The Ambassador's Mission

“You look disappointed,” Cery noted.

Gol shrugged and waved a hand at the room. “I guess we won’t be needing all this now. Such a lot of work and money went into it. And we built in all those flaws, so you can’t come back and stay here later. Seems a shame.”

Cery looked around thoughtfully. “It is, I guess. Perhaps when all this is over, and people have forgotten about it, we can fix the flaws. But for now it’s no good as a location for our new bait. We need something less secure, so he’ll strike sooner.”

“I guess I had better go buy you some books on magic,” Gol said, putting his glass down.

“You won’t find them that easily. If you did there’d be no point in us using them as bait.”

Gol smiled. “Oh, I never said they’d be the real thing. We’ll get some fakes made.”

“That will take time. Maybe all we need is the rumour that there are books somewhere.”

“Do you think the Thief Hunter would risk exposure as a magician for the sake of the rumour of books on magic? He’ll only investigate if he knows someone has laid eyes on them.”

“All right, get some fakes made.” Cery grimaced. “Just... don’t let them take as long as real book-copiers do, or I may as well stay here and wait for the Thief Hunter to come find me.”

Dannyl surrendered his plate to the slave and resisted the urge to pat his stomach contentedly. He was beginning to like the strange manner in which meals were served in Sachaka. By having guests select food from the offered plates it allowed them to eat as much or as little as they liked. At first he had felt obliged to try every dish, but he noticed that other guests did not – if anything they affected an air of fussiness which the host did not appear to mind.

Nobody ever commented on the food, he’d noted. Which was a relief, because some of the dishes had been laced with spices so hot, or else unexpectedly bitter or salty, that he’d not been able to finish what he’d taken. Sachakans did not appear to serve dessert, though if receiving a visitor during the day they made sure there were dishes of nuts, sweet fruit or confections laid out on tables.

Dannyl’s host for the night was a portly Sachakan named Ashaki Itoki. He knew that the man was one of the most powerful in Sachaka, and cousin to the Sachakan king. It appeared Ashaki Achati, the man who had greeted Dannyl and Lorkin when they had arrived at the Guild House, had been given the task of ensuring Dannyl was introduced to the right people in the right order. Though he had not told Dannyl this plainly, he had hinted at it.

“What shall we do now?” Itoki asked, glancing from Dannyl to Achati. “My baths are large enough to accommodate guests and my slaves are well trained in the art of massage.”

“Ambassador Dannyl might be interested in seeing those ancient maps you collect,” Achati suggested.

Dannyl felt a flash of hope. He had always found old maps intriguing, and it was always possible they might contain information relevant to his research.

“I would not like to bore my guest,” Itoki said doubtfully.

“Remember, I told you earlier that Ambassador Dannyl is a historian. I’m sure he will find them very interesting.”

Itoki looked at Dannyl hopefully. Dannyl nodded in agreement. “I would.”

The man smiled broadly, then rubbed his hands together. “Oh, you’ll be impressed, I’m sure. Most advanced maps ever drawn.” He rose, and Achati and Dannyl followed suit. “I’ll take you to the library.”

They made their way through curved white corridors to a cluster of rooms similar to those Dannyl had been given at the Guild House, and those he and Lorkin had used while staying with Ashaki hosts on their journey to Arvice. It was interesting to see that another Sachakan house followed the same pattern. Were they all the same? How long had Sachakans been building their homes in this way?

The central room held a few stools and a large pile of cushions in the centre, and several cabinets stood against the walls. Through the doorways leading out on all sides Dannyl could see several more. Itoki moved to a cabinet and drew a key out of an inner pocket of his jacket. He unlocked it and pulled open the doors.

Several metal tubes stood on end within. Itoki ran his fingers along them reverently, then chose one and drew it out. He moved to the cushions, nudged several aside to clear an area of floor, then lowered himself onto a stool with a grunt of effort.

“If you position yourselves there and there,” he said, pointing, “we can hold a corner each and weigh the other down.” Achati moved a stool into one of the indicated positions, and Dannyl shifted another to the second. They sat down and watched Itoki remove the cap of the tube and pull out a roll of yellowed paper.

“This isn’t the original, of course,” the man said. “It’s a copy, but it’s still over four hundred years old and a bit delicate.” He laid the roll on the floor and began to unroll it. Dannyl automatically caught the edge closest to him, preventing it from springing back. Achati did the same. At a glance from Itoki a stool rose and floated over to weigh down the last corner with one of its legs.

A great swirling mass of lines was revealed. Blue rivers wound across them, and beside several of them roads matched and reflected every curve. Tiny drawings of buildings, fields and the low walls of estate boundaries covered the map. Contour lines on a four-hundred-year-old map? The Guild didn’t develop the use of contour lines until two hundred years ago. But... this is a copy.

“How old was the original map?” he asked.

“Over seven hundred years,” Itoki replied, with a note of pride. “They’ve been passed down through my family since the Sachakan War.”

“Do you have the originals?”

“Yes,” Itoki grinned. “But they are in fragments, and are too delicate to handle.”

Dannyl looked down at the map again. “What is this map of?”

“A region in western Sachaka, near the mountains. Let me show you the others.” Itoki rose again and collected another two metal tubes from the cabinet. The map he unrolled next was of a coastal area, with tiny boats drawn in the water parts and warnings written next to rocks and reefs. It was followed by one of another rural area.

“This is – was – in the south,” Itoki told him.

Where the wasteland lies, Dannyl thought. He doesn’t state it. He doesn’t have to. The fields and estates hinted at a fertile, green land where sand and dust now dominated.

They examined the maps for some time until, at a signal from Achati, Itoki began rolling them up carefully and sliding them back into their tubes.

“What areas of history are you interested in?” he asked Dannyl.

Dannyl shrugged. “Most of them. Though I suppose the older the better, and naturally any reference to magic is interesting to me.”

“Naturally. That would include Guild history, or is that already well recorded?”

“Yes and no. There are some gaps in Guild history that I am trying to fill.”

“I doubt I could help you there, though I do have some records from the short time that Kyralia ruled Sachaka.” Itoki rose and returned to the cabinet to replace the map tubes, locked the cabinet, then beckoned and moved into one of the side rooms. Dannyl and Achati followed. The tall, heavy cabinets around the room stood like guards on duty, still and silent. Itoki moved to one and opened the doors. Which aren’t locked, Dannyl noted. What’s in them obviously isn’t as valuable.

The familiar smell of old paper and binding wafted out. Inside were several books with missing or tattered covers, frayed rolls of paper and envelopes of leather wrapped around stacks of paper. Itoki rifled through gently, then took out a stack of papers and a book.

“These are letters and records of a Guild magician who lived in Sachaka during the years of occupation. I rescued them from an old estate at the edge of the wasteland that fell into the king’s hands after no legitimate heir came forward to claim it.”

He handed the book to Dannyl. Opening it, Dannyl leafed carefully through the first few brittle old pages. Like many of the old records of Kyralian magicians, they contained both accounting lists and diary entries. Conscious of