Amon, caught completely off guard, went down hard and landed sitting on the floor. There was a carpet by the door, so he was not really hurt; he had already scrambled up and slipped to one side, answering, "It was my carelessness—I must have tripped on the rug when I stepped back."
"It was my carelessness. I was showing a little of my power just now and didn't control it properly..." Maria spoke at the same moment, her tone a touch flustered.
Gabriel's attention was caught at once by Maria's words, and her eyes lit up. "My lord, you can already—?" She stopped herself there, turned her head, and said to Amon, "You're not needed here anymore. Go out, and shut the door properly behind you."
Seized and fondled for no reason he could name, then suddenly pushed away and thrown to the floor—Amon still could not clearly grasp what had happened, but the fog of confusion had already cleared from his head. He ought to count himself lucky: had Maria said a single wrong sentence, it might well have cost him his life. Even if Gabriel let him off, Rod-Dick might have sent men to kill him.
After Amon went downstairs, Gabriel said to Maria with delighted surprise, "Lady Maria, you truly have not disappointed the goddess Isis. That was you accidentally pushing Amon over just now—when one first uses this power, one is usually not quite used to it."
Maria nodded. "Yes. I reached out my hand, and from far away I pushed him down. Is this the power of the gods?" When Gabriel had come in, Amon was sitting on the floor and Maria was standing with one hand extended, so it looked exactly as though she had knocked him down from a distance.
It was not that Maria had meant to lie, but on Amon's very first day she had heard Gabriel's instructions: Amon was not permitted to touch her, or he would be punished. What kind of punishment would it be? Would they cut off one of his fingers, as the priest at Duke Town would have? How dreadful—and it is not his fault.
Gabriel cared nothing for any of that; another subject had captured her, and she said with a smile, "Yes—this is the power the gods bestow. You have only just grasped it, so it is not yet strong. Amon is strong, and yet a wave of your hand knocked him down. Any ordinary person can push a door open, but to push a door open without stretching out your hand—that is a miracle wrought by divine power."
Gabriel went on, "Lady Maria, you must be careful now: until you can use it skillfully, do not use it lightly. In fact, with someone like Amon, who has mastered low-rank combat arts, if he knew the rules of divine art and were on his guard and prepared, you could not push him over. But in time the divine power you hold will be incomparably strong—especially with the help of the Tears of the Gods."
Amon stood downstairs feeling as though he still had not quite come back to himself. Maria's breath still lingered on his hands and on his body, a warm fragrance that made him dizzy.
He could not work out what had actually happened—how he had come to hold her like that, and then been pushed away; he did not quite understand it, and yet somehow he did. In the daytime their eyes had been like a challenge thrown at each other; last night he had all but dreamed the very same scene.
And just now I really did put my hand on her breast!
He stood there blankly, not knowing how long, until Gabriel came downstairs and suddenly asked, "Amon, what did you see just now?"
Amon came to himself and bowed. "My lord, I saw nothing and heard nothing. I was only bringing Lady Maria her water."
Gabriel's gaze seemed to pierce straight through to his soul. "You won't even tell me?"
"No, my lord. You instructed me that everything I see and hear here must never be mentioned to anyone. You are a person too, so of course I cannot mention it to you either." He was clever; he had already learned the syllogism Aristotle taught him, and that was how he answered Gabriel's question. As for what had just happened in Maria's room, he truly did not know how to speak of it.
Gabriel's stern face finally showed a faint smile. "Good. Very good! Remember what you have said. Your work is finished, your payment has already been given to your father, and you may go home now."
He had not expected Gabriel to send him off right then—his work done, the payment received. He should have felt light and glad, and yet as he left that courtyard an indescribable melancholy came over him. He looked back once, as though in silent farewell.
Rod-Dick was pleased at last, because Gabriel told him they could set out and that he should make everything ready overnight. He could finally leave this godforsaken place.
Gabriel also explained a further matter to him: the reason they had lingered three extra days in this town was not only that Maria had been ill—she had also been teaching Maria certain special rites and rules of Isis Temple, so that she might smoothly pass the confirmation of her holy maiden status. Maria had now learned them.
That made Rod-Dick happier still. For anyone else he would certainly have sent a great sum of money in thanks, but this Lord Gabriel plainly would not accept a bribe. Rod-Dick thought about it for a long while, and in the end personally brought Gabriel a shield, finely wrought and blessed by divine art—a weapon of honor that belonged to warriors—explaining that he had originally intended to present it to the temple. Gabriel accepted it.
What gift to give, and how to make it something the recipient will not refuse and will be glad to receive—that too is a branch of learning, and Lord Dick was plainly a master of it.
After three days of recuperation, Maria's maid had recovered from her illness as well. The next day, once breakfast was finished, Lord Dick's vast and splendid caravan set out. The merchants who had come to Duke Town had long since grown impatient, but they had not wanted to leave on their own—there were no mercenary guards to be hired in Duke Town. The night before, when word came that Lord Dick was about to depart, they happily packed their baggage all night long and followed out in the wake of his caravan.
Duke Town, bustling for so many days, finally returned to calm. The townsfolk enjoyed the wine and fine food the caravan had brought, and in many households the furnace fires had gone out as well. After so many busy days, it was a rare chance to relax—even the town chief did not press the miners back to work. The townsfolk had turned in no small number of godstones over this stretch, and a little ease was only their due.
Everyone was relaxed; only Rod-Dick was somewhat tense. Before they reached Cape State they would have to cross a region where desolate desert and rolling gobi lay interwoven, and anything at all could happen there. There was no guaranteeing that Maria and the Tears of the Gods would be safe.
He had privately instructed Town Chief Dasti that word of the Tears of the Gods must on no account get out. But the night before last he had received another secret report: the temple priest Xiaogu had sent an envoy to the city-state of Xuya, delivering the seasonal tribute of godstones to the temple there. That was the fixed rule, and no one could stop it—yet Rod-Dick could not shake the feeling that something was off.
He had even considered sending men to waylay and kill Xiaogu's envoy, but in the end he had not done it. From Duke Town to the city-state of Xuya, the post road runs through the Black Fire Thicket, and there was no way to circle around it in advance.
There are checkpoints along that road; before his men could catch the envoy they could not avoid being questioned at those checkpoints, and it would be very hard to conceal their movements. Besides, this was Hatti Kingdom territory after all, and to send men to kill a temple priest's envoy was a grave crime.
If it came to light, even Lord Dick likely could not bear such an accusation.
As the caravan entered the desert, Rod-Dick glanced back toward Duke Town, already vanished below the horizon, and thought to himself: Is this place favored by the gods or abandoned by them? What a strange place it is.
The miners' craft handed down through the generations in Duke Town—in Lord Dick's estimation, it included combat arts. A qualified adult miner in the town was no less trained in combat arts than a low-rank warrior, and the outstanding ones had already grasped second-rank combat arts, awakening the power asleep in their bloodline and wielding it with skill.
A low-rank warrior who had mastered combat arts would be counted elite even in the great armies of the Eju Empire!
More frightening still, the miners' craft actually contained basic divine arts. They were only the simplest kind, not yet passed through the Trial of the Gods, but divine arts they were—and if combined with combat arts, their power would be astonishing. The miners here used such skills only for mining, never to fight.
If every miner in the town were gathered together, taught battle formations and signals, and then taught how to use weapons, this town could hold off an ordinary legion. Even if the miners simply gathered of their own accord and fought with nothing but their mining hammers, they would be very hard to deal with. While staying in the town, Lord Dick had even considered that if a large-scale uprising of commoners broke out here, his personal guard could not suppress it—at best they could protect Maria and flee quickly.
The city-state of Xuya lies where the four lands of Hatti, Assyria, Barron, and Eju meet. In the wars of history it came under the rule of different dynasties, yet little Duke Town under the city-state of Xuya had never once been taken by an army—and the reason was probably this.
Every dynasty that conquered the city-state of Xuya would send an envoy to Duke Town to notify them of the change of ruler and to guarantee Duke Town's position as before: so long as they maintained the old tributary relationship, the dynasty would still send troops to garrison the Black Fire Thicket post road, collect the same taxes, and provide protection for the trade routes.
The reason was simple: it was not that absolute force could not take the place, but that the cost was not worth the gain. To raise an elite legion and march it over hard roads merely to take one small town was of course unnecessary. Besides, what every dynasty and kingdom wanted was the godstone and iron Duke Town produced; there was no need at all to slaughter or enslave its miners—so long as control of Duke Town was assured.
Duke Town's position was peculiar indeed. To its north lies the Xuya Plateau; the low mountains nearer the town are where godstone ore cores are produced, and farther off the high peaks stretch away, an impassable natural barrier. To the east, too, are towering ridges and steep peaks, where cave-dwelling wild folk are said to live; the forest is dense and the terrain complex, and beyond that lies the impassable Great Canyon of the Yudi River.
To its west is the Black Fire Thicket, and through it a hundred-li post road leads to the main city of the city-state of Xuya—the shortest and most convenient route to and from Duke Town. To its south lies endless desert and gobi, stretching all the way to the Cape State border of the Eju Empire. If one travels from Cape State to Xuya, going straight across the desert is more convenient; there is no need to come to Duke Town and then cross the Black Fire Thicket.
The land around Duke Town that can be farmed is very poor, and there is not enough pasture either—it can scarcely feed the local population—and yet its products are so important. This peculiar situation made it hard for Duke Town to exist apart from the city-state of Xuya, and the temple in the town likewise took its orders from the temple in the city-state.
Duke Town had another peculiarity: there were almost no slaves in the town. Apart from the two households of Dasti and Xiaogu, nearly all the residents were commoners. This was utterly unlike the rest of the Celestial Pivot Continent, and the reason was simple: every state in the surrounding region had the same law—a slave's hands may not touch godstone, and each violation costs a finger.
Funnily enough, the punishment Amon had nearly received was also the loss of a finger.
But there was another law of the surrounding states that seemed to be deliberately ignored here; both the Barron Kingdom and the Eju Empire seemed to turn a blind eye to Duke Town's situation. That law was: slaves may not learn combat arts, and only nobles are entitled to learn divine arts. Anyone who privately practices divine arts without permission is held to be showing disrespect to the gods and will be severely punished by the great temples.
In truth, learning divine arts is so difficult that even nobles with the right to do so often fail to cross the threshold of "awakening the power the gods bestow"; without temple priests to teach and guide them through the strict rites, private practice is harder still. But the world holds many people, and there are always outstanding geniuses who, without permission and without a priest's guidance, nonetheless master a similar power.
Such people are called mages or sorcerers on the Celestial Pivot Continent—in any case a pejorative, evil name—and by law the temples send men to hunt them down. Priests and nobles who wield divine arts, by contrast, are called divine artists.
Other parts of the Celestial Pivot Continent produce godstone too, but there the final step of drawing the godstone out of the ore core is done by low-rank divine artists, because it requires some most basic divine-art technique. That is why godstone is not only expensive but seems sacred. Duke Town's case is plainly different: the conditions here are so harsh, the place so remote and closed off, and the godstone yield so large that it would be impossible to have so many noble divine artists working here. All the godstone is mined by miners.
Perhaps out of regard for the god who bestows the godstone, not one of the well-informed people in power ever mentioned the forbidden fact that Duke Town's generations-old miners' craft contains basic divine arts—as though they simply did not see it. And the residents of Duke Town themselves did not know either.
The city-state of Xuya graciously permits Duke Town's miners to keep one of every ten godstones they extract, which the rest of the continent envies without end. But there is another law besides: "registered miners of Duke Town on the temple rolls may not leave this place without permission"—and that is probably the other reason for it. In practice, the geographic conditions make it very hard for them to leave on their own in any case.
Duke Town produces not only godstone but iron, especially fine-grade refined iron; but the smiths here are not permitted to forge weapons, and what they turn out is only finished iron billets. What Rod-Dick was smuggling this time was a batch of fine-grade refined iron billets.
Rod-Dick sat beneath the carriage canopy with one hand on the sword at his waist, gazing at the distant dunes as he turned over Duke Town's many peculiarities in his mind. The caravan had set out at first light, making use of the predawn cool; now midday was drawing near, the blazing sun beat down on the sand, and the heat thrown back from every side was gradually growing unbearable.
Off to the right, a stretch of rolling hills came into view, strange boulders standing upon the slopes—just the place to find a patch of shade, rest a while, and wait out the fiercest afternoon sun before going on. Traveling in the desert was troublesome that way. Rod-Dick insisted on sitting at the front of the lead carriage, and Gabriel even praised him: "My lord, you are truly brave!"
Rod-Dick was uneasy, afraid of an ambush along the road. Dangerous desert tribes were said to roam here, preying on caravans; they might well be bandits from the border states in disguise, and the "savage, dangerous desert tribes" might be nothing but legend. But ordinary bandits could never attack a caravan like Lord Dick's—elite warriors could be seen from far away, and they would surely have fled long since.
But special people come for special purposes, and then who could say? Otherwise Rod-Dick would never have brought his personal guard along. Lord Dick knew very well that no one in that guard was of higher combat-arts rank than himself: his combat arts had already reached the sixth rank, one step short of being a rare high-rank warrior.
Most of the personal guard protected the first three carriages. Maria rode in the second, and Gabriel was in it as well. Rod-Dick saw the hills in the distance and was just about to order the column to turn when he suddenly heard Gabriel's sharp cry: "Everyone halt!"
The shout was like a thunderclap, carrying far out over the desert.
Rod-Dick had given orders that Lord Gabriel's word was a command, equal to his own. The well-trained drivers reacted very fast, shouting and hauling on the animals, and the first dozen or so carriages stopped almost at the same instant; the mounted warriors reined in as well. The merchant train behind them fell into some confusion: carriages collided, someone tumbled off a camel, and goods toppled off onto the ground.
Rod-Dick had already leapt up and drawn his sword, yet he could see no danger anywhere. Then a ball of silver light burst forth above his head and went flying, slashing toward the dunes ahead. Looking up, he saw Gabriel standing atop his carriage canopy, shield in one hand and sword sweeping in the other.