believe them.”

Klaron said nothing in response.

Gaven smiled. “Don’t worry, Klaron.
It is not that important. Come. It’s cold, and I am tired. We should turn in
for the night. Maybe tomorrow morning we can begin your mythological
education.”

Part
I

Chapter 1

Tolenor was a planned city that had
experienced unexpected growth. Laid out after the Great Neldathi Uprising had
been put down more than a century ago, it was designed to be the administrative
center of the Triumvirate. It was not to be a “capital city.” At least the
diplomats who worked there, and the sovereigns who sent them, would not call it
that. The Triumvirate was an uneasy alliance. Making Tolenor a true capital
would only fuel those who sought to break it up. It would also indicate that
the Triumvirate was something like a nation unto itself, while it most
definitely was not.

The city was laid out on a small
island in the Bay of Sins. The Water Road, which flowed out of Great Basin Lake
hundreds of miles away, flowed into the bay, which had made it a destination
for travelers and pilgrims for centuries. Now, even though the old gods were
dead, the people still came, but instead of seeking redemption they sought work
or power or favors from those who have either.

The theory of placing Tolenor on
the island was that the limited space would naturally keep the population down.
Only those doing business with the Grand Council of the Triumvirate would
bother reaching the island, connected to the mainland only by one great
causeway and a few ferries.

Regardless of the designs of the
city founders, and of the alliance, what was meant to be a small administrative
center of limited importance quickly blossomed into a major city. People from
all over Altreria, in addition to the occasional Islander and others, flocked
there. They came for opportunity, for commerce, to influence the powerful, or
for less savory reasons. Those people, the ones who jammed its grid of streets
and gave the city its buzz, freely called it the capital.

Antrey Ranbren had come to Tolenor
simply to try and make a life for herself. It was the one place in the world,
north or south of the Water Road, that she might be able to do that. Neither
the Neldathi nor the Altrerians were kind to what Antrey’s employer and those
in polite society called “children of mixed parentage.” Those on the street
used a less kind, and more brutally direct term: halfbreed. Fewer still used
the term from the old tongue, “ranbren,” that gave Antrey her surname. Born of
a Neldathi mother and an Altrerian father, Antrey was out of place in both
societies. Tolenor, which existed as a part of that world but also as something
apart from it, provided a small patch of middle ground on which she could
survive. After these years, she was content with that. She had no dreams of
actually thriving.

It wasn’t as if she could blend in
with the crowds. The city was jammed full of Altrerians of every shade of
green, from the pale northern Telebrians to the dark-hued Arborians. With her
pale turquoise skin, Antrey was distinctive, a small patch of clear sky on an
overcast day. At least she inherited her father’s slight Altrerian frame. It
was difficult enough looking different. Having to poke out above the heads of
everyone else by a foot or more would have been unbearable. She did her best to
try and conceal her otherness. She kept her black hair, from her mother’s side,
closely cropped so as to be almost unnoticeable. She did her best to ensure
that as little skin was visible to the public as possible. Despite her best
efforts, she stood out.

The crowds themselves were
impressively diverse, made up of people from all across the land. Most came
from the member nations of the Triumvirate: the Kingdom of Telebria, which ran along
the east coast; the United Guilds of Altreria, its counterpart on the west
coast; and the Confederated States of the Arbor, sandwiched in between. There
were a few Islanders, too, although they tended to come and go with the ships
in the harbor. Antrey had even once met a pair of Azkiri nomads from the
Badlands in the far north.

At the heart of Tolenor was the
Triumvirate compound, where the administrative buildings of the alliance were
situated. It also contained a lavish collection of small homes and apartments
for those who worked there, along with guest lodging for visiting dignitaries.
The main buildings formed a large square in the middle of the island, with a
collection of neatly kept gardens and courtyards in the center. There, in the
safety of the compound, Antrey was merely another underling, one among many who
tended to the business of the alliance. Her unique appearance and shadowy past
did not matter to anyone with whom she regularly worked, except perhaps as a
source of back-room gossip to which Antrey was never privy.

The streets of the city spread out
like spokes from the Triumvirate compound, carving the island up into nearly
proportionate squares. Out at the edges, where the main roads encountered the
rocky island shore, the rigorous planning broke down. Streets curved and took
odd angles as necessary to weave around the coast.  

It was in the unplanned places
where the excess population, those who came to seek fortune and found none,
went to live. The people who lived out in those hinterlands were often bitter,
beaten down by years of crippling poverty and subjugation. Tolenor had no
governance aside from the Grand Council itself, which was never intended to
manage the day-to-day problems of a growing city. The people out there thought,
with some justification, that they had simply been forgotten. The business of
the Grand Council was disputes among nations, not ensuring that the poor had
food in their bellies.

On some days, Antrey’s job required
her to leave the safety of the Triumvirate compound and venture out to the
hinterlands. On those streets was where Antrey felt the most vulnerable,
exposed and alone. She planned those trips with great care, combining errands
to try and make them as rare as possible. As she walked the streets, she kept a
tight grip of the leather bag slung over her shoulder with one hand. In the
other, she clutched at the papers that identified her as an employee of the
Grand Council. After six years here, she knew many of the Sentinels who
patrolled the streets, but the consequences of an encounter with an unfamiliar
face were not worth the risk if she left those papers at home.

Today was one of those days. She
had already been to the printer to check on the status of Alban’s latest
collection of essays on the alliance’s economic policy. In addition to his
official role as the official clerk of the Grand Council, her employer Alban
was a well-regarded analyst, particularly on economic issues. However, because
his analytical writings were not part of his official role, they could not be
printed and bound by the staff attached to the Grand Council. Instead, Antrey
regularly visited a printer’s shop in Tolenor’s northwest sector with a
collection of papers. The printer would then collate them, set them in type,
and print them as pamphlets. The current project had taken longer than expected
due to a breakdown of the press last week.

After visiting the printer’s,
Antrey walked to the open-air market near the end of the Grand Causeway that
connected Tolenor to the Telebrian mainland. She went there to pick through the
first of the spring’s fresh fruit that had been brought in from the Guildlands.
There was no agriculture to speak of on the island, so the city’s inhabitants
were completely dependent on importing food from the Triumvirate member
nations. Fresh fruit was a delicacy that Antrey cherished. It reminded her of
the brief summers of her youth in the southern mountains. It was worth saving
and scrimping a bit to enjoy the pleasure of a fresh strawberry as she hiked through
the streets on her rounds.

~~~~~

Before she returned to the
compound, Antrey had to make one last stop, at a small shop perched on a rocky
bluff on the island’s northeastern shore. From the shop’s back door, a person
could stand almost at the edge of the world and look out over the never-ending
ocean and the horizon that seemed to stretch on forever.

Under normal circumstances, Antrey
would appreciate the view and the quiet contemplation it forced upon her. But
the reality of her life meant that she did not like going there. It required
her to pick her way through several back streets in a poor and ugly part of the
city. The people there were packed in like pickles in a jar. It was impossible
for her to pass by without feeling their eyes latch onto her, exploring every
aspect of her odd appearance. It didn’t help matters that this outsider, this
halfbreed, was dressed as if she came from some means. The attention unnerved
Antrey and made her quicken her steps.

This was a regular visit because it
was the only place in the city that carried the particular kind of parchment
and ink that Alban preferred for his work. He had explained to her one day, in
mind-numbing detail, about how important the proper match of parchment, ink,
and pen was to keeping the official notes of the Grand Council. An ink that was
too heavy, or a parchment that was too thin, would cause words to smudge as he
wrote them. Ink that was too light, or the parchment too thick, he would have
to work harder to ensure that the notes were dark enough to be legible later.
Alban wrote furiously during the course of a heated debate, to keep track of
the competing arguments. He owed it to history, he explained to her, to make
sure he did not have to worry about the supplies he used. Antrey was not
certain that she needed the detail Alban gave her, but it did give her an
appreciation for how seriously he took his work.

The shop appeared to be empty when
Antrey went in. There was no one at the counter and she did not detect anyone
lurking in any of the aisles. Antrey walked up to the counter in front and rang
the small brass bell. When there was no immediate response, Antrey busied
herself with an examination of the store’s inventory. After all this time, she
was certain she could find precisely what Alban wanted without any assistance.
There were stacks of paper and parchment in various forms. There were quill
pens and inkwells, of the sort Alban insisted on using, although they took up a
smaller amount of shelf space each time she was there. Antrey had to admit she
loved the smell of the place. It reminded her of the books in Alban’s library,
the ones she read when he wasn’t looking.

From behind her, Antrey heard a
voice. “I am sorry, we could not hear you come in. How can I help…” The
sentence fell away without completion as Antrey turned and faced a young boy.
He jumped subtlety, but Antrey had learned to notice such things. “Um, er,” the
boy stammered, unsure how to continue.

Antrey did not recognize the boy
from her earlier trips. He must be new, a child from one of the homes in the
neighborhood, forced to work at this age to support the rest of his family. She
smiled at him and was keen to not make any suggestive movements. “I’m so sorry.
I didn’t mean to startle you. I’m here to pick up a few things for my employer.
I have a list here, in my bag,” she said, before slowly taking out a piece of
paper. “Can you help me?” She held out the list to give it to the boy.

“I… I… I am sorry, miss, but… I… I
do not think I can help you,” the boy said, thinking on his feet and doing it
badly.

“Why is that?” Antrey asked. She
knew the answer, but wanted to see if the boy would admit it.

“I…just do not think we have what
a…what a person like you is looking for,” he said, slowly backing away from her
with small steps.

“But that cannot be,” Antrey said
as politely as she could manage. She stepped towards the boy, keeping the space
between them even. “You haven’t even looked at the list I have,” she said,
waving it at the boy.

“I…  I…” he stumbled again, trying
and failing to come up with some polite way to get away from her.

“And what did you mean when you
said you couldn’t help ‘a person like me’? What kind of person am I?” She was
getting increasingly fed up with the situation.

“Well, I mean… I mean… you are… you
look…”

To the boy’s great relief, their
exchange was interrupted by Rasinah, the stooped old Telebrian man who ran the
shop, when he came out of the back room. “Who is it, boy? What is the matter?”
he asked as he rounded the corner of the aisle in which they were standing. He
looked first at the boy and then at Antrey, to whom he flashed a warm smile of
recognition. “It is very nice to see you again, Antrey,” he said to her,
dipping his head slightly. He turned to the boy with eyes of fire. “Boy, this
is Antrey Ranbren, assistant to the official clerk of the Grand Council. She
and her patron are fine and long customers of ours. Take her list and gather
what she needs.” His voice was forceful, but measured, until he realized that
the boy was still frozen where he stood. “Quickly!” he yelled.

The boy’s body released the tension
it had accumulated in an instant. He snatched the list from Antrey’s hand and
began to expertly snatch parcels off various shelves.

Rasinah turned back to her. “My
deepest apologies, Antrey,” he said, shaking his head. “It can be so hard to
find a good assistant these days, one that will not run away at the first dream
of adventure or some such nonsense.”

“There was no offense,” Antrey
said, being more gracious than she felt. The old man had always treated her
well. She remembered how stunned he was when Alban first brought her here years
ago. “I know how people react to me when we meet for the first time. I’ve grown
used to it.”