FOOT PATROLS MARCHED at unfailing intervals. So regular were they—even using the same routes—that one could mark the passing watches by the movements of the Felk occupiers through Callah's streets.
Bryck had surmised that these patrols were meant mostly to intimidate, rather than do any real policing. Everyone he'd met already seemed acutely aware of the Felk and their dominating presence and didn't need the reminders.
He had just bought himself a light but tasty meal. He had surreptitiously tapped a brass coin on the tabletop, thus receiving special service from the proprietor.
Legally only scrip could be used for all transactions within the city. Paper money. Paper. The Felk had issued it, and at the same time they had confiscated all the hard currency they could lay their hands on, presumably to help finance the war. The funny-looking pieces of imprinted colored paper were, the occupiers said, worth precisely the same as proper coins. The scrip was marked to indicate denominations. If the Felk took a copper, they issued a red note; if they took a bronze, a green note; and so forth.
Perhaps more than anything else about the occupation, people were having difficulty adjusting to transacting business with scrip. But these were just the impotent grumblings of a defeated people.
One of those patrols was passing, booted feet clomping in a synchronized rumble. The faces of the Felk soldiers were set, hard. The squad was twenty strong and well armed.
People immediately found somewhere else to be. Some shrank into doorways. All traffic halted till the soldiers were past.
Bryck, too, quietly stepped aside. He had been in Callah some days now. He knew its ways. He had also noticed the superficial differences from his home of U'delph, the variations in architecture and style of dress. Fortunately his traveler's clothes were neutral enough they didn't make him stand out.
Even his meal had been unusual—the curious variety of vegetables, the pungent tea he'd sipped only once. Everything was recognizable but also odd, exotic. The way familiar things were made strange in dreams.
On arrival he'd been ordered to report to the City Registry, where his horse had finally been conscripted. He was only surprised that he'd managed to hang on to the animal so long. The horse had been with him since he'd ridden from U'delph, seeking aid from neighboring Sook. Bryck wouldn't even have earned the privilege to ride if he hadn't trifled with those dice, manipulating their outcome with a little wizardry.
At the Registry he had exchanged the small number of coins he purposely kept in his pockets for local scrip, not protesting the trade. His larger cache of coins stayed secreted in his coat's lining. He had used the money to secure himself lodgings, which was where his vox-mellie was currently stored.
The Registry was a large municipal building of white-washed stone at the city center. Evidently it had
been the seat of the city's government before the Felk arrived. There Bryck had also surrendered the civilian travel pass that he'd been issued on entering Felk-controlled country. It was replaced with a temporary resident permit. Temporary, since as a traveling minstrel he wouldn't be here permanently.
"I will stay until winter," he'd said during his questioning; and that was how long the permit was good for.
He was surprised things had gone so easily, surprised that the Felk had the necessary bureaucracy in place to handle his peculiar status as a troubadour. He was certainly being allowed freedoms not enjoyed by others. Callah's residents, for instance, were required to stay inside the city limits. Those that worked the outlying farmlands were restricted to those areas, under penalty of arrest or even summary execution.
As to what was happening elsewhere on the Isthmus ... who knew? People were hungry for news, and when they couldn't find it, they invented it.
There was a mist on the autumn air this afternoon that was fast on its way to becoming rain. Were he still in Udelph, some distance south, this rain would be light. Here it promised to be unseasonably heavy.
The street was already wet, and the soldiers' boots left behind a neat pattern of prints, each foot falling cleanly atop the last.
Bryck moved. His thick greying hair was getting damp. He turned up his coat's collar and kept near the buildings, under their ornamental eaves.
He had learned the details of Callah's conquest since arriving. He didn't need to interrogate anyone; most wouldn't shut up about it once they got started, particularly in the taverns. Everybody had a personal tale of woe.
Did the Felk annihilate your city, slaughter your people? Bryck always asked silently, darkly. But that sort of bitterness was as useless as it was reflexive. He should feel a kinship with these Callahans. Shouldn't he? The Felk had conquered them. Felk was the enemy of Callah. Therefore ...
Wars had sides. If one was a participant in a war, one chose one side or the other.
Or, perhaps, a sole individual could be his own side. A lone front. A singular army. Yes. Perhaps.
Muck oozed up around his boots as he made for a particular alley.
Callah's conquest, he had learned, was orchestrated by a Lord Weisel, who was said to still be heading the Felk forces. That the Felk were using magic as an instrument of war was disquieting. Where, Bryck wondered, had all those potent magicians appeared from so suddenly? Rumor had it that a small contingent of the wizards was here in Callah, as part of the garrison, though nobody seemed to have actually seen any of these magicians. It might be they were secluded somewhere in the Registry building. Or they might not exist at all.
Bryck rapped his knuckles on the doorjamb. The tight alleyway smelled of spoiling meat. A drape of woven fiber hung across the doorway, allowing glimpses into the dim chamber beyond.
There was no response for some while, but he didn't knock again; instead, waited blandly as the rain started in earnest.
Finally feet scraped the floor beyond the doorway. A hand reached up to whisk aside the drapery. "You don't know enough to come in out of the rain?"
"I know enough not to enter uninvited."
"Then you're summoned. Come in." The little man moved back, and Bryck entered. Inside, things smelled much more pleasant—a scent like berries and milk, but mixed with a gentle wood smoke. Bryck inhaled the incense gratefully.
Slydis's workshop was designed to accommodate its master. That Slydis, three tenwinters old, stood no taller than a child meant that Bryck fairly towered above the furnishings. The scribe wasn't merely short, but stunted; limbs ill-proportioned to his somewhat stumpy trunk.
Bryck had once penned a play about little people. A comedy, naturally. In it the "all-dwarf" cast—normal-sized players—acted out their scenes amidst oversized backdrops and props.
Slydis's repute as a copyist was a good one. Bryck had made inquiries at several city market stalls that sold reading matter. He had visited this shop two days ago, offering half of what would add up to a handsome fee—in silver— for the completion of a special job. Slydis had accepted. People still preferred
to transact in coin, despite the prohibition.
Beneath me incense was a rich odor of ink and paper. The workshop shelves were heavy with materials. Slydis settled at a desk that stood only as high as Bryck's knee. The scribe's wispy hair and grey stubble made him look impossibly old as he set a lamp on a hook over the desk, the light cutting shadows from his features.
Bryck had taken a risk with this man. Transacting in coin was a crime in Callah. What he had asked this copyist to duplicate surely constituted a worse offense.
Slydis's permanently ink-black fingers carefully laid out the vellum under the lamplight. "Here we are. What do you think?"
Bryck crouched down for a look. This was a costly purchase, but it was immediately apparent that he'd paid for quality. Studying the imprint in the yellow wax closer only deepened his appreciation of the product. He pinched a corner of the paper. Even the texture felt correct.