Coincidentally, at the same time as they passed the tree, Hadrian finally reached the conclusion that Arcadius was senile. The man was old to be sure. Older than anyone he’d ever met. Older even than his father, who at the time of his departure was the oldest man in Hintindar-though everyone said he carried his age well. The professor didn’t carry his age well at all, and old folks sometimes went batty. One didn’t even need to be that old. Hadrian knew a warlord in the Gur Em who spoke of himself as if he were another person in the room. Sometimes he got in arguments to the point of refusing to speak to himself anymore and insisted others relay messages “to that idiot.” And the warlord was nowhere near Arcadius’s age. The best that could be said for Arcadius was that he carried his insanity well. So well in fact that it took Hadrian all the way to the bear tree to conclude the professor was crazy.
He had to be. There was just no sense in asking him to pair up with Royce.
If Hadrian had an opposite in the world, it rode on the dark gray horse ahead of him, and this thought entertained Hadrian for several hours. Even the way he rode was different. Royce held the reins close while Hadrian gave Dancer plenty of slack. Royce crouched and leaned forward; Hadrian slouched back, rolling with the animal’s gait. Hadrian often stared at the road below or even at the saddle as he passed the time, tying and untying knots in the saddle straps. Royce was always turning and peering everywhere-except back, of course.
Why would Arcadius insist that he go? Why say this was his father’s dying wish? It couldn’t be for the book they were after. As Royce had declared a dozen times, he would stand a better chance alone. As much as Hadrian wanted to prove him wrong, he had to agree. He was a soldier, not a thief. If they wanted to besiege this tower, at least then he could contribute, but as it was, Hadrian saw no purpose in his tagging along. He was dead weight being dragged by a person who resented his presence, and that always made for a fun outing.
Royce veered off the road, guiding his horse around the scrub and rocks, climbing and then descending a hill that left them out of sight of the highway. Hadrian followed and found him dismounted next to a rash of bushes, tying his animal. Hadrian remained mounted, watching as Royce saw to his horse’s needs; then, finding a suitable place, he unrolled his blanket and lay down.
“I take it we’re camping here, then?”
Royce said nothing, still refusing to acknowledge his existence.
“You could have said, ‘We’re going to bed down here for the rest of the night.’ No, wait, you’re right, too much. How about ‘sleeping here’? Two words. Even you could manage that, right? I mean, I know you can talk. You had plenty to say back in Arcadius’s office. Couldn’t keep the words from coming out then, but no, utterly impossible to indicate in any way that we’ll be stopping here for the night.”
Hadrian dismounted and began unloading Dancer. “How long were we on the road?” He paused to look up at the moon. “What? Five, six hours? Not a damn word. Getting chilly out, don’t you think, Hadrian? Moon looks like a fingernail, ain’t that right, Hadrian? That tree looks like a goddamn bear, don’t it, Hadrian? Nothing. By the way, in case you hadn’t noticed, I was attacked by a goshawk and a pig-riding dwarf that shot eggs at me with a sling. I was knocked from my horse and wrestled with the dwarf, the hawk, and the pig for what had to be half an hour. The dwarf kept smashing eggs in my face, and that ruddy pig pinned me down, licking them off. I only got away because the dwarf ran out of eggs. Then the hawk turned into a moth that became distracted by the light of the moon.”
Royce shifted to his side, hood up.
“Yeah, well … thank Maribor and Novron I didn’t need your help that time.”
“Didn’t care for my help too much in the stable,” Royce said.
“It speaks!” Picking a spot on the other side of the horses, Hadrian laid out his ground cover and draped his blanket over the top. “And I did thank you for that.”
“And I was touched by your heartfelt gratitude.”
“You didn’t need to stab him. And you didn’t need to kill all those people on the barge. You could have just told me who you were, who they were, and what they were planning.”
“You have your ways. I have mine. I haven’t been impressed by your methods. Mine work.”
“Well, then by all means stick with yours. Maybe you’ll get lucky and find yourself back in prison. I hear there’s a whole bunch of like-minded people in there.”
“Say hello to the worms for me, then,” Royce said.
“Worms?”
“Graves are where people who think like you end up.”
“No, they don’t. Only the lucky ones. You need someone to bury you for that. You know anyone who’d go to that trouble for you?”
“If I’m dead, why would I care? If I’m not, it’d better be a very deep hole.”
“You have any friends?”
“One.”
“Arcadius?”
“No.”
“Where is this friend?”
“No idea.”
“When was the last time you saw him?”
“When he framed me for murder and sent me to prison.”
“I don’t think you understand the meaning of the word friend.”
“And I think you live in a fairy-tale world where words have consistent meanings. Can you read and write?”
“My father taught me.”
“Good for you. Ever notice how the word friend is only one letter away from fiend? Maybe it’s a coincidence, maybe not.”
“You’re an optimistic fellow, I’ll give you that.” Hadrian threw a second blanket over himself and turned to his side, setting his back to Royce.
“Did you save any?” Royce asked.
“Any what?”
“Of those eggs. If you did, we could cook them for breakfast in the morning.”
Hadrian lay silent for a moment confused; then it hit him and he almost laughed.
For a second day Royce and Hadrian traveled in silence. It didn’t bother Hadrian anymore. The crack about the eggs had sapped some of the tension-maybe Royce was human after all. Hadrian wasn’t the chatty type to begin with. He just felt they had been in the middle of a conversation when they escaped Sheridan and the following silence festered like a sliver in his skin. The sliver was still there, but it was one of those deep ones that would need to work itself out. He’d been through worse, and this was only going to last a couple days. That had been the promise at least.
For the last several miles Hadrian had seen what he thought was a figment of his imagination like the bear tree, only this was much farther away and much larger. A single vertical line like a massive pole stuck into the horizon. With each passing hour, the pole got bigger. By the time they stopped for a midday meal, the pole had become a tower, and it was still miles away.
“That’s it, isn’t it?” Hadrian asked.
Royce was on his knees searching through a canvas bag. He looked up and Hadrian nodded toward the horizon. “The tower? Yeah. Still about a day away.”
Hadrian stood staring. Everything at that distance had a bluish cast, a muted washed-out color that began to blend with the sky. The tower stood at the apex of a massive hill that dominated the plain.
A perfect place for armies.
Hadrian could imagine rows of foot soldiers lined up in the open fields. Cavalry wheeling in wide arcs. Legions upon legions could maneuver without effort, and likely did. That tower was a ruin-all that remained of a bigger structure. It must have been mammoth. He could almost see it, this massive fortress on the rise overlooking the vast expanse. The final battle of a war had scarred this land, and it centered on the rise and the castle that once crowned it.