Far Called Trilogy 01 - In Dark Service Read Online Free Page B

to hold his tongue, or just annoyed with me? As always, Jacob wondered about the contents of the messages. The colours of the wax seals indicated how far the messages had travelled to date. Most would have started their journey far beyond the Kingdom of Weyland’s borders. Some would have already travelled millions of miles… far further than any man could hope to travel in his lifetime. Distant librarians passing knowledge on to faraway guild brothers, slowly updating the universal indexes and ancient encyclopaedias of knowledge. A worthy and noble calling. Unfortunately, Carter Carnehan seemed unable to share Jacob’s enthusiasm for their mission.
    Fertile golden fields of corn stretched out in between the woodland, slowly swaying in the gentle breeze. All owned by the Landors. Occasionally Jacob could see the mist of smoke from a fermentation tower, spherically stacked processors distilling corn oil into various strengths as well as producing ethanol. Landor’s improved fermentation process had been the source of his fortune, his invention allowing him to squeeze out as much as a quarter more refined ethanol than any other landowner. Allowing him to buy up most of the farmland around Northhaven, too. It would be the landowner’s son and daughter’s fortune, one day. And the expanse of cornfields a reminder to Carter of all he didn’t have to offer the girl he had set his heart on, every day he went to work. An hour out of town, Jacob caught sight of the library, their cart rounding a rise cut through pine woodlands. The road wound down through a valley and then up towards a series of foothills. Cut into the opposite slope stood the library’s concrete entrance, big metal blast doors locked into place, a series of circular air vents rising out of rocks overgrown by shrubs and vines. In front of the entrance lay an area of flat dirt where travellers could draw up, a caravan already resting there. It must have arrived recently. A couple of wagoners waited outside the doors, speaking to library staff through an intercom. The caravan towered two storeys high, their living and home, both.
    Carter had arrived late for the day’s work and the staff inside weren’t in the mood to listen to Jacob’s apologies on behalf of his son, ordering Carter to handle business with the wagoners while his father repaid the cart driver’s kindness by helping him unload message crates.
    ‘I need sale prices for sheet glass,’ the older of the two wagoners explained to Carter, his accent making the words hiss slightly on each ‘s’. ‘For coastal towns within four months’ travel from here, as well as the dates and locations of market fairs that will be held along the route.’
    ‘Raise your right hand,’ said Carter, sounding bored. ‘Do you swear to carry no fire within the halls of the guild, and—’ he indicated a brass plate in the corner of the archway imprinted with the library’s rules ‘—abide by our ordinances and charges, as listed?’
    The two men grunted affirmation.
    ‘And payment?’ asked Carter.
    ‘Copper trading coins or rice,’ said the wagoner. ‘I’d prefer to pay from our rice sacks, see. Even dried, it’s not going to keep forever.’
    ‘Rice is fine,’ said Carter, having to work to keep the sarcasm from his voice. ‘You can never have too much rice.’
    Carter went to the intercom and had a brief conversation with the staff. A small sally port inside the blast doors opened, a librarian emerging with a metal detector which she passed quickly over the clothes of the travellers. She made a snide remark about Carter’s timekeeping before, satisfied the visitors were unarmed, allowing them access.
    Jacob hefted one of the message crates towards the open entrance, nodding at the librarian. ‘The most dangerous thing I’ve got is my son.’
    ‘Pass,’ said the librarian. ‘He’s more annoying than he is dangerous.’ She glanced at Carter and tapped her blue tunic and the guild emblem sown