We left off standing in the street outside the Cathedral of Rejuvenation holding a boat over our heads, having been thrown out by several priests who did not appreciate a rowing boat appearing in the middle of their prayers. I maintain it was a reasonable thing to do. The circle there only goes one way, and the river is the rest of the trip.
Somewhere between the cathedral steps and the water the conversation turned to whether we ought to build teleportation circles in rivers, so that boats could come through them directly. I raised the obvious problem — how do you gauge the depth, and what happens when a boat lands on top of water that’s already there — and was told, I think seriously, that the solution is to hang the circle upside down over the water and let the boat simply fall into it. Momen pointed out that this is a good way to crack your hull. We are not doing that. Yet.
The Duke
Before the boat went in, we went to see the Duke. It occurred to Momen — after we had already bought the chalk, filled the barrel, and carried a boat across the capital — that perhaps we should mention to the crown that we are about to stitch the country together with holes, in the middle of a plague, and that the holes are open to anyone who walks onto them.
Oberstein greeted us as the “so-called Monster Bashers,” which I chose to take as affection. Momen explained the whole thing: the teleportation fluid we hauled out of The Teleportation Dungeon, the hub at Atlanta, the agreements we made before the plague took off, and the very sensible worry that a network of always-open doorways is as good at spreading a sickness as it is at curing one. The Duke caught on immediately. If we could put circles where he needed them, the cure — bled out of Jurge and being brewed in the very workshop where we left his carcass — could go through them instead of down a hundred miles of road.
He took us to a map of Luachia with the provinces circled in green and red. Green: the Imperial Plains, the Great Badger Expanse, Astain, and Wustus. He wasn’t certain why those had been spared, though he suspected it had something to do with the dragons that live in them. Tilnola and the north of Spueria were green as well, most likely because it’s too cold up there for anything to thrive, sickness included. Red: Tunris and southern Spueria. So, he said, if we could put a circle in Locust Gate and another in Hvitsand, that would serve the empire well.
Then he waved over a man who had more scar than face. An orc, or half of one, armoured like a fortress and looking at us the way a farmer looks at a litter of runts. Oh, look at you lads there. You’re tiny. He eyed Spesof and allowed that at least he had a bit of meat on his bones. This is General Gak, and he is, by his own account, the finest logistics man in the Imperial Army. Despite what I look like, I’m more of a backliner. He told us he got the scars from enemies sneaking in where they shouldn’t, which is why he was very pleased to hear we hadn’t been putting circles abroad, and rather less pleased to hear that ours need no mage to work them. With the ordinary circles you only get a wizard showing up now and then. With ours, any thief who trips over the chalk is suddenly in the capital. He also reminded us that Atlanta sits barely ten kilometres from the Torveldan border, which is a thing I had been trying not to think about.
He took us down to the workshop and opened a supply closet, ten feet by ten, and declared it the capital’s end of the line. Too narrow a door for a wagon. Momen objected on behalf of future wagons. Gak said that, this being the capital, foot traffic would do for now — the only thing going out was crates of antidote, and crates can be loaded onto wagons on the far end just as well. Momen conceded once it was established that his floating disc will fit through the door. Then he knelt on the floor and painted for an hour.
While he did, Spesof got the general talking about how his men actually intend to hand out the cure. Gak was very matter-of-fact about it. They hold the antidote somewhere safe, send men out in pairs to survey the town, and triage from worst to least. Each man carries a few doses; anyone in the late stages who can still be saved gets dosed on the spot. Anyone too far gone gets put down. They have mages to knock people senseless, and men with ropes and nets and bolas to bring down whoever runs. He handed Spesof a sheet listing the symptoms and the stages, as though it were a supply list. I suppose to him it is. The two of them got on very well, Spuerians both — Gak thinks we southern folk are a bit soft, and Spesof did not argue.
Circle finished, we stepped through to Atlanta with the general and his men in tow, where he spotted Brigadier General Gorepunch and the two of them saluted and fell to reminiscing like old drinking partners. He briefed Merric, posted men around the site where the real teleportation hall will one day stand, and sent a handful back with us. Then back to Elkenalden, back to the boat, and off up the West River.
Locust Gate
Locust Gate was quiet. Not a peaceful quiet. The docks were empty, and as we stepped off the boat I kept catching glimpses of people with a silver sheen to their skin, ducking around corners and behind walls. It got here before us, somehow. We had been teleporting, and it still beat us. Momen asked how. The answer is that it is quick. Quicker than silver.
The infected came out to look at us as we walked up the hill to the Earl’s manor. They looked at the general’s soldiers, and then went back inside. I have rarely been so glad of an escort.
Gak walked straight up to the door, banged on it three times, and announced himself on the orders of His Majesty King Consort Alfred Oberstein. A butler let us in, and Earl Fabian Schwarzmann was waiting at the head of a long table, looking perfectly healthy and absolutely delighted to see us. It’s always a great day when I can see the Cedar Combe Monster Bashers. Of course it is. We are the reason he has a wife. He’d also already started clearing out a warehouse by the harbour — half open trading floor, half locked storage, good access to the road and the water. By the time we got there, the general’s men had dealt with a couple of intruders and the place was secure.
Another hour of Momen on his knees. One of the soldiers stepped onto the new circle, vanished, came back a few minutes later and said, All clear, General. Gak went through and came back with a great many more men, and they spread into the town to start their survey. It was twenty to four in the afternoon.
Kongstead, and Hvitsand
From Locust Gate we carried the boat overland to the next river, paddled, carried it again, paddled again — Tunris isn’t built for getting anywhere quickly, as Gak kept saying. Everything sits on its own little lake, and none of the lakes talk to each other.
We passed Kongstead on the way. I don’t have much to say about it, and I don’t want to. It was one of the busiest places on that stretch of river and now it looks like a wasteland. The general grimaced and said they’d make it a priority on the way back, but that we couldn’t stop and couldn’t spare a single crate. Nobody argued. Nobody said much of anything for a while after.
We came into Hvitsand around eight at night. Better here. The cold seems to have slowed the sickness down, or else everyone’s simply indoors. Kallestad was pleased to see us, though nowhere near as pleased as Schwarzmann; he hadn’t expected us so soon and had nothing ready. Momen told him we didn’t need anything lovely, just floor space. Half an hour to clear some storerooms, an hour of painting, and by ten o’clock a soldier had tested it, Gak had given the nod, and crates of antidote were pouring through.
There the general left us. Nørreholte has no plague, so he’d rather his men were spreading the cure through Spueria and Tunris — especially Kongstead — than guarding us. He’d wait in Atlanta for our next circle to light up and send whoever was needed.
North
The fastest way to Nørreholte is the long way: round the tip of Spueria by boat and up to Trondkan, then on foot. We sailed it overnight. When it came to who would crew the boat while we slept, it turned out Momen still has a skeleton crew tucked away in the extradimensional space on the boat, which is apparently where we keep skeletons now. It was also pointed out to me, unkindly, that the dog-thing we caged is in there with them. I had forgotten about it entirely. I haven’t been feeding it. It is not my pet. I was very clearly told I was not allowed to keep it as a pet, so I fail to see how its diet is my responsibility.
(I checked on it later. It’s alive. I promised it would get fed tonight. I meant it, mostly.)
The skeletons rowed, we slept, and we came into Trondkan before dawn. Momen spent the hour before the shops opened copying a spell out of a scroll and into his book — something to sniff out poison and sickness, which seems a sound thing to carry around just now. At half past seven we rented a cart for one gold piece so we wouldn’t have to roll the barrel of teleportation fluid through the snow, and walked five hours to Nørreholte through ice and wind. We got there just before noon.
It was at about this point that it came out that we have no deal with the Marquis of Nørreholte. None. We’d told the Duke we did. We’d put Nørreholte on the list of first stops. We thought hard about every conversation we’ve had up here, and while Spesof had some nice chats with the man, and we did once save a Baron’s daughter from a giant rock, nobody ever shook on anything. We put it on the list because it seemed like a good place for a circle. That’s it. I told everyone that we don’t talk about the deal, and I’d like that to stand.
The guard at the gate recognised us from the rock business and booked us in for two o’clock. Not everyone is available at the drop of a hat, he said.
The waiting
With a few hours to kill, we thought about what comes next. The obvious next push is west into the Scattered Steppe, toward either Arrowburn or Marshal’s Field, and Drelia, beyond it, is badly red on the Duke’s map.
Momen asked if I had any feelings about that. I told him the truth: I care, but probably not as much as a Drelian should. Maybe one day I’ll conquer it, the way I plan on conquering everything else, but not today. Momen went very sad, reached up with some effort, and got an arm around my shoulders. That’s a terrible way to grow up, not knowing your clan. I let him have it. He meant it kindly.
Spesof was off to one side, tapping his foot. His family is in Helsinki, just past where the permafrost begins, and we passed well downriver of it on the way in. So he took out the sending stone and called home. Plock picked up at the CCMB, had heard no news good or bad, and went to fetch the general from Atlanta. Spesof asked Gak about the Steppe, since none of us have ever been. Grassland, mostly, said Gak; too poor for farming, a handful of small towns, and the rest nomads with horses and yurts and goats. Momen pointed out that Marshal’s Field sits on a river that runs west, straight toward Drelia. There was a long pause and a great deal of shuffling papers on the other end. Then Gak agreed. Drelia sits as a buffer between us and Ublijan, the empire already sends them food, and some antidote would go a long way toward keeping them friendly. Today, anything going west either goes up and around through the Steppe or all the way round by sea. A circle in the middle of it, on a river, would be far better. Marshal’s Field is badly placed for defence — Torveldus could sail a fleet right up that river — but for now he’d rather have it than Arrowburn.
Then Spesof asked, a little awkwardly, whether the general might spare a man or two to look in on the Beegstick family. Gak said he’d send someone. Spesof didn’t say much after that, but his foot stopped tapping.
Then lunch. Nørreholte is small, but it’s the capital, and all the houses are big noble houses, and the food is monster meat and nothing else. Spesof ordered both the red dragon goulash and the baked beholder, two gold each. I’m told the baked beholder is the best meat he has ever had in his life. Tilnolans spice everything heavily, since nothing else grows up there, and it is spectacular. If you’ve ever wanted to get your own back on a beholder for disintegrating you, Nørreholte is the place to do it with a fork. Momen paid, then sat down and copied out Disintegrate as well, which I’m sure was a coincidence.
The Marquis
The Marquis received us in a great hall and said he’d heard a lot of rumours about us. Spesof told him that none of them were rumours and all of them were true, and then spent a good while praising the cuisine, which I think was genuine. Then he made the pitch: a network of circles for instant travel between the provinces, built first to carry the cure, and later for the trade that would make everyone involved rich. Would he let us put one in Nørreholte? He’d be among the very first.
It did not land. I watched it not land. The Marquis scratched his chin and said it was a tempting offer but he’d want details. Is this a private enterprise with a toll, or a public good run by the crown? How exactly will it work?
And we did not know. That is the honest answer. Momen began to answer, stopped halfway, and turned round to ask us whether we’d ever actually thought about the money side, and we had not. We had thought this is a wonderful thing to do and set off with a barrel. What we did know, once we’d worked it out on the spot: the network will run out of Atlanta, under Sir Merric Porridgepot, which makes it private and noble and government all at once. There will have to be fees eventually, for upkeep if nothing else. For now, while the cure is moving, travel is free, and the proper terms can be negotiated once everyone has seen what it’s worth. And if the Marquis ever decides he doesn’t like the arrangement, he can take a broom to the chalk and be done with it. Nothing locks him in. Try it first, pay later.
He nodded slowly and said that made sense, and that all he’d need to provide was a location — but he’d like to put it to his advisors first, and he’d have an answer for us tomorrow. Then we were dismissed.
On the way out I suggested, quietly, that next time we might simply put something in his pocket. I have paid people off before. It worked. Nobody took me up on it, but nobody said no either.
Night
We have the evening in Nørreholte. Spesof is shopping. Momen has his spellbook open and has announced he intends to copy scrolls all night, through whatever of his gold it costs him. Everyone else slept.
When I woke, it was the first of Conmac. The general’s men are spreading through Locust Gate and Hvitsand with the cure, there are three new circles on the map where yesterday there were none, and we are sitting in the coldest capital in the empire waiting to hear whether a man who doesn’t know what we’re charging will let us draw on his floor.
The dog-thing got fed.