Dale shrugged. She was just the messenger. She had no answers. “Looks like we’re stuck.”

The two sat there in gloomy silence, a frown deepening on Alton’s face.

Dale fidgeted. “What is this Merdigen anyway? He called himself the projection of the great mage Merdigen, whatever that means. But what is his function? What is he there for?”

“From what I gather,” Alton replied, “he’s there to help the wallkeepers keep an eye on the wall. He can communicate with the guardians, and in turn relay information to the wallkeepers. When there were wallkeepers, that is.”

“Sort of like a messenger himself.”

“I suppose.”

Dale swallowed her tea, forgetting about the whiskey. She gritted her teeth as it flamed in her throat and made her eyes water. Her expression elicited another smile from Alton.

When she could speak again, she said, “All right, so Merdigen is a messenger of sorts, but he’s also not really a live being. An illusion?”

“As far as any of us can tell,” Alton said. “No one has really had a chance to question him, and certainly I’ve not been able to.”

“Well, maybe it’s time someone did thoroughly question him. Perhaps if we find out more about Merdigen himself, we will learn more about the wall.”

Alton straightened in his chair, hope plain on his face. “Surely he must know much about the construction of the wall if he lived during that time.”

“There’s only one way to find out,” Dale said. She was tired, but game. Before she could rise, however, Leese appeared in the tent opening.

“If you don’t mind, Rider Littlepage, I’d like to make sure you aren’t straining yourself. If we could go to your tent?”

With an apologetic look to Alton, Dale abandoned her cup of “tea,” and followed the mender out.

THE GRANDGENT

Karigan held the knife blade before her as she took aim at her target, just as Arms Master Drent had instructed her. She knew she should have returned the throwing knives to him as she had after every session; she knew Drent believed her a danger to herself and others when handling them, but she wanted to perfect the art of knife throwing, and the only way to succeed was through practice, and if she could do so unseen without every other trainee watching her and avoid the humiliation, all the better.

Besides, who could she hurt in the middle of the forest? She ensured Fergal was safely inside the waystation cabin working on the assignments Ty sent with him, and she put the cabin between herself and the paddock where Condor and Sunny munched on hay. Everyone should be safe.

Her target was an old grain sack she found in the cabin that she stuffed with leaves, pine needles, and moss. She tied it to a stout white birch with peeling papery bark. Most of its leaves had yellowed and fallen, its branches crooked bones against the evergreen backdrop.

Squinting at the target in deep concentration, she drew her hand back and threw. The knife whistled tip over butt well wide and high of the target. It clattered somewhere in the upper branches of the pine, arousing the ire of resident squirrels who bounded to the end of a limb to harangue her. The knife thumped to the ground at the base of the tree.

“Sorry,” she told the squirrels. So not everyone was safe…

She drew the second knife from its boot sheath and rolled the well-balanced weapon from hand to hand, considering the target. Then, instead of taking so much time to aim or think about her technique, she swiftly threw it. It nicked the birch above the target.

“Yes!” she cried. She jumped up and down in triumph.

At some point Karigan noticed Fergal watching her display from the front step of the cabin. She froze. Irritated she’d been spied upon, she demanded, “Don’t you have some more book work to do inside?”

“Finished.”

Karigan grumbled to herself as she went to retrieve her knives. Locating the first knife entailed bushwhacking through undergrowth to reach it. When she returned, she found Fergal where she had been standing, gazing at her lumpy target.

“It’s not as easy as it looks,” she said, guessing what he was thinking.

“Can I try?”

Reluctantly she passed him one of the knives. “You have to visualize where you want—” Drent’s advice barely left her tongue when the knife soared at the target and hit it with a solid thunk. Karigan’s mouth dropped open. She closed it, and handed him the other knife.

Once again he hit the mark square on. It was no accident.

“How?” Karigan asked.

“My da had lots of knives.” Fergal walked over to the birch to extract the blades from the target. “Sometimes I got bored and practiced throwing them. When he wasn’t around. These are better weighted though.” He tossed one into the air and caught the hilt with ease when it came whirling down. If Karigan attempted such a thing, she’d slice off several fingers. Deflated, she sat down on a tree stump.

When he offered her the knives back, hilts first, she waved him off. “You might as well keep them.”

“Really?”

Karigan nodded, and Fergal did a little dance of his own. When he paused, he asked, “Why?”

“You have a better, uh, aptitude for throwing, and if we ever get into a situation where those knives are needed, I’d rather they be in your hands.”

“I can teach you,” he said.

“Maybe, but in the meantime, I better leave them in your care.” She had no idea of what Drent would say to this—if he ever forgave her for taking the knives without permission in the first place.