Apparently, that was exactly what had happened recently, for a large section of the bridge extending out from North Ledopolus was newly wrecked, and dwarven work crews labored to repair the damage.
With each new catapult emplacement and each new defensive tower built along the causeway, the giants’ assault retreated. But before those works could be extended, more pilings had to be driven down into the silt and reinforced, and new sections of the span constructed. More effort was expended in widening and fortifying the causeway than extending it. The dwarves had learned the hard way that it was pointless to extend the causeway beyond the protective reach of the catapults and towers. As a result, the bridge was slowly taking on the appearance of an elongated fortress, complete with battlements and crenelated towers constructed from thick adobe brick. Eventually, both sections would reach the island in the middle, and then the giants would find themselves under siege. The dwarves were already grimly preparing for that final battle.
As Sorak’s grandfather had written in his journal, each year, as a result of steadily increasing revenues, the dwarves’ mercenary force grew a little larger. However, the dwarves paid a price for building and maintaining their private little army, and it wasn’t just a matter of monetary expense. Mercenaries were a rough and unruly lot, and discipline had never been one of their virtues. Mixed in with a standing army under the command of seasoned officers, they could be controlled. But with a force composed entirely of mercenaries, who chose their own officers, discipline was a serious problem. While North Ledopolus was a quiet, sleepy dwarven village, South Ledopolus had become a rowdy, rough-and-tumble desert town where mercenaries did pretty much as they pleased.
The dark sun was sinking on the horizon as Sorak and Ryana booked passage on the last ferry of the day, paying with one of the silver coins they had brought back with them from Bodach. They could easily have loaded up their packs with gold and precious jewels from Bodach’s vast treasure hoard, but such wealth would attract too much attention. Ceramics made up by far the largest percentage of the world’s coinage, followed by silver and then gold. An aristocrat with purseful of gold coins would raise no eyebrows, but it would be decidedly unusual for two plainly dressed pilgrims to be paying in such currency, so they had taken only silver. They packed away no more than they could comfortably carry, but enough to see them through for a quite a while. And more than enough to tempt any would-be robbers, so they were discreet in how they carried it, keeping only a few coins in their purses and the rest hidden in their packs.
The ferry they boarded was constructed of blue pagafa wood, held aloft by the exertions of a floater—a psionicist specially trained to keep boats afloat on the shifting silt. It was a long, flat, open-decked boat about thirty feet from end to end and about twelve feet in the beam, with low gunwales and ten oarlocks to each side, with low bench seats for the dwarven rowers. There was a heavy mast set forward toward the bow, with a gaff-rigged sail stitched from dark green lizard hide. But despite the rising night wind coming in off the Great Ivory Plain and filling the patchwork, triangular sail, the oarsmen still needed to row. Even with the wind, the ferry made slow progress across the thick brown silt.
There was no place for them to sit, except on the deck. As they dropped down cross-legged among the other passengers, a mixture of dwarves and mercenaries heading across to South Ledopolus, Sorak tried to imagine what it must have been like in the ancient times, when the estuary was filled with water, when boats had plied it with the speed of the wind.
Ryana glanced at him curiously. She was well accustomed to his silences, but until recently, those silences had often indicated he was listening to his inner voices. Now, she was no longer sure quite what they meant. She knew it must be very difficult for him to learn how to accept the change. “What were you thinking of just now?” she asked.
“I was wondering what it must have been like in the old days, when boats sailed upon water,” he replied. “I think I would have liked to be a sailor.”
Ryana smiled. “It would have been a fitting occupation for a nomad.”
“We shall have to try it someday,” he replied.
She frowned. “But… how could we?”
Sorak smiled, something he did not do very often these days. “We may be going back again, one day.”
She said, “Ah,” and nodded in sudden comprehension. He meant Sanctuary, of course. In the ancient time where the Sage had magically established his retreat, the world was still green and water filled the seas. It flowed swift and cold in the estuaries and the rivers, and the wind that blew over it was richly laden with its scent and moisture. In the time of Sanctuary, Athas had not yet become the dying world of the dark sun.
For a moment, they sat in companionable silence as the muscular dwarven rowers bent to their oars, laboring to pull the ferry through the silt. Sorak’s thoughts went back to the brief time they had spent in Sanctuary. It seemed more like a dream now than reality, but it had been real, and that brief taste of a lost reality had fed his hope that perhaps, one day, it could be found again, and the fate that had befallen the world at
