The Swordmage Trilogy: Volume 02 - The Darkest Hour Read Free Page A

proper perspective on the larger specimens.
                  Jotun, a quint so old that Tia suspected he had been present at the founding of the Imperium sat in one corner of the room. His head was pillowed on his arm and his snores were the only sound in the otherwise still and empty room. She let the old man sleep. Circling the map table, she read the neatly printed letters on each cabinet. Though she had come to the Imperium with a very basic understanding of written language, Faxon had drilled her time and again on both fundamentals and advanced concepts of language and record-keeping.
                  He expected her to be able to match the fastidious Captain’s records and notes, a task that Tiadaria loathed almost as much as research. Still, the records she kept for Faxon helped to document the tasks she performed in service to the quints and the realm as a whole, and so earned her a stipend from the king’s treasury for her service. That part, she had to admit, was rather nice and could be easily adapted to.
                  Finally she found the cabinet with the map she sought. It was painted on thin muslin but was so large that it was still rather heavy and bulky for her to move on her own. However, even if she woke Jotun from his nap, he wouldn’t be much help. The elderly mage was much more adept at reading maps and remembering forgotten details than he was at anything as pedestrian as physical labor. With some effort she got the map to the viewing tables and began to spread it out.
                  When fully unfurled, the map took up nearly the entire viewing table. It was easily twenty feet wide and three-quarters of that high. Tiadaria had to climb to the top of one of the step-stools to get the proper vantage point from which to gather her bearings. Dragonfell was easiest to locate, as the inset detail of the cavern palace and the large alabaster stonework was unmistakable. From there, it was a relatively simple matter to trace the trade road south, past Wheatborne and eventually to Blackbeach.
                  Tiadaria gnawed thoughtfully at her lower lip. Faxon had said that Ethergate was outside the Imperium’s border, so she followed the trade route north from Blackbeach, across the Dragonback Mountains through which she passed so often and out past King’s Reach. There was a large city far to the northwest of King’s Reach. It was unlabeled on the map, but marked with the hand-eye-and-triangle symbol that was the common mark of the quintessentialists. Certainly that had to be Ethergate.
                  “Have you found what you seek, young lady?” Jotun’s gravelly voice startled her so badly that Tiadaria jumped and had to clutch the handrail on the steps lest she fall down. He had gotten silently to his feet and shuffled around to where she stood on the stool, two heads higher than he.
                  “Is that Ethergate?” she asked, pointing at the dot on the map. Jotun nodded, scratching his stubbly white whiskers and looking at her thoughtfully.
                  “Aye, young lady, it is.”
                  “How long would you say it would take to travel there on horseback?”
                  Jotun shook his head. “The trade road ends outside the Imperium, Lady Tiadaria. That slows things up something awful. Once you get onto the lesser used roads in the outlands, it’s slow going indeed.”
                  “Yes, yes,” she said impatiently. “I understand. But how long to ride from Blackbeach to Ethergate?”
                  He peered at her with his watery brown eyes for a long moment before he replied. “I’d reckon about two weeks, My Lady.”
                  “Are there smaller versions of this map? One I could borrow perhaps?”
                  Jotun went to a cabinet and produced a roll of parchment. Tia