Valkwitch (The Valkwitch Saga Book 1) (16 page)

Liran turned back to Arik and said, “How is the
city? I’m starved for news.”

“Could be better. We thought it might boil over
in the heat but it looks like we dodged that for now. Big news is that the
Thieves Guild is back.”

“Already?”

“Already. They’ve been doing hits on storehouses,
Hill mansions, workshops. They’re much smarter about their targets and half the
time they’re not even after money, just supplies or weapons or elchemical
materials. The last month’s been like the bad days of the Forties. Central and
the Talons can’t get a handle on them.”

“The Talons took them down last year. What
changed?”

“They’ve gotten better at hiding. The bosses
aren’t living it up like the old days, buying vacant mansions with sudden
fortunes. They stay down below with their boys, running the show in
disconnected groups. Our guys caught a cell trying to make off with a shipment
of Velhem silver. We barely caught them in the act and they put up a hell of a
fight. Only one lived to talk and all he could give us was their hideout
location. Some place in Under Bridge. It was stripped bare by the time we
showed up with some Cents.”

“Elusive, then.”

“Easier to catch the wind. The Primes are all on
the defensive, so there’s less stomach for the normal guild politicking. We
haven’t had a
suspicious
incident in weeks.”

“Only obvious thefts.”

“Right. I prefer the incidents.”

They passed through the shadow of Khalanheim’s
northern gate and the driver slowed to pass a slip of paper to one of the
guards, the crest of Khalan North stamped clearly atop it. Like the bridges the
Heartroad traversed in the Vordeum Expanse, the city’s walls were seemingly
built of a single piece of stone pulled ready-made from the earth. Tyrissa knew
it must be the result of earth magicks used in construction, the hallmark of
Stone Shapers, of Pactbound. How else could it be so perfect, so enduring?

Arik glanced back at her staff, propped against
the back seat like a fourth passenger. “If your sister needs a job,” he said,
“security’s booming. You’ll just have to find a place that’ll hire a woman. We
don’t, but I think the Rift Company does. So does Kadrich’s, if you want to
avoid another Prime.”

“Would be a good fit for you, Ty,” Liran said.

Tyrissa nodded. She would need to find a place in
all this if her true reason for coming here didn’t work out.

A practical place for me. Father would be
proud.

Most of the buildings that lined the Heartroad hewed
to a consistent design, always four stories tall with the windows forming
grid-like faces above the ground floors. At times it looked as if the connected
buildings would stretch on forever, only to have sudden breaks for cross
streets. Shops often occupied the ground floors in long arcades, set back from
the street in arched and shadowed overhangs. Each store bore guild crests above
the entry, discs adorned in numerous colors and heraldry. The smells and sounds
of the city were just as varied and Tyrissa found herself in a pleasing,
overstimulated state, eyes looking every which way to see something new or
unknown.

The carriage slowed to a stop at the largest
square Tyrissa seen thus far, the intersection of the Heartroad and an equally
broad avenue running east to west. The square could have swallowed Edgewatch
whole. Heavily ornamented halls and homes formed the four walls of the square
and at the center stood an elaborate fountain topped by a stature depicting a man
offering up a palm full of coins. Carts and temporary stalls ringed the
fountain, their attendants selling items as diverse as the people passing
through the square.

“Crossing Square already,” Arik said while
hopping out of the carriage. “We’ll talk tomorrow in the hall. Get a drink
afterward?”

“Will do.”

“Miss,” Arik said to her with a nod, before
turning away and quickly becoming lost among the square’s shifting evening
crowds. The carriage lurched into motion again, slowing and stopping as the
driver navigated the crowded streets. Soon they left the bustle of Crossing
Square and entered twisting, ever-narrower side streets where the light of
evening jumped ahead an hour from the shadows of the buildings. The general
style of the rest of the city persisted but the uniformity broke down, with the
houses varying in height and color. More dirt and grit occupied the spaces
between the cobblestones, and many of the buildings had small cracks or
weathered paint.

“Southeast Crossing has none of the glamour of
the nicer parts of the city, but the rent is cheap and there’s sky above you,”
Liran said. “Here is fine, driver.”

“You sell it so well,” Tyrissa said, taking in the
sights and committing it all to memory as they unloaded their packs. The
crooked, aged streets and buildings did have a certain lived-in charm to them,
begging for exploration of hidden corners.

“A merchant’s nature,” Liran said.

Liran led them through a few more twists and
turns, their long southward journey finally ending in front of a row house much
like the hundreds they already passed, this one with a wooden staircase
descending from the second floor to the street. The ground floor looked abandoned,
the doors and windows boarded up and painted to roughly match the rest of the
building’s pale yellow exterior.

“Home sweet home,” he said before ascending the
stairs, each footfall producing a welcoming creak.

Tyrissa stood near the peak of the Sunrise Span,
her fingers gripped through the wire fences that lined the great bridge. Below
her feet, past the elegantly worked stone tiles, past the substructure of
cables and pipes and supports that she could only glimpse from the city, there
was nothing. When looking down into the Rift you saw no bottom and the canyon
walls showed no intent of ever meeting. There was nothing but the endless
vertical descent below and even that was eventually obscured by mists the color
of a pale, clear sky. The Rift was a modern legend and when seen this close,
from above, it was dizzying and amazing in equal measure.

Behind her, the morning’s traffic of cargo carts
lumbered along the wide lanes of flat, tessellated stonework. Most of the carts
had the purple and gold emblem of the Imperial Company painted on the sides.
The noise of it all, the grind of wagon wheels, the calls of workers, and the ring
of horseshoes faded to a din overwhelmed by the sight just below and stretching
hundreds of miles north and south.

She could have stood here all morning, letting
the riftwinds whisper and roar around her while the vertigo from the infinite
height created a slowly building knot in her stomach, as if her breakfast had
turned to stone. It was an effort to turn away, back toward the western side of
Khalanheim. She had an entire new city to explore and she could always come
back.

The western end of the Sunrise Span descended to
seamlessly merge into the streets of Khalanheim. The cliffs of the city were a
hive of activity, with a fleet of zeppelins floating at their mooring towers to
the south and a forest of windmills leaning out over the canyon to the north.
The knot in her stomach stayed with her well past the line of gates and toll
booths at the terminus of the bridge. Though the weighty sensation had faded when
she returned to the more familiar area near Liran’s home, Tyrissa couldn’t help
but find it somewhat concerning. What she knew about her Pact was still vague
and scattered, and after what she felt on the caravan every peculiar physical
or mental sensation prompted an internal debate of whether its origin was
natural or magickal.

She turned her thoughts back to her other
priority destination for the day. Liran promised her that the library in the
university would easily occupy her for weeks, when they only needed a couple days
while he sent out feelers for job opportunities. Liran’s directions to the
library were simple and mostly mirrored their route into the city yesterday in
reverse. Tyrissa followed them for about three minutes, returning to the
bustling Crossing Square before diving off the route into the curving side
streets of Khalanheim. As soon as she left the main thoroughfares and was away
from the crush of people and carts and horses, the city showed a different
side. Here in the twisting side streets and alleyways, Tyrissa could see
analogues to the paths and ravines of the Morgwood, the sort of navigation she
understood, only hemmed in by stone and brick instead of trees and shrubs. She
passed hundreds of homes, each subtly personalized but still sticking to the
styles of the long connected blocks that lined the main roads. Above, laundry
hung on lines strung between balconies, the cloth rippling in the air.

The people were far more varied and colorful than
their homes, many wearing their guild coats in defiance of the day’s heat. The
varied guild crests and colors seemed to adhere to an intricate set of rules,
the logic of which Tyrissa only had the vaguest understanding.

The winds from the Rift cut along the
cobblestones and bricks no matter how boxed in the little streets felt. The
gales flowed in every direction, channeled by the network of alleyways and long
blocks of shoulder to shoulder houses, but favored east to west whenever
possible. Though she hadn’t quite gotten used to the constant, low howl of the
riftwinds, Tyrissa was thankful for them all the same. In the wind’s absence
the stench of the city grew thick in the air, a clinging combination of smoke
and sweat, of rot and refuse.

Wonder if I’ll get used to that as well
.

The Khalans had a simplistic naming scheme for
the city, dubbing districts after whatever was most prominent in the area with
little respect for the poetic. Liran had shown her a map of the city last
night, and every neighborhood had a name like ‘Crossing’ or ‘Guildhall’ or
‘Moors’. It was apparent when she exited Crossing for the Fortress district.
The streets widened and the houses became more orderly, marching up the
hillside like proper soldiers, pressed side to side but with their flat roofs
rising like a stairway. The university was simple to find for it crowned the
second highest hill within the city. As she climbed the streets that ran up the
hillside, Tyrissa could catch glimpses of the white domed top of the central
tower with its immense telescope lens protruding to one side.

She paused in the street at the top of the climb
and sent her gaze upward. The university straddled the top of the hill, its
outer walls an imposing edifice of gray stone. Though the walls were carved to
resemble the style of the long row houses and arcades that lined the Heartroad,
the turrets that crowned the corners were reminders of the building’s past and
the source of the district’s name: a fortress retrofitted to another purpose.

Nearby there was an open arched gateway, through
which she could see the spacious greenery of the inner grounds. Tyrissa
strolled right though the entry tunnel, the guards giving her a passing glance
but no trouble. She was just one of many. Within the enclosed yard were winding
paths lined by thick hedges neatly trimmed into rectangular blocks. The paths
let to a dozen of more recently constructed halls and buildings, most set half
into the thick walls of the former fortress. Long rows of cloister-style windows
lined the inner walls, some paneled with glass and others open to the air and
containing covered walkways.

The white cylinder of the observatory tower
looked smaller up close, and scattered about its base was the evidence of some
construction project in progress within. Signs directed any visitors to an
alternate entrance, and a cluster of posters advertised some upcoming exhibit
opening the third week of Ironskies.

The handful of students that passed her by on the
hedged paths paid her as little or less mind than the guards at the entrance.
Tyrissa felt underdressed compared to them. Wearing informal finery, they had
every look of the youth of the elite, their clothing a step above the merchants
in complexity and vibrancy, and two above the crowds that worked the stores and
stalls that lined the squares and streets of the city.

The library sprang from the inner wall, an
addition to the original shell. It was fronted by a standing row of white
columns that she saw so many times across the Vordeum Expanse, but clean and in
their proper stately alignment. Inside was a broad tiled hallway that appeared
to run in a connecting ring through the outer walls of the university. Ahead,
another set of doors let to the library proper, flanked by pin boards layered
with a menagerie of paper advertisements. Tyrissa could already feel the hush
of study, and winced as her boots echoed against the floor tiles.

Tyrissa stood in the doorway in awe. Liran’s
promise held true, for the library within those doors was a divine sight.
Towering shelves reached over fifteen feet high, though the vaulted ceilings
stood higher still. The shelves fanned out from the entry area, like the beams
of a hand-drawn sunrise.

Like I’ve died and gone to heaven.

The thought gave her pause and birthed a slight
frown. That expression had an altered meaning for her now.

Her hand went to Tsellien’s brooch in her pocket.
The runes should be simple to translate once she knew the language. She walked
the rows, eyes gliding over the spectrum of colored spines and aged covers.
Like the city itself, the sheer, staggering volume was the most impressive
part. She could wander these shelves for hours without finding what she sought.

Tyrissa looked around for someone that might be
of help, spotting a robed man rustling through the shelves, a small stack of
books in his arms. She figured he was staff, given his thin white hair and
heavily lined face, like looking at an open book edge on. A square patch on his
brown robe marked him as part of the university, crosshatched silver and black
with an open book in the center. The same crest adorned the buildings outside.

Tyrissa held up Tsellien’s cloak clasp. “Hey
there! Do you recognize this text?”

There was a frightening pause and look of utter
confusion. She had to admit it was rather forward.

“That? Hithian Runic. The old, pre-fall script.
Still used in some areas near the crater as a secondary written language. Outer
ring, aisle six. Language texts.” His tone was professional and dismissive, as
if she asked what color the carpet was.

It was only after speaking with the archivist
that Tyrissa saw that the end of each shelf bore slotted labels, organized by
subject. She felt slightly foolish, though the labels were rather
inconspicuous, especially to an amazed newcomer overwhelmed at the volume at
hand. Aisle six wasn’t hard to find.

Tyrissa pulled out a book titled,
Hithian:
Modern and Ancient.
The book was crisp and clean, a recent printing with a
sky blue cover. Hithia was a Vordeum of the modern age, a kingdom ruined by
hubris and magicks run rampant. Tyrissa has seen their legacy with her own
eyes, felt it in the constant shifts of the air outside. Simply knowing
Tsellien was Hithian filled in so many precious small details. She was the
child of a fallen, broken people, traveling the world with no true homeland of
her own.

She found an empty desk near the curve of tall
windows at the rear of the library and cracked the book open only to be
assaulted by pages of charts. Hithian Runic was a syllabic language, with
hundreds of symbols representing different sounds. Most weren’t even close to
what was stamped upon the clasp, with too many flowing curves and flourishes.
What she sought was angular and basic.

Tyrissa flipped to a page with a table of numbers
and found her answer. Thirty-two.

That would make me number thirty-three
.

In the space of a moment one mystery was solved
and another took its place; thirty-third of what, exactly? Tyrissa shook her
head at the mix of satisfaction and frustration. She was closer and yet no
nearer to knowing anything more concrete, more actionable. Perhaps the Pact
Witch would be of more help in that regard. Or remove her from this problem
altogether. The idea of running away brought a sour taste to her mouth, a
betrayal, an act of cowardice.

I’m not running. Not yet. I just need to know
more
.

Prove Yourself Worthy. The words remained a
weightless but quietly dominating presence in the back of her mind. It wasn’t a
one-sided agreement, she had a power within her. The interplay of frost and
flame in the wastes proved that much. Exactly how to use it was another matter.
She’d spent many of her quieter hours on the caravan racking her mind for
details from that silvery space between life and death.
She gave me life,
called me ‘daughter’. I’m her heir in this world, her successor.
Tyrissa
thought back to the frosty vision of the Other. She had the same emblem on her
shield, but no rune or text below it. The number must be a personalization on
Tsellien’s part.

With her primary task complete, Tyrissa lingered
in the library for many more hours, time vanishing into the stacks. Economic
texts took up a majority of the collection, but she was able to find a small
section dedicated to Pactbound, the elements, and domains. The section on magick
seemed a footnote appended to the sciences, adjacent to books on elchemy,
magick’s predictable and mundane cousin.

Half the books had titles in the Common tongue,
but their contents were often in an unrecognizable dialect. Many were in poor
condition, showing considerable age and use. Nearly all bore a grandiose
printed seal of a great mountaintop palace, the roofs of a city spread out
below like ocean waves below a shoreline cliff. One word was clear on the seal:
Rhonia, the empire east of the Rift.

Elemental Theory
was the only text both in
a dialect she could comprehend and in a condition such that Tyrissa didn’t fear
that it would crumble in her hands. Even this was difficult to read, with many
references to places she’d never heard of, and the occasional archaic wording
or spelling. The formatting was awkward, clearly a reprint of an old
illuminated manuscript. The margins sometimes didn’t match the previous pages
and the illustrations were a drab monochrome, the finer details lost in the
re-printing process. Most impressive were the opening pages with their graphic
of an octagonal disc, a different element at each vertex. Light crowned the
topmost vertex, with the other elements running clockwise: Fire, Air, Death,
Shadow, Water, Earth, and Life. The traditional rival elements stood in
opposition on the disc and each of the eight sent a ray of energy to the
center, the vines and waves and winds merging to form a detailed shining orb that
contained a landscape populated by tiny people and animals.

None of these powers fit her. The diagram was
incomplete. Where did daemons and angels fit in, the gods above and below? Was
there such a thing as a Divine Pact? If she was like Tsellien, who was a sister
to the supposed divine heroine of the Cleanse, what did that make Tyrissa? The
stories were full of heroes and villains empowered by the classic eight
elements, but not one like her.

Questions and more questions
, Tyrissa
thought with a sigh. She replaced the tome, promising herself to come back to
the library as often as possible. She had told Liran that she would be back by
sunset and there was still so much more of Khalanheim to explore.