Chapter 69: Proud?
A strange peace followed, like one kind of weather giving way to another.
The commission to find Rael had been placed. Most of the ledger work was handled. He even met with the reaper - all he had to do now was to wait.
The winter solstice was five weeks away.
The forest continued to behave strangely, and the Wall continued preparing for whatever was coming.
Encrid soon realized that a man could live with the feeling that a disaster was approaching and still spend most of his day calculating grain.
Because grain arithmetic did not care about disasters.
So Encrid built a routine for himself.
At dawn, he cultivated with Gus on the circle of ground that had thawed around the boy.
The circle had become permanent by now. Even in the middle of the northern winter, there was a patch of green grass in the center of the drill ground where the snow refused to remain. The granary clerks had started calling it the Hearth, although none of them had ever asked why it existed.
The mornings belonged to the office.
The siege ledger continued to grow. What had once been a simple collection of numbers had become a proper document, with sections and Chapters covering grain, oil, bandages, javelin stocks, timber, charcoal, manpower, and everything else the Wall would need to survive if something went wrong.
Encrid calculated the expected consumption in several different situations and marked them with the three words he had chosen for his private records.
Calm.
Bad.
And the third word.
He still had not decided what to call it.
At noon, Encrid walked along the Wall.
He had a standing pass now, and the watch officers had grown used to seeing him. More importantly, some of them had started slipping him their actual numbers alongside the official ones.
The official reports might say that a watch had fifty-three men ready for duty.
The private number might be forty-eight.
The official report might say that a storehouse had enough arrows for three weeks.
The watch commander might quietly tell Encrid that they would run out in twelve days.
Those were the numbers Encrid cared about.
Evenings belonged to the sword. He would train the Gannon family swordsmanship by repeatedly swinging his sword until his hands gave away.
Nights belonged to the Azure Star.
The Star remained patient, cool, and sealed.
It still refused to give him what he wanted.
And through all of it, the Appraisal skill had a breakthrough..
[ Appraisal: F (31%) → F (78%) → E (0%)]
The Wall gave the skill an endless supply of things to examine, and as a result he was able to push its proficiency to ’E’ mastery.
And as it improved, the information it provided became stranger and far more useful.
At some point after the breakthrough into ’E’ mastery, a new lines began appearing beneath the usual information.
Condition.
This single addition changed the way Encrid looked at the people around him.
His ledgers were no longer just numbers.
They had become something closer to a doctor’s examination.
[ Condition: Malnourished. ]
[ Condition: Fever, early stage. ]
[ Condition: Hidden wound. ]
Encrid started sending people to the healers whenever he noticed something unusual.
He always invented a reasonable excuse for doing so.
In one week alone, he quietly sent twenty men to the healers.
None of them understood how Encrid had discovered their problems.
As a result, the Third Office’s reputation for producing strangely accurate paperwork moved another step closer to becoming something people whispered about rather than questioned.
The notes from Appraisal were something Encrid had still not got his head over as to what it was.
The broken skill had apparently developed a habit of commenting on things.
Sometimes it simply stated facts.
Sometimes it sounded almost sarcastic.
And sometimes it warned him.
[ Condition: Lying to you. ]
[ Condition: Grieving. ]
Once, while Encrid was walking through the Crooked Lantern, the skill gave him another message.
It appeared above a far-watch captain who was sitting alone in a corner, drinking by himself.
[ Condition: Deeply troubled by what he has seen. ]
Encrid stared at the message for several seconds. He could have ignored that message, but for some reason - he felt like he should not.
Then he bought the captain a drink.
It took two evenings and a bottle of the Lantern’s actual good spice before the man finally decided to speak.
"It was during one of our deep patrols," the captain said at last. "I was with the best of our far-watch - Ansel Corr among us."
He stared into the fire instead of looking at Encrid.
"Autumn, two years ago. Twelve days north, beyond the second river."
He took another drink.
"We went farther than the mandate allowed. Got a little too brave, I suppose." He glanced briefly at Encrid. "I’ll be flogged if you put that in your report."
"I won’t."
The captain was quiet for a moment.
"There’s a valley up there where the trees stop."
Encrid’s attention sharpened.
"It’s not a clearing," the captain continued. "The trees just... stop."
He slowly moved his hand in a circle.
"A perfect ring. Ten miles across. The trees stand around it like courtiers gathered around a boundary."
Encrid said nothing.
"And in the middle of that ring, the ground drops away."
The captain’s voice grew quieter.
"There are terraces. Cut stone. Stairs leading down into the earth. Older than anything I’ve ever seen."
He slowly turned his cup between his hands.
"The steps just keep going. Down and down, until they disappear into the dark."
For a moment, he fell silent.
"None of us had the courage to go down," he finally said. "Not one of us."
He swallowed.
"Because the air above it..."
He stopped.
Encrid waited.
"The air felt...proud."
"Proud?" Encrid asked.
The captain looked at him.
"I don’t have a better word."
He gave a tired laugh and took another drink.
"It felt as if the place knew we were there. As if it was looking down on us."
His fingers tightened around the cup.
"And every man in our party felt the same thing."
Encrid frowned.
"What happened?"
"We stayed at the edge of the trees for half a day. Nothing moved. No animals. No birds. Nothing."
The captain’s voice dropped to a whisper.
"Then every man in our party started crying."
Encrid’s expression changed.
"None of us knew why. We simply... cried."
He stared into the fire.
"Then we went home."
He emptied his cup.
"I never put any of it in the report."
"Why?"
The captain was silent for a long moment.
"Because none of us remembered it."
Encrid frowned.
"None of you?"
"Not until a few days ago."
The captain rubbed his forehead.
"I suddenly remembered everything. The valley. The stairs. The stone."
He looked at Encrid, his face pale.
"So I searched for Corr."
"Ansel Corr?"
"Yeah...and he was gone."
The captain gave a nervous laugh.
"I don’t know if what I’m remembering is real anymore. I don’t know if it was a dream, or if something happened to us."
He picked up the mug and drained it in one go.
Encrid quietly brought him another drink before the captain finally left.
That night, Encrid walked home with the cold reaching all the way to the soles of his feet.
Whatever the captain had seen was not a dream.
Nor was it some vague legend buried somewhere in the Great Green Forest.
It was a real place.
And it had a location.
When Encrid returned to the office, he opened his private ledger and carefully recorded everything the captain had told him.
He used the same cipher he used for the other things he could not afford to have discovered.
Then he closed the ledger.
That night, Encrid slept badly.
And for the next three nights, he dreamed of stone steps disappearing into darkness.
✦ ✦ ✦