There, up close, he could see the dark silk sleeve, the braided beard and broad shoulder of a man. He struggled and more arms appeared, holding him and forcing him to the ground.
“We’ll not harm you,” the voice said again. “We’re Scouts of the Delta.” The scout paused to let the words take root. “Are you from Windwir?”
Neb nodded.
“If I let you go, will you stay put? It’s been a long day in the woods and I’m not wanting to chase you.”
Neb nodded again.
The scout released him and backed away. Neb sat up slowly and studied the clearing around him. Crouched around him, barely shimmering in the late morning light, were at least a half dozen men.
“Do you have a name?”
He opened his mouth to speak, but the only words that came out were a rush of scripture, bits of the Gospels of P’Andro Whym all jumbled together into run-on sentences that were nonsensical. He closed his mouth and shook his head.
“Bring me eUBria bird,” the scout captain said. A small bird appeared, cupped in transparent hands. The scout captain pulled a thread from his scarf and tied a knot-message into it, looping it around the bird’s foot. He hefted the bird into the sky.
They sat in silence for an hour, waiting for the bird to return. Once it was folded safely back into its pouch cage, the scout captain pulled Neb to his feet. “I am to inform you that you are to be the guest of Lord Sethbert, Overseer of the Entrolusian City States and the Delta of the Three Rivers. He is having quarters erected for you in his camp. He eagerly awaits your arrival and wishes to know in great detail all you know of the Fall of Windwir.”
When they nudged him toward the forest, he resisted and turned toward the cart.
“We’ll send men back for it,” the scout captain said. “The Overseer is anxious to meet you.”
Neb wanted to open his mouth and protest, but he didn’t. Something told him that even if he could, these men were not going to let him come between them and their orders.
Instead, he followed them in silence. They followed no trails, left no trace and made very little sound, yet he knew they were all around him. And whenever he strayed, they nudged him back on course. They walked for two hours before breaking into a concealed camp. A short, obese man in bright colors stood next to a tall, redheaded woman with a strange look on her face.
The obese man smiled broadly, stretching out his arms, and Neb thought that he seemed like that kindly father in the Tale of the Runaway Prince, running toward his long lost son with open arms.
But the look on the woman’s face told Neb that it was not so.
Rudolfo
Rudolfo let his Wandering Army choose their campsite because he knew they would fight harder to keep what they had chosen themselves. They set up their tents and kitchens upwind of the smoldering ruins in the low hills just west, while Rudolfo’s Gypsy Scouts searched the outlying areas cool enough for them to walk. So far, they’d found no survivors.
Rudolfo ventured close enough to see the charred bones and smell the marrow cooking on the hot wind. From there, he directed his men.
“Search in shifts as it cools,” Rudolfo said. “Send a bird if you find anything.”
Gregoric nodded. “I will, General.”
Rudolfo shook his head. When he’d first crested the rise and seen the Desolation of Windwir, he ripped his scarf and cried loudly so his men could see his grief. Now, he csizef. Nowried openly and so did Gregoric. The tears cut through the grime on his face. “I don’t think you’ll find anyone,” Rudolfo said.
“I know, General.”
While they searched, Rudolfo reclined in his silk tent and sipped plum wine and nibbled at fresh cantaloupe and sharp cheddar cheese. Memories of the world’s greatest city flashed across his mind, juxtaposing themselves against images of it now, burning outside. “Gods,” he whispered.
His first memory was the Pope’s funeral. The one who had been poisoned. Rudolfo’s father, Jakob, had brought him to the City for the Funereal Honors of Kin-Clave. Rudolfo had even ridden with his father, hanging tightly to his father’s back as they rode beside the Papal casket down the crowded street. Even though the Great Library was closed for the week of mourning, Jakob had arranged a brief visit with a bishop his Gypsy Scouts had once saved from a bandit attack on their way to the Churning Wastes.
The books-Gods, the books, he thought. Since the Age of Laughing Madness, P’Andro Whym’s followers had gathered what knowledge they could of the Before Times. The magicks, the sciences, the arts and histories, maps and songs. They’d collected them in the library of Windwir, and the sleeping mountain village grew over time into the most powerful city in the New World.
He’d been six. He and his father had walked into the first chamber, and Rudolfo watched the books spread out as far as he could see above and beyond him. It was the first time he experienced wonder, and it frightened him.
Now the idea of that lost knowledge frightened him even more. This was a kind of wonder no one should ever feel, and he tossed back the last of the wine and clapped for more.
“What could do such a thing?” he asked quietly.
A captain coughed politely at the flap of the tent.
Rudolfo looked up. “Yes?”
“The camp is set, General.”
“Excellent news, Captain. I will walk it with you momentarily.” Rudolfo trusted his men implicitly, but also knew that all men rose or fell to the expectations of their leader. And a good leader made those expectations clear.
As the captain waited outside, Rudolfo stood and strapped on his sword. He used a small mirror to adjust his turban and his sash before slipping out into the late morning sun.
After walking the camp, encouraging his men andging hiand listening to them speculate on the demise of Windwir, Rudolfo tried to nap in his tent. He’d not slept for any measurable amount of time in nearly three days now but even with exhaustion riding him, he couldn’t turn his mind away from the ruined city.
It had been magick of some kind, he knew. Certainly the Order had its share of enemies-but none with the kind of power to lay waste so utterly, so completely. An accident, then, he thought. Possibly something the Androfrancines had found in their digging about, something from the Age of Laughing Madness.
That made sense to him. An entire civilization burned out by magick in an age of Wizard Kings and war machines. The Churning Wastes were all the evidence one could need, and for thousands of years, the Androfrancines had mined those Elder Lands, bringing the magicks and machines into their walled city for examination. The harmless tidbits were sold or traded to keep Windwir the wealthiest city in the world. The others were studied to keep it the most powerful.
The bird arrived as the afternoon wore down. Rudolfo read the note and pondered. We’ve found a talking metal man, in Gregoric’s small, pinched script.
Bring him to me, Rudolfo replied and tossed the bird back into the sky.
Then he waited in his tents to see what his Gypsy Scouts had found.
Jin Li Tam
Jin Li Tam watched the commotion and wondered about the boy. He’d opened his mouth to speak after Sethbert’s embrace, but all that had come out of him was a rush of words. Muttered lines of what sounded like Whymer text. And though he couldn’t have been older than fifteen or sixteen, his tangled hair was white and his eyes were wide and wild. Of course, when Sethbert realized he couldn’t speak, he’d dismissed him to the care of one of his servants. His only interest in the boy was to hear something firsthand of his handiwork.