Waking Olympus (The Singers of the Dark Book 1) (16 page)

Translation: he was not going to get an answer.

“I first started reading the Records when I was ten. After some time I fancied I was even able to understand their ways and a little of their thoughts. You are like them you know. Very much like them. But you have forgotten. We Traders remember, but you Wizards keep the spirit alive, so they say. I was fascinated by you when we met."

She was fidgeting, nervous. "Did you know that? I had met Wizards before, but you are very different. Very. And then on the road — I …”

They had both drunk too much, or not enough, caught in between. They were both feeling open, they both needed to be open. The trouble was he didn’t know if this was a good or a bad decision.

She turned back to Mikel and leaned towards him. Big blue eyes looking, unflinching into his. He could smell the spices on her warm breath and see the pores in her perfect skin. She ducked to his right and gave him a peck on the cheek and retreated. He still held her eyes with his and moved in before he knew what he was doing and delicately kissed her on the lips. It was as if he had been jabbed by a drugged dart. His blood was on fire and he could barely concentrate. The pupils in Tei’s eyes were wide, focused, wide as his probably were. She grabbed his right arm and dragged him down the corridor and into her room.

Later he lay half numb from the good food and the exhaustion of loving sex. The candle on his side of the bed was still lit. He looked over at Tei, her skin so pale compared to his brown, except for her face, tanned by the desert. Delicately, he ran his fingers down her back, over the occasional scar, the tips of his fingers just brushing the fine hairs of her skin. She stretched as if her body understood the message of pure tenderness even if her mind did not. He blew out the candle, the dull blue glow from outside told him that morning was almost here.
 

Tomorrow, or today, was a big day and he’d need the sleep. He yawned and turned over.

They spent an extra two days in Sanfran while Tei and the Queen started the negotiations towards a treaty between the City and the Traders. Tei was very pleased as they left the city.

It was their third day when they were back on the Plains that Tei finally started talking about what the negotiations meant.

“Do you understand Mikel what it will mean if the negotiations are successful? For the first time the centers of knowledge and one of the Cities, a food producer, will be united. Travel will be safer. We could rebuild the roads and use wagons instead of less efficient camels and horses. Irrigate the eastern Plains again. We could consider great journeys of exploration.” She was obviously excited.

“Tei, I’m only an Apprentice of the Center, I don’t really have the authority to …”

“Mikel! Think what you are saying. You are far from the Center. I know you Wizards have great autonomy and sometimes do great things. You aren’t a child anymore.” She gave him a wry smile. “For which I am grateful.”

None of that argument made sense to him, but if the world was going a bit crazy then this strategy made some sense because it was about surviving. He also didn’t understand this odd notion that somehow an act of sex made you a mature human being. In Lind sex was moderated by traditions but it wasn’t shunned. It was just a part of growing up, and learning not just about precautions but also how to treat people respectfully.

Mikel wondered if his current predicament was quite the situation the Center had in mind when they sent him. Well, he would just have to make a decision. Whatever he did now was a ‘decision’, even indecision, so he might as well take the most promising course.

They were at last heading south east into drier lands. The intention was to leave the Plains without delay. There had been some trading with the farming communities north of Sanfran, however the bulk of the remaining load would be going to the East.

Mikel was fourth in line so he had a good view of the lead
file
. He noticed that it had stopped. He couldn’t see any farms nearby and Tei was coming back along the line towards him.
 

She rode up. “A Lindin patrol by the looks. Keep calm but be ready, these guys can be arrogant and a little foolish.” She reached down into a saddle bag and brought out a half sized crossbow with a clever lever to cock it. She quickly cocked it and loaded it with a bolt that seemed to click into place. This looked like the same one she had on her hip when he first met her. It would clearly not have much range but that wasn’t important. She hid the crossbow under a leather flap then wheeled and returned to the growing knot of people. Low voices, maybe a half a dozen.

He was close now and could hear the conversation.

A soldier said, “I don’t care. Why didn’t you stop at the Lindin Customs Office?”

Tei’s voice, “There is no requirement for passing caravans to stop in Lindin if they are not trading with the City. You are also far beyond Lindin’s borders, this is the territory of Sanfran.”

“Ah, a Trader lawyer. I didn’t know you scum could even read. Look …”

Here it comes thought Mikel. He could hear the growing aggression in the soldier’s voice. He was drunk on his sense of power over the powerless and some easy pickings. It was so familiar, he knew what was going to happen next. His heart was pounding.

Mikel was quite close now, about eight meters. He had slowly slipped out a leather strap in one hand and some small heavy stones in the other in case his, clearly biased, opinion of Bethor forces was borne out.

“You do as we say. You hand over half your caravan now or we leave you as fertilizer for the grass and take it all.” He started to draw his sword.

The drawn sword was the patrol’s undoing. Mikel heard a ‘thwak’ and the soldier toppled slowly backward off his horse with the end of a crossbow bolt protruding from his left eye. The rest of the patrol was momentarily fazed, there were seven of them, he loaded a pebble into his sling, swung it, and let go. Another soldier fell. There were more ‘thwaks’ at point blank range. Three soldiers remained, they turned their horses to flee.

Tei yelled, “Get them! Don’t let them escape!”

Mikel let loose another pebble, it glanced off the side of one soldier’s head stunning him. Tei caught up to him and there was a quick glint of metal as she slashed and he fell from the horse. She continued after the others with three other Traders in pursuit with crossbows re-cocked. There was a cloud of dust but in the distance he saw two riders fall in quick succession. And it was over. He felt like it had gone on for ages but he knew it was all over in about 20 seconds. His heart was still pounding. His hands were jittery. His mind worked furiously looking for something to latch onto to distract him. He had to ask Tei about the crossbows, he couldn’t believe how quickly they had been reset or how the bolt could be held in place yet free to fire.

He got down to see if there were any injured. There was more blood on the ground than he expected and his heart was thumping harder with a delayed recognition of how close to death he had been. Some of the soldiers were not much older than him and now they would be hidden in the long brown grass and forgotten. They would never return to family and friends. Lost on patrol.

They examined the bodies and checked for anything useful. He was surprised that the soldier’s armor was merely leather.

He looked at the dead, then at Tei. "They only have leather armor. Why?" He was breathing heavily.

She looked him in the eyes and said. "Easy there, I know, it is a waste. That is the just the way things are. As for their armor, the Cities hate us so much they would rather reject us and forego the extra metal. They have barely enough for weapons, much less armor, and I wouldn't be surprised if they had lost some of their skills in metals as well. Their weapons are terrible."

This was why the Traders were a game changer for Sanfran. Tei had told him once that the Cities would fall within a century but she wouldn’t say who the aggressor would be. Mikel was pretty sure the Traders could do it themselves if they put their mind to it. He wondered in fact if Tei had revealed a long term Trader strategy. No way to know.

They buried the bodies in shallow graves amid the long grass, then released the patrol’s horses.

Tei and Mikel walked together to their horses ready to continue their journey. He cleaned the blood from his hands on the dried grass, obsessed in removing every trace.

“You surprise me Mikel,” she said. “You're a marksman.”

“When I was learning the physics of rotating objects we played with slings. I got very good. But I broke the law.” It was a painful memory somehow magnified now.

“I don't understand.”

“I killed some birds with it. But not for food. I broke the Law of Respect for Life.”

“Yet you helped kill two of these soldiers. No, you didn’t kill any of them directly but we made sure. Yet you played your part.”

“The soldiers were a direct threat. The birds were merely sharing my day,” he said. He meant it sincerely, it was a part of his training and being.

They proceeded quickly after the incident and rapidly started to leave the Plains behind. Within two days the vegetation had changed from the drying grasslands, Tei called it ‘savannah’, to the semi-arid; the grass was short, dry, and patchy gradually replaced by dry shrubs with reddish dirt between. The meandering creeks that made the Plains so lush were gone completely. Tei said those creeks were from the mountains to the north, and that the Euphray came from a valley beyond them. Mikel had never even heard stories of such a valley or lake but he trusted that the Traders knew it from direct experience.

They continued heading towards the Caravanserai of the East. Later that day they started to see other Trader caravans paralleling their track in either direction. Some of those heading west would come close enough for a friendly wave or greeting. All paths converged to the same point a place just barely noticeable in the distance. As they got closer it he could see a brown smudge surrounded by green, with a building in the middle.

The oasis was named Lastchance. Tei explained that originally it meant that this was the last water before the Great Eastern Desert. Back then, the records showed, the desert lay further to the east, and the plains around Sanfran were wetter and more fertile. The oasis was a focus for caravans from the west, south and north. Even from the east across the desert to Tanten and Tan Vu. To get to Tanten the caravans would head east for a given time and then turn north-east traversing the edge of the desert, arriving at a city that at first seemed to be an oasis but was in fact a tongue of fertility on the northern edge of the desert. Mountain streams kept it verdant. Because of the path that the caravans took adversaries did not know of a safe, short route to the city and attempts to find it by crossing the desert became suicidal.

The Caravanserai was a large fortified inn with a large courtyard, where any number of horses and camels could be rested, while the team did the same in rooms overnight. For a price the Traders who ran the inn would protect the animals through the night, stay guard on the walls, and send out occasional scouts to look for possible bandit buildup. If there was an attack on the Caravanserai then it was everyone's duty to do their part in defending it.

The building was in the shape of a square about a hundred meters on a side, like a fort with walls about four meters high. It was made of sun-dried mud bricks, coated over with some kind of plaster with fading decorations on the walls. It had two stories of rooms and a cafeteria, a place where there was some cooked food and highly valued fresh fruit and vegetables from the gardens outside the walls. The gardens were carefully watered and guarded, the plots supplying valuable fruit, vegetables and even flowers. Out here the gardens were worth more than gold or silver.

The courtyard of the building was full of resting animals and guarded trade goods. The most precious items were carried by the owner or kept in a sturdy locked box located in their rooms.

They had stopped in the Caravanserai for a couple of days while Tei did her wheeling and dealing, selling and buying, and arranging for care of her camels and horses. They would be kept in the surrounding fields and carefully tended. The Caravanserai acted as a place for animals as well as humans to recover their strength. It was similar but more permanent than what he saw in Bethor. Eventually, one of Tei’s clan would put together a new caravan using the animals and a selection of trade goods to take west or south.

Mikel was checking and re-evaluating his gear, sitting on a bench in the courtyard; is this ok, is that worn, do I need to replace this, endless small decisions. In the middle distance Rijart and Tarvis were talking, discussing something at length by the look. They wouldn't talk long, it was almost midday and it was very hot standing in the sun like that. He couldn't work out what they were saying and found his attention drifting to the clothes they wore, the similarities. He should try to fit in more, it would be camouflage from prying eyes.

What was distinctive about Traders?

Apart from their desert cloaks, which they rarely wore on the Plains, they were dressed similarly to him; leather armor sometimes partly hidden under loose and light outer fabrics, no fancy colors except for the headgear, some wore turbans, some wore caps, no one went bare headed, like him. The armor was also different to Lind, the patterns and artwork, sometimes the very design of the armor. There was a lot of variety, he likely had not noticed before because his team didn't seem that different to him. Or, had he changed?

When he got to Tanten he would have to buy new gear, change his dress to blend in. Also he suspected that Traders knew a lot more about armor than peaceful Lind.

Above the rooms, on the roof, was an excellent place to look at the surrounding country. It was also part of the defenses for the Caravanserai. In the daytime the heat meant it wasn't a good place to spend too much time but at night the stars were spectacular. Often people would come up stand on the still warm rooftop, briefly immune to the chill of the desert night, gazing upwards. At night Mikel saw Tarvis climbing one of the ladders that led to the roof. He followed along. On the roof a waist high ornate parapet, now crumbling, was the only thing protecting people from accidentally walking off the edge in the dark. Though it wasn't a high drop.