The Pleasure of Memory (60 page)

There were many among his peers who believed there was more to this unbelievable war than met the eye, that the true roots of the incident were driven by forces somewhere outside their sphere of influence, forces with motivations known only to themselves. Unfortunately, no evidence to support that supposition had arisen to date.

At the third gates, the final barricade before the city itself, the passage narrowed to a width of barely a hundred yards. Still, this gate was the largest of the three, towering a thousand feet above the crowd, a blockade so impenetrable that even the darkest agents of the gods would struggle to breech it. It was a formidable wall of granite blocks, iron girders, and wood beams built so thick, the passages through it were virtual tunnels. Hundreds of archers, grenadiers, and cannons were posted in the crenellations above the massive gates and in outcoves carved into the cliff face higher up.

Jhom was surprised to see that, despite the impending war, the place still teamed with civilian activity. Lines of wagons heaped with produce and crates of fowl awaited inspection. Merchants peddled their food and drink to travelers awaiting approval to enter. Shepherds and wranglers drove herds of sheep, cows, and horses into the city proper. Soldiers directed the traffic, yelling and signaling to each other above the cacophony of the crowd.

As Jhom directed his horse toward the smaller military and attaché entrance at the northwestern corner, he passed a soldier arguing with a merchant driving a wagon of cured meats into the city. The soldier wore a tight, skullish metal helmet covered with pocks and dings, and was shirtless, wearing only heavy leather pauldrons on his shoulders and a back full of hair. He was sweating profusely in the heat of the full sun.

Jhom gave the soldier a playful kick in the shoulder leather. “Yo, there, soldier!” he yelled, “Stop harassing that poor farmer. You ought to pick on someone your own size.”

The soldier wheeled on Jhom with his truncheon ready, yelling, “You son of a bitch! Who do you think—”

“Oh, don’t hurt me, sir,” Jhom said as seriously as he could manage, “I’m a hell of a lot more delicate than I look.”

“Jhom!” the soldier said, slapping Jhom’s thigh, “You son of a bitch! How the devil are you?”

“I’m good, Gart. How’s life in the trenches?”

Gart dragged his helmet off and swiped the sweat back from his short gray hair with a hand dressed in a fingerless glove. “How does it look?” he asked, waving his truncheon at the dense crowd, “I’m working mob control. Not exactly the level of adventure I signed on for.”

“Yea, I imagine that’s truth. Thinking I quit the service just in time.”

“Damned right, you did. There’s more excitement in blacksmithing. So, what brings you to town?”

“Need to call in a favor. I’ve got urgent business in the city and no time to wait.” He nodded at the line of civilians mobbing the gates.

“Right. The mage’s sentry.”

Jhom snorted and shook his head. He should have expected that. “Word travels fast,” he said.

“Faster when war’s brewing. We’ve been expecting you.”

Gart looked back toward the gates. He waved his truncheon over the crowd and yelled at a soldier standing on a catwalk immediately above the military door. “Yeph! Yeph! Over here!”

The soldier above the gate quickly found Gart’s flailing arms and signaled back.

Gart cupped his mouth and yelled, “Let this old man pass before he starts crying, will you?”

The other waved back his acknowledgement.

“Thanks, Gart,” Jhom said, leaning forward, and slapping the soldier’s helmet.

Gart’s grin suddenly melted away, replaced by something far more sober. He leaned into Jhom’s horse and said up to him, “We’re all hoping that mage of yours brings better news than our diplomats did.”

“As do I,” Jhom said, “You keep your backside covered, Gart. I don’t like the smell of things. A farmer can plant a knife as deep as a soldier can in a crowd like this.”

Minutes later, he passed through the gate’s tunnel and into Faen Square.

This was the beating heart of Barcuun. The square was an octagonal open space covering nearly twenty-five square miles. The city proper rose up around the square into the encircling mountains like a giant amphitheater, one tier of life after another rolling ever skyward.

Shops and tradesmen, blacksmith and tinkers occupied the ground level tier that fed directly into the square. Governmental offices followed on the next two levels above it. Beyond that, homes stepped skyward on several hundred subsequent terraces. The mountain city stopped only an angel’s breath this side of the clouds. It was the largest and oldest city in the three nations.

Faen Square was a forest of colorful tents and wagons, from the small to the expansive, each bearing the standard of its owner merchant. Tens of thousands of people rushed about, shopping and doing business, or just making passage through the city. The air was thick with the chorus of the crowd and the heady smells of herbs and fruits, sweat and piss.

Jhom pressed forward through the mob at a maddening crawl. The people and carts parted only begrudgingly as he made his way to the rearmost wall of the square where the armed services were housed. Eventually he came to the solid stone wall segregating the military grounds from the civilian. Bored looking soldiers stood guard at the crenellations thirty feet above him, their purpose not so much to guard the wall as to police the crowd below it. A soldier in one of the crenellations called out to him, and then waved him through a narrow gate. Jhom had no idea who the man was, but that was usually the case. He was well known in the circles of the military here in his home city. It wasn’t a blessing.

The world on the military side of the wall wasn’t so much different from the civilian side. More orderly, mayhaps. Less colorful, definitely. He passed long rows of precisely placed tents in the drab, military shades of brown, gray, and dirty green. Scores of soldiers milled around the tents, putting pots atop fires, cleaning utensils and arms, and striking or setting camp depending on that particular company. The activity was hurried, but disciplined, the normally dull routines now charged with the excitement of impending war.

Nearly an hour later, he approached the offices of the Gran’ghanters, the Baeldonian military’s warlords. A long line of structures grew out from the mountain city at ground level. These wooden facades were extensions of the catacomb of stone rooms within, rooms that burrowed deep into the mountain. A red banner with a golden star rising behind a standing blue fist waved from a tall pole before these rooms. Gathered beneath the flag was a boiling mob of soldiers. If pressed to guess, he’d have counted the crowd at no less than five hundred grunts, runners, armsmen, gunners, cavalry soldiers, and marines.

He’d only just reached the rear of the mob when someone yelled out, “He’s here!”

Heads and pointing fingers rolled toward him in a wave. Hands without faces hailed from the crowd. A short soldier in sloppy fitting field armor seized the bridle of his mount. The crowd swelled in around them like a tide of flesh. Farnot, his warhorse, snorted and pulled back, startled by the sudden change in the motion of the crowd.

Jhom quickly climbed down and rubbed reassuringly at her neck as he cooed her into calm. He handed her off to the short soldier, instructing him over the crowd, “See she’s brushed down and fed!”

The soldier acknowledged him with a sloppy salute. Jhom watched in silence as a tide of faces and petting hands swallowed his horse.

“What nature of trouble’s been brought to our house in your name this time?” a deep voice bellowed behind him,

Jhom turned toward the voice. A Baeldon with a heavy beard and a head full of long blonde, maniacally twisting hair moved confidently toward him through the yielding mob. A half head shorter than Jhom, he wore a full suit of steel, battlefield-grade platemail that clacked ceremoniously as he marched closer. A pair of life-sized silver hands curled up over his shoulders exactly as if someone were grabbing him from behind. These were the epaulets of Gran’ghanter, the position of highest command in His Majesty’s army.

“Ghant’r Jhom Fenta,” the man said as he stopped before him.

“You can drop the rank, Bender,” Jhom said, offering his hand, “It’s just
Master
Jhom Fenta to you now, yea?”

The blonde soldier scowled at the proffered hand, but made no attempt to take it. “Still firm on your denouncement of rank, eh Jhom?”

“Still firm, Bender. However, you’d be more than welcome to purchase my services, if it pleases.”

“Am I, now?” Bender said, “Well, what’s the harm? You’ll probably work for the grub and shelter.”

He finally accepted the hand. Metal clinked sharply as Jhom’s brass wristguard struck the Gran’ghanter’s armored forearm.

“Let’s get on with it,” Jhom said. He wasn’t in the mood to parley.

Bender cupped the back of Jhom’s neck and roughly pulled him closer. “Word has it they’ll offer you a post as Fen’ghanter if you reinstate. Not bad, eh?”

Jhom removed the hand from his neck and pushed Bender out to arm’s length. “Bender,” he said firmly, “Even a dog stops humping your leg if it’s kicked enough. When you going to stop asking? I’ve had a belly full of the military these past forty-five years and you goddamned well know it.”

“Well, I have to try, don’t I?”

“Do you?” Jhom said as he scouted the crowd, “Forget it. Let’s stop stoking the fire and start hammering the iron. Where’s the sentry?”

“You always take the short way around the bar, don’t you?” Bender said, scowling sincerely, “Never met a soul so averse to enjoying a moment. All right then, Jhom. The cursed thing’s over here.”

Bender ushered Jhom forward as his aides pushed a path through the mob. “I don’t know what tricks that mage friend of yours is up to,” he said over the discord of the crowd, “But there’s little room for his humor around here, not with the Parhronii coming at us.”

They stopped before a coarse brown hemp tent with the traditional pointed peak of a battlefield courier’s lodge. It was only barely cordoned off from the crowd. Despite the effort of Bender’s soldiers and their flimsy rope, the mob pushed in around it like a flood courting a dam. The soldiers shoved a passage forward through the crowd without the inefficiency of courtesy.

Jhom stopped just shy of the flap. It was pulled closed and cinched tight as an omen. He wasn’t sure he wanted to go in. He had a feeling the message waiting on the other side of that canvas was going to deliver them a new set of goals.

“Bastard gargoyle landed right in the middle of the road,” Bender said, “Damned thing wouldn’t budge. Had to drape a tent around it to keep the excitement down. Might be your mage friend doesn’t know you’ve ended your tenure with us, eh?”

“Chance wouldn’t send the sentry without good cause,” Jhom said, “And you damned well know it. He’s no fool.”

“Funny, that’s exactly what His Majesty said just this morning. I didn’t agree with him either.”

Jhom ignored the remark.

“He won’t be too popular in these circles if he tries to stick his nose in the war,” Bender pressed.

“Enough already!” Jhom said, slapping the tent flap, “For the love of Calina, let’s just see what the damned thing has to say. You can throw a tantrum afterward.”

An aide-de-camp moved ahead of them and began efficiently unlacing the flap.

“Take a look at these faces,” Bender said, nodding at the crowd pressing in on the insubstantial rope barrier, “There’s plenty of Baeldons who still hold him in low regard for his stand on the savages. He never should’ve argued the Allied Council in favor of loosening restrictions on the animals. So if he’s come to parley for peace with Parhron, he’s not going to find a lot of friends in his corner.”

Jhom had heard enough. As the aide pulled open the tent flap, he pushed past Bender and ducked inside.

The room was dark, lit only vaguely by the ominous blue glow of the heavy beast’s great eyes.

“Damned thing’s been as obstinate as the mage who sent it,” Bender said behind him, “Says it speaks for your ears only. Apparently, your friend isn’t familiar with the concept of ‘chain of command’.”

Jhom slapped the sentry’s wide brow. The creature was an impressive piece of work. Even squatting, it was as tall as he was, and that didn’t count the wings.

“Sentry,” he said carefully, “You have a message for me?”

The blue light in the huge orbs intensified until the room was flooded with it. The mantis-like head blurred as it rose toward Jhom. “I bring you a message from Lord Chance Gnoman, sir.”

Bender snorted derisively, “So, it’s
Lord
Chance now, is it?”

Jhom ignored him. “Sentry, I am Jhom’ne Fenta. Give me Chance’s message.”

The blue light in the beast’s eyes swelled even brighter, and then washed across the wide, flat face like water overflowing a bowl. The light was thick, nearly tangible. It swirled through the stone like indigo stirred into gray paint until an image slowly evolved. In a matter of seconds, it formed a face in the matrix of the rock. It appeared like a swimmer looking up at him from just beneath the surface of the water. Though hazy and distorted, the face looking out from the stone between the great eyes was undeniably Chance.

"War is imminent from Prae and the Vaemyn to the south,” the blurred face said in Chance’s familiar voice, “They’ve invaded the southern perimeter of Na te’Yed. Immediate military intervention is imperative. We’re in the tunnels beneath the Swamp of Voices, but the tunnels are flooded at Sanctuary North. We’ll retreat to the southern fork and begin heading eastward again from there. I’m leaving this sentry at your disposal with instructions to answer to you only. I expect an energy level of one month’s active use.”

The face then submerged back into the stone, the blue light washed away, and the creature melded once more into a solid state. The room faded to shadows.

The aides standing behind them began whispering excitedly, but Bender silenced them with a look. “What is that supposed to mean?” he asked Jhom, “And what does he mean by we?
We
are in the tunnels. Who’re we?”