Morning’s chill lingered beneath the shadow of the High Divide. A gibbous moon hung low above the western forest. A raven circled overhead. Gralen Noslen and Will Stratford stood atop a hill outside of Hightown.* Turning to the south, they watched a merchant caravan turn their horses off the Leather Road toward the makeshift summer town. South of the road, the forest was gowned in the red, yellow, and gold of autumn in west Highland.
Gralen, gangly and pale, stood half a foot taller than Will. Will rested his hand on the hilt of his sword.
“There’s nothing south of the road but night trolls… and worse,” said Will.
“Somewhere, there’s treasure,” said Gralen. “And a lot of ancient books. Come on, let’s go meet Charlotte and Sam.”
“How do you know Charlotte?”
“A lot of people know Charlotte.† I met her last year in Biblyon. I was studying magic, she was studying Elfkind.”
“She says,” said Will, “that she’s going to the Long Lakes. Someday.”
“A lot of people have heard her say that, too. And usually after her second drink, she’ll add soon. But the Long Lakes are a long ways north. This isn’t the time of year to visit the Elflands.”*
Will nodded.
“She’s smart,” added Gralen. “And she can be trusted. How sure are you of Sam?”
“You sound like my dad,” Will replied, “when he hired her. She’s a mercenary, he said, not a caravan guard. Now she’s been on all summer, he shakes his head and adds, but a good worker. He’s surprised she’s reliable. I’m not. I trust her.”
“Her skills are beyond that of your average caravan guard,” said Gralen. “But if you trust her, I do. Those skills will be useful south of the Road.”
“If we go.”
“Come on.”
In Hightown’s market the merchants of Crosspoint east across the High Divide trade with the merchants of Black Stag and Fawn River to the west. There were boxes and crates everywhere. Clothing and other leather goods from Black Stag at the west end of the Leather Road. The odors of apples, and apple cider, mingled with the last root harvest, potatoes, and onions.
Will and Gralen met Charlotte Kordé and Sam Stevens† by the market center. The entertainment wasn’t to the standards of Black Stag, let alone Crosspoint. A crowd gathered around a pair of singers, but most of the merchants talked to each other, making deals, rather than listen to the song. The two troubadours, dark-haired twins, sang in the unmistakable lisp of Great Bend far down the coast. One played a lute; the other, a flute-like whistle.
“This,” said Gralen. “Listen to this.”‡
… so passed Mistoles through Biblyon Town.
“South!” he cried, and south he led
his hundred past the Leather Road,
into the deepest forest led
a hundred men to fight for truth,
defend the theories of their Lord.
They marched beneath a waning moon.
Three days marched and many a troll
fell to his army and his sword.
And many creatures long unnamed
were stirred, and fled, Mistoles’s horde.
Things that fly and things that creep
with leather wings and slimy hoof,
feared, and fled, in forest deep
before Mistoles’s armored horde.
The third night out the moon was gone.
Beneath the stars they made their camp.
One by one the stars went out.
A mist roiled in. Cold and damp.
“Mist for Mistoles? An omen good,”
So cried Mistoles’s aide-de-camp.
They built a fire, tall and hot,
and heeded not the omen,
to drive the mist that chilled their hearts,
to dry the damp ‘til morning.
The fire crackled to the sky,
sent fiery ash a-borning,
when from the mist they heard a cry,
a scream, and then a warning.
Groping! Groping in the dark!
The camp was in a turmoil.
Groping! Groping in the wood,
but only for a moment.
The thrashings died, the screaming waned,
and when they counted up their men,
a hundred men were ninety.
At morning when the sun arose
cradled in Elijah’s breasts,
it burned the mist away.
And ninety men turned east, and left
the thing that gropes the wood.
They bore due east upon the breasts,
to Christ-at-Anna’s hold.
And many songs relate their war,
and many tales are told.
In some they die in forest deep.
In some their thesis prove.
But no song knows the fate of those
Lost to the thing that gropes the wood.
When the singers finished, Gralen gave them a thumbs-up, and tossed them a ship and sword.*
“That’s a lot of money for a song,” said Sam.
“Ancient truth is worth the silver,” he replied.
“It was told us by za last survivor of za battle,” said the lutist.†
“What brings you north?”
“Un agzidont.”
“Oui, un agzidont wi’ a duke’s daughter,” said the flautist.
He winked his dark eyes at Will. They bowed and left, taking their instruments through the crowd. Will shivered as they walked away.
“What was that all about?” asked Charlotte.
“Mistoles was the last leader of Illustrious Castle before it fell to the night trolls during the Great War,” said Gralen. “After Mistoles died and the Order of Illustration retook their castle, the Order slowly diminished. As many of the old orders did, and their castles abandoned. Kristagna, what the song called Christ-at-Anna’s, is the castle of their rivals, the Order of the Astronomers. Illustrious Castle is sixty miles north of here, on a cliff above the great walled library of Biblyon. Kristagna is south, in the Deep Forest.”
“Supposedly,” said Will.
“It’s there. The Astronomers haven’t been heard from since the Great War, but there’s no question they existed.”*
“The Great War was over a hundred years ago,” said Sam. “There’s no way your troubadours heard the story from a survivor.”
“Unless they or the survivor was Elfen,” said Charlotte.
“Neither of them were Elfen, clearly enough,” said Will. “Perhaps the survivor was.”
“There was no survivor,” said Gralen. “Not that the singers knew, anyway.”
“Then who’d they hear it from?”
“From other singers, probably. Who heard it from other singers, who heard it from other singers.”
“If they lied about hearing it from a survivor, how do you know they didn’t lie about the rest of it?”
“Maybe they did,” said Gralen. “But troubadours always make up some story about how they heard their songs from someone who was there, or even better, that they themselves were there. They’re selling a product just like everyone else in the market.”
“They probably made up the duke’s daughter,” said Sam.
“Probably. More likely they ran up too many debts.”
“But what did you hear in the song?” asked Charlotte. “You think you know where Kristagna is now.”
“There are some books in the great walled library that haven’t been read since the war,” he replied. “There are clues, but they never fit, until now. If the song is right, we will find the lost castle of the Astronomers by ‘bearing down on Isaiah’s Breasts’.”
“Who is Isaiah and why do we care about his breasts?” asked Will. Everyone laughed except Gralen.
“Isaiah was one of the founders of the Order of the Astronomers. Isaiah’s Breasts are two mountain peaks that, from the right vantage point, look like… breasts.”
“Breasts to normal people, or breasts to hermit warrior-scholars who haven’t seen a woman in years?” asked Sam.
“There’s probably something to that,” said Gralen.
“How far south are the peaks?”
“Three days ride,” said Sam. “If the song is right.”
“That fits what I’ve read,” said Gralen.
“Show me these books,” said Charlotte.
“They’re in Biblyon. And a lot of the books I really need were lost when the night trolls sacked Illustrious Castle. But what I’ve been able to find, I have in my notes.”
“I want to see your notes.”
While Gralen and Charlotte returned to Gralen’s room at King’s Inn, Will and Sam continued wandering the marketplace.*
“Pretty amazing that you and Gralen both know Charlotte,” said Will. “You’re from east Highland, he’s from west Highland. Crosspoint and Black Stag are six hundred miles apart.”
“And never the ’twain shall meet?”
“It’s rare enough. Otherwise Hightown wouldn’t be necessary as a trading town. Gralen knows me from Black Stag, I invite you to join us because you’re in my dad’s company, you invite Charlotte, and Charlotte already knows Gralen. Just seems like a huge coincidence.”
“I suppose so. I met her in Crosspoint. I’ve known her since I was a kid,” said Sam. “When I was still homeless on the harbor district.”
“Really? How did you meet?”
“I tried to steal an apple from her.”
Will stopped walking, and looked at her.
“I was hungry,” she added.
“Was this a rich kid/poor kid thing?”
“She wasn’t a kid,” said Sam. “She was old enough to be my mother when I first met her.”
“That’s impossible.”
“She says she’s nearly forty years old.”*
They bargained over some bright red apples, then walked on.
“She isn’t really that old, is she?” asked Will.
He took a bite from his apple.
“Hell,” said Sam. “I’ve known Charlotte for ten years, and I swear she hasn’t aged. She looks younger than I do.”
“Well, maybe not that young,” said Will.
Sam looked at him. He turned away, it seemed to her that he was embarrassed in some way by what he’d said. She couldn’t tell if he was complimenting her or mocking her. She’d been on the streets from seven to seventeen, and her face showed it, pocked and scarred. Charlotte… Charlotte had none of that. Was William making fun of her? William was handsome, and dashing… well… no. William was handsome. But you could always tell what Will was feeling, and he wasn’t insulting her. He wasn’t even complimenting her. He just felt that way, and he said it.†
She decided to accept the compliment. Will had no idea the outburst he’d almost endured.
