One middle-aged farmer wore a brown tunic flecked with grass ends and chaff from cutting wheat. “You would have to see Simon for that. He’s Cliffwall’s senior scholar-archivist.” He indicated the towering fortress alcove up the side of the cliff, where more than a dozen people were working their way in single file down the narrow pathway to come meet them.
“And Victoria. They need to see Victoria,” added a woman whose tight bun of pale hair was tied in a gray scarf. She had wide hips, stubby callused fingers, and biceps that were larger than Nathan’s and Bannon’s combined. “She’s the one who decides what knowledge the memmers preserve.”
The farmer brushed at the fragments of wheat, then placed a stalk between his teeth. “Now, now, it all depends on the type of information they need.”
“We haven’t seen strangers and outside scholars for years, not since the Scar wiped out the valley,” said a red-faced shepherd who came puffing up, catching the end of the conversation.
“The scholars have needed new blood,” said the hefty woman. “No one here has found a way to stop the Lifedrinker. We need help.”
“Cliffwall was hidden behind a camouflage shroud for thousands of years,” said the redhead. “And even though the spell is gone, the spirits of our ancestors would torment us if we simply handed over that knowledge to any bedraggled visitor who asks! We are very careful about how many outside scholars we allow here.”
“We’re here to help,” Nicci said.
“And we’re not all that bedraggled,” Nathan said.
“I’m not a stranger,” Thistle insisted. “I watched you a year ago, and you never noticed. I’m the only survivor from Verdun Springs.”
“Never heard of it,” said the shepherd.
“That’s because you’ve been locked in these canyons forever,” Thistle said. “The rest of the world has gone on while you stayed hidden here. Everything is dying, and you don’t even know it.”
Nicci put a hand on the girl’s shoulder to calm her. “We have come here to help. If I have the right information, maybe I can find a way to stop your enemy.”
“And bring back the green valley,” Thistle insisted. “They can do it.”
They all turned as the group of robed scholars hurried toward them from the towering fortress archive. The people began to talk at once. “Simon, these people came from the outside.”
“This girl led them. She says she’s from a place called Verdun Springs.”
“One is a sorceress and the other is a wizard.”
“And a prophet.”
“Victoria, look, that one’s a sorceress!”
“They want to study our information, look into our archives…”
“We’ve needed some fresh scholars.”
Nicci tried to sort the overlapping chatter as a man stepped forward, obviously in charge. “I am Simon, the senior scholar-archivist of Cliffwall. I supervise the cataloging of the knowledge preserved here by the wisdom of the ancients.”
Nathan raised his eyebrows. “Senior scholar-archivist? You seem rather young for the job.”
Simon appeared to be in his mid-thirties, with thick brown hair that stuck out in unruly spikes, since he apparently didn’t have the inclination to care for it. His chin and cheeks were covered with a wispy corn silk of beard. “I’m old enough to do my job. And I started young, brought here twenty years ago as a prodigy from one of the valley towns.”
“The camouflage shroud broke down only fifty years ago,” said a matronly woman who took her place next to him—Victoria, Nicci presumed. She was in her sixties, with gray-brown hair tied back into a braid that she wound in a coil around her head. Her face was smooth, showing only the beginnings of crow’s-feet around her eyes, and her rounded cheeks were flushed a healthy pink. Her warm voice sounded to Nicci like the voice of a kindly grandmother from a children’s tale, but with a hard edge.
“We’ve been the guardians of Cliffwall since the old wizard wars, but we have only recently opened the archives to outsiders again. Simon’s scholars have completed barely half of the cataloging work. But my memmers can perhaps explain what you need to know, directly from our memories—once you convince us of your need.”
CHAPTER 41
Simon, Victoria, and the other intense scholars led the visitors to the fortress archive up the sheer cliff. As they toiled up the narrow path that zigzagged along the rock wall, Nicci could see the size of the towering buildings constructed inside the cave alcove, and she grew more impressed with the ancient library. The great stone façades of the Cliffwall buildings towered higher than she had at first guessed.
“This is imposing,” she said, trying to imagine how such a mammoth city could have been built in such an isolated place. “Maybe the Palace of the Prophets was only five times larger.”
Thistle scampered ahead up the precarious path, never missing a step or a handhold. Impatient, she stopped partway and turned. “Come on, Nicci. Don’t you want to see the library?”
As Nathan climbed the rock face, he admired the huge buildings, the tower faces, the windows and arches, and the imposing primary doors, twice as high as a man. “Look at the massive stone blocks in those walls. The only way such a fortress could have been erected—especially in this isolated canyon—is through magic.”
“Powerful magic,” Nicci agreed. “In a time before so much magic was purged from the Old World.”
The wizard paused on the steep cliff path, resting a hand against the smooth rock at his left. He nodded. “Indeed, it must have been quite an undertaking.”
After clambering to the overhang of the great alcove, Thistle waited for them in front of the imposing stone buildings. “Sweet Sea Mother,” Bannon whispered. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
The matronly Victoria looked at him, a troubled expression crossing her apple-cheeked face. “Your Sea Mother had nothing to do with it, young man. She is far away and did not aid in the effort. This was accomplished through human labor, and it cost the lives and energy of many gifted wizards.”
Simon turned to look at the buildings with clear reverence. “The most powerful wizards in the world came here in secret back at the time of the ancient wizard wars. It took them years to construct and hide this place, under the greatest cloak of secrecy, but their gamble paid off. Emperor Sulachan and his purging armies never discovered the wealth of knowledge those wizards placed here. The camouflage shroud remained in place for centuries, hiding Cliffwall completely from any prying eyes. Only the villagers here in the canyons even remembered it existed.”
“Until fifty years ago,” Victoria said, with obvious pride in her voice. “And now the preserved knowledge is available to all again.”
Nicci turned to look across the canyon as afternoon shadows closed in. Some of the shepherds slept in tents near their flocks in the canyon-floor pastures. In the numerous alcoves studding the opposite cliffs, she saw other dwellings lit by cook fires and lamps, but the imposing Cliffwall complex shone brighter as the gifted scholars used magic to illuminate the library archive.
“And we are studying, and practicing, as quickly as we can.” Simon sounded enthusiastic.
The farthest structure at the right side of the alcove caught Nicci’s eye. A large tower was damaged, melted as if the stone had become candle wax. The slickrock overhang had folded in, reminding her of a drooping eyelid. The windows were sealed over like an ice sculpture that had thawed, slumped, then frozen in a fresh cold snap.
Before Nicci could ask about the damage, though, scholars opened the towering doors and Simon led them through the main stone gate into the front tower. “This is only the outer fortress, but there’s much more to Cliffwall than what you see here. An entire complex of tunnels runs through the heart of the plateau all the way to the cliffs on the other side.”