several seconds, and then motioned Angus closer.
“You are a wizard, are you not?” he asked without looking up from his tome.
“Yes,” Angus confirmed. “I was trained by Voltari in Blackhaven Tower.”
One of the guards looked sharply at him, and seemed to want to say something. But he didn’t, and the scribe ignored him as he wrote down the information. “Tradecraft: Wizard. Hair: black, short. Eyes: light blue.” He looked up and squinted at Angus. “They’re almost silver, aren’t they? No matter; light blue will suffice. Beard—” he paused again and asked, “Do you intend to maintain that beard?”
“For now, yes,” Angus replied. “Why do you ask?”
The old man shrugged, his wicker-like spine creaking a bit as he did so. “Just wanting to maintain accurate records,” he said. “Why don’t you turn around for me?”
Angus frowned and turned slowly around. “Height: five feet six inches. Weight: one hundred fifty five pounds. I better make that one sixty,” he muttered.
“Anything else?” Angus asked.
The scribe reviewed his notes. “Yes,” he said. “Your age.”
“I—” Angus frowned and thought for a moment. “I’m not sure,” he said. “I haven’t paid much attention to it.”
“What do you think, Hobart?” he asked.
Hobart shrugged, his armor jingling as it settled. “I don’t know. Maybe thirty?”
The old scribe’s deep brown eyes seemed to pierce Angus’s as he said, “No. Older. I’ll put down thirty-five.”
He turned the tome so it faced Hobart and handed him the quill. “Sign here,” he said, pointing.
Hobart very carefully drew out his name and handed back the quill.
“I will send an update on your roster with tomorrow’s dispatch to Tyrag. For the time being, I will withhold Angus’s name from the roster, but I expect you to clarify the situation before you leave Hellsbreath. If not, I will assume you are in breach of your Banner Contract.”
“Of course,” Hobart said. “I will update the information when I am able to do so.”
“How long will you be staying?” the scribe asked.
“We don’t know yet. No less than a week and possibly as many as four.”
“Seven for the lift, counting the corpse.” He glanced at the others. “It will likely be a few hours before it returns. There hasn’t been much interest in leaving the city today. If you’re in a hurry, I can have them send it down, but it will cost more.”
“We’ll wait,” Hobart said. “I’m sure it will be down by nightfall. If it isn’t, we’ll catch the lift up when they change guards.”
“The fee—” the scribe began.
Hobart handed him a few silver coins and said, “I believe this will be sufficient?”
The scribe accepted the coins, counted them, turned to a different page in his book, wrote down a figure, opened the chest, and dropped the coins in among those that were already there. Then he closed the chest’s lid, looked up, and gave them a toothless smile as he said, “I hope you have a pleasant and uneventful stay in The Rim.”
“As do we,” Hobart said, nodding.
The scribe waved them on and his smile quickly dissolved as they passed. One of the guardsmen opened up the gate to the platform loading area and ushered them through. There was enough room in the lift area to accommodate far more than those already inside, and it was not at all difficult for them to find a place to sit. “Make yourselves comfortable,” Hobart said. “It may be a while.”
They dropped their gear down and sat on it or beside it. Angus took Teffles’ book from his backpack and began reading it. The first few pages were an explanation for the marks he would be using in it, each one a representation of a specific series of knots. The symbols were unfamiliar to him, but once he began to understand their purpose, he realized how effective it must be. If he applied a similar process to his own spells, he could save a considerable amount of time while priming for them. But it would take a great deal of patience to learn the system of shorthand symbols and implement it….
7
Angus was beginning to understand Teffles’ shorthand well enough to interpret the first cryptic description of a spell. It was a simple spell, one that reminded him of the Lamplight spell: a single, carefully controlled knot. Instead of relating to the sphere of flame, it was related to the sphere of sky, but the result of casting it—if he understood it correctly—would have a similar effect: the slow release of the magical energy. But he wasn’t sure how it would release it. He thought it would create a steady, slight breeze, but he wasn’t sure. He would have to wait until he cast it to find out, and the magic within him was already aligned for his own spells. If he were to draw upon more energy now it would disrupt the spells he was already prepared to cast, and that was always risky. How it disrupted them was always uncertain, and one of the very real possibilities was a sudden, explosive release of energy. He had already experienced something like that once—or so Voltari claimed—when his memory had been obliterated, and from what Voltari had said about the incident, it was a rather mild result of overextending the magic within oneself. The spell would have to wait.
He flipped through several pages without reading them, noting that with each new spell Teffles’ shorthand script became more precise and smaller. By the time he reached the last spell, he had to strain his eyes to see it clearly, but when he tried to read the instructions, the complexity of Teffles’ shorthand was far beyond him. In fact, he wasn’t at all sure if he would ever understand it. Maybe if he unraveled each symbol and wrote it out long-hand as a sequence of knots and then—
“Angus?” Ortis interrupted. “Do you often talk to yourself in strange languages?”
“Was I mumbling again?” Angus asked. “I have that tendency when I study new and unfamiliar spells. Voltari tried to break me of the habit, but he wasn’t successful. He only stopped me from doing it in front of him.”
Ortis looked up. “The lift is coming. It’s time to gather your things together.”
And my thoughts. Angus nodded and put Teffles’ book—his book now—in his backpack. As he did so, he gradually became aware of a soft, metallic squawk of protest descending from above them. He looked up and saw the source of the noise: a pulley on the lift needed oiling. Then he realized the size of the lift and wondered how they were able to raise and lower it at all.
“We have to wait over there,” Ortis said. “The passengers coming down will be let off first, and then we can board her. Do you mind heights?”
“Heights? No,” Angus said. “Why?”
“They have two sections on the lift. One is completely enclosed, but the other is a kind of balcony where you can look out over the valley as it goes up. It is a wonderful view, and it will give you a better sense of what the terrain around here is like. The enclosed part is mainly for horses; the height makes them uncomfortable and nervous.”
“I think,” Angus said, “I’ll stay in the enclosed area. I don’t mind the openness of the wilderness or walking along the edge of a mountain, but I’m much more comfortable in enclosed spaces. Until I left Blackhaven, I never ventured outside its walls. In fact,” he added, half-smiling, “I was tempted to stay in the stables. They were more like my room at Voltari’s than the inns I’ve stayed in since I left.”
“You still can,” Hobart offered as he joined them. “We paid for both sections and one of the stalls is free.”
Angus shook his head. “It would make visiting the city too complicated.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that,” Ortis said. “You didn’t seem to mind the wait for the lift.”
“You’re right,” Angus said. “It gave me a chance to look at Teffles’ book.”
“Was it interesting reading?” Giorge asked as he settled in a bit too close beside him.
Angus nodded. “What I was able to follow,” he said. “Teffles had his own style of writing, and it will take time for me to interpret it. I’m confident I will be able
to do it eventually.”
“How much time do you want?” Hobart asked.
“I’m not sure,” Angus admitted. “Ask me that after three or four days of study. I’ll be able to give you an accurate estimate at that time.”
“We’ll hold you to that,” Hobart said.
The lift was near the platform now, dropping at a slow, steady pace of about fifteen feet per minute. “Why doesn’t it come down faster?” Angus asked.
“Safety,” Hobart said. “Horses don’t like it much when it goes faster than that.”
The lift—little more than a giant wooden box on strings—fell into place next to the platform and settled with a muffled clang. Once it finished shuddering, the guards on the platform hurried up to the sliding doors and unlocked them.
“They lock it from the outside to prevent people from opening it while in transit,” Hobart said. “Before they added that safety feature, there were a few people who panicked and flung themselves out the doors. They probably wouldn’t have done anything about it, but one of the people who plunged to their deaths was a wealthy merchant’s son. They almost got rid of the balcony, too, but too many people complained about it.”
The guards pulled the sliding doors open, their metal rollers grating against the grooves. When they stepped aside, the guards on the inside ushered the passengers off the lift. Those with horses were first, their masters leading them by the reins onto the platform and down a short ramp. Once they were outside the