The Merchant Emperor (38 page)

Talquist tucked the scroll into his robes and trotted down the concentric rise. He came quietly up behind the man and looked to see what he was confused about.

“Can I help you with something, my son?” he asked pleasantly.

The artisan turned around. His eyes widened at the sight of the emperor, crowned and wearing the golden symbol of the ascendant sun on a chain around his neck. He bowed deeply and nervously.

“Majesty. Pardon and apologies.”

“None are necessary. I am grateful for your talents and labor in restoring Lianta’ar to the glory that it should have held all along. Is something causing you confusion?”

“I—I was merely uncertain as to whether this fresco is Cymrian, and therefore needing to be stripped, or an appropriate depiction of elemental lore, Majesty. I do not know what it represents.”

“Well, move aside and let me have a look.”

The worker obeyed quickly.

Talquist eyed the fresco. He had spent a good deal of his lifetime in research and study of every type of lore—pure, legend or folk—in the pursuit of the answer to the question of the identity of the purple scale he had found in the sand of the Skeleton Coast. He was therefore surprisingly familiar, for a godless man, with sacred paintings and depictions of folktales and religious legends.

It was the image of a woman, ordinary in nature, her coloring favoring the dark eyes and skin of a native Sorbold, rather than the blue-eyed, fair-skinned Cymrian lineage. She was clothed in common garments except for a veil or wimple of some sort that covered most of her hair, and was surrounded by smiling children of all sizes and colorings, as well as women, some of whom were holding infants.

At her feet was a pond or a well of some kind, modest of size and filled with dark water, in which an image of the gibbous moon was reflected.

The woman held in her hands what appeared to be a small round tray of some kind, on which a single object rested. It was familiarly shaped, hand-sized and oblong, with a slightly tattered edge, and was yellow in color. It seemed to be scored with lines of no recognizable pattern.

Talquist froze.

He blinked and looked at the fresco again, staring most closely at the object on the tray in the woman’s hands.

Then, after a moment, he was aware of the breath of the workman standing behind him. He turned around slowly and forced as pleasant a smile as he was capable of to come over his face.

“What is your name?”

“Devein, Majesty.”

“Devein, I am thirsty. Could I prevail upon you to request a cup of water from the guards at the basilica door?”

“Of—of course, sire.” The workman took off like a jackrabbit.

Talquist turned quickly back to the fresco.

He reached inside the inner pocket of his robe and pulled out his greatest possession, the one he carried over his heart.

The gray scale, purple when it caught the light, scored with the image of a throne on the convex side.

The New Beginning.

And held it up before him.

It was almost the exact size and shape as the yellow image on the tray in the fresco, its edge finely tattered like a fish scale.

Talquist’s hands began to tremble violently.

Yellow—one of the scales that Faron and he were missing between them in the spectrum.

He could hear the sound of heavy footsteps approaching; he quickly slid the scale back into his robes and forced another smile to his face.

“Thank you,” he said, accepting the flagon that the workman offered him. He drank deeply, willing himself to be calm.

“So, have you decided what you would like done with this fresco, Majesty?” Devein asked nervously.

Talquist nodded and took another sip.

“Leave it for now. I will ask you to have it removed shortly.”

*   *   *

Talquist had almost finished the repast that had been brought to the basilica for his refreshment when he heard the unmistakable sounds of military footfalls echoing through the narthex on their way to the sanctuary.

He rose, wiped his mouth with the linen napkin and laid it on the makeshift table before him, and waited.

A moment later Fhremus, his supreme commander of the land forces of Sorbold, came into view, a young soldier following at a respectful distance behind him.

“You sent for me, Majesty?” Fhremus asked, as he came to a halt, bowing.

“Indeed.” Talquist signaled for the soldiers to follow him to the wall where the fresco was displayed.

“Is this the soldier who will be in my retinue on the way back to Jierna’sid?”

“Yes, sire. His name is Kymel.”

“Well met, Kymel,” Talquist said as the young soldier bowed. “And you have arranged to double the number of soldiers in my retinue, as I asked, Fhremus?”

“Yes, sire. They will be under the command of Titactyk.”

“Thank you, Fhremus; I just wanted to review some of the plans for my return tomorrow morning with Kymel. I assume he can be trusted to accurately relay my orders to Titactyk?”

“Yes, sire.”

“Excellent. And this is important—send word to the naval command, under highest security and seal. Tell them to launch the offensive on the harbor of Avonderre immediately.”

“Yes, sire.”

“You may go.”

The supreme commander bowed and took his leave. Talquist turned back to Kymel.

“Kymel, on the way back to Jierna’sid, I will be sending half the retinue off on a side mission to the seacoast between the border at Jakar and the port of Windswere in the Nonaligned States. I will discuss the specifics of this mission with Titactyk, but I want you to make careful note of this image. I asked Fhremus to bring me someone who was intelligent and had a good memory, so I know you will not fail me in this, am I correct?”

Kymel’s face went hot.

“Absolutely, Majesty.”

“Good, good. Make special note of this part of the image.” He pointed to the tray and the yellow object on it. Kymel looked carefully, then nodded.

“Thank you, Kymel. I expect I will be seeing you on the morrow, then. Good day.” The young soldier bowed, turned on his heel and left the basilica as his commander had.

Talquist went through the door of the basilica, stopping long enough to confer with the guards.

“Locate the artisan named Devein, and tell him he can strip the fresco now.”

“Yes, Majesty.”

The Merchant Emperor walked briskly to the carriage and embarked.

“Take me back to the guesthouse,” he said cheerfully. “It’s been a stimulating morning; I feel the need for an afternoon nap.”

He thought of the young acolyte back at the guesthouse and smiled, congratulating himself for telling Gregory to select the prettiest one, as the coachman’s voice clicked to the horses and the carriage began to roll away from the basilica.

34

Children who were blessed to grow up in plenty, or at least enough, more often than not had access in their youth to fables and fairy tales, stories told to them by loving parents and family members, nannies or teachers, tales of magic and adventure to amuse them, to teach them lessons and morals, to give them practice in learning how to dream.

But motherless and fatherless children, orphans, and even those with one parent to cling to in the darkness of poverty, the nightmare of the slave mines, the cold and the biting wind of a life under the docks or in the faceless streets and alleyways of every city on the continent, those children were by far more in need of such stories. Even the smallest amount of encouragement to such children might have made the torment that they lived in daily a little less terrible, may have offered an inspiration to endure for the prospect of better days in the future. Sadly, the bedtimes of these children were not opportunities for the warm and loving impartment of the fairy tales, legends, and stories of good children being elevated to high praise, wealth, social stature, and happy endings that their luckier counterparts benefited from. The nightmares of the dark hours that bedeviled such children were scarcely more frightening than the reality of their waking lives.

But even without the same opportunities to learn of legends with happy endings and stories extolling bravery, selflessness, and pluck, there was one legend that seemed to make its way into every dark alleyway, every windswept dock, every brutal salt mine, every stinking stable, every orphanage where less fortunate children spent their days, working, slaving, or just trying to survive.

The legend of the Well of the Moon.

On first blush it was possible to write off the legend as wish-fulfillment, a story that was both impossible and tempting to believe, especially for children to whom a simple crust of bread, a day without beatings and a night without fear would be the fulfillment of their greatest wish. But there was something compelling about the tale, the story of a haven for children, particularly children in want and need, between the land and the sea, within both and neither places, where children who had run away from their abusive homes and their rotten lives could find solace, or peace, or even happiness.

The legend told of a guardian who, while having no loyalty to adults, was sympathetic to the plight of lonely, damaged children, and, if that guardian could be found, would lead such children to a place of peace and safety, where adults were kind, soldiers did not beat them for being in the wrong place, food and water were plentiful, there were real toys to be played with and they could eat cookies and sweetmeats all day, and pain could not find them.

There were many versions of the tale, of course, because it was common to such a wide variety of climes and cultures across an expansive continent, but one phrase, or its variant, heard in every telling was this:

The Guardian of the Well of the Moon will guide you to that peaceful place, when the moon is full, when the tide is high, when all other paths are exhausted, when all the sandbars are covered, when all other roads are blocked.

But only if you are a child.

It was a tale that went back many generations, and was conveyed in many languages. When other tales were passed around and vanished into the wind, when other legends were proven false or disbelieved, the legend of the Well of the Moon continued to cling to the collective vault of oral tradition, continued to be heard and often believed by the poorest of the poor, the most forgotten of the lost.

Because it was true.

*   *   *

Talquist had learned the legend in childhood when he, the bastard son of a peasant woman and a merchant with no interest in raising him, had heard it while working in the olive groves of Nicosi at the age of ten. All of his fellow young pickers knew the tale, and spoke wistfully of the place of peace and plenty where the Well of the Moon lived on nights when they had had nothing but blemished olives to eat. When a child disappeared from the work detail or the sleeping tents, it was said he or she had gone off to find the path to the Well of the Moon. Talquist had never desired to do so, however.

He had known his own path from the time he was very young.

That path had led him one day to the Skeleton Coast, the twisting coastline of Sorbold’s southwestern shore, where the bones of ships and the men who had sailed on them lay drying in the dim sun that filtered through the ever-present mist that hung in the air off the sea. He had wandered that foggy graveyard in silent anger, studying the wreckage of the Third Cymrian Fleet that had landed there fourteen hundred years before his birth, the ruins of the vessels that had allowed the interlopers to conquer his homeland and turn it into something unrecognizable. The hatred that burned in his viscera had ignited on that beach, unchecked and aimless until he had discovered by accident the purple scale inscribed with the image of a throne.

He had no idea what it was.

And as he whored himself out to every person who could potentially help him discover the answer to his life’s mystery, he set himself to learning everything he could, in every place of catalogued wisdom that would let him in.

So it was while he was serving as an acolyte to a man named Lasyrus, the sexton of Terreanfor, the basilica of living Earth that was the principal Patrician place of worship in Sorbold, that he came to understand what the Well of the Moon really was.

Or think he understood it.

In order to move up in the ranks of the clergy of the Patrician faith, an acolyte was required to go to a holy site where service was needed and perform that service for three years. Talquist had no such intentions; he did not wish to have any association with the Patrician faith, though he had made a good pretense of it. Rather, he understood that centers of religious study had resources of knowledge that were available nowhere else, and that being an acolyte in as holy and powerful a place as Terreanfor gave him access to those resources he would never be able to find elsewhere.

So while he was poring over the massive bound volumes where all the places where holy service could be undertaken were listed, he came upon a place called the Abbey of Nikkid’sar, which allowed only female acolytes to apply for consideration for service placement.

Being that Talquist was always fascinated by being denied access to or told that he was unqualified for something, he had read the listing anyway.

The text explained that the abbey was located in Windswere, a coastal area of the lands that bordered southwestern Sorbold known as the Nonaligned States. Like Sorbold, the lands leading to the seacoast of Windswere did not slope gently to the beaches, but rather were tall cliffs that stretched forth into the sea atop sandspits, or spits, as they were more commonly known, long deposits of sediment formed by the backwash of a strong ocean drift.

The abbey had been the renovation of an older military site that had been there before the Cymrians came, bringing their Patrician faith and their domination of lands that had once been ruled by Talquist’s ancestors, or so he liked to think. When the Third Fleet landed, the cliff on the spit on which the abbey was later built had held a large ancient catapult of a sort, a weapon of defense from the old days pointed out to sea, when it and all the other ones like it up and down the coast had been employed against the exhausted Cymrians, who had fared badly in their rough voyage across the Wide Central Sea, only to be attacked once they had landed, shipwrecked, by the people who occupied the coastlands.