They followed him up the series of ladders that led to the broad platform on the top. Once there, though, Talia didn’t see anything out of the ordinary—just two men in the black uniform tunics of Alessandar’s army, and an enormous concave mirror, as wide as Talia was tall. Although it was not quite perfect, its surface a bit wavering, it was an impressive piece of workmanship. Talia marveled at the skill that had gone into first producing and then silvering such an enormous piece of glass.

The mirror stood on a pivoting pedestal, and as they watched, one of the two men turned it until it reflected a beam of the westering sunlight at the southwestern corner of the platform. When he’d done that, the second man picked up a smaller mirror about three handspans across and took his position in the beam of reflected light.

That was when Talia realized just how they were going to pull off the trick. It was a very clever variant on the old scheme of signaling across distance by means of the sun flashing off a reflective object. It was clever because in this case there was no need to hope that the sun was in the correct position when you needed to send a message.

The Captain smiled broadly as he saw understanding in their faces. “It was the idea of some savant in Ancar’s entourage. We started building these towers last year at all the outposts; when we realized how useful they are we sped up the building and put towers up as fast as we could get the mirrors for them. We have relay towers all across the Kingdom now,” he continued, with cheerful pride. “We can transmit a message from one end of the Kingdom to the other in a matter of hours. That’s rather better than you Heralds can do, from what I understand.”

“That’s quite true, but anyone who knows your code has no trouble in learning the content of any messages you send,” Kris pointed out. “That makes it a bit difficult to keep anything secret, doesn’t it?”

The Captain laughed. “In that case, the couriers need never fret that there will be no job for them, true? Solan,” he addressed the man holding the smaller mirror, “tell them down the line that Queen Selenay of Valdemar’s two envoys are here, and waiting for instructions on how to proceed.”

“Sir!” The signalman saluted smartly, and carried out his orders. In the far distance the Heralds could just barely make out what might be the top of another tower above the treetops. Shortly after their man had completed his message, a series of flashes winked back at them from this point.