Academy of outcasts, p.9
Academy of Outcasts, page 9
Once I found the associates board, I waited nearby. There was already a great and anxious crowd formed around it. There were many notices posted on the board, though it appeared hardly any of the laborers could read them. The literate few held the advantage, as they could read which merchant companies were actively hiring more help, and then run off to find them. But there were a few who could read among the workers, who read the notices aloud for the others’ benefit. Those made a good profit for doing so, as those they helped find work promised them a cut of their day’s earnings. I could probably have earned a bit of money reading to the rest of them, but I certainly wasn’t going to draw any attention to myself at the hour of my escape.
When Trader Bart walked up to the board, he looked around until he spotted me, before shouting, “I need two strong backs for Fendral Company. Twenty scrip for a full day’s labor.” A bunch of hands went up, mine included. He pointed at me and the senior man next to me. “You two will do.”
It was lucky Bart picked the only one who knew I was new here. Last thing I needed was someone whining about a new guy cutting ahead in line, drawing the others’ attention to what I looked like. Not that it was likely anyone would remember my face enough to match it to the description of some dead trapper. The paths of us cadre folk and the Fort Silver residents rarely crossed. It was doubtful my death on the outskirts of town would be newsworthy enough for the comfortable people of the Fort to even hear about it. To them, only fools went outside the protective barriers of their permanent magic.
Grabbing my pack, I ran after Bart. The junior trader was playing it calm and did a good job pretending to not know me. “Alright, Mister Fendral needs you two on one of our wagons. Do either of you know how to drive a team of trogs?”
“I do, trader.” And it was fortunate for me the senior man did, because we had no space for beasts of burden on a barge, so I’d never worked with any animals.
“Good. You’ll unload our Red on the other side once we find a buyer, then you’ll be loading a shipment of tools to bring back, which you will deliver to the Fendral warehouse on Walcher Street. Understood?”
“Yes, trader,” we both said at the same time.
Bart led us to a big, six-wheeled wagon, which had two trogs hitched in front. Squat and toad-like, the trogs thick skin was constantly slick with a mucus they secreted, which helped regulate their temperature. The gigantic creatures were not native to Fogo but were one of the only animals which were able to survive here. In my limited experience, trogs were foul smelling and foul tempered, but they were strong and available.
“Check the cargo. Make sure everything’s secure. And if there’s so much as a scratch on a Fendral crate, it’s coming out of your scrip.” Bart waited for the other worker to get started on the ropes, before catching my eye and giving me a nervous wink, as if we were grand conspirators in some sweeping plot. I nodded respectfully in return, because I just needed him to get me through the gate and then keep his mouth shut.
Fendral Company must have been of middling importance, because there were dozens of other carts and wagons waiting in line ahead of us.
“Looks like we’ll be working together. I’m Cole. What’s your name, kid?”
I said the first name that came to mind, “Tom.”
“It’s your lucky day, getting a job your first time at the board.”
The other laborer kept on trying to make casual conversation, but I mostly ignored him. I wasn’t being rude, just too nervous to talk. He probably thought my anxious state was due to crossing the gate for the first time. Sure, stepping into an entirely new world was part of it, but I was busy counting Argent enforcers and trying to guess which wagons they’d be sticking closer to. If I got caught trying to run, they’d probably stick another fifty years on my contract, send me straight to debtor’s prison, or maybe even kill me on the spot. Stealing was a serious crime, and skipping out on your contract was a theft of the Argent’s time.
“You’re gonna want to watch this,” Cole warned me. “There ain’t nothing else like it.”
As dawn approached, the gate awoke.
With our skies perpetually choked with smoke, it was rare for anyone in Fogo to actually see the sun. We could tell it was there by the beams that snuck through. As the first light crept over the walls of Castle Argent and touched the base of the arch, something changed. I couldn’t see anything yet, but could sense it building in the air. There was an energy that made the hairs on my neck stand up, like when I was about to bind Red to metal, only a hundred times stronger.
“You feel that?” I asked.
“Feel what?”
“Never mind.” It went unsaid, but my sensing the gate’s magic was probably a result of having achieved the first rank of wizardry. If I’d not learned to enchant objects, I wouldn’t know what I was feeling. This was like that, but ten thousand times stronger.
Cole pointed at the right bottom of the arch. “See there? Right now we can see through to the other side, and it’s nothing but the Argent’s field, but there’s a little bit of the other side appearing on the edge now.”
Sure enough, visible through the arch was nothing but dark, flat ground, then gradually, a white line began to move. Behind that line was a sliver of somewhere else. That had to be the Core.
It was like our world was painted on a curtain, and that curtain was being pulled back. As the glowing border slowly moved, the view into the next world increased. As the Argent field shrank, the other side was so bright, I had to squint. Our world was mostly black and red. The Core appeared to be white and illuminated in golden yellow light.
There was someone waiting on the other side. He was dressed in a fancy uniform that screamed ceremony. His clothing was as militant as that worn by our enforcers, just less practical, and in different, much brighter colors, and with far more decorations. When he looked through and saw Fogo and all the waiting merchants, he shouted some greeting which I could barely hear, but the way he pronounced it sounded memorized and formal. Then he lifted a curled horn to his lips and blew. The instrument produced a noise so loud it had to be augmented by magic.
“Who’s that?”
“The Core warden. I think his job is to be the first one to look through the Great Machine’s connection each morning, and we’re not allowed to cross until he gives permission.”
From reading about the closing and barring of the seventh gate in the Encyclopedia Ettymus, I knew how that tradition had gotten started. “He’s checking to make sure there’s not a terrible evil waiting on the other side to invade the Core.”
“Huh… that happen often?”
“Just once before, a long time ago.”
“Oh. Didn’t know that. Anyways, I know the warden looks silly in that outfit, with all the golden ropes and jewelry and whatnot, but we’ve all been warned that office is always held by a deadly wizard, so we’re never to mess with him. If he says jump, you jump. My grandpa told me that he once saw a merchant lip off to a warden, and the warden turned the merchant into a snake! Poof. Right there on the spot.”
As soon as the gap between worlds was wide enough, the first of our merchants walked through. Even though I’d known that was inevitable, my mouth still fell open at the sight.
“The Great Machine turns the same speed all day. See that line? It’ll just keep moving left, inch by inch. By lunchtime, it’s all the way full, the whole gate is open to traffic, and there’ll be wagons passing through nonstop. From then on, the opening starts to shrink, and on the right, it’ll be Fogo again. At sunset, the gate’s all the way closed and will stay that way for a month. I’ve seen this a hundred times and it never gets old.”
Ropes creaked as all the trogs began to stir and grunt. They’d been doing this once a month for their entire lives. This wasn’t magical to them. It was just what they were expected to do. The carts which were powered by air magic slowly rose as their merchants activated them. Those would be carrying tons of Red, yet could be pushed about by one man’s hand.
More merchants walked through the widening gap. And then the gate was big enough for the first cart to glide through.
Standing alongside our wagon, I tried to hide my hands, so nobody would notice them shaking.
The line began to move.
Twelve
We were getting closer to the gate.
As soon as the connection was wide enough for multiple people to get through simultaneously, merchants from the Core started coming out our side. It was one thing to read about other kingdoms, but it was something else entirely to see their people in the flesh. The first cart to float through was manned by humans—like most of us Fogo folk were—but their skin was dark, even darker than Gaul Haddar’s, and their clothing was wildly different than what I was used to, with pants of shiny silk and flamboyant capes made out of the skin of some spotted animal. Their cart flew a yellow flag and was filled with vegetables I didn’t even recognize.
The next company through was made up of dwarves, short, thick, and hairy, who bellowed hearty greetings at the merchants they recognized on our side. Their wagon was being pulled by horned animals I’d seen poor drawings of but didn’t know what they were actually called. Gilda had insisted they were unicorns. Robbie had called them rhinoceros. And then the two had argued over the supposed differences. These were thickset as the dwarves, so probably rhinoceros.
The laborers waiting around the associates board cheered when they saw the contents of the dwarf wagon consisted of kegs of beer. That would surely be a quick sale to one of the local traders.
There were Fogo merchants returning home after spending a month in the Core procuring special goods. Their carts were filled with rare and specific items which we needed from the other planes. Priests of the various Core churches made their way, probably coming here to do missionary work. Various functionaries and officials did whatever it was governments actually did. I had no idea what use they served.
Company after company crossed over, each one wildly different from the last. They flew many different flags, representing their home kingdoms. As the wagons went through, some found a spot and set up shop in the Argent’s field, so our Fogo traders could buy their wares. Others, their deals had already been arranged in advance, so they headed straight to their destination warehouse in Fort Silver to make their deliveries. Those who needed laborers or guides hired from the men waiting at the associates board. It was risky to hold out for a job from an outsider employer, as there might not be work to be had at all, but the Core folk paid in real coins far more valuable than Argent company scrip.
It was a remarkably efficient system, and the inner keep was rapidly filling with sellers.
A group of adventurers sauntered through the gate like they owned the place. I knew their type well, because as a trapper, I’d earned some extra money guiding people like this to their destinations. There weren’t very many fixed points of geography in Fogo, but some of those ruins were believed to hold great treasures. Unfortunately, they also held incredible dangers. Adventuring struck me as an incredibly stupid way to make your living, because I’d guided a couple parties to their destinations, but never had to guide any out!
There were only a few wagons left ahead of us. Beyond them was an incredible view of a vibrant market that stretched for miles, filled with more people than all of Fogo’s barge cadres and the population of Fort Silver put together. The sky over their heads was blue. Actual blue. And there were clouds, fluffy and white.
I’d been so enraptured by the view I’d not heard the enforcer walk up to me. “Stop your wagon.” I flinched when I saw who was speaking, but he didn’t seem to care. Men who got paid to inflict violence upon others probably got that sort of reaction a lot.
“Pardon me, enforcer?” I tried to play dumb while I decided if I needed to make a break for it or not. My first panicked thought had been that Jemmy ratted me out for a reward, but the enforcer looked too bored for it to be that. “What was that?”
“Are you deaf? I said stop the wagon. Leave a space.”
“What for?” Cole asked as he pulled on the trogs’ reigns. “Who’s cutting in line?”
“Make way for the ambassador. Diplomatic mission takes priority over merchants.” He jerked his thumb back toward a small group of people walking toward us. “Argent business.”
One of our trogs hissed at the enforcer, upset that its routine had been interrupted because it took a lot more effort to get a wagon started than it did to keep it slowly rolling. Cole thumped that trog over the head with a rope and it stopped.
The diplomatic mission turned out to be several loud young men wearing Argent colors and their handful of obvious bodyguards. The one in the lead was a big, handsome, swaggering fellow, and he was telling his friends a boisterous story involving lusty elf girls, which was so obviously exaggerated—if not entirely fabricated—that even I could tell it was trogshit, and I only caught about thirty seconds of the tale as they wandered by. The nobles were followed by a few servants carrying luggage. They weren’t going to a negotiation. They were going on a holiday.
I kept my head down while they were close, because while the nobles were paying us no mind, their bodyguards appeared keen, like the sorts who might remember a suspicious face. Junior Trader Bart walked by to check on why we’d been stopped. When we made eye contact, he looked very nervous. I just shook my head, as if to say it was no big deal. Thankfully, Bart kept walking.
“That’s our ambassador?” Cole asked the enforcer once they were past.
“That’s the baron’s middle son, Dardick, and ambassador is his title, so best watch your tone. He’s got important business to attend to in the Core every month.” The way the enforcer said that made it obvious how little he believed it himself.
“Aye. Pretty girls and fine liquor is serious business,” Cole agreed.
The enforcer laughed. “Carry on.”
Cole thumped the trogs, and they grudgingly began to pull. I climbed aboard our wagon. The back was filled with casks of refined Red, representing thousands of hours worth of some miners’ efforts. In a few minutes, we’d be in the Core, and our trader would try to sell this for as much as they could. The more they got for it, the bigger some barge’s reward would be, and theoretically at least, their cadre would be that much closer to buying their freedom.
“This is important work you do,” I told Cole with sincerity.
“You say so, Tom.” He started putting a sweater on. “Best bundle up.”
The gate was so close now, the chill coming off it prickled my skin. I hurried and got my new coat out of the pack, careful not to dump Gax’s handgun on the ground, because that would certainly draw an enforcer’s attention. The new clothing was so thick, I immediately began to sweat and found myself wishing I was wearing my charms.
The diplomats went over. We were next.
You’d think there’d be something more to it, crossing from one realm into another in the blink of an eye, but this was more like walking into a cold, bright tunnel than anything else. I didn’t know how far the Core was from Fogo. Thousands of miles? Millions? But to the Great Machine such distances simply didn’t exist. For one day a month we were practically neighbors.
The cold was like walking into a wall. “Fuck me!”
“Welcome to the Core City. I hear you get used to it, and those who stay for business between trading days claim they do at least, but I’ve never been here long enough myself for it to stop feeling bloody awful!”
It was so cold my teeth hurt, but the market was stunning. The sun was so bright that I couldn’t see where it actually ended, it all just turned into an endless colorful blur. I spun around to look back the way we’d come, and sure enough, there was good old Fogo. Then I looked up, to see that on this side, the gate wasn’t an arc of lava frozen in place, but a grey stone structure, every inch of which was carved with beautiful images.
I looked up even farther to realize the grey stone gate was being held aloft by two gigantic statues, probably a hundred feet tall each, of a powerfully built man and beautiful woman, both in what I thought must be wizards’ robes, only they had wings of carved fire sprouting from their backs, and their hair had been carved to appear as if it was on fire. It was difficult to tell, since it was so high above me. Even farther up, past the statue’s heads, was the Great Machine.
“Sweet merciful Saints. That’s…”
“Impressive, ain’t it?”
It was the biggest thing I’d ever seen. Far taller than the Argent’s castle, it was a mountain of metal, complicated as the inside of a clock, with pipes, and girders, and I could even make out tiny figures of people up there working on it.
Even more impressive, that entire mountain was slowly rotating.
The encyclopedia had told me of how at the base of the eternally moving pyramid was the Nexus, which was the magical effect we’d just crossed through. It took exactly seven days and nights for the Great Machine to make a complete circle. During the daylight hours, it was aligned with one of the seven realm gates. I looked excitedly in both directions to get a glimpse of the other gates, but from this angle, they weren’t visible. The metal mountain was simply too big to see around.
Then I looked past the pointed top of the Great Machine, and realized that reading about floating cities does them no justice, because actually seeing one in real life takes your breath away. There were buildings up there, palaces perched atop islands of jagged stone like impossible islands in the sky.
