Chapter 93: What is underneath a thing that works?
Encrid did not try to pursue the Fifth Watch commander.
Lund had been polite enough to hear him out, honest enough to give him her actual opinion, and intelligent enough to explain the problem without pretending it was something else.
Encrid valued that more than empty words, and he saw little point in trying to persuade someone who had already told him exactly what would change her mind.
That did not mean he had given up on the seat.
His destination after leaving the Fifth Watch was the Sixth.
Wilm Trask, commander of the Sixth Watch, was the opposite of Lund in almost every way.
He was a large, cheerful man of about fifty, with a habit of apologizing too often and the unfortunate tendency to talk whenever he became uncomfortable. Encrid understood within the first five minutes that Trask was going to refuse him.
The man simply seemed to be working up the courage to say it.
"It is not that I do not see it," Trask said for the third time. "I do see it. My section has had two contacts in eleven weeks. Before that, we averaged four a month."
He gave a helpless little laugh.
"My men have even started asking whether we did something right."
"And what did you tell them?"
"I told them we did something right." Trask laughed again, though there was very little humour in it. "What else am I supposed to say?"
He got up and walked toward the window, where he stood with his back to the room and looked down at the yard below.
"Dane is voting against you. Fold is voting against you. Ryn will vote against you because Dane is. I heard you came back from the Fifth Watch empty-handed, so Lund must also be voting against you."
"That is four."
"Add Ostrand, and it is five." Trask turned his head slightly. "There are only twelve of us with a vote."
Encrid studied him.
"Do you understand what I am telling you?"
"That it is already a lost cause?"
"No." Trask finally turned around. "I am telling you that a man in my position spends a great deal of time in rooms with those five."
His expression had become unhappy.
"I probably have another ten years on this stone if I am lucky. I need my rotas approved, my reliefs signed, and my stone allocated. Garrick Dane decides who is sound around here, and I have no interest in discovering what happens to men who suddenly stop being sound."
He spread his hands.
"I am sorry. I really am. If the vote were secret, I would give it to you."
Encrid nodded and picked up his coat.
There was no anger in him. Trask had not lied, and Encrid had already learned that honest cowardice was more useful than false courage.
He was almost at the door when he stopped.
"Commander."
Trask looked up.
"If the horde does hit the Wall, communication will become the top priority for everyone."
Trask frowned.
"The signal masts will be the first things to go. Everything that has ever come out of that forest has gone for the men before the lamps."
Encrid paused, watching the commander’s expression change.
"This will not."
Trask stared at him.
"Have someone check whether the Sixth Watch can send a message from the eleventh mile to the ninth without a mast. Do it before the month is over."
The commander frowned more deeply.
"Why are you telling me this? I just refused you."
Encrid turned back toward the door.
"Because you have four hundred people," he said. "And I would rather they lived."
✧ ✧ ✧
The Lampwrights’ Hall was the oldest building on the inner face and the only one with its own well.
Iolan Vire received Encrid in a room lit entirely by blue flame.
Nine lamps stood around the chamber on iron stands, burning without oil and without flickering. Their light was cold enough to make the skin look bloodless, and every face it touched seemed briefly corpse-like.
Vire himself was a thin, ageless-looking man in a leather apron, though Encrid knew he was considerably older than he appeared. He had run the Lampwrights for twenty-two years, and no ledger recorded who had appointed him.
That was simply how the Lampwrights worked.
When the previous Lampwright Master disappeared, someone took his place.
There was no ceremony, no vote, and apparently no need for anyone to ask where the previous master had gone.
Vire listened to everything Encrid had to say without interrupting.
When he finished, the old man did not immediately answer.
Instead, he reached toward one of the lamps.
"Do you know how the lamps work, my lord?"
"They burn on Star energy."
"That is what people say."
Vire lifted the lamp from its stand and turned it over in his hands.
"It is not an answer. It is a way of avoiding the question."
Encrid watched him examine the lamp.
There was no reservoir that he could see, no wick, no oil chamber, and nothing that appeared to be burning inside it.
"Where does the energy come from?" Vire asked. "What is it drawn from? Why did the people who built this Wall put four hundred of these along its length and nowhere else in the Empire?"
"I do not know."
"No."
Vire set the lamp back on its stand.
"Neither does the Council. Neither did the last four Lord Commanders."
"Nobody has asked."
"The lamps have burned for hundreds of years."
Vire looked at him.
"A thing that works is not a question."
Encrid said nothing.
"You are the first person to sit in that chair in nine years," Vire continued. "You came in here and told me the forest is coming. Everybody tells me the forest is coming."
"And what would you rather know?"
Vire’s fingers rested lightly against the lamp.
"Whether you are the sort of man who asks what is underneath a thing that works."
Encrid thought about the question before answering.
"I am."
Vire waited.
"But I do not know the answer to your question," Encrid continued, "and I am not going to invent one just to get your vote."
For the first time, something resembling approval appeared in the old man’s eyes.
"Mm."
He returned to his work.
Encrid remained where he was.
A minute passed.
Then another.
Vire did not look up again.
Eventually, Encrid understood that the conversation was over.
He turned and let himself out into the corridor, which seemed unbearably orange after the cold blue light of the chamber.
He had gained nothing.
At least, he was almost sure he had gained nothing.
That was becoming an increasingly familiar feeling.
Still, as Encrid walked back toward the Third Office, he found himself thinking about the lamp.
Not about the blue flame itself, but about Vire’s question.
’What is underneath a thing that works?’
✦ ✦ ✦