Warrior (The Key to Magic) (20 page)

TWENTY-EIGHT

The 1645th year of the Glorious Empire of the North

(Thirdday, Waning, 3rd Springmoon, 1645 After the Fall of the Empire)

Khalar

When the rioters surged up the stairs on both the right and the left and flooded under the portico of the Viceroy's Library, Legate Stromhaeldnt yelled, "Fall back in rank!"

Ceannaire Pedgel and the other eight legionnaires, shields locked together, took measured steps to the rear, drawing back to where the frantic scholar and his two students were striving to close one of the massive, two-manheight-tall main entrance doors.

Standing just behind the shield line with his sword drawn, Stromhaeldnt paced backwards to match his men's retreat.

Stones and refuse arced from the crowd and thudded into the shields.  A glob of unidentified rotten fruit smacked into Stromhaeldnt's helmet before he could duck out of the way.  Curses and condemnations roared from a hundred guttural, rage-filled voices. 

If the mob won through into the Library, Stromhaeldnt was certain that he and his men would be torn apart.

When the shield line had contracted to a compact semi-circle about the entrance, Stromhaeldnt ordered, "Stand fast!"

Another wave of impromptu missiles flew from the jumbled mass of men and youths, but the leading elements recoiled a good seven paces shy of the shield line.  Apparently, none of the rioters was zealous enough to be the first to face the legionnaires' short swords.  Then someone farther back began to chant "
Death to the Imperials!"
and within seconds the whole mob had taken up the condemnation.

Stromhaeldnt threw his head around and saw that the thin framed scholar and the two young men had closed the first of the ponderously moving doors and had moved to the second.

A cracked cobblestone as big as Stromhaeldnt's fist sailed passed his shoulder and impacted the closed door.

"Fall back! Merge ranks!"

He allowed the contracting front of legionnaires to push him through the opening and then danced sideways to throw his shoulder against the remaining door alongside the three civilians.

"Everyone inside,
now!"

With an inarticulate animal roar, the rioters charged as the legionnaires broke ranks to dodge inside. When it looked like the rioters might catch the last man, who unsurprisingly happened to be Thilbus, Pedgel leapt forward, caught the young legionnaire's shoulders, and bodily dragged him in through the narrowing opening as Stromhaeldnt and the rest slammed the second portal home.

"The bar!" The scholar urged.  "Quickly!"

Burk and Westlen had already snatched up the long steel-bound beam from its storage bracket along the side wall and they dropped it in place just a breath before the mob collided with the doors.  The panels bounced and then rocked back and forth a span or so from the thud of angry fists, but remained closed.

The scholar hiked his traditional white and crimson robes and dropped to his bony knees.  "Help me set the bolts," he told no one in particular. Taking hold of the protruding handle of a span-wide flat bar, he pointed to a similar one on the other door.

Stromhaeldnt quickly moved and knelt to mirror the scholar.

"When it lines up with the socket in the floor," the scholar directed, "drive it home."

Stromhaeldnt looked down to find the matching iron-lined rectangular hole in the tile and made ready as the door continued to move in and out under the irregular onslaught of the rioters.  He missed on the outswing but was faster on the inswing and jammed the bar down half an armlength. This steadied both doors and the scholar, after shaking his bar a bit, also secured his bolt.  The doors continued to vibrate in response to the pounding of fists, but gradually this fell off when it became clear to those outside that they would not get in.  After a moment, another chant rose, but the hundred voice strong sound moved away.

Relieved, Stromhaeldnt stood and then helped the scholar up.

Grinning, the man bowed in a stiff, archaically formal fashion. 

"My thanks, legate, for all of your aid but most especially for the salvation of the Library.  What with the holy day, none of the staff are here and we would never have gotten the doors closed without your help.  Those degenerates would have done awful damage inside. I dread to think that they may have maliciously set fires.  If the Library were to burn again, I fear that the great institution would never rise again, what with all the talk of war.  I am Lhyrchoos, scholar of geography.  My students are Tyras and Splaend'n."

"My duty and my pleasure, sir.  I am Stromhaeldnt, House of Penniyl, Thirty-Ninth Reserve Exurban Legion, Imperial Army."  He gave the names of the eight legionnaires very quickly and then asked, "Scholar, if you are familiar with the Library, may I ask if there are other entrances that we should also secure?"

"Oh!  You are right!  Let me think."  Lhyrchoos rubbed his chin.  "There are only two other smaller entrances that I know of and these are usually locked, but it would be wise to check them.  Tyras and Splaend'n know the locations.  Should I send them with some of your armsmen?"

Stromhaeldnt readily agreed and ordered his legionnaires to go with the two students, then cast his gaze around the splendid entranceway, admiring the patterned tile floor, the bas-reliefs, and the illustrative murals of the ceiling.  Something large struck and shattered on the doors, driving his attention back to their current predicament.

"This is the first time that I've been in the Library, Scholar Lhyrchoos," he admitted.  "Is there a place where I can see out on the plaza?"

Lhyrchoos tucked back one corner of his mouth in a thoughtful manner.  "There are no ground floor windows, but there is a catwalk that the attendants use to clean the chamber dome windows.  I have never been up there, so I am not sure that you can see anything but the roof of the portico from that vantage, but we can give it a try.  Philosophy would have the best angle, I would think.  If you would follow me?"

Lhyrchoos led Stromhaeldnt through the entranceway, took a right in the main hall and then turned right again into a gargantuan domed chamber filled with what must have been literally thousands of books on dozens and dozens of large shelves.  The scholar cut straight across, dodging efficiently around tables and down aisles to the outside wall.  The lower manheight of the wall was covered in a series of blue one armlength by two wooden panels that were trimmed with half-round molding forming a complex geometrical shape. From a pillar faced in polished cream marble, Lhyrchoos counted left to the sixth panel and then pressed hard on the left of it.

Stromhaeldnt hear a spring catch release and the panel bounced open to present a dim shaft filled with an ironwork spiral staircase.

"I have seen the bondsmen go in and out this a hundred times," Lhyrchoos explained.  "I have been tempted once or twice to pop up for a look but have never summoned sufficient bravado to do so."

It was a full three storeys up the clanking steps to the catwalk and the scholar, became winded by the time they reached it.

"I have never been enthused much by athletics," Lhyrchoos confessed, huffing as he dropped to sit on the protruding base course of the low brick wall that supported the windows.  "I must take a rest."

"That's fine. Wait here and I'll take a look."

The catwalk was simply an unguarded ledge about two paces wide that circled the chamber.  Leery of the drop, Stromhaeldnt stayed close to the windows and kept his eyes on his footing as he moved around the ledge clockwise.

Off duty for the festival, but wanting to just relax, he had been taking his ease in his temporary quarters in the Blue Fortress and had just begun the tedious process of composing a letter to his wife when a messenger had arrived with orders for him to take a file of his section to the Plaza of the Empire and there provide assistance to the Viceroy's Guard.  Feeling put upon and grumbling about the short notice, he had nevertheless acknowledged the order, donned his gear, and gone around to the barracks to see how many, if any, of his men could be rounded up.  He had found Pedgel and the other seven, but all the rest had gone off to try out the taverns and other diversions in the Lower City.

Upon arrival in the plaza, one of the Mhajhkaeirii officers, who had been surprised but pleased by the appearance of the legionnaires, had given Stromhaeldnt charge of the Library.  At first, there had been nothing to do and Stromhaeldnt and his men had simply watched from the high ground of the portico as the crowds began to pile in.  After the plaza was full, though, a number of people tried to encroach upon the portico platform and the nine of them had been kept busy politely discouraging festively dressed citizens from trying to set up their lunch beneath the shade.

Thus occupied, he had not seen the incident that sparked the riot, but the turmoil had exploded so suddenly that he had to believe that some offence against the Forty-Nine had occurred.  In the pre-Emperor Imperial Army, it had been an item of doctrine that the denizens of the Lower City would riot over the most insignificant of grievances, such as a misspelled syllable in the name of the Lord of the Obscure, Ply'nhor'chou'rhast'kif'slptitu, which had actually happened once, according to a legendary rumor.

When he reached the southernmost point on the circular catwalk, he found that he could indeed view the majority of the plaza through the slightly smudged panes.

The vast crowds had disbursed, but as many as several thousand rioters remained.  Some were beginning to stream from the Plaza into the surrounding streets, no doubt bent on looting and arson.  There were no fires visible yet, but rioters always found materials to make torches to throw into some patriarch's villa.  The main temples looked to be occupied and defended by their respective partisan followers and had thus far suffered no damage.  In the southern part of the plaza, a number of large brawls had broken out as groups tried to defend or assault a particular shine or holy place.

Nothing could be seen of the several hundred guardsmen that had been policing the Plaza or of any organized effort to suppress the disturbance.  Apparently, the civil guards had been swept away, retreated, or found sanctuary in the temples.

Satisfied that he had seen all that there was to see at the moment, he made his way back around to Lhyrchoos.

"How does it look?" the scholar asked as he approached.

"None better," Stromhaeldnt told him.  "It might be some time before we're able to leave.  I'm going down to check on my men.  Will you need any assistance to descend?"

Lhyrchoos stood up.  "No, I have recovered, thank you.  I do think that I will tarry a bit, if you have no objection.  I have always wanted to have a look out these windows, so many times have I gazed up at them, so I feel I must take advantage of my opportunity while I am here."

Stromhaeldnt found the ceannaire and the legionnaires standing in a loose group at the intersection of the entranceway and the main hall.  They had been chatting, but quieted when he arrived.

"Both doors already locked and barred, sir," Pedgel reported.  "One was at the rear of the building and one was in the second level underground.  Must be tunnels down there, but we didn't open it to see."

"Excellent."

"So, sir, what's the plan?"

Stromhaeldnt shrugged.  Inside the stout walls of the Library might be the safest place for him and his tiny command. Venturing out, for whatever purpose, struck him as a bad idea all the way around.

"The last order that I received was to protect the Library.  So that's what we'll do.  Until relieved by competent authority, we hold here.  I certainly don't want to go out into the chaos."

"Then, we might better check around and see if we can find any water or food, sir."

"Good idea, Pedgel.  We could be here for a while."

TWENTY-NINE

143rd Year of the Reign of the City

(Thirdday, Waning, 3rd Springmoon, 1645 After the Fall of the Empire)

Khalar

Today, the Avenue of the Exalted Emperors was all but deserted.  The area from the Plaza of the Empire up to the Viceroy's palace was mainly residential in nature, and the avenue was lined with the townhouses of the affluent and the villas of the rich. Many of the gates of the villas and the doors of the well appointed homes were decorated with flowers and bright ribbon in celebration of the festival, but, like the bulk of the residents of the Old City, the factors, merchants, and bureaucrats who lived hereabout would not be making the short pilgrimage to the holy places.  They would prudently celebrate Summer Advent behind closed doors and leave the temples of the Plaza of the Empire to the raucous throngs of parading faithful that would cross the river from the Lower City. 

The distance from the Viceroy's Palace to the plaza was less than a league and Purhlea had chosen to walk, rather than use the skyship launch that was permanently tasked to his use.  He had no intention of staying at the celebrations long, but as Viceroy of Khalar, his appearance was obligatory.

"I am glad to get the exercise," he told Legate Khraake as they strode along the vacant central promenade.  "I spend way too much time fighting with paperwork instead of practicing with my sword.  What Khalar needs is an administrator, not a field commander.  I am going to send another request to the Emperor to replace me."

"What number would that be, my lord?" Khraake asked, half-smiling.

A tall, rush-haired native Khalarii who had joined the Guard after the Emperor's coronation, Khraake was, like Purhlea and the four guardsmen that accompanied them, dressed in the traditional Khalarii Summer Advent festival attire of raw wool trousers, white cotton shirt, rawhide sandals, and flower garlands. 

Purhlea had selected the members of his own guard detail based upon proven intelligence, demonstrated circumspection, martial ability, and submission to the king through the Blood Oath.  Early on, Khraake had shown a strong propensity for leadership and had been promoted accordingly.