The Steward and the Sorcerer by James Peart (books suggested by elon musk .TXT) 📕

harmless why had the new Chief of the Home Guard strengthened the watch around the borders of the city, telling the sentries to immediately report any unusual comings or goings?

He sighed and dealt his hand.  They were playing the popular card game Krat, gambling what was left of their month’s pay.  It was banned in the city due to its ‘no limits’ betting rule, but out here, unsupervised, who knew or cared?  The job was tedious and it was hard to keep your mind sharp.  The game, however, was a dangerous addiction.  They had already bet well past what they carried in their pockets.  He knew people who had lost a year’s pay in one hand of Krat, and he wasn’t about to do that but, Gods, he was bored.  Losing big at Krat was a greater threat than being caught playing it, though it could mean your job.

There was a man approaching the pavilion, walking directly towards them.  He looked as if he had come a long way on foot, his cloak, once probably dark blue or black, faded and worn, and frayed at the sleeves.  He carried a traveller’s bag that had seen better days, the leather cover scratched and torn.  He held it from one end of a broken strap, allowing it occasionally to drag on the ground.  He looked like a common wastrel.  His face, however, told Brock that he was something more, or had been.  He could feel the gaze of the traveller’s eyes as they settled on him, even from 400 feet away.  Unsettling.  Brock lifted his chin at Trey, who looked quickly around.  He was about to say something, taking in the stranger’s appearance, then his mouth closed with a sudden snap.

“Trouble?” he said to Brock.

“I don’t know.”

As he approached, the stranger’s face became more visible.  Brock thought it looked somehow regal. His skin was parchment white, almost translucent, the eyes a faint yellow.  The latter could have been rheumatism, he supposed, but did not think so.  The man seemed curiously dismissive of his surroundings, including the rags that he wore.  That was funny, thought Brock.  He looked as if he had journeyed the length and breadth of the Northern Territories and endured everything nature had had to throw at him.

“Looks like a vagabond,” he said to Trey.  “Let’s question him anyway.”

They reluctantly fanned their cards down on the table and picked up the cross-blades they had each been issued, adapted with bows to shoot steel arrows, pointing the weapons at the ground and walking out to intercept the stranger.

“Hail there, fellow!” Brock called out, standing a little adrift of Trey, deliberately taking in the man’s appearance.  “Are you lost?”

The man stopped walking.  “I am looking for the city of Brinemore,” came the response.  His voice was higher-pitched than Brock would have thought, yet it fitted that vague look of royalty in his expression.  It carried an expectation of obedience that was nearly comical, given the situation.

“Well, you’ve found Brinemore alright,” he gestured at the old historical wall that ran behind the post as far as they could see in either direction, “but it’s not open to free traffic today.”

“It’s in lockdown,” Trey added, and spat tobacco on the ground.

The stranger looked at them.  “I need to enter the city.”

Brock and Trey exchanged a glance.  Brock’s grip tightened on his cross-blade and he lifted it a degree or two.“What is your business here?” Trey said.

“If I don’t get in this way,” the man said, ignoring him, “I shall find another.”  He began to walk between the two sentries, his gait even-paced, leisurely, as if he expected no trouble from the guards.

“Stop!” Brock commanded, raising the cross-blade to the level of the man’s chest.  Trey did likewise.  Between them they formed an arc through which it was impossible for him to move without getting struck.  The stranger halted, his eyes focused on the weapons, a terrible stillness in his expression.

“Drop the bag,” Brock said.  “Kick it away from you.  Good, now get down on your knees.  That’s it.  Don’t mind the stones, they won’t cut you.  What’s your name?”

“The Raja Iridis,” the man said from his reduced height, watching them carefully.

“And I’m the King of the Cru Dynasty.  Your real name.  Now.”

“It is unpronounceable in your language.  Here I am known as Iridis.”

“Where are you from, Iridis, and what are you doing here?”

“I have come to put order back to the state.  Your...Steward...has been making some bad decisions lately.  It is time for change.”

Brock glanced at Trey.  Without speaking he lowered his blade and knelt down beside the man while Trey covered his approach, ready to deliver half a foot length of steel into the stranger’s mid-section should he move in the wrong way.  Producing a set of wire strips from an inside pocket of his uniform with which to tie the other, he reached out with his free hand to grasp the man’s arm in an effort to clasp his wrist with one of the strips.  As Brock touched him, however, his body was instantly flooded with a cold, spiking numbness that removed all thought, all deliberation of action.  It occurred swiftly, without time for him to protest- whatever had penetrated his mind allowed his own to rear up once in alarm before it froze.  He sat, half-crouched on the border grassland, as motionless as a petrified sentinel.

What happened next took a fraction of a moment, Iridis working quickly to explore this man’s mind, rummaging at lightning speed through the narrative of his history to find a connection with the other who presently held a weapon to his head.  He knocked aside irrelevant thoughts and actions in search of shared experience like a bear slapping at objects in a goods wagon.  Trey, unsure what to do, his hands shaking in panic, fired a bolt of steel from his blade, the arrow missing its mark by at least two feet.  When he had collected himself, aiming the bow correctly this time, he felt something