This revelation was cud for us to chew for the next two days as the band made its way along the northern edge of Orland. Gena and I returned to the subject frequently, sparring over the nature of reality.
Well, as best an apprentice wizard and a junior apostle could, out in the middle of nowhere (or the edge of somewhere, as it were). Effective academic debate is done with access to other written commentary—the giants who came before—and more ready access to tea1. Not to mention that it ought to be conducted between experts in the field. An expert in metaphysics I was not2, and Gena was an extremely formidable mind but she had no particular depth of experience in the study of metaphysics. So it was sparring: a sort of ritual training, a signal that the subject was of interest to us, rather than a true effort to untie the knot.
Most of the band was riding cheerfully after the festival at Clerriol, but a dark cloud of worry hung over the two of us. And at the edge of it, Hester scowled.
At last, the band came to the Orlan Blue. Hundreds of riders, working animals, and livestock all clumped up on the river and drew their water, drinking, then washing and splashing and resting. To settled people, the river is a constant companion which we revere and depend on. To nomads, the river is a paramour to be cherished and celebrated for what little time can be spent in its nourishing midst.
It was time.
We put aside our debate to track down and say our goodbyes to those we had met and shared tea, food, tents, and steeds with. We found Ariké and Eidahn (who had been riding with ever more frequency), Chethe and his family, and several of the young hell-raisers whom Hester had befriended, all in turn to give them our well wishes and heartfelt appreciation3. Eidahn nearly offered to come with us to aid in our quest for the tome, but I was able to talk him down by reminding him of all the time he had to make up with Ariké.
The duuchin asked me to stay with him as Hester and Gena went downstream to find Ormu.
“You are going, yes?” he said in Yaria.
“Yes?” I said, evincing as much surprise as I could with the pitch of my voice.
“Good,” he said, laughing. “I don’t know if I should be pleased you are fearless to continue, or disappointed that you gave it no thought.”
“Why should you be disappointed? You are not Montigo,” I said.
“So I am not. All the same, young student. Filly at a tent-wagon.”
“I will not try to pull weight, thank you,” I replied, smiling.
“Do not let the eager young warrior hitch you to the wagon, either,” he added, returning the smile. “Farewell, and may we meet again.”
We traveled upriver and crossed Paupersbridge that afternoon, where we met a moderately-sized travel party destined, happily, for The Watch on the Rock.
I wish I had more to report of the next four days. Our travel companions numbered ten: two couriers, six wagoners with a hefty load of foodstuffs (mostly, of course, wheat grain), one mendicant (who had come from the far south, beyond Orlan, beyond the Antillayan range, in the rocky lands near to the great southern seas), and one mysterious looking man (dressed something like a forester) who seemed polite enough but declined conversation at every turn. We all had our separate business and little to discuss beyond the mundanity of overland travel. Gena continued to gaze inward, seeing little of the road pass beneath and beside her, and we seemed to silently agree that we didn’t want to hazard re-opening our stalemated debate in the company of these strangers. Even Hester only found small talk to make with the wagoners and the couriers. So he spent most of the journey beside me, atop my tottering, amiable donkey, either walking in silence or sharing a drinking story, like the ones he might have been telling the Yaria youths. I tried to make for a good audience, but I could tell it wasn’t quite the same.
On the fourth day, we rose, as we reached the jagged feet of the Eastern Range. The green, densely forested mountains had long dominated our view of the horizon and blanketed our mornings in shadow, but now they towered above us and beside us. We climbed, we clambered, we huffed and puffed atop a well-marked but rough and winding trail. There were several difficult sections—the wagoners had been dreading this, and everyone else was kind enough to help them as it arose—that the wagons could not be simply rolled across. I was not even spared the effort: there were scrambles that even the donkey had to be led up without its rider. Of course I had Hester and Gena to help, but even so, climbing with one leg and driving equally with the opposite arm atop a friend’s shoulder is exhausting, painful work.
By the time we reached the Watch on the Rock, I may have been more tired than the donkey. I had more bruises on my underarms, anyway.
The Watch on the Rock is the finest fortress in the Seven Kingdoms. This has nothing to do with its architecture, which is austere to the point of absurdity4, and it is not even chiefly owed to the extremely defensible mountain passes and thorough network of painstakingly bored passages that enable options for sally and entry even during a siege.
No, the most superlative quality of the Watch on the Rock is its view of the east.
The Eastern Range that bounds the Lignem, as you see it from down in the fertile lowlands, is a set of broad, tall massifs rising out of the greenery. But seen from the eastern side, from the arid Valley of the Sun, the ridge is a titanic set of summits atop a precipitous wall of stone and sand. Put simply: the climb up from the west is hard, but the climb up from the east is much, much harder. What this also means is that the Watch on the Rock commands a breathtaking, sweeping view of the scrublands and dunes to its east. A watchman on the keep ramparts can see for dozens of leagues to the north, south, and east. No man, woman, or horse can reach the ridge without being first made by the watch, sometimes days in advance.
No army, of course, had dared the approach since the Old King’s last attempt a millennium ago. And so long as the watch was garrisoned, so long as the House Eastmost upheld its sacred duty, it seemed unlikely that anyone would dare it again.
We were welcomed into the great hall to fanfare, announced by a trio of trumpeters near the entrance. The east wall, opposite our entrance, consisted of a single thick pane of glass which stretched from the floor to the ceiling and from wall to wall. As such, the vast landscape to the east, crowned by the wide, flat horizon, served as a backdrop to the throne.
Duchess Joan of the House Eastmost sat atop the throne. She wore a long curtain of straight, black hair bound by a silver crown and a simple, velvety blue gown bound by a thick sword belt. The sword itself lay across her lap, a long hand-and-a-half sword5 in its shining bronze scabbard. Magister Akabu Ai stood at her right hand. He was an imposing man, dark, broad at the shoulders, and tall, wearing a traditional court wizard’s cloak and sash in the House’s blue. I think he intended to mute his presence by maintaining a level gaze with the floor. But it was hard to hide a dark silhouette that large, set against a backdrop that grand.
“Hester,” Joan said, wearing a regal smile.
“Mother,” he replied. “I am much pleased to return home safely and in the boon company of new companions, on whose behalf I now beseech for the hospitality of the House Eastmost.”
She seemed to consider this. “What hospitality our house has to give, it shall.”
“It is well. I fear our business carries us forth soon. Is there aught of abroad we may tell?”
Joan raised her chin a degree. “Yes, as it happens. How fare dear Lorea and Nico? I hope she is as sterling and… proper a conversationalist as ever.” She seemed to be looking at me.
There was a silence in the room. The three of us, the trumpeters, the wizard, the duchess, and the bored courtiers in the gallery, all stared at each other lamely for a beat.
Then I said, “buh.”
Hester wheezed so hard that I think he sprayed spit on the carpet. Joan laughed, a little more sensibly but not by a whole lot.
“Stupid forms,” I moaned.
When our hosts had properly recovered, Hester approached the throne. Magister Akabu Ai accepted Joan’s sword so that she could stand and embrace her son. That’s when I noticed that she was just as tall, and probably nearly as athletic in stature, as he was.
“Welcome home,” she said into his shoulder. He mumbled something I couldn’t hear in reply.
“I knew the crossing could not deter you,” she said, beaming, as they released. “Your father was worried, though, and it’s hard not to blame him.”
Hester sighed. “I know. Would that he could see the necessity of a journey like this.”
“I’m sure he will. Enough of that for now. We observed the first half of the formal greetings, but introductions were in the second.”
We had introductions and spoke of our journey—mostly of the Windvalley Riders and their generosity—before we left the great hall to allow the court to conclude the day’s business.
As the three of us left, I had a glance back at the breathtaking landscape behind the throne. But I saw none of it. Instead, I saw Magister Akabu Ai and his fierce eyes locked with mine.
Not that the Windvalley Riders lacked for either tea leaves or generosity. It’s just hard to steep when the band is on the move. ↩
Most people seem to find it surprising that wizards and their apprentices, as a rule, have so little formal training in metaphysics and phenomenology. Why should they be surprised, though? Isn’t that the one thing we are famous for: not caring one whit about the traditionally proscribed bounds of reality? ↩
As has been pointed out, “gratitude” would have given an incorrect impression of the roles being played as the nomads welcomed us to live and travel with them. ↩
Lesser critics, such as myself, might call it ugly. ↩
I thought it looked dreadfully out-of-proportion when I first saw it, but Hester would later point out to me that I should only think that only because I had been training with a stubby cavalry saber a few weeks prior. The hand-and-a-half sword is not only a symbol of knightly valor, it is a versatile weapon for dismounted fighting, where its length provides opportunities to slash with great reach or to “half-sword”—taking a grip with one hand on the haft and another halfway up the blade—for devastating, armor-breaking force. ↩