“Well, they should do that,” the guard admitted, “but I’m not used to a scribbled note as an order. Not even the Protector’s crest, hey?”
“No,” Gar agreed, “only the signature and title of the official who wrote them. It seemed odd to me, too, but it’s not my place to argue.”
“No, nor mine,” the guard said, with sudden decision, and handed the papers back with an air of relief. Then he nodded at Miles. “What about him?”
Miles felt his heart stop.
“He’s the third letter, though the clerk who read it to me said it didn’t give a name—only that we could take a servant. The reeve was even more cross about that, I can tell you.”
“Yes, I’ll bet he was,” the other guard said with a grin. “When are you supposed to be in Milton?”
“They didn’t give a date.” Gar returned the grin, and they were off into ten minutes of idle chitchat. Miles, sweating, noticed that Gar and Dirk managed to stay very vague about everything they said, though they certainly sounded open and forthcoming. After a few minutes, though, they were doing most of the asking, and the guards most of the answering. But soon enough the reeve’s man said, with regret, “Well, we’d better be on our way. Can’t exactly go drinking your health at a pub while we’re on patrol, you know.”
“I certainly do,” Gar said with a smile. “Good riding to you!”
“Odd greeting, that,” the second guard said with a smile of his own, “but it has a good ring to it. Yes, good riding to you, too, strangers!”
And they rode off, with loud farewells on both sides. As soon as they were out of earshot, Gar said, “Interesting that the guardsmen can’t read.”
Miles looked up, startled. “Of course not. Only officials, and students studying to be officials, can.”
“Even more interesting,” Dirk said.
“You didn’t know that? Then how did you guess it?”
“Because the guard didn’t say anything about what the note said—only about how odd it looked,” Gar told him. “Risky, putting a man in his job who can’t sound out the words. I could have handed him someone else’s travel permit, and he never would have known it was the wrong name.”
Miles stared in amazement. “But how could you get someone else’s permit?”
“I’m sure the outlaws have lots of chances,” Dirk said dryly. Miles realized what he meant; his stomach sank.
“Why aren’t the guards taught to read and write, Miles?” Dirk asked.
“Oh, it costs a great deal, sir, far more than any peasant can scrape up! Our village didn’t even have a school, and we’re almost big enough to be a town.”
“So.” Dirk scowled. “Expensive, and even if you can afford it, you have to move to a town that has a school.”
Miles shrugged. “The schoolmaster has a right to a living, too, sir.”
“And the government doesn’t provide it for him,” Dirk replied. “Interesting, eh, Gar?”
“Fascinating,” the giant answered from a granite face.
The towers rose majestic in the golden light of late afternoon, smooth-surfaced and slightly tapering, their sheen nacreous, as though they were made of mother-of-pearl. At their tops, they were pierced with windows under pyramidal roofs. For half their height, creepers and vines cloaked them so thoroughly that they might have been dead and decaying tree trunks. “Oh, Orgoru!” Ciletha clutched his arm.
“Yes.” He clasped a hand over hers. “Beautiful, isn’t it? My rightful home! I feel it within me! Never was there a place so right for me! Hurry, hurry! I ache to see them, these noble men and women who must live here!”
It was hard to hurry through a forest, where trees roots bulged up unexpectedly to trip the passersby and thorns leaned out to catch clothing—but they went as quickly as they could, stumbling as often as they strode, until they parted a screen of brush and beheld a blank expanse of pearly wall. They froze, staring, then stepped forward to gaze upward with wonder.
The wall was only six feet away, but it rose high, high, thirty feet or more, with the towers rising that much higher again, a hundred yards apart. Looking down, they saw a tangle of weeds and vines, of ivy and fallen saplings that had tried to take root and tumble the wall—but the strange, pearly substance had tumbled the saplings instead, and repelled the ivy.
Marveling, Orgoru stepped forward, reaching out.
“Oh, no, Orgoru!” Ciletha cried. “It might…” Her voice trailed off.
“Hurt me, as it has hurt these little trees?” Orgoru shook his head. “It has only repelled the hurt they sought to give it, Ciletha, by being too smooth to gain a hold—and too deep and hard for their roots to burrow under. It won’t hurt me—I feel that deep within, I’m sure of it!” His hand touched the wall, and he let out a gust of breath. “It’s smooth, it’s warm, it feels as though it might yield…” He pressed hard, harder. “But it doesn’t.”
He looked up, wondering. “Where could the vines have come from, that cloak the towers? … Ah! There!”
Ciletha crept forward, craning her neck to look upward. For two long strides, the ground was clear all along the wall except for spreading, shade-loving plants like clover making a lawn. But huge trees rose beyond that range, spreading thick limbs toward the wall and over it. Ivy climbed along bole and bough, wrapping from leaf to leaf about the tower. It rose as high as the trees could reach to the strange pearly stone, but no farther. “No seams,” Orgoru whispered, eyes alight.
Ciletha looked down and saw him running his palm over the wall. She stepped forward and mimicked him, feeling nothing but smoothness. “They have joined the stones so cleverly that we can’t even see the cracks!”
“If they used stones.” Orgoru stepped back, looking upward. A thrill of dread encompassed Ciletha. “Of course they used stones! How else could they have built this wall?”
“Maybe they poured it, as we pour pewter into a mold.” Orgoru shrugged. “Maybe they grew it. We can’t know how, Ciletha. This is a magical thing, made by the wizards who first came down from the stars.”
The dread gathered and coiled down her spine. “That’s only legend, fable, an old wives’ tale!”
“I don’t think so.” Orgoru brought his gaze down, smiling at her, but she almost recoiled. There was something uncanny about the way his eyes burned, something eerie about his excitement. “They told us it was just a story, Ciletha, but they told us that about this city, too, and the others like it that legend spoke of! Let’s go find the rest of the truth!” He caught her hand and set off along the curving strip of lawn.
Ciletha stumbled, then had to run to catch up with him. “Wait, Orgoru! What truth are you talking about?”
“Why, the rest of the city, of course! There must be a gate, a door, a way in! Aren’t you burning to see what’s inside?” Ghosts and bones, she thought, but only said, “What will you do if you find the gate?”
“Why, knock, of course, and demand to be admitted!” Orgoru cried. “I have a right to be in there, after all!” And he strode on down the path.
Ciletha hurried to keep up with him anyway, though the dread was mounting.
Finally they found it—a gate twice as tall as either of them, or a gateway, rather. The portals themselves were only a mound of dust and crumbling wood along the threshold.
“This magical wall, and they had to build the gates out of ordinary wood!” Orgoru breathed, his eyes shining as he stared inward. “See, Ciletha! The buildings are of mere stone, ordinary stone! You can see the joins between the blocks!”
Ciletha looked. Sure enough, the buildings within were made of courses of stone, though cut so exactly like one another that she marveled at the masonry. They were all of stone, taller than the wall, each wide as a village, with huge dark portals and staring, empty windows. Several had rows of pillars holding up projecting roofs; others were perfect domes, held up by … magic? She shivered, awed, thrilled, and fearful, all at the same time.