Two days later, there was nothing to show for the ferocities that had struck at Falmouth’s boundary save the demolished huts, and that damage could have been done by the storm. Hyam and his wife walked beneath a benevolent sky. The light was still strengthening, and the morning was already springtime warm. The trees dripped a noisy pattern as the couple left the glade and turned toward the port.
As they arrived at the main route leading to the city gates, they joined an impatient throng. Farmers and merchants alike jostled and cried and shoved, as was always the case on market days. Joelle greeted the woman who supplied them with farm-fresh cheese as she and her daughters shooed a flock of squawking geese. The prime spots around the city’s main squares would be taken within the hour.
Ahead of them, the city rose like the onyx crown of some forbidden warrior race. Falmouth was fashioned from the black rocks upon which it stood. Where some might find the unbroken dark stone forbidding, Hyam thought it held a timeless grace. Beyond the outer walls stretched the narrow lanes that were home to some fifty thousand souls. At the city’s heart stood the inner keep, rimmed by broad plazas and fountains, where stood the homes of courtiers and the richest merchants. Beyond that was the ancient second wall, high and so narrow at its crest that guards had to sidle past one another. Since the battle vanquishing the crimson mage of Emporis, the guards remained on constant vigilance.
The palace itself sprouted eleven towers. Since the Battle of Emporis, they were crowned by the banners of those first badland clans who had come to the aid of the Oberons. All of these clan names were officially banned by the king who now possessed the throne in Port Royal. But what the king felt about the earl’s defiance no one knew, for the ruler had not been seen since the crimson foe’s defeat. Today the standards hung limp and easy in the windless dawn, as though promising a calm to all who dared call Falmouth home.
The palace’s central structure was domed, the only such edifice Hyam had ever known. Beneath the dome resided the banquet hall, whose ceilings bore paintings over a thousand years old. The pictures remained vivid because the city’s mages kept them so. They recalled dark times and heroic deeds and the joining of races so that the realm might survive to fight another day.
Hyam’s wife saluted the guards on duty by the moat bridge. Joelle was not one of them, but she trained with sword and knife as often as her magical duties permitted. She liked the company of soldiers, particularly the women who had flocked to the earl’s banner. The king in Port Royal had forbidden all female soldiers from serving within the realm’s borders. The Earl of Oberon openly defied this ban, sending word throughout the kingdom that all troops who sought to serve beneath the ancient banners were welcome, men and women alike. Joelle was happiest on the days she could slip away from the stone-lined caverns where the magicians practiced their arts, and join the earl’s company in the brash and noisy training ground. They knew her abilities and her role in the Battle of Emporis. They made her welcome. This brought her untold joy. Before her arrival in Falmouth, Joelle had never belonged anywhere.
Captain Meda lolled by the outer moat, a position she had maintained for most of her duty hours since the assault on the glade. Her shield and battle sword leaned against the bridge support. Few women felt comfortable wielding a full-sized blade. But Meda was as seasoned as she was tough, one of the first officers hired by Hyam and a veteran of many battles. She studied the passing crowds with a gaze seamed by years of sun and harsh climes and greeted the couple with, “Where is Dama?”
“Guarding the house,” Hyam said.
“You should let her accompany you,” Meda said, her eyes never still. “I’ve never known a better beast for sniffing out danger.”
Hyam indicated a trio of lowing calves being forced through the gates. “A wolfhound has no place in Falmouth on market days.”
Meda asked, “Any sign of your attacker’s return?”
“None.” Hyam did not say what he thought, which was, his first alert of the assault had been Meda pounding on their front door.
Joelle replied, “The Elves confirmed there was an attack.”
Hyam stared at his wife. “When was this?”
“At dusk yesterday, late in the night, and again before today’s dawn. They said some of their sentinel trees had been lost.”
“Why am I only hearing about this now?”
“How often have you avoided any mention I make of the Elves or their requests for us to join them? They have waited seventeen months, and still you will not agree to a feast day. I am as tired of making excuses for why you will not meet them as they are of asking.”
Meda demanded, “What did the forest folk do this time?”
“Three times they sang to the trees that bordered the lane. They searched the ground for sign.” Joelle touched the sword’s hilt rising above her right shoulder. “They urged me to carry the Milantian blade.”
“I should be told of such events,” Hyam groused.
Joelle rolled her eyes, and Meda asked her, “Will I see you on the training grounds today?”
“If Master Trace gives me time to breathe.” She tugged on Hyam’s hand. “I’m already late.”
They did not speak again until they arrived at the inner keep’s main portal. Hyam knew Joelle was readying herself for an argument, so he merely asked, “Tonight at dusk?”
“I may be late, and you may not walk back alone.”
“We’ve been through this already.”
“But you did not agree.” When he tried to turn away, she called, “Hyam!”
“Yes. All right. I’ll wait for you.”
“And you must let me tell the Elves you will come.”
“Soon.”
“Today!”
He hugged her, their love a flame that sustained him. Then he turned and walked away. When she called after him, he sketched a wave and kept going. He had no secrets from Joelle. But there was nothing to be gained from explaining again why he avoided the Elves. To be feted by the forest folk meant Hyam would drown in sorrow and remorse yet again. The hours would be made endless by how everyone else sang and danced and celebrated. Hyam suspected the Elves knew this, and honored him by not either pressing or taking offense.
Hyam could not claim the Battle of Emporis had cost him everything. Not when he shared a fine home with the loveliest woman he had ever known. Not when he lived surrounded by friends and was saluted by every warrior in the earl’s fief. But some nights he was engulfed by pain so bitter and intense he half wished he had never known magic at all.
The battle had seared away his arcane talents and shattered his orb of power. The losses left him bereft in a manner that none could see and only a handful even comprehend. He lived half a life and struggled daily to convince himself that he could still know joy. Even if his wounds left him crippled.
Hyam rounded the stanchion that anchored the high palace wall and exchanged salutes with a city patrol. To the citizens of Falmouth, he was the reason they lived and walked in safety. He was the victor of Emporis. He now served as adviser to the earl, though he seldom attended the council meetings and never spoke when he did. He was the subject of minstrel tunes, his triumph carried in secret songs that were played throughout the realm. Hyam never discussed how much he yearned for what he had lost, how much he ached. But Joelle knew he seldom slept well. She sensed his yearning for powers and days he would never know again. And she thanked him in her own silent way for how he struggled to look beyond his loss and be happy with all that was still his to claim.
It came to Hyam like a scent carried on a war-torn wind. But there was not the hint of a breeze within the city walls. Nor did he actually smell anything. But he knew it nonetheless, the electric potency of a spell not yet cast, the latent power he had last known when handling an orb the size of an infant’s skull. But the crystal globe had been smashed in Emporis, when it struck the enemy’s own orb and obliterated the citadel. Hyam had never thought he would taste that sweet pulsing thrill again. He had held the Falmouth orb and been worked over by healing mages countless times. All to no avail. He had almost forgotten how tantalizing the flavor really was.
He ran, stalking the scent like a ravenous wolf.
The crowds thinned as he rounded the keep’s eastern side. The squares were smaller here, but also more elegant. Scattered about these neighborhoods were parks ringed with fruit trees and spacious manors. To his astonishment, the magical lure drew him to the house where he had been working for over a year.
Fronting a tree-lined park was a square house, smaller than some, with the Oberon crest adorning the front portal. Despite the dark stone façade and the sense that this home was as old as the city itself, the place held a warmth and peace that had always appealed to Hyam. Even now, when his belly quivered with a hunger he feared would never again be his to claim.
Hyam pushed through the front portal and shouted, “Timmins!”
The maid bustled in from the kitchen, wiping her hands upon a flour-spackled apron. “They’re all in the rear yard, your lordship. Every one of them dropped tools and quill the instant the colonel arrived.”
Hyam raced down the flagstone hall, past the four grand chambers that served duty as chart room, record room, and two libraries. Normally a city’s keeper of records would hardly occupy such a villa. But Falmouth’s chief scribe was also the earl’s older cousin. The two had been friends since childhood. Bayard, Earl of Oberon, was a fighter and keen strategist who treated history as a road map to his next victory. Timmins was a scholar by choice and temperament.
Hyam slammed through the rear portal to find the scribe and three offspring and six apprentices clustered about a dusty wagon, joined by Timmins’s thickset wife and a dozen grinning soldiers.
The scribe cried, “There you are at last. I’ve searched everywhere!”
“You haven’t done anything of the sort,” his daughter Shona chided. “Good morning, Hyam. How is Joelle?”
“Fine, she’s fine.” He nodded a greeting to Colonel Adler, once the officer in charge of Hyam’s band and recently appointed head of the earl’s castle guard. But Hyam’s attention remained fixed upon the wagon. He pushed his way through the crowd and leaned over the wagon’s side.
“A veritable treasure trove!” Timmins tended to speak excitedly over anything to do with the written word. “The legends have come alive before our very eyes!”
The soldiers were mud-spattered and road-weary. They held mugs of cider and munched happily on bread and cheese, enjoying the scribe’s antics. Timmins was a favorite of most who called the palace home.
Adler said to Hyam, “Meda tells me you slept straight through an attack.”
“Of course he did!” Timmins bent down to lift a grandson clamoring at his feet. “That’s all the man does! Most mornings Hyam walks into the scriptorium and asks for a quilt and pillow!”
“You talk utter rubbish,” his daughter said. “Hyam works harder than all of your apprentices together.”
“Well, that’s hardly saying a thing, is it.” Timmins peered myopically at Hyam. “How could you possibly have slept through a blast that woke the entire city?”
Hyam paid him no mind. Timmins was as outrageous as he was poetic and rewarded his friends with fierce affection. The youth of Falmouth vied for apprenticeships, even when they spent their first two years out beyond the city walls, turning the skins of butchered animals into the softest vellum. For even these youngest were taught morning and night, and Timmins was counted among the city’s finest teachers. He instructed in history and law and proper writing and brought in mathematicians and builders and others for the subjects where he had no ability. He called everyone dunderheads, including the earl. He was never satisfied, no matter how great the effort. He was happiest when peering over a lost scroll and or a book abandoned for centuries. He made the past come alive and put flesh to the long-dead bones of myths and legends. The wizard Trace counted him the wisest of men. He had friends everywhere.
Hyam had no idea what he expected to find in the wagon bed. All he could say for certain was the source of power lay there before him. The dusty tarp was thrown back to reveal several dozen scrolls scattered amid clay shards. Four intact clay vessels were propped on blankets and lashed to the wagon’s sides. The vessels would have stood taller than Hyam if held upright. But such a position would have been impossible, for their bases were curved and pointed like crude clay spears.
“These dunderheads actually broke one of the precious amphorae,” Timmins groused. “Didn’t you know you carried the wealth of centuries?”
“The pot was already broken,” Adler replied. “And they’re nothing but a bunch of scrolls so old their script has vanished with the years.”
Hyam reached for the nearest scroll and instantly felt the power course through him. He shivered with palpable delight.
“Never mind that lot,” Timmins cried, and pointed at the top of the nearside vessel. “Observe the crest on this amphora! The past is come to life!”
But Hyam would not draw his eyes away. The scroll was so ancient the act of unrolling caused tiny flecks to fall off like dry scales. Even so, the unfurled document stole away his breath. His fingers trembled so badly he feared he would rip the vellum further. So he propped himself on the wheel spoke, leaned over the side, and settled the scroll on the wagon bed. Gingerly he unfurled it one handbreadth at a time.
Adler set down his mug and leaned over to study the nearest clay vessel. Shona stepped over to stand alongside him. She was sixteen, the youngest of Timmins’s brood, and a beauty. The scribe doted on her, though he complained to all within reach that she remained the one scroll he could never read. Her three older brothers were all married with children of their own. If Shona had any interest in men or matrimony, she hid it well.
A crest was stamped in gold leaf upon the vessel’s rim, and then repeated twice in the clay itself. Adler read, “Property of the merchant of Alyss.”
“Not Alice, you dunderhead. This is no maiden’s diary, no matter how fair she might once have been. Ah-liss. The most famous of cities.”
“Never heard of it.” Adler traced a hand about the sloping base. “Why is this jug shaped so oddly?”
Shona replied, “Amphorae were shaped to fit snug along a ship’s curved hull. Imagine hundreds of these clumped together like eggs in a crate of their own making. They were used to carry the most valuable of liquids, finest wines and rare oils and refined fragrances.”
One of the apprentices asked, “So where is this Alyss, anyway?”
“You really are the worst dunderhead who has ever tried to eat me out of house and home,” Timmins replied. “Come over here so I can thunk your thick skull.”
Shona was blessed with her father’s questing mind and her uncle’s fair looks. She also held Hyam in something akin to awe. “Alyss was the largest trading city of the lost realm.”
Adler said, “You are speaking of the empires destroyed by the Milantian invasion?”
“The very same. Alyss was a city of unimaginable wealth. Poems describe how many of the palaces were roofed in pure gold.”
Adler said, “So these scrolls . . .”
Timmins finished, “Are over a thousand years old!”
Shona traced one finger along the nearest amphora’s wax stopper. “The question is, why would they use amphorae to store scrolls? Even the most valuable were transported in chests.”
“Perhaps some of the scrolls in the vessels that remain intact and sealed will be legible.” Timmins almost danced in place. “Would that not be a wonder to carry us through the winter!”
Hyam reluctantly broke away from his study. “You can’t read this?”
That turned them all around. Timmins demanded, “Read what?”
Gingerly he lifted the vellum. “It’s clear enough to me.”
Timmins and his daughter crowded in to either side. Shona asked, “You see text? Truly?”
“And designs.” Hyam resumed his inspection of the ancient vellum. “Do they not seem to move before your eyes?”
Timmins leaned over until his nose almost touched the scroll. “I see nothing save blank vellum.” He slipped back to earth and exchanged a long look with his daughter. For once, the scribe was both somber and still.
Shona said doubtfully, “Perhaps it is the sun’s angle. Move aside, Hyam.” She slipped into his place, squinted, declared, “Still nothing.”
Hyam touched one of the scroll’s designs. The image was traced by the same fire that accelerated his heart rate. “Truly, none of you can see what’s written here?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Shona replied.
Timmins said softly, “Tell us what you see.”
“The script is Milantian,” Hyam replied. “It appears to be a teaching scroll.”
“For what discipline?”
Hyam looked from one perplexed face to the next. “War.”