Empty Places Page 2

  Timon continued to look out toward Wylandia or up at the stars, Jayn couldn’t quite tell which. After a moment or two Timon spoke again, but he wasn’t talking about missions or proof or anything of the sort. “I love places like this, Jayn. We’ll be gone in a moment or two and it will be as it was. Wylandia goes to war in a generation or doesn’t. Morushe becomes one kingdom with Borasur, or doesn’t. Large events to us but to these mountains? Nothing. That’s what I love about the empty places of the world; places with few people and little to see save earth, sky, mountains and cold, cold stars. They help me keep matters in perspective.”

  Jayn didn’t say anything for a moment, since he didn’t have any idea what Timon was talking about. He kept his attention on what, as he saw it, was the matter at hand. “If I’m dreaming, how do I know that any of this is real? Your presence, what I’m seeing now, all could be just the workings of my fevered mind?”

  “You’re a stubborn one, Jayn.”

  Jayn met Timon’s gaze evenly. “I’m a hard man, wizard. I have to be. You are generous with your gold but you could take that away from me. I can’t trust you, as I said. How can there be any certainty of any kind between us?”

  Timon nodded. “A fair question. Which I presume would be answered if demonstrate that you’re not going to take me by surprise? That is the case, I’m afraid. My precautions are such that I’ll know your intent before you do.”

  Jayn sniffed danger like a deer in a meadow, but couldn’t think of anything to say that was as remotely plausible as the truth. “A demonstration would help,” Jayn admitted. “Though one that leaves me both alive and functioning would be in both our interests.”

  “I’ll take that into consideration,” Timon said.

  “So … what will you do? Summon lightning? Raise a demon from the bowels of the earth?”

  “You believe that you’re dreaming,” Timon said. “So if I were to do any of those things you either would not remember or would quite rightly explain the marvel as part of your dream, where such wonders are common. No, I must arrange something more … solid. Look to the east, what do you see?”

  Jayn glanced in that direction. “A faint glow. Dawn is coming.”

  “Almost here,” Timon said. “You’ll awake in a little while, and you’re not going to remember any of this at first. You’re going to run thirty paces further along the trail and then stop and look to the right. Only then will you remember, and you will recall everything we’ve said tonight.”

  Jayn frowned. “That’s it?”

  “Just be grateful that it’s enough. Now wake up.”

  Jayn awoke by the cold ashes of the campfire. Timon was nowhere to be seen. Jayn pulled his blankets off and sat up. He looked around carefully, but there was still no sign of the magician. Jayn assumed Timon had sought privacy to relieve himself and, very briefly, considered doing the same before the implication of Timon’s absence sank in.

  Now’s my chance.

  Jayn rolled up his bedding as quickly as he could, picked up his heavy pack, started down the trail. He had gone exactly thirty paces when he skidded to a stop before he even realized he was doing so. He looked to the right and there was Timon, leaning against a large stone.

  “What kept you?”

  * * * *

  They slipped past the Wylandian watchtower on the fourth day. That proved very easy. The rough stone wall blocking the north end of the pass was to prevent a large force from crossing quickly, and give the watchmen time to light their beacons and give warning. It did little to prevent two very stealthy men from climbing over under cover of darkness. As he reached the top of the wall, Jayn could see the two watchmen huddled by a small brazier near the parapet of their tower.

  “I wonder what they’re being punished for?” Jayne said aloud, though he kept his voice too low to carry.

  Timon, who—Jayn had come to grudgingly understand—was even more nimble than himself, was waiting for him on top of the wall. “Punished? What makes you think so?”

  “Out here? Isolated for months at a time with nothing to do but stare into nothing? I’d go mad.”

  “I have it on good authority that men volunteer for this duty. I would think that someone of your background would appreciate the lure of solitude.”

  Jayn shook his head. “I appreciate being unencumbered. That’s not the same thing as being alone.”

  “Quite right,” Timon said. “And yet, to some, this sort of duty is ideal. Everyone searches for what they need, Jayn. You, me, those men in the tower. It’s no surprise that we’re not all after the same thing.”

  They climbed down carefully. Timon led Jayn to what looked like an animal path through the underbrush; he was able to walk upright and still stay concealed from the watchmen. They were well away from both the wall and the tower before Jayn spoke again. “So what is it you’re looking for, Timon?”

  The magician frowned. “Why do you want to know?”

  Jayn shrugged. “Just curious. We have both miles and time to kill.”

  “I’ll answer that question,” Timon said, “if you’ll do the same.”

  Jayn grunted. “I thought you had me sorted out already; you played me like a drum at our first meeting.”

  Timon dismissed that. “I understand your immediate motivations well enough to explain why you do what you do. The excitement of a challenge, the thirst for reputation … simple enough on the surface. But is that really all there is to you, Jayn?

  A thief hungry for reputation?”

  Jayn shrugged. “Isn’t that enough?”

  “That’s not for me to answer, Jayn. I’ll answer my own question instead: what I want is to make a difference.”

  “I must say you don’t seem particular as to what sort of difference, seeing as how your list of crimes is far longer and certainly more lethal than mine. I steal, but that’s all.”

  Timon raised an eyebrow. “A moral harangue from a thief?”

  Jayn sighed. “Just because I cross the line now and then doesn’t mean I don’t know a line exists. I never steal from those who can’t afford the loss and I’ve never killed anyone except in self-defense, even when good sense suggested that slitting a throat was in my best interests. I am quite moral, Timon … in my own way.”

  “Interesting notion. Perhaps we should test that sometime.”

  * * * *

  “Well, now. This is definitely a challenge,” Jayn said. What was euphemistically referred to as the Wylandian summer palace was actually a fortified castle set on a mountain ridge so high and sheer that it looked like a wall constructed by some long-vanished giant. A section of the ridge had collapsed in a past age and the castle had been built near the edge, so the fortress was guarded on three sides by sheer hundred-foot cliffs. The only real approach was along the ridge itself, defended by a massive curtain wall and a sliding gate which, judging from the relative size of the guards near it, was at least twenty feet square. Timon and Jayn sat at a rough table at an inn in Kandan, a bustling village at the foot of the mountain, near an unshuttered window that gave them a good look at the castle. Fortunately—or more likely, planned ahead by Timon—it was the second of two annual horse fairs held there on the border of the plains where the hardy Wylandian duns, much prized in the south and elsewhere, were traded. No one took much notice of the two men, as the town was normally filled with travelers during the fair.

  “Pity there are no rooms available,” Timon said. “It would have been nice not to sleep on the ground for a change.”

  “I don’t consider a bed more than likely stuffed with fleas much of an improvement,” Jayn said. “Worse, someone else’s fleas.” He lifted his flagon again, then sighed. “Good food and ale, though.”

  “Too good,” Timon said. “Keep your wits about you, since you enter the castle tonight.”

  “Why tonight?”

  “I have my reasons. Let it go at that.”

  Jayn nodded toward the gate. “Lovely. And now that we’re here, would you mind te
lling me your plan to get in? I’m a very good thief, but I’m neither a magician nor a bird. I must say it looks quite impossible from here.”

  Timon smiled. “I’ll do better than tell you, I’ll show you. Yet you probably won’t like it. I certainly don’t.”

  That evening they slipped out of Kandan and made their way toward the base of the cliffs. The fields near the far end of the ridge were scattered with massive boulders, some as large as a house, apparently left over from that ancient rockfall. At times Jayn felt as if he was walking through a forest of fat stone trees, but at least they gave good cover, even though they didn’t yet dare light the lantern Timon had brought. The base of the cliff itself was a jumble of broken stones, scrubby pines, and bramble that made progress both slow and painful. Though Jayn was a little mollified to note that Timon, even though he apparently knew the way, wasn’t doing much better.

  “You’re right,” Jayn said, after plucking a dead bramble cane from the back of his hand and pausing to lick the blood. “I don’t like this.”

  “Then you’re really not going to like it when the going turns nasty,” Timon said, pulling a thorn from his thumb. “But at least we’ll be out of this brush soon. Turn to the left when you reach that rock that looks like a cow pat.”

  Jayn did as he was told and found, if not exactly a path, a lessening of the undergrowth. He followed that with Timon bringing up the rear and came to a place where the stony ground turned to more solid rock, giving the pine and brambles fewer places to take root. The rock surface slanted upwards to reach the base of the cliff face and there Jayn found a gaping hole in the rock about six feet wide and nearly as high. He glanced up and could just barely make out a tower from the castle high above them.

  It can’t be as simple as this…

  Jayn peered into the cave and realized that it was not a cave at all, in the true sense. Rather, it appeared that a boulder had been torn from its matrix during the past collapse; it occurred to Jayn that the landmark rock that looked like a cow pat could have been the original stone, now weathered down and buried in soft earth. The break in the rock wall only went about four feet into the cliff face and abruptly ended.

  “What do we do now? Climb? In the dark? We didn’t even bring a rope!”

  “Actually I did, but we won’t need it until near the end,” Timon said. “Get inside.”

  “This hole in the rock? But it doesn’t go anywhere—”

  Jayn didn’t quite finish, because Timon slipped past him and poked a section of the roof with a stout stick he’d picked up outside, and the stone moved, rocking gently as if precisely balanced. “Shift the stone, and be careful. It should slide to the left.”

  The section of stone looked like all the others. There were cracks visible, but there were cracks visible everywhere. Jayn put his hands against the stone and pushed, gingerly at first but then with more force. A slab of granite just over a foot wide and twice as long lifted off the roof of the fissure. It took a couple of tries, but Jayn managed to push it to the side. Then Timon lit the lantern with a touch of one finger and handed it to Jayn.

  “Set this up in there so we can see, then climb up.”

  Jayn lifted the lantern into the fissure and the almost absolute blackness retreated a bit, to reveal a wider fissure in the rock. It was easy enough to get a grip on either side of the opening and pull himself up. “Do you need a—”

  Again, Jayn didn’t get a chance to finish, for in an instant Timon was standing right next to him. Timon very carefully slid the cover stone back into place and then picked up the lantern and held it high.

  They stood on a shelf of bare rock about six feet across, just a little wider than the cave below. The fissure ended in another blank wall about fifteen paces further into the ridge. To the left was another wall of flat granite that reached further than Jayn could see in the weak light, as did the wall to their right. The difference was, the wall on the right was marked with ledges and broken stones that formed a natural stairway up toward the blackness far above them. The air was close and still, and there was a musty, faintly unpleasant odor that Jayn couldn’t quite identify.

  “Does no one else know about this fissure?” Jayn asked.

  “Keep your voice down, please. Sound tends to travel here,” Timon said in a whisper. “But yes, since it reaches all the way to the surface and the castle is built over it, many people know about it. What they don’t know is that there’s a way in from the cliff base.”

  “I imagine there are people who would pay to know that very important detail. Say … the King of Wylandia? Or Morushe, or Borasur, for that matter.”

  “No doubt,” Timon said, affably.

  “I’m making an implication,” Jayn said, keeping his voice just about the level of a whisper.

  “I know,” Timon said. “The implication being that it might not be in my interest that this information be shared. And so it would therefore be more in my interest that you do not live to tell anyone, including any of the aforementioned Majesties. Or did I misunderstand you?”

  Jayn looked at Timon. “No, I think you pretty much nailed that board to the floor.”

  The magician sighed. “Jayn, by your reasoning it’s in my interest that you disappear after this task but, since you’re carrying a large measure of my gold, we’ve already established that. Stop trying to give me reasons to kill you; they’re irrelevant. I’ll harm you if and only if I want or need to.”

  “That’s not much reassurance.”

  “It’s the best I can do under the circumstances. Now. Climb or die.”

  The smell Jayn had noticed when he first entered the fissure got stronger as they climbed. After about thirty feet or so there was very little doubt.

  “Is that…?”

  Timon’s nose wrinkled in distaste. “Human excrement? Yes.”

  Further up. They came to a broad ledge created by an irregular crack in the stone. There they found a dunghill so regular and ordered that it almost looked as if it had been shoveled up just so. Cave insects and Jayn didn’t want to imagine what else had discovered this lowly food source; the pile was almost writhing with life. Far overhead there was a faint light.

  “As you may have surmised, this leads to the garderobe in the queen’s apartments,” Timon said. “The only reason the smell isn’t worse is that it’s only used by one person usually, her Majesty. Plus, the beetles and worms do a fair job of breaking the royal waste down to compost … not that anything else would grow down here.”

  “But … why turn the fissure into a latrine? They could be contaminating their wells!”

  “There are no wells. They use a system of large-capacity cisterns. Given that, and the fact that this is not a normal cave and therefore has very little water to contaminate, the design makes perfect sense: I fancy the smell at the upper levels is hardly noticeable, and the pit is so large that it never has to be mucked out. In the builder’s place I’d have done the same.”

  Despite Timon’s expressed admiration, they moved more carefully after that. The natural stone steps that allowed them to climb the wall hadn’t gone totally unblemished, and more than once they had to avoid coprolitic deposits of varying ages.

  “After this they’ll likely smell me even if they don’t see me,” Jayn grumbled.

  “It’s a risk we’ll just have to take,” Timon said cheerfully. As they approached the top of the wall Timon paused for a few moments and pulled out a parchment map. He found a clean spot on the stones and kneeled down to unfurl the map. Jayn leaned in so he could see.

  “This is the floor plan for the level just above us. And here,” he said, pointing to one end of a cluster of small rooms, “is where you’ll emerge. The queen’s bedchamber itself is here, and the nursery is on the other side. You can also reach the nursery through the hallway, but unlike the queen’s own apartments, there will be guards there. If you can stay within these rooms without being discovered,” he used his finger to draw an imaginary circle around the entire clust
er, “you should be fine.”

  “And what if the queen is in her apartments?”

  “I fancy she is, considering the hour. Use stealth,” Timon said, then added pointedly, “and nothing else.”

  Jayn nodded. “Understood.”

  Not that he wanted to harm the queen of Wylandia or anyone, come to that, but being a thief meant, whenever possible, keeping your options both open and as plentiful as possible. You never knew when you might need another one. There was a light, still, from above. Jayn recognized the distinctive flicker of a candle, shining down through an appropriately-sized hole overhead. They were careful not to get directly below that hole, but when they reached as near to the top as the natural steps in the stone would take them, then were still about ten feet below the garderobe and about as many to the side. Timon reached into the bag slung over his shoulder and pulled out a length of rope and a grappling hook, its tines wrapped with cloth to muffle them. Thick wooden beams supported the rooms, and below those beams heavy braces had been set into either side of the stone. Timon aimed for the brace nearest to the garderobe and, after an expert twirl of the rope overhead, hooked it on the first try.

  “Climb up and do what you came to do,” Timon said. “I’ll wait here until either you return or I know you’ve been caught.”

  “If I’m taken aren’t you worried that I’ll betray you?”

  “No, because I’m certain you would, if you thought it would save your own skin, and why not? I’d do the same. Now go.”

  First Jayn handed his pack to Timon. “You know I can’t climb with this.”

  “Someone more foolish might have tried, though. Don’t worry; I’ll keep it for you.”

  Jayn grinned. “Why should I worry?”

  Jayn tested the rope. It was thinner than he would have preferred but surprisingly strong, and the hook was well placed. Jayn took a good grip and gently pushed away from the stone ledge. He swung drunkenly over empty space for several distinctly uncomfortable seconds before he managed to clamber up the rope and grip the brace. After that, climbing up was easy. He reached a point just under and behind the garderobe seat where he crouched, his feet securely planted in the lee of adjoining braces, and listened for several seconds. He heard nothing. Her Majesty’s just left a night light. How practical.