Page 60 of Beyond

The rest of the tour took place in silence. And now Kordas realized where a lot of the smoke and stink was coming from. Metal smelting facilities, tanneries, dyers, fullers, butchers …almost everything needed to supply the Palace, and to supply the people who still lived in the City, was made in the City. When they crossed a narrow river, though, Kordas thought he was going to choke. It was an open sewer.

“Oh gods big and small, that reeks. Where are we getting our water from?” he gagged.

“It is from a series of wells, and it is treated and purified for the Palace,” Star said. “I do not know where the people of the City get theirs.”

He hoped for their sake it was also from wells, and not from the canals, or that … sewer. Wells far away from the dreck that flowed under the bridge that took them back to the Palace.

The City proved to be achingly empty, though he suspected that some of those who were not “the poor” had seen the way the wind was blowing, and found a way to make their livings elsewhere, before the Emperor decided that they, too, should be sent to the southern border and the endlessly hungry war machine.

All he needs is enough people here to keep the Palace supplied and the legions supplied with specialist items, and to provide cheering crowds whenever he makes a parade. And he doesn’t need a parade all that often. He has afternoon Court and appearance dinners when he chooses, after all. Fawning courtiers, people jockeying to get his attention, whenever he chooses.

He turned the horse’s head back toward the Palace a lot sooner than he had expected to. He had seen enough for new plans to form already, and the sooner he could get some unwatched thinking-time in, the better. There was a truth emerging from all of this, and it seemed to be the greatest exploitable flaw of the Empire. Kordas’s heart pounded, because it felt as if nobody in the Emperor’s City realized it existed. None of them.

They fixate upon conquest, power, and betrayal.

What is trusted is dismissed from their attention.

* * *

To save time, Kordas left the horse at the nearest usable Gate with one of the Dolls, who would take it back to the stables. A simple statement by Star just kept nagging at him. When they were back in his apartment, and Star had uncovered the Valdemar badge on its hand, signifying it was safe to speak, he finally decided on exactly how he wanted to ask the question that was bothering him.

“You said ‘there are only so many mages,’ but this entire place is practically alive with magic,” he stated. “How does everything get done?”

“There are very few things that require a mage to actually do them in person. Instead, a mage, or several working together, long ago made constructs—machines—that merely require a power source. Like the Gates. The Palace mages are here for life, what could be termed ‘tenured.’ As such, they have settled upon a minimum amount of work, to maximize their leisure, and exist in what you might term a voluntary imprisonment.”

“So their lives are spent casting the same spells, day after day?”

“Essentially, yes. They charge items that are then sent by chutes and relays to the Fabrication Annex, and those items are expended operating the manufactory constructs there. The Palace mages produce a surplus of such charged items, which are simply stored in boxes. As for other mages, two are designated as research mages, but, as they must prioritize what the Court wishes, they most often spend their days inventing entertainments. Since Dolls were invented by them, and found to be so versatile, they have done little else of note.”

All right. Now I ask the prize question. “My knowledge of magic tells me that you need a mage to make a Gate talisman that tells a Gate where to send you,” he stated. “But all talismans come from the Palace. How is that even possible?”

“Because there is a construct that makes talismans,” Star replied, its head tilted to one side as if it was surprised he did not know this. “One puts in a metal model, with the destination imbued into it. The construct creates a paper copy that can be easily destroyed, so that people cannot clandestinely use it a second time to go somewhere without permission. The construct can make hundreds, even thousands at need.”

He felt his jaw drop open.

“Who operates these constructs?” he finally asked. Because if the answer is what I think it is—

“We do,” Star said simply. “We are trusted, and do not tire. We can make several thousand in a candlemark. This is how the Emperor gives out talismans to travel about the Empire. There are also universal talismans, which respond to vocal commands, that allow Dolls and courtiers to travel about the Palace. These take much longer, however.” Star tilted its head to the side. “This one supposes that the universal talismans would also take the wearer outside the Palace to anywhere in the Empire, but this one does not know this for certain, as such talismans are surrendered when a courtier leaves the Palace at the end of a visit.”

And there it was. The answer. The answer to how he could get thousands of talismans to Valdemar, talismans that would carry thousands of people and barges to the new lands. How thousands of Dolls could get their talismans and come, too, and it would look like everyday business. His mind raced. “What could be made—ordered by just a Duke, without anyone in the Palace noticing, because they don’t notice what’s not a danger or an aberration—or maybe I should say, what would be below their notice? Could—”

Star tilted its head again, and answered before he could voice the question.

“Yes, my Lord. We can make talismans for your escape, once we have a model. The models are merely the talismans of old, the ones mages would produce one at a time of metal blanks. We can make as many paper copies as you need for your Plan.”

“But how to deliver them around, without drawing attention or suspicion? There would be stacks of them as high as Chargers …” He trailed off.

“If I may remind you, my Lord, Dolls make deliveries unnoticed by anyone who would endanger you or your Plan. Also, Dolls are repaired by other Dolls, and need not be stuffed solely with wool.”

He wasn’t certain whether to laugh or cry. In the end, he did neither. And by the time he recovered himself, the lights had changed to tell him it was time to go down to luncheon, and begin another round of the Fourth Game.

var and Alberdina had a lot of things for Delia to do when she brought the last loads of breakfast back to the camp, though they let her eat first. Hauling deadfall to pile up beside the round tower for someone to chop up took the greater part of the morning, followed by hauling luncheon from the Foothold Gate to the camp. Then rolling beer barrels down to the camp. Then hauling water from the lake to the camp to be stored in a couple of those barrels that happened to be empty. By the time supper came around—more travel bread, this time with venison and roasted wild onions and honey—she had done more physical labor than she’d ever done in a single day in her life.

Ivar and Alberdina had not been idle. Ivar had chopped such an enormous amount of wood that it came all the way to the top of the tower wall, and she guessed it was about three cords’ worth. Nor had that been all he’d done, since he’d obviously hunted, killed, gutted, skinned, and butchered that deer.

Alberdina had been hunting as well—food and herbs. She’d found wild onions, swathes of bee-balm to tuck under the bedrolls to repel bugs, a big cache of nuts, and the wild honey she’d given them to eat with their travel bread. How on earth she’d gotten the honey away from the bees, Delia had no idea, and was too tired to guess. She’d found a lot more as well, since she’d been tying bunches of bee-balm and herbs upside down all over the outside of the shelter, but Delia didn’t recognize what all of the plants were.

So Delia didn’t get to see anything of what the mages did to actually create the Gates. Just the results, which were that the four curved uprights glowed faintly once the sun set.