Green Bridge, October 7th

Cyrus Stoat walked cautiously down the straight stone passage, carefully placing one foot in front of the other in the darkness. The possibility of a gap opening below him was not a comforting one. His lantern threw light ahead just twenty feet or so, but he could see the tiny spot of light in the distance growing closer. The conduits on either side ran their separate ways in rigidly straight lines, drawing apart and coming together, apart and together, making a tapestry of stone and metal that looked random but hinted at some subtle, unseen order.

He crouched down smoothly, his knees resting on the hard, stone floor. Greensmith was dead. Blood ran from his ears and eyes. Cyrus stood up again and looked forward at the light. He stepped toward it cautiously. Right foot. Left foot. The light ahead drew up to meet him.

Something whispered in the darkness.

Dead end, Cyrus Stoat.

✽✽✽

Cyrus’s eyes snapped open, and he lay perfectly still. The room around him was empty and pitch black, but the presence was real, immediate, and terrifying. He waited for the dry, flat words to come again, but they did not. He moved as little as possible, holding his breath, listening and waiting. Every sound of the room and the building and the city around him could resolve itself into that voice at any moment. It would speak again.

Gradually his muscles relaxed, and he realized that it was a dream. Freddie Greensmith was not dead, and in fact was due back in Green Bridge today. Cyrus was not in the tunnels below the old church; he was in Veridia Snipe’s bedroom. He turned in the bed awkwardly, still instinctively pushing air with the stump of his right leg.

Veridia Snipe was not in Veridia Snipe’s bedroom.

He sat up in the bed slowly, rubbing his eyes. Fumbling in the cold and dark, he located his wooden leg, slipped on the ‘sock’ he wore around his stump, and grimly tightened the leather straps of the harness around his upper thigh. He limped out of the bedroom.

Veridia was at her desk in the study, writing something in cipher by the light of several oil lamps. A coal stove heated the room comfortably. She sat back awkwardly in the chair, unable to lean forward with the huge bump in her belly. Cyrus lowered himself carefully into a padded chair nearby.

“He was kicking,” she said flatly. “I couldn’t sleep. No sense wasting time lying in bed and not sleeping.”

“What time is it?” he asked sleepily.

She glanced up at a large standing clock. Its long pendulum swung back and forth hypnotically, and the gentle tick-tock sound threatened to send him back to sleep right here in the chair.

“Three o’clock,” she answered. Something hot steamed in a cup next to her. Cyrus gave it a sniff; herbal tea. Veridia didn’t drink coffee.

He shook his head, driving the sleep away. He didn’t care for the idea of returning to that stone passage beneath the old church…

“You seem quite sure it’s a boy,” he remarked.

She shrugged. “The male pronoun will do until we know. I don’t care for calling a child ‘it’, like he was a spoon. Right now, I think of him as both a boy and a girl. He won’t be one or the other until he comes out and we can see which sort of equipment he has.”

“Have you ever read Schrubier?” asked Cyrus curiously. “Svegnian writer, died about a century ago. He said something similar. He had this idea that everything in the world exists in all possible states until you look at it, and only then does it settle down and become real. He had a thought experiment about a cat in a box, and some business with flipping a coin to see if the cat was dead. Don’t quite recall the details now.”

“That sounds morbid.” She winced suddenly.

“What’s wrong?” he asked in alarm.

“Another kick. Nothing new. But the time is soon. It’s very soon.”

They sat in silence for a time, as Veridia scribbled and Cyrus scratched irritably at the harness on his leg.

“I need to go to Hog Hurst,” he said cautiously, after she looked less likely to throw something at him.

Veridia looked up sharply. “Now?” She looked down meaningfully at her belly. “I’d just as soon you didn’t, actually. I want you here when the baby comes.”

“And you also want me to get to the bottom of Rolly’s murder—and so does Queen Anne. Obilly Smallhat went back there. Whether he did it to escape justice or escape a lynch mob, I’m not sure. But I need to talk to him.”

“Send someone else!” she exclaimed, growing agitated. “Vigg can dispatch a Billy or two with a warrant for his arrest, if you need to speak with him so urgently. I want you here.”

“Veridia,” he explained with as much patience as he could muster, “the Gray Kingdom is run by goblins. It’s entirely outside the legal jurisdiction of Queen Anne, or the Billies, or even the King. Taking Smallhat by force would be the same as kidnapping.”

“Then write to King Simon and ask him to have Smallhat sent down here. You keep saying you’re on good terms with him.”

“That’s exactly why I have to go there,” he retorted. “Simon and I get on, but a letter will take time. It could get lost along the way, or it could just be eaten by whatever goblin first gets his hands on it. They can’t all read, you know, and postal mail is a concept just about as alien to them as Schrubier’s cat. If Nicola Snugg and Queen Anne want a swift resolution, then I have to take the chance that Smallhat knows something that will open up a new path.”

She set down her elegant silver pen and gave him a stare that was neither angry nor calm, neither hot nor cold; it was simply calculating. The essence of Veridia Snipe, thought Cyrus bitterly.

“Cyrus. The Republic is creeping farther north every week. Leeland has declared anyone supporting Queen Anne outlaw, and the central landowners are firmly on the fence. We can’t get fresh mercenaries into the north because Hobb the Wise controls the Green River at Uellodon, and the men we have are dwindling. The goblins are having an internal upheaval, coal shipments are off, winter is coming on, there’s some kind of new religion brewing, a dragon’s been sighted in the far north, and I’m about to have a baby any day now.”

He stared at her. “What was that bit about a dragon?”

She sighed and slumped her shoulders, defeated. “I’m not much for gags at three in the morning. Never mind.”

“Dragons are not a real thing, Veridia.”

“I know that! I was reading the dispatches a few minutes ago. Apparently one of our caravanners passing through—” She put on her spectacles and read an encrypted paper nearby. “—Outer West Clucking talked to three shepherds who swear up and down they saw a fifty-foot long airborne lizard on consecutive evenings at dusk, flying high and circling occasionally.”

“It’s a violation of every law of nature and physics,” he insisted. “You’d never get any creature that size in the air. The wings would have to be so large it could never move them. Same reason you could never have a giant ant—”

She threw the pen at him. He dodged, and fell out of the chair. Once he had recovered his dignity and his seat, he handed the pen back to her.

“I’m going to Hog Hurst,” he said.

She turned back to her papers and started writing again, while he stood up to go and get dressed. As he reached the door, she spoke again.

“Choices, Cyrus Stoat. Choices and consequences—you can’t go back and undo either.”

The clock struck an ominous chime.

✽✽✽

Cyrus retrieved Daisy and his wagon from a weary looking Greensmith and Aristine le Hen that afternoon. Daisy whickered congenially when he took the reins from Greensmith, and curled his neck around Cyrus’s shoulder and back. The cart mule, nearby, brayed obnoxiously in greeting. Cyrus considered that he should probably one day give the beast a name, but never got quite around to selecting the perfect one. Daisy ambled along on his pony line as Cyrus rode on the wagon seat, its old wooden platform a comfortable familiarity beneath his buttocks.

He looked with some concern at a slight limp in Daisy’s gait. The old warhorse had taken a bad fall during battle when he served in the Heavy Horse, and would have been put down had Cyrus not chanced to be nearby and volunteered to take him. The wound had healed, but Daisy, for all his ferocity in close quarters, could no longer move faster than a brisk amble. Cyrus, knowing the horse had just walked over a hundred miles from Roosterfoot, resolved to book passage on a barge rather than traveling overland. Daisy could rest for a few days, and so could Cyrus Stoat. Under other circumstances he might have hired a carriage and let Daisy rest in the stables at Triad, but he knew he would have to cross the Green at Hog Hurst and travel into goblin territory. He’d just as soon make the journey on an animal with no compunctions about committing horrific violence.

A multitude of barges now plied the river back and forth between Green Bridge and Hog Hurst, and there was no difficulty booking passage for the upriver journey. Vicod agreed to teach Cyrus’s classes for two weeks in exchange for two more bottles of Claire Paget, and Cyrus made a short visit to William Hall to give a statement on the death of his carriage driver the previous day. He asked Captain Vigg if any other witnesses had been flushed out, and found that none had. He stopped in to see Merrily at Bastings Hall, but she was not at home. And then he found his barge, loaded his animals and wagon, and sat on the aft deck with a small cask of beer to enjoy the five-day journey up the Green River.

The Green was a broad, deep river, and its current was stronger from recent heavy rains. In the spring flood, upstream navigation would become nearly impossible owing to the enormous current, and all trade would move to the overland road. He had heard with amusement that some bright spark in the College of Geography had recently proposed changing the name on the maps to ‘The Coal Road,’ which had set off a predictably furious and occasionally violent debate among his colleagues. It was, properly, an extension of the hoary old Eldenway, but it was no fun just naming a road ‘Eldenway Extension.’ The spirit of a man must be well and truly dead to name a thing ‘Extension.’

The brilliant October colors of the vast forests to the west slipped by as the rowers strained at their oars, and Cyrus relaxed and worked his way through his cask. On the third day they stopped at Far Gourd to resupply, and Cyrus got himself another cask. North of Far Gourd, the primeval forests ran on both sides of the river, with towering vegetative monoliths so outrageous that Cyrus was hard pressed to take them seriously. Though Hog Hurst was a tiny, distant frontier outpost now, he wondered somberly what would happen to these great trees as the influx of trade inflated the population and importance of the little village. He foresaw, with some distaste, a great many stumps.

Cyrus thought of Veridia, and wondered if she was well. He thought about having a child, and then didn’t think about it.

The barge arrived in Hog Hurst on the twelfth of October, and Cyrus put in to inquire about local conditions. He found the transformation of the sleepy little hog town astonishing. The old fishing dock was now dwarfed by four stone quays, sized for commercial barges. Five large, newly built warehouses stood on the eastern edge of town where farms had been before. A sixth building, resembling somewhat a comically oversized barn, loomed right over the old trading square, though there were guards posted at the corners and all the doors were closed. A new road ran straight east from this warehouse, cutting through the little one-story village dwellings, through the farmlands, and into the distance beyond his sight.

There were new houses as well. These appeared to have been built rather hastily, and clustered in the center of the village. The old public house where Cyrus had recuperated from a wound on his first visit was now dwarfed by a row of three-story apartment blocks. There were two new public houses on the other side of the square next to the giant barn. People were all over the streets, and one could distinguish the older inhabitants from the newcomers by the confused, slightly resentful looks worn by the former and the sheen of thinly veiled contempt on the faces on the latter. Diminutive village snarfs, too, could be seen here and there, either walking brazenly among the feet of the big people or perched on the rooftops looking down. He even fancied he spotted a hawk rider circling above.

Shaking his head in wonder, he made his way back to the old mill, its twin, backshot wheels still turning proudly and a steady stream of wagons coming and going from the two mill houses. They had built a new iron-railed fence all around the works and the attached residence, and several of the shabby old houses that used to stand nearby were gone. There was a guard at the gate.

“I’m here to see Jonathan Miller,” he said.

“Not at home,” replied the guard shortly.

“Alright. Mrs. Miller, then?”

The man shook his head.

“Will she be back soon?”

Another shake of the head. “She spends most of her time over the river,” the guard explained, nodding his head at the vast, brown expanse to the west.

“Who’s in charge of the mill?”

“That’d be Henry Miller. But he’s busy, and you’ll need to make an appointment.”

“I have an appointment.”

“Get off,” said the guard contemptuously.

“Oy! Get a move on up there at the front!” came a voice shouted from behind him. “There’s a dozen wagons behind you!” Cyrus looked back. The man who had produced these words, a swarthy caravan driver, was approximately correct in his inventory of the traffic backed up behind Cyrus’s old, small wagon. Scowling, he turned the wagon with some difficulty in the cramped space outside the gates and made his way back up the narrow road.

He stopped by the old public house to gather intelligence. Jonathan Miller, it seemed, had passed through a few days ago with another man, but then disappeared less than a day after he arrived. Jonathan’s mother, Alice Miller, was said to be living with the grays, and the accounts of her activities ranged from ‘going native’ to taking over as their leader. Snugg was building something in the large warehouse on the square, but no one who would speak to him had been inside to see what it was. The village was still adjusting to the snarfs living openly among them; there had been some ugly disputes. The selectmen were bickering with the new merchants.

No one had seen a flying lizard. Cyrus was embarrassed he’d asked.

Few rooms were on offer at any of the inns, and their prices were more than Cyrus cared to pay. Lacking any better options, he stabled the mule and wagon at the old public house, hired the new ferry that spanned the mighty watercourse on an ox-drawn cable, and with Daisy made his way over the Green River.

He pitched his tent in a clearing in the forest on the west bank and spent the evening looking back at the lights of the sleepy little village of Hog Hurst, now nearly unrecognizable against the version in his memory.

✽✽✽

There was a rough road west now, leading into the endless forests. That was new. It was hastily cut, but showed signs of care in grading and drainage.

Lumberjacks—human lumberjacks—were laboriously harvesting the enormous trees on the west bank; also new. Few enough had been felled so far, as the crews were small. But Cyrus knew that there would be demand, both in the town and downstream. More would come down. He recalled vividly the moment two years ago when he had, speaking from underneath a covered platform and pretending to be the voice of ‘King’ Simon, granted Hog Hurst the right to take one of every three trees within twenty miles of the west bank of the river. It had been a moment of rapid improvisation. He wondered now if he had done the right thing.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

Daisy moved confidently along the forest track, his back swaying beneath Cyrus. The limp in his gait seemed to have eased with his rest on the riverboat. The miles passed, and the road continued deeper and deeper into the primeval trees. Cyrus pulled his cloak tightly around him against the raw cold of the early autumn.

There was a silence to the forest. Undergrowth was practically nonexistent, for the great canopies above permitted little light to filter down, even so late in the season. Colorful leaves littered the forest floor and the track. There were no humans once he left the narrow strip at the riverbank. Birds could be heard, and the small noises of small creatures, but otherwise there was a thick blanket of silence. Cyrus didn’t find it uncomfortable, exactly, but it sharpened his senses.

The track carried on and on. It began to rain.

After several hours, he saw his first goblins. They came up out of the dim light ahead, resolving into short, squat, gray figures marching along the path. They moved in pairs, with large sacks of coal hanging from slings resting on their shoulders. As they drew near and saw him, they slowed but did not stop, and looked at him with curiosity. He moved Daisy to the side of the track and let them pass.

To his surprise, as each passed him by, he or she looked up and said in clear Uellish: “Hello, sir.” They said the words as if by memory, but it was clear that some, at least, had enough understanding to add their own inflections. He counted twenty as they moved past.

Deeper into the forest he rode, and the hours slipped by. Two more caravans of goblins on foot passed him, and all greeted him—but said nothing more. He ate a bit of bread and cheese from horseback as he rode, but did not stop. The light began to fade into a cold dusk, and around him the falling leaves stood out against the gray of the rain like dull, multicolored snowflakes. He patted Daisy’s neck affectionately, glad there was some familiar creature with him in this vast, unfamiliar space.

When he came at last to the borders of the Gray Kingdom—a name he had made up out of whole cloth from underneath the platform, he reminded himself—it very nearly passed his notice. His only cue was an arrow that suddenly appeared in the path ahead of him from above. He reined in Daisy and looked up. Several broad, wooden platforms could be seen high up in the trees on either side of the path. Small gray shapes were moving about on them, but there was no shouting or noise. One of these flung out a long rope from the platform and commenced to slide down it, unable to suppress a giggle of glee at the ride. Cyrus noted with interest that the goblin had heavy leather gloves and leggings to protect its hands and legs from the friction of the rope.

The little grayskin scampered over to Cyrus and stood in the path rather officiously, puffing out her chest and holding her squat head up at the human without a hint of fear or submission. A female, he noted.

“I am Emily. With respect, sir, you are at the edge of the Gray Kingdom. You must turn back.” Her Uellish was clear, precise, and only lightly accented.

Cyrus dismounted slowly; his rump was sore from riding all day. He stumbled on his one foot, but caught himself on the stirrup and avoided the indignity of a faceplant. He tried to kneel down, but found that his one good leg simply wouldn’t have it. Instead he sat down heavily on the ground to place his face at eye level to the border guard.

“I invented the Gray Kingdom, you know,” he remarked. “Two years ago, you people were slaughtering each other into oblivion, and I just made up a solution of lies and nonsense. It was a hasty answer to the intractable problem of preventing the demise of one Simon, who I understand is now actually your King. It was either save his life or be gutted by a merciless feyess. And now here you are, stopping me at the border of the Gray Kingdom and telling me to go home. Funny old world. I expect you’ll ask for my papers next.”

“Do you have any?” asked Emily eagerly. “Paper is tasty. I like how it feels in my mouth.”

Cyrus tried not to smile. He rummaged about in the food saddlebag until he came up with a chocolate truffle wrapped in thin paper—which he kept for occasions just such as this one—and handed it over. The goblin’s eyes grew wide as she tasted the chocolate.

“This is the most wonderful paper I’ve ever eaten,” she declared.

“Indeed,” he answered. “And I am the most wonderful human you won’t eat. Take me to your leader; he’s an old friend of mine. If you absolutely must ask permission, then tell Simon that Cyrus Stoat has come calling, and he’d like a word or two about some friends in Green Bridge.”

The goblin’s eyes widened even farther.

“You are Cyrus Stoat?” she asked incredulously. “I thought you would be bigger. You must come with me.” She took his hand, and he grabbed Daisy’s reins to lead the horse along.

“Excellent. You’re taking me to Simon?” he asked.

Emily looked back at him over her shoulder, and he was surprised to see fear and pain on her face.

“King Simon is gone, Cyrus Stoat,” she explained sorrowfully. “I am taking you to Alice Miller.”

✽✽✽

The forest melted away abruptly as they walked forward, to be replaced with newly cleared, open land. Many tree stumps had even been removed, and grass had begun to spread in their place. He could see crews bucking several of the mighty trunks where they lay, and others rolling the massive, round segments toward a huge open-air sawmill powered by teams of oxen turning a broad shaft. Numerous above-ground structures of stone and wood were visible, some still under construction. There were workshops of all sorts, and he counted at least four huge, open-air kitchens, all surrounded by a flock of eager patrons. There seemed to be chickens everywhere.

Goblins were everywhere as well, and, despite the lateness of the hour, they were all doing… something. He could see teams of them moving blocks of stone, carrying boards, digging holes, filling in holes, building, cooking, washing, drilling for combat, and too many more activities for him to count. Sacks of coal were everywhere, either piled neatly in depots or being carried in slings by teams. The grayskins chattered to each other constantly, and Cyrus recognized a wide variety of accents and dialects. The whole place was a bubbling pot of activity and energy. He tried not to gape. Cyrus’s lengthy experience with goblin culture primarily involved a year kept as a prisoner by a remote tribe with early iron-age tools and the sort of lifestyle that leads to banjo-playing.

Off in the dusk, he could faintly see a broad, open patch with some large structure being constructed within—but Emily led him in the other direction and he could make out no more details.

And yet even amidst all this oddity, details struck him as peculiar. Among the bustle of chaotic activity, there were small knots of goblins standing still. They looked suspiciously out from within their little groups, eyeing their comrades with condescension and anger. He noticed a few scuffles here and there. Some of the grays were dressed in roughly-sewn skins, a sharp contrast to their fellows wearing shirts and hose of woven and dyed fabric. The ones wearing the skins looked at him... hungrily. But no one approached him.

Emily led him into the caves. This, he expected; goblins were primarily a cave-dwelling species. But these caves were tidy, well-lit, and ventilated. Indeed, some sections had been finished with floors and walls. They even smelled clean, though he detected a faint odor of juju-jug smoke from somewhere nearby. He soon discovered the source: set discretely in one corner of the passage was a brazier emitting a faint but pungent haze that diffused into the tunnels nearby. They passed several more of these as Emily led him deeper. He began to feel slightly giddy, and wondered if the goblins had a similar reaction.

Alice Miller, when he finally entered her presence, was seated in a large, round chamber dotted with tree stump seats. The walls were covered with pictures of letters, words, simple math sums, and other accoutrements of a classroom. A low platform stood in the center of the room, and some large, lumpy object stood on the platform covered in a canvas sheet. Mrs. Miller herself sat with a small group of goblin children, apparently teaching them the Uellish alphabet.

Cyrus remembered Jonathan Miller’s mother as a thin, rather severe woman who had a look that made him certain he had done something terribly wrong. When he had last met her, she wore an undyed wool dress that didn’t exactly flatter her figure, a necklace of small colored stones, and a perpetual squint. She still had the dress and the necklace, but she had since acquired a pair of wire-framed spectacles. She also wore a hat of woven sticks and reeds, decorated with flowers and leaves. Cyrus marveled at the spectacles; they were an expensive luxury. Veridia treated her own pair like a diamond necklace.

Mrs. Miller looked up at Cyrus over the frames of her spectacles, but didn’t miss a beat in her lesson. Her eyes gestured for him to sit down on one of the nearby stools, and he found himself powerless to disobey. He waited while she made her way through the lesson, expecting to be bored to the point of combustion. To his surprise, he found himself fascinated by the speed and focus with which the young goblins absorbed the teaching. They went from a rather middling grasp of the alphabet to spelling simple words in the course of about half an hour. He wondered how such a thing could be possible, and then reflected that he’d never actually tried it himself.

At last she dismissed them, each with a single sheet of hemp paper, a pencil, a sandwich, and instructions to come back the next day with an essay of not less than two hundred words. As they left, Mrs. Miller rose to her feet and looked at him squarely.

“Well, Professor Stoat. I see you have finally returned,” she observed. “Have you run out of tombs to plunder and come to try your hand at coal?”

“I have never plundered a tomb, madame,” he said loftily. “I am a historian. I excavate. I catalog. I use the power and knowledge of the past to shape the world as it should be in the future. I do not plunder.” He paused thoughtfully. “I am compensated in part per artifact recovered. But never mind. I see you have acquired the most astonishing tribe of students. Have they made you their god and commenced to worship at your feet?”

“They have not,” she said, her voice studded with icicles. “I would sooner be lunch to these people than inflict religion on them. You are correct, however, that they are most satisfactory students. I have never seen minds so eager to learn. The youngsters are the fastest. Simon gave me free rein to teach them from the moment they can talk, which is at about four months. You can see the results.”

He nodded approvingly. “I can. And they are most impressive results. Another time I would love to return and observe further, or perhaps… perhaps try my hand at a class or two myself. But for now, I’m afraid I am pressed for time. I must speak with Simon. What’s this about him being gone? Did he travel to visit another tribe?”

She shook her head gravely and lowered her voice. “No. He’s gone—disappeared. It happened about a month ago, and since then things have been quietly falling apart. The Gizzard left for a while afterward, looking for him, but Simon couldn’t be found. He’s gone off again, but there’s little hope. If you’re in a hurry, I won’t bore you with all the details, but suffice to say that these people are not so advanced that they can get along without a steady hand to guide them. The Quiet Ones have been doing their best to keep the rest of them under control, but it won’t last if Simon doesn’t return.”

“The Quiet Ones?” he asked. “What does that mean?”

“Oh, it’s a shorthand. There are some among the goblins that are just… different. Like they grew up somewhere else, and got transplanted here. Most of the leaders, bosses, and the like are Quiet Ones. The Gizzard excepted, notably. Ever since Simon charmed the feral hordes out of the ground with his drumming, the rest of them have looked up to the Quiet Ones as something just shy of Simon himself. “But, as I say, the whole thing is coming apart at the seams without him here. Now look, if you want an exposition on this bizarre social experiment, I’ll be happy to give it—but you said you were in a hurry. So: what do you need?”

“What I really need is a goblin named Obilly Smallhat,” he answered firmly. She was right; no sense getting distracted by the internal politics of a strange tribe of grayskins. “He came here recently from Green Bridge. I received a letter saying he had something to give me, and I also need to talk with him about one or two rather urgent matters at Triad. Can you help me find him?”

“I am here, Professor,” came a light, musical voice behind him.

✽✽✽

I did not kill Rolland Gorp. Rolly was my friend. When I came to Triad, he gave me food and found a place for me and Herberta and the others to stay. It was in his office at first, and then later he helped us pay for our own room in a house near Redbun Hall. He found us work at the University, in the kitchens and the library and sweeping the halls. He would walk with us around the city sometimes, and he told us the stories of all the buildings and the people that used to live in them. He helped us with our studies when they were difficult for us. Professor, I would rather murder myself than hurt him.

No, I do not know who killed him.

That night I came to see him before supper. He usually walked across the square to Bastings to buy his food in the evening. I met him before he left. I talked to him about some things and left him alone.

There were some of the other mathematicians in their offices, and a few students. I think the man who cleans was there as well. I didn’t see any of them go into Rolly’s office.

We talked about his research with Professor Pie, and his work with Professor Tentimes. He said that Professor Tentimes had discovered a new star during the summer, and it wasn’t moving the way her calculations said it should move. Rolly had been trying to figure out what was wrong with the equations. He said he was going to the observatory on the roof later in the evening to look at it again and take new measurements.

Professor Pie? Well. I didn’t completely understand what he and Rolly were working on together. I am only in my second year at Triad, Professor, and I study mostly cryptography. Professor Pie’s mathematics was very complicated, and had something to do with lightning and the sun and how the world turns. I didn’t know the world turned. Did you know that? It’s a giant ball, only it’s so big and we’re so small, we can’t see how it curves. Oh. Well, I never knew that. Nobody ever told me.

Whatever it was that Rolly and Professor Pie were working on, it had Rolly frightened, and the professor too. Very frightened. Rolly told me that’s why Professor Pie left Redbun; he was afraid he wouldn’t be safe there. He thought the warriors of the King would come and take him away. He was afraid of what they would do with his formulas.

That night, I came to tell Rolly he should go, too. I didn’t want Rolly to be hurt, Professor Stoat. I loved him. I begged him to go away, too. Only he wouldn’t. He said he had already gotten rid of the work he and Professor Pie had done, and that his notes and papers would find their way into the right hands.

He meant your hands, Professor. That is why he gave me the key, and told me to give the method to Herberta to give to you. It would not be safe to give them both to you in Green Bridge, Rolly said; I think he meant that people might hear them. But on the night I last saw him, he said that you should have the key and the methods, and you would need them both when you recovered Professor Pie’s notes. You already have the methods, yes? They are the cryptographic schemes that protect the notes. There are two keys to go with them, Professor Stoat, and I must give them to you. The first key is ash, and the second is metal. I think they meant something to Rolly, but I don’t know what.

He sent the papers and his notes away, of course. Away to be kept safe. He sent them to friends. He had friends in the east. Yes, of course he told me. He meant for you to go there when it is safe.

He sent the notes to a place called Weisseberg. That name isn’t on any maps that I could find, but he said it is in the east of Enderly, near the border with Svegnia. The people who live there will know.

I don’t know why he sent it there, Professor, except he said he had friends there.

Rolly told me that it is very impolite to say those words, Professor Stoat.

After I left Rolly that night, I was scared. I didn’t want him to be hurt. I had dinner with Herberta and The Gizzard, and then I came back to talk to him again. I thought if I just tried harder—What? Yes, The Gizzard. Yes, he was in Green Bridge. He said he was looking for someone. I didn’t know then, but he must have been looking for King Simon.

Yes, King Simon is gone. No one knows where he is. The Gizzard has gone on a quest to find him. He said Alice Miller told him stories about quests, and a quest was just the thing that was needed. Only, I didn’t know it was a quest to find King Simon until I got here, and King Simon was gone. Now The Gizzard is gone too, on his quest. It’s just the Quiet Ones left, trying to keep the rest of our people from… doing what we always do.

I don’t know who killed Rolly, Professor Stoat. When I came to the room he was still bleeding, and he was warm. It didn’t look like he had fought; whoever did it surprised him. The chair was knocked over. Rolly’s office was always messy, and it had a smell that night like vegetable soup that’s been cooked too long. He had just been having his supper. The shutters were open, and it was raining outside. I ran to find Dean Comland as fast as I could. I thought maybe he could save Rolly, but I was foolish to think that.

Yes, Professor. I will come back with you to Green Bridge. I wanted to give King Simon the news about Professor Tentimes’ new star, because he loves that sort of thing and sometimes gives out extra sandwiches and beer as a reward. But I suppose it will have to wait until he’s found again.

Will they think I killed Rolly?

✽✽✽

“Good evening, Professor. I didn’t expect to see you here.” Cyrus looked up from his notes, turning away from Obilly Smallhat and Alice Miller.

The man in the doorway to the communal chamber was Jonathan Miller. He wore a white shirt, hose, and a simple coat, with a loosely tied gray cravat. He leaned casually against the wall, his lanky frame awkwardly hunched in the low cavern. Cyrus noticed that his face was smudged and scratched, and his coat had several small, fresh rips in it.

“Jonathan. Well. This is a surprise. What are you doing here?”

Jonathan shrugged lightly. “I came to see if I could encourage these fine people to start sending my employers some more coal. Shipments have been off.”

Cyrus shook his head in disgust. “This from someone who swung across the Grand Ballroom at the Palace Naridium on a chandelier with me and Mari Snort. You’ve become a bureaucrat, Jonathan Miller. I expected better of you.”

Jonathan flushed, but answered smoothly. “Trade makes their lives better as well as ours, Professor. Coal goes to Hog Hurst and on to Green Bridge, and coin comes here in return. Coin goes to Green Bridge and back comes food, beer, clothing, tools, books, and ideas. With every shipment that arrives in the Gray Kingdom, these goblins live better, cleaner, longer, and more peaceful lives.”

Cyrus glared at him suspiciously. “Did you memorize that from a sheet of paper, Miller?”

The young man blushed. “Well... yes. It took a while. But look, it’s true! I believe it. I always wanted to be a merchant when I was growing up, and this is just the place where a merchant can make a difference.”

Cyrus gave Mrs. Miller a look of exasperation, but she simply smiled serenely.

“Come on, Professor,” said Jonathan, clapping a friendly hand on his shoulder. “I’ll find you a place to sleep. I’m riding back to Hog Hurst tomorrow, and you’re welcome to come along.”

✽✽✽

The following evening found Cyrus and Jonathan once again at the old, small public house on the trading square of Hog Hurst. Obilly Smallhat sat next to them, gamely attempting to handle an oversized tin mug of frothy lager. It might have been a quiet evening of carefree reminiscence, but Cyrus’s beer-induced haze was interrupted before it could really take off by the appearance of another old acquaintance.

“Cyrus Stoat!” came a voice from the door. He turned awkwardly in his chair and looked back. The man who had spoken was clean-shaven, with broad shoulders, and a pleasing, if rather long, face. He wore the uniform of a post-rider, right down to the cap, and he carried a leather satchel at his side adorned with the brass plaque of the Merchants’ Post.

“Rider!” roared Cyrus merrily. “Michael Rider! Come in and join us! I was just telling Mr. Smallhat how I rescued you from certain death and consumption by his compatriots when I--”

“Cyrus,” interrupted the post rider, walking closer and lowering his voice. “You’re a father. Miss Snipe gave birth on the tenth of October. Congratulations, professor.”

Everything stopped around Cyrus, and he gaped. A small trickle of beer flowed out the corner of his mouth.

“What is it? I mean, which is it?” he asked, in a daze.

“A healthy baby boy, I understand,” replied Rider. “She’s named him Marius. And, uh, she sent me with a message. You can read it if you want, but it boils down to this: ‘Get back here right now or I’ll send assassins after you.’ I’m to take you myself; I brought a spare horse. We can leave immediately.”

Cyrus looked at Jonathan.

“If it were me, I’d be on the horse already,” remarked the young man.

Cyrus bolted for the door.