by Jo Sparkes
A wave of guilt passed through Marra - but on its tail came confusion. “Rain’s bowls of pink gruel recognized Tryst.” And as the words hung in the air, she gasped. “By using…bits of him?”
Tinge’s eyes widened. “Recognized an individual skin man? Our Rain has indeed forged her own path.”
Kirth laid a hand on Marra’s arm. To silence her, she realized.
The Terrin picked up on Kirth’s concern. “By Yute’s own luck, I have only answered her questions,” she said. “I did not seek to instruct your student. But she is smart, this one. More so even than Rain.”
“Very smart,” Kirth sighed. “But this one has some sense as well.”
Marra doubted that. Because, she suddenly realized, she had just told a Terrin - the very race that had kidnapped a prince and a king - that they knew all about Rain’s treachery.
It was two weeks before Tryst saw the other side of the gate.
First they had to formally apply to travel the continent, a thing not often allowed. King Ganny’s suggestion to assume the role of Gamesmen proved wise, as the first demand was to know their destination. Tryst had thought once beyond the gate it wouldn’t matter, but Adeena swiftly corrected that notion.
“Time beyond the gate is calculated,” she said, her eyes piercing his. Trying to read his thoughts, no doubt. “Guides are required to provide estimates and routes before, and verification afterward. It is a crime to veer from your stated path.”
Tryst found this impossible to believe. “With all that travel…”
“Few travel these days,” she smiled. “Fewer still on their first visit to Creesby. Monitoring the gate is a well-paid responsibility. Now gate minders carefully count both days gone and skin men admitted.”
“How do we estimate?” Jason demanded. “We are gamesmen, seeking to hone our skills. As we know nothing of what lies beyond the gate, how will you determine our path?”
Tryst saw the change in her, and realized King Ganny had called it right.
The girl studied Jason, and then each of the others in turn. “This thing you say is truth?”
Instinctively she looked to Tryst. He nodded.
For the first time she looked unsure. “I believe they will determine our first stop.”
“You believe?”
Adeena nodded absently, as if still pondering the ramifications. “A place that will gladly enjoy your gamesmanship.”
“And then?”
She met Tryst’s eye. “If you measure well, I believe you can travel as you will. The normal restrictions will not be set.”
Jason smiled. “And we won’t need you.”
The blond smiled back. “You will need me if you pass. The land is too…difficult for newcomers.”
“Only if we pass?”
“If you fail, you will need a healer.”
Having looked over - and disparaged - their gear, Adeena dragged Jason around Creesby to purchase sleep hammocks, pest repellents, and knee boots. Tryst expected his defense master to balk at new supplies, but Jason did not.
“There appears to be reason behind these,” Jason told him across the tavern table.
“I’ve encountered sleep hammocks before,” Tryst said, and grinned at his mentor’s surprise. “I prefer my back against solid ground.”
“Apparently there are places beyond the gate where you will not.”
Adeena joined them, striding through the patrons with a proud tilt of her chin and a mug in her hand. She was too tall for a woman, Tryst thought. Too smug.
The guide joined them as Manten poured ale from the pitcher.
“Have a care what you drink tonight,” she told them. “We pass through the Gate on the morrow’s dawn.”
“Let us wait till after breakfast,” Olver clasped his mug.
“We go at the time appointed or wait for a new time to be given.”
Olver muttered something under his breath. Tryst suspected it was both unflattering and overheard. Her reaction, however was faint amusement.
A confident woman, he thought to himself. As confident as the proudest Skullan female, though perhaps for different reasons. He wondered if she exaggerated the difficulties of passing through the Gate and traveling Terrin lands.
His doubts faded the next morning, when the entire party approached the stout bastion to be counted and questioned.
Still blinking the sleep from their eyes, the others stood in line to face the gigantic portal before them. Missea’s gates had always been impressive, built to allow six wagons abreast to pass without difficulty. This thing before them now rose just as high and wider still. He was curious to see how mere men opened it.
Four Trumen - he was pretty sure they were Trumen - met them. The tallest talked long to Adeena, taking her staff to study as the others circled the travelers.
“You are indeed Trumen?” one demanded.
Drail nodded once, bestowing such a look as to question the man’s intelligence. Tryst turned to suppress his smile. Drail, he knew, wasn’t acting at all. The gamesman took the question personally - and was insulted by it.
At last the gatekeeper stepped back and returned their guide’s walking stick.
Then, fiddling with an odd knob, he opened a small doorway hidden within the massive gate. The same trick, Tryst realized, as the Palace used upon certain wrought iron gates. Allowing men to pass without going to the effort of swinging wide the huge portal itself. It also barred wagons or other conveyances from passage.
He noted the man counting again as each gamesman stepped through. Perhaps Terrin were as timid as the legends claimed.
Which made the treachery against the Skullan Empire all the more astonishing.
Stepping through the gate’s tiny doorway, Drail emerged onto well-tended flagstone.
Wide and undamaged, the road stretched out before them, offering new vistas and adventure. The main gate highway out of Missea was no more impressive - though surely more crowded. Here they were the only travelers, at least this morning.
This early in the day the heat had yet to thicken the breeze. Noises collided in the gap - the low buzzing of insects, rustling leaves as small animals scurried away. And, as the gate latch clicked shut and Jason marched away, light-pitched melodies trilled the air. Bird song.
Such noises occurred outside Missea of course, and could even be found in the desert. But to hear so many at once - Drail shook his head. King Ganny had spoke of a continent teeming with life. For the first time Drail wondered just what sort of life that might be. It was said not every creature on the Dim Continent ran from the sounds of men.
The Prince strode past. Drail matched his stride.
“Quite a road for such a lack of travelers,” Tryst remarked.
“Recent maintenance done,” Jason pointed to brush marks in the dirt.
“Why?” Drail frowned. It seemed a lot of effort for something not truly used.
“Anticipation of future needs.” Tryst and Jason shared a grim look.
Adeena strode confidently on, unaware or uncaring of their delay. With little choice, they followed.
Marra helped in the garden by collecting the bray dust, which proved no easy feat. The moss, while plentiful, was also delicate. Taking a fine weave cloth, she lightly applied Honeysuckle dew to the surface, laid it flat on the ground, and lifted it gently by the corners. The fine dust was then brushed into a funnel bowl - a wide glass bowl with a funnel lid atop. It was painstaking work, all the more frustrating as she could hear maddening snippets of conversation from Tinge’s room.
“Why are you so concerned?” Tinge’s voice trickled through.
Marra paused to listen, but Kirth’s answering grumble was too low to decipher.
It took ten trips and careful application of the brush to reach the quarter mark level in the bowl. In all that time she learned only that Kirth wished to do something, and Tinge stood in her way. Yet at lunch, sitting in the big chairs and spooning a delicate stew into their stomachs, the two friends laughed
over Marra’s mistake from her morning work. The problem with bray dust, she had discovered, was not collecting it, but transferring what was collected into the bowl. She’d left a sprinkling of powder on the table, the floor, and most definitely on her skirt.
“I’ll be more careful this afternoon,” Marra offered.
“This afternoon we should travel,” Kirth said, shooting an annoyed look at the Terrin.
“It is simply sleep in the bag tonight and three nights more,” Tinge murmured over her food. “Or spend this evening comfortably nestled in fragrant straw before three nights of bag sleep.”
Though she said nothing, Marra gaped at Kirth.
“You,” the elder told her, “will be the first Agben apprentice to see the inside of the Tower in…many years.”
“Tower?”
“The Tower of Zaria.”
They spent the afternoon assembling supplies. Tinge packed a large sack with odd-looking grain balls - traveling fodder, she called them. Kirth laid out three sleep bags, which resembled the sleep hammocks Marra had once experienced on Mid Isle. Yet the cloth here was solid material, a dark green that blended too well with the jungle. The island version had been stretch nets, and proved most comfortable.
She hoped these would prove the same.
Kirth smoothed the material out flat, then rolled it evenly around the stick before tying the loose strings to hold it in place.
When Marra was sent to pack their things, Tinge protested. “No need to burden ourselves with so much. You can clean your clothing at the Tower, if you are so fastidious.”
“We do not know when we’ll return,” Kirth answered. And though Marra was still learning to read the Terrin’s emotions, she did not doubt the creature was unhappy.
Kirth woke Marra just as the sun ventured over the Terrin house wall.
“A last civilized breakfast,” she said. “And then we leave.”
They nibbled coconut cakes and drank a robust tea tasting of peat and spice. “Sustaining,” Tinge called it. Marra did not find the sweet pastries nourishing, and wondered if the Terrin took more sustenance from her tea than her food.
She didn’t ask, of course.
As the sun rose high enough to color the world and the shadows retreated from the moss-grass, they gathered their backpacks and slung sleep bags over their shoulders. Tinge produced special boots, made not of leather but some sort of stiff weave cloth. The boots laced all the way up to the knees.
Strangest of all was the men’s breeches, constructed to stretch over her legs. The material clung to her skin, a sort of soft cloud over the lower half of her body.
Marra had only gone without a skirt once in her life - when she disguised herself as a boy. This clothing wasn’t seemly.
Kirth smiled at her recoil. “The Terrin outfit is necessary, child. Long skirts here will collect…things.”
By the time she’d donned the odd leggings and tied the drawstring around her waist, the two Agben elders waited on the moss. They didn’t so much as glance her way before tramping off into the wild.
And wild it was.
No clear path beckoned, as far as Marra could tell. One direction looked as forbidding as the next. Then Tinge turned, rambling toward two of the taller trees. She passed between.
The twin trees forced them through single file, and the terrain being both lush and thick, they never walked abreast again.
Growing up in the desert, Marra had found the Great Continent crowded with plant life. One could hardly take a step outside the Missea gates without stepping on something. Kirth had explained that the abundance of water made it so.
Here water thrived in the very air, in the damp breeze and clouds so ladened with it they failed to rise as high into the sky as they should. Plants grew atop plants, scrambling through the shadows in a mad climb for the sun. She couldn’t take a step without rudely brushing against something.
Watching Tinge, she realized the Terrin simply thrust through it all, untroubled by any damage she may cause. Kirth merely followed in her wake, allowing Tinge’s bulk to clear a path.
So Marra fell in line behind them.
Passing between the trees, she gasped aloud. Her Skullan mentor threw a quick look over her shoulder, then resumed her march. Perhaps the elder interpreted her expression, or was content to wait to ask. Or, quite possibly, she deemed it unimportant.
Marra was grateful either way. For at the moment smells overwhelmed her; smells of Kwitt and earth and spicy exotic…things. Aromas she’d only faintly caught at the school, or not at all. Wild, potent, peculiar. In truth she couldn’t find the words to assemble her thoughts.
As the day wore on, she had leisure to work it out.
Kirth worried ceaselessly as she trudged behind Tinge.
She worried that Rain had done more damage than she’d previously thought. She worried that the Tower itself might be involved. Zaria would make a formidable enemy.
And she worried that this…plot…had taken years to evolve. Years to grow into the threat it was, without any of the wise women of Agben even suspecting. When this was over, they must make changes to prevent future threats.
Assuming they survived this one.
She heard a slight stumble, a tiny gasp. Marra was young and strong, so probably her mind had just wandered. That was the one danger - bringing this girl to Tinge. With no understanding of caution, with no concept of maintaining balance or the dangers of the third discipline, the herb girl’s thirst for knowledge might well exceed her caution.
Yet Marra cared about others. A strong sense of what was right guided her choices. Her mistakes rose from youth, not intent.
Still, aware of the girl behind, Kirth was reminded of another time traipsing after Tinge through the trees, blithely trusting that the trailing apprentice would follow the proper path. That time had been years ago.
And that girl had been Rain.
The wide road wound between several hills, narrowing gradually. Jason noted the evenly-set stones became less so as the plant growth between disturbed the base. Maintenance, he suspected, tapered off rapidly with the distance from the gate.
The similarity to Missea also tapered off. Seemingly normal grass now sported other plants with a bluish tinge, and the looming trees were too squat and close together. Each step shifted them farther from the familiar to the unknown.
Into the Dim Continent.
Adeena matched her steps to his. “You are the path minder?”
“I…pardon?”
“The path minder.” She studied his face. “The leader drives the venture, having a goal in mind. He finds a path minder to keep them to the path. Such men see to the details, often are paid. They are not distracted by the leader’s belief.”
She probably thought she’d complimented him. “I believe in their…venture,” he ground out.
The girl guide sent another penetrating look. “Then you do not mind the path. You mind the man.”
“Jason,” Tryst beckoned.
Adeena’s lips twitched.
Having just crested the steepest hill yet, the Prince stared down at the fork in the road. It split three ways, one heading due east, one heading due west, and one continuing straight as an arrow. While the two sharp turns continued on through similar hills, the straight route vanished into a vine-threaded forest so thick the sun itself faltered in penetrating it.
“What do we do when we reach the bottom?” Old Merle eyed the girl.
Adeena carelessly pointed, already trotting downhill. “We travel straight, into the swamp forest.”
Jason exchanged a look with Tryst. “Swamp forest?”
“Your first game plays out in Krum,” she tossed over her shoulder. “The village lies in that direction.”
Drail peered at Adeena’s face suspiciously.
He’d watched her stride confidently down the embankment, eyes straight ahead, chin lifted. Almost too confident.
Then she called a halt at the edge of the trees. Something in her
voice caught his attention, something he hadn’t expected. Watching her eyes dart from the tree line to her feet, observing the squaring of her shoulders, confirmed it.
She was nervous.
Most women grew nervous at the slightest cause. When he first met Marra she frequently seemed so - in fact one of the things he admired was her courage to proceed anyway. Adeena, however, had all the confidence found in a man.
Even now she covered it, pretending she felt no different. But after playing comet for most of his life, learning to read opponents to know who was scared and who was brave, Drail knew the signs.
“What exactly is a swamp forest?” he asked.
“You’re about to find out.”
“You don’t know either.”
The look she sent was penetrating - and revealing. Seeing it, Drail spoke so the others couldn’t hear. “I thought you’d done this before.”
“I have!” she hissed.
He waited, letting the weight of silence drag the truth from her.
“Always to the right,” she sighed. “My stick carries forty notches, and every one of them took the right fork.”
For the first time Drail saw the marks in her staff.
“Why would our journey be any different?”
“You are my first gamesmen,” she said, before turning to face the others. “We should eat before venturing inside.”
“I thought,” Jason frowned, “you merely guided our steps. I thought we chose such times.”
“Choose away,” she turned back to the swamp forest. “It’s dark in there, and difficult walking. There won’t be convenient pause points for food or rest.”
“How long through the forest?” Old Merle asked.
Adeena shrugged. “At your slow pace, Gamesman, it’s hard to say.”
Drail suppressed a grin. If he hadn’t known otherwise, he’d never have guessed she hadn’t traveled it many times before.
So they sat and munched hard cake, a specialty Adeena had provided in several bags. The small biscuits proved very tough to chew and tasted nothing like cake. Adeena deemed them both sustenance and portable.