Sunrise on the Churning Wastes was a terrifying glory. Each morning the Gypsy Scouts watched it from their station on the Keeper’s Gate.
First, the cold air took on the warm scent of salt and sand. Then the sky was washed in deep purple, shot through with veins of red, twisting and spreading out on a flat horizon that stretched forever past the low hills that marked the Whymer Way leading into the Desolation of the Old World. And in that moment before the sun rose red and angry as a fist, the world went silent and still.
Today, in the heart of that moment, a brown bird dropped into the Watch Captain’s net.
He unrolled the tiny scroll it carried and squinted at it in the crimson light from the east. Then he whistled his men to Third Alarm and watched the front guard magick themselves to slip into the morning shadows.
He hastily coded a note to Aedric, the First Captain of Rudolfo’s Gypsy Scouts, and passed it to his birder. “See this to Seventh Forest Manor,” he said.
Then he climbed down the stairs to the base of the massive, closed gate and stood to the side with his arms crossed.
A metal man in robes approaches from the west. This was most irregular. General Rudolfo’s metal men worked at the library. And their leader, Isaak, was the only one of their lot who wore robes. The Watch Captain scanned the road that led down from the jagged stone hills to the west. That winding road came from only one city.
Windwir. Now a Desolation because the Androfrancines couldn’t leave well enough alone. They’d brought back Xhum Y’Zir’s Seven Cacophonic Deaths, and the spell had been their undoing. An entire city and its Order snuffed out, ending their long guardianship of the light, the knowledge of the Old World that had fallen to the same spell two thousand years before.
And now, it seemed, the metal man who had cast the spell and doomed the Androfrancines approached his post unannounced. “Most irregular,” he said out loud.
He watched the road, picking his men out easily despite the magicks that concealed them. Each was a quiet, individual wind that gently moved the blades of grass and the pine boughs as the invisible scouts slipped into position. During the war last year, he’d been a lieutenant and he’d run with his men. Now, the double-edged blade of promotion set him apart from them. And with the promotion came a new assignment here in the mountains that divided the old world from the new.
Birds flitted across the massive stones of the Whymer Way and the wind shifted, carrying the sound of metal footsteps.
A robed figure limped into sight, wheezing and bubbling. One of its jeweled eyes hung by a strand of gold wires and the other rolled listlessly, its shutter bent open. The Watch Captain stepped forward, ready to bark orders. Rudolfo would have the head of any man who failed to help his friend, and the metal man, Isaak, was more kin than friend to the Gypsy King. But he hesitated.
“Brother Isaak?”
The metal man looked up. Its voice burbled as its bellows wheezed. “My name is Charles,” the metal man said in a watery voice. “I am the Arch-Engineer of Mechanical Science for the Androfrancine Order in Windwir. I bear an urgent message for the Hidden Pope, Petronus. The Library is fallen by treachery. Sanctorum Lux must be protected.” With a click and a clack, the mechanical collapsed into a pile of steaming metal, bits of it sparking and popping.
The Watch Captain shouted for another bird and whistled his men in from the forest.
High above, a kin-raven circled.
Rudolfo
Late-afternoon sun washed the expansive forest in red, and Rudolfo watched it from the highest point of Library Hill. It had been a long day of paperwork amid the pandemonium that gripped his Seventh Forest Manor’s staff, and finally Rudolfo had fled under the pretext of an unscheduled inspection of the library construction. He had quietly strolled the basements and subbasements, grateful for the break in routine.
Of course, he couldn’t blame the staff for the chaos. It was, after all, his Firstborn Feast they were preparing. In mere weeks, Rudolfo would see his first child into the world, and it was the custom of the Forest Gypsies to celebrate that event with great vigor. That it was Rudolfo’s firstborn and an heir transformed the event into a minor affair of state, with dignitaries expected from a dozen or morehouses. Even the Marsh King was attending. Rudolfo smiled at this, knowing that the large hairy man who posed as the Marsh King did so at the command of a fifteen-year-old girl who was the true heir to that Wicker Throne. But tonight, Hanric would play the part of king alongside Rudolfo and the other lords in attendance. Those aspects of tonight’s festivities bored Rudolfo. Instead, he thought about the men who were the true hosts of tonight’s event-the men who rose to their captain’s challenge to honor their Gypsy King and the Gypsy King to Come.
The Gypsy Scouts could be proud of their work. They’d hunted and fished for six weeks to stockpile the game required for the festivities; they’d sent birds and riders all over the Named Lands to gather the finest sampling of wines and spirits. They’d even hired in cooks from the Emerald Coasts to study the best of the Forest recipes and reproduce them with southern augmentations to draw out the flavor.
Rudolfo chuckled. tonight, the Marsh King would sit to his left and the Entrolusian ambassador would sit to his right. The Entrolusians had sent their ambassador because Erlund was beset by the fires of rebellion on the Delta. When Erlund’s uncle, Sethbert, had destroyed Windwir, he’d hoped to shore up the Entrolusian economy by annexing the Ninefold Forest Houses with the help of his puppet Pope. Rudolfo and his kin-clave had pressed them back, and eventually Sethbert’s plans were unraveled and the Overseer himself tried and summarily executed for the genocide of the Androfrancine Order and their city.
How long ago had that been? Six months? Seven? It had crawled like years. League upon league of paperwork. Hour upon hour of meetings. Entire days that slipped past him without seeing the sky or feeling the wind on the back of his neck. The last time he’d stood here, the bookmakers’ tent was still below in the heat of Second Summer as metal man and Androfrancine and Forester worked together to reproduce what they could of Windwir’s Great Library.
Now winter wrapped the forest, and the bookmakers’ tent was packed away. Their tables now crowded the basements of Rudolfo’s Seventh Forest Manor, and the books they produced filled the hallways and spare rooms to overflowing. Until now, of course, when those spaces were suddenly required.
Rudolfo paused and wondered where they had managed to store all of the books. And how long ago had it happened?
What it pointed to disturbed him. I didn’t even notice. There was a time when he would have picked up on the slightest difference in the length of any one of his scout’s beards. But now mountains of books vanished beneath his very feet and it took him days to realize it.
He heard the clicking and clacking, the slightest wheeze of bellows, and turned to watch his metal friend approach.
“Lord Rudolfo?” a metallic voice asked.
“Isaak,” Rudolfo said. “You’ve found me.”
Isaak stepped into view. “Yes, Lord.” He paused, smoothing his Androfrancine robes with his metal hands. “I trust you found your inspection satisfactory?”
Rudolfo chuckled. He should’ve known the metal man would worry. “You are doing wonderful work here, Isaak.”
Isaak blinked. “Actually, Lord, there are many more besides myself performing this work. The list is rather extensive, but I have a file of names in my office for your review. Or I could recite them-”
Rudolfo raised a hand. “A compliment to all involved,” he said.
Isaak nodded. “Thank you, Lord. We serve the light.”
“We do indeed,” Rudolfo said. “But truly, Isaak, you are a fine foreman for this work.”
Isaak inclined his head slightly. “Thank you, Lord. Might I add that Lieutenant Nebios has been extremely helpful in that respect.”
Rudolfo had seen Neb’s leadership throughout the grave-digging of Windwir. That was when he’d first recognized that there was a fine captain buried in the lad. And some of Isaak’s methods looked surprisingly similar to Neb’s. “So he’s been advising you?”
Isaak blinked again. “I have been making inquiries and cross-referencing them against library holdings on Francine observations of human leadership dynamics.” He paused, releasing steam through the exhaust grate in his back. “Neb is a natural leader.”
Rudolfo nodded and stroked his beard. “Yes,” he said. “I see that, too.” But beyond what Rudolfo saw, the Marshfolk saw Neb as the one who would someday find-and take them to-the new home as promised in their Book of Dreaming Kings.
Rudolfo turned his eyes back to the forest and his home in it.
The sun was nearly down now, and the lights of the manor and the town called to Rudolfo. High above, as the sky went from purple to charcoal, swollen stars pulsed to life and a blue-green sliver of moon danced behind a hazy veil of cloud. Rudolfo drew in a lungful of night air and smelled the roasting meat from the kitchens far below.
“I suppose we should get ready for the feast,” he said, clapping Isaak on the shoulder and feeling the cool metal beneath the rough wool robe.
Isaak nodded. “Lady Tam sent a scout for you. I told him I would pass her message along.”
Rudolfo chuckled. A few weeks earlier and she’d have come herself, but the River Woman insisted she rest now. She’d balked initially but at the last accepted the midwife’s instruction and forced herself to bed. Rudolfo knew better than to taunt the tiger in her cage. “I was finished here,” he said, turning to Isaak. “Walk with me.”
They walked in silence among the massive, scattered stones that were slowly taking shape. The air was cold on Rudolfo’s face and his breath showed. Picking his way carefully through last week’s snow, he and Isaak descended the hill that was gradually transforming the Ninefold Forest, turning it into the center of the Named Lands.
It had already started, of course, not long after Petronus had executed Sethbert and transferred the wealth of the Androfrancine Order into Rudolfo’s name for the reestablishment of the library. And just yesterday, another university-this one a larger bookhouse out of Turam-brought their petition to establish a presence near the Great Library. Rudolfo had listened to their request, told them he was honored by their interest in the Ninefold Forest, and that he would take the matter under consideration. It was the fourth university to ask in as many months, and he wasn’t sure how long he could keep them at bay.
Rudolfo’s boot slipped on a patch of snow-crusted ice and he stumbled. He felt a strong metal hand grip him before he could fall. He glanced over at Isaak. “Thank you.”
Isaak nodded and waited until Rudolfo was steady before releasing him. They reached the bottom of the hill and followed the road back into town. Already, the forest between the hill and the town was thinning for new construction. Soon, Rudolfo’s Seventh Forest Manor and the small town that surrounded it would grow into a city.
What would my father think of this? Rudolfo paused. Orphaned at twelve, he rarely thought about his father. But he thought about him more now that he stood on the edge of fatherhood.
A handful of Rudolfo’s Gypsy Scouts fell in around them as they walked. They hadn’t yet changed into their dress uniforms, and their rainbow-colored woolen trousers and shirts were damp from the forest. Uncharacteristically, they grinned at their general.