The Lost Crown

Walliam Arrives At the Academy

Walliam woke with a start and looked around the room.  It was morning.  He felt wrung out from lack of sleep and wondered how long they would leave him if he didn’t get up and show his face.  A knock on his door answered his question.

He ate a quick breakfast and then was put in the library and told to keep out of the way.  He wandered around the long room and looked at the books and scrolls gathered there.  He found a book called “The Hidden World Revealed” and pulled it off of it’s shelf.  It was a very thick, large book and he struggled to carry it to the reading table a few feet away.

He opened the cover and saw yellowed pages covered handwriting that looked like a whispery scrawl.  He read the first paragraph and struggled to make out what it said.  “Running concurrent with the Etherium but keeping out of context with the two axioms governing the breaches executed between --”

He stopped reading.  He tried to make sense of the words and read them through several times.  

He dreaded running into Mentathian.  He was nervous about being alone in the library.  He did not want to have to face the Magian alone.  But every time a man entered the room it proved to be either Sidney or Snippert.  He went to the front windows of the library and looked out at the garden and the surrounding wall.  He had asked if he could go exploring and Planchiko had firmly forbidden it.  He didn’t want to have to search for Walliam when it was time to go, and he had no idea when they would be leaving.

Walliam saw many messengers come through the front gate and knock on the impressive double doors.  Sidney always answered and rarely did the messenger go inside.  Usually he took whatever they offered, or handed them a rolled up scroll, and then they left.

Several times messengers came for Mentathian but were turned away.  Just after lunch Planchiko came into the library with a big smile.  “Are we ready?” he asked.

Walliam jumped up from where he had been sitting in the window seat.  “Now?”

“Now.  I got the message and we can go.  The tide will be going out soon so I would like to get to the ship within the hour.  Get your things, lad.  I will meet you at the front doors.”

A carriage with curtains in the windows was waiting for them at the front gate.  Walliam handed his bag to the driver who fastened it on top of the carriage with Planchiko’s luggage.  It was only Planchiko and Walliam making the trip to the dock.  Snippert came out to wave them goodbye.  Walliam saw Sidney’s face in an upper window briefly.  And then they were off.

The trip to the dock took some time.  Walliam thought that they were going back to the dock they had landed at, but Planchiko told him that they were heading to a bigger dock out on the harbor.  They were sailing in one of the big ships that nobles and merchants used to travel.  The large ship was tied at the end of a long dock that went out into a mass of boats and ships and barges of every shape and size.

There were docks as far as Walliam could look in any direction.  The harbor was very wide and across the miles to the docks on the far side there were still more ships and masts and boats.  Walliam was amazed at the bustle and flow of men and animals and crates and bales and barrels. 

“It’s very different than what we will see in Cerallon,” Planchiko said as he hired someone to take their luggage down the dock in a cart.  Walliam added his bag to the pile on the cart and then followed Planchiko.  “Cerallon has the docks on the islands that all of the goods travel through, and then on the island closest to the mainland are the docks for passengers.  It’s much more orderly than this chaos.”

The dock was wide and crowded and Walliam stayed close behind Planchiko as he weaved his way to their ship.  Somehow the man with the cart full of their luggage managed to keep up without hitting anyone on the busy dock.  The steps that they climbed up to the ship’s deck were slippery and Walliam felt his hands shaking with the strain of holding on by the time he reached the deck high above.