by Guy Antibes
“Norra of Bordon Forest,” the captain called. “We have a bit of settling up to do, before we land.”
She looked at Lily and walked over to the captain, who stood by the mainmast.
“Rest easy, you’ve paid for your passage and kept my men happy looking at you all practice your swordsmanship. It’s clear that I wouldn’t be comfortable fighting any of you, even Delia.” He smiled, but quickly turned it off.
“And?”
“I understand you’ve included Clint into your group. He’s a brawny fellow, but I know he’s run afoul of the law before. You’d better be careful where you put your purse and be prepared to defend yourself at some point, although I’m sure Lily and you wouldn’t have any trouble with him. I’ll have to admit I’m a bit relieved having him go.”
“Thank you for the warning. I must admit, I’m of the same opinion, although our journey takes us to a place Clint has been before and we need a guide. There are some who won’t hesitate to attack a woman in such a place and a man such as Clint may make them pause before we expose our talents.” Norra put her hand on his wrist and gave him a kiss on the cheek. “You now have your cabin back, captain.”
~
“The sky above, the mud below.” Gristan whispered in Norra’s ear as they followed their hired men pushing carts with their possessions piled inside. The city didn’t permit the riding of animals in the city. She had to pick her way through trash of all sorts and less mentionable things. The broad road smelled as bad as the sheep-laden ship and the stalls that lined both sides made it seem more like a narrow alley.
People milled around on the streets. Some working, many sitting and fanning themselves with paper fans folded into unique designs.
“I’ve seen fans like these in fancy balls. Those were colored and lacquered, but this must be where they come from,” Delia said. “I always thought them so clever, but here they are so prosaic. I don’t know if I’ll be impressed again.”
“I seem to remember them myself. Hmmm. Why don’t we see if we can buy some of these? They might be more valuable inland,” Gristan said.
They passed a shop selling the fans. These were more like the fancy ones Delia described. Norra bought as many as two silver coins would buy.
The shopkeeper looked like she was a hundred years old. She had the smile of a toothless person and her face was lined with wrinkles. “You don’t look like you are from here. “
The woman looked at Delia who sat in a cart, veiled and dressed up.
“She a queen?”
Lily stepped up to her. “From far inland. We will guard her to her village. That’s what the fans are for, gifts. Unfortunately, she spent all of her money abroad and she has to bring her people some token of her travels.
The shopkeeper smiled, again showing her gums. “Good thing. They trade well out there.”
Her little boy assistant came up to the front of the shop with a big bag, somewhat out of breath. “Thank you. “ He gave them a little ornate bow and handed the bag over to one of the hired men to put in the cart.
“Wait.” The old woman disappeared into the back and returned with a box. “Here is my gift to the queen. This is a design I made special long ago for the last queen through here. She had me make one according to her instructions. I made two and this one is just like it, but a different color.” She bobbed her head as the group moved forward.
Norra looked back and waved as the old woman grinned and bowed at them from her shop.
“Perhaps a highlight of her day,” Norra said.
Delia opened the box to find it lined with velvet and unwrapped the fan. “Norra, look at this.” She held it out, admiring the design of a white lily surrounded with a field of green and gold painted leaves. “It’s beautiful.”
Norra carefully accepted the fan and examined it closely. She pressed a button on the bottom and the fan expanded to twice its size and now there were three lilies. “This is exquisite, Delia. Don’t you feel more like a queen?”
Delia glowed as they continued their little parade up towards the better part of town, away from the port. She fanned herself amidst the crowds, drawing even more attention to herself until she put the fan back in its box.
“I’m sorry, Norra. There are too many people here staring at us.” Gristan whispered in her ear.
“Staring at us? I’d say they are keeping their eyes on the queen. Delia’s never had so much attention so she’s just soaking it in.” Norra smiled. “She deserves something, even if it’s admiration, for coming with me on this crazy quest.”
They continued upwards. The crowds thinned a bit and wore better clothes. The aroma of the lower part of the port thinned and they stopped in front of an inn.
Norra looked up at the thick plastered walls with ornate wooden carvings framing the entryway. Even with it being spring, the heat pressed down on her. She walked through curtains and felt the coolness inside.
Clint walked ahead of her to a reception desk. “We are the party of Queen Willa of the Laput people,” he said. At least he got his words right, Norra thought as she stood at his side looking around the lobby.
“We will need a room for the Queen and her two guards and a small room for myself.” He bowed.
“Of course. We have room for you.” The clerk wore an orange silk shirt with tan buckskin pants, obviously a costume, with a cylindrical hat that seemed to be made of black velvet. He scribbled in a register and turned it around for Clint to sign.
“Norra,” he said. His eyes held a look of quiet desperation when they went from her to the register. So Clint didn’t know his letters.
“I’ll sign for the queen,” she said. Clint relaxed. “There we go. Do you have someone who can show us to the Queen’s chambers?” She looked at Clint. “Come with us so you’ll know where we will be and then you’re on your own until dinner.”
“Dinner is served in the dining room one hour after sunset. It’s a local custom.” The clerk smiled and rang a bell.
~
“So what now?” Delia looked at Norra.
“I don’t know about you, but I want to stay put in a place that doesn’t roll around.” Norra laughed and collapsed on an overstuffed easy chair. “I never would have guessed an inn would look like this. I think the term is exotic. And Delia. You look exotic just like everything else around here.”
Delia took out her lily fan and clicked the little button and the three lilies snapped out. “This is amazing.”
“Not too amazing. I think perhaps we will leave in the morning the day after tomorrow. This is a very expensive hotel.”
Clint opened the door and knocked at the same time.
“Come in,” said Norra. “Sit down and let’s figure out what we need to get for our trip.”
“No problem. Just give me the money and I will provide,” he said putting his feet on a cushion.
Norra didn’t like Clint’s new, confident attitude. “Lily can go with you. I’m going to find some maps.”
“You don’t need any maps, you have me.” Clint grinned and now put his hands behind his head.
“I want to know where we are. What happens if you’re hit on the head and we have to leave you, or you’re captured by wild savages?”
“Never happen,” He said with a stupid grin on his face.
“Well, it’s not your decision. I’ll find the maps. What will we need to get to the pass? A wagon of some kind? Will a carriage last in the desert?”
“I’ll find a caravan moving east. That will be the safest. Lily doesn’t need to come with me.”
“Yes she does.” Everyone turned their heads towards the open doors leading to a balcony. Clint backed away from the window, his eyes wide with astonishment. “There are always slavers masquerading as merchants. They’ll pretend to run the caravan and then they capture everyone who’s signed on and sell them to the mages at the Pass,” Cloud said, drifting into the room.
“What’s to keep us from being captured at the Pass?” Lily said.
“Nothing,” Cloud said. “And that presents a problem, without a solution at present other than the strength of your four swords.”
Delia gasped. “You mean we’ll have to fight our way into Magia where we may be taken as slaves at any time?”
“I said it’s rumored to be a dangerous place,” Cloud said. “I’ll try and see if there’s an alternative and be back later.”
“What’s t-that?” Clint said, the color draining from his face.
“That is Cloud,” Lily said, “and he’s one of our protectors. He knows all and sees all, so you’ll need to be on your best behavior.”
Clint nodded without replying.
“I’ll give some gold coins to Lily and you two can find us an honest caravan.”
“We don’t hook up with a caravan until we leave the city,” Clint said. “Merchants hire wagons and find a caravan in Plosser Flats, just outside the city a ways. But we will get something befitting the Queen of Laputs.” He eyed Cloud. “I’ll be just outside,” he said as he slipped through into the corridor, slamming the door.
After Clint and Lily left, Cloud said, “I apologize for my earlier approval of hiring Clint. I could be wrong, but I’ll bet that Clint worked on a slaver caravan himself.”
“The captain warned me about him after you left. We will use him as long as he behaves and then pay him for his services and send him on his way if he gives us trouble,” Norra said.
“My dear, even if you dismiss him, he may return with others to disrupt our progress,” Gristan said. “It’s apparent to me that the man is certainly a rogue, but perhaps he may redeem himself.”
“Your recognition of a need for maps is a prudent one, Norra. I seem to remember hearing of a map maker on the Alley of the Rose,” Cloud said.
Norra got up and paced the floor. “What have I got us into? And I don’t even know enough to know if we’ve made the wrong decision.” She wondered what kind of trouble she had gotten all of them in. Did they need to retreat north into the more populated areas of Polda? Did she really have any chance of getting all the way to Magia and into the Master Mage’s tower? Still, they landed in Taxia. That was a feat. She had brought her group this far, she’d see it through to the end at the mage’s tower. Norra refused to be chased for the rest of her life because of that dratted wizard’s light.
~
Through an alley and past a fountain to another alley, Norra finally found the mapmaker’s shop. The shop smelled of old paper and leather, with books lining one side of the room in shelves. The other side held diamond shaped shelves filled with scrolls above rows of flat cabinets with three wide tables running down the center of the shop.
Norra expected a little old man to walk through the door, but a young man walked through the beaded curtain from the back.
“And how can I help you? My name is Herran.” He gave Norra a graceful bow and had such a nice smile. Norra felt herself warming to the shopkeeper, he seemed familiar for some reason and that put her at ease.
“I’m with a group of travelers going into the interior of Taxia and am looking for some maps.”
“It’s dangerous in Taxia, but whereabouts in the interior? We have a number of good maps, originals and reproductions.” He walked in front of the cabinets. “I can certainly recommend a copy of a Yulga map, he was the ultimate cartographer for all of Taxia. That will give you the best topographical information, but he died over a century ago and villages have come and gone.”
Herran knelt down and pulled out a map, spreading it out on one of the viewing tables. “Here is a Yulga. Do you have any idea where you’re headed?”
The map stunned her with its detail. A border of flowers ran around the edges of the view of Taxia. She recognized it as a work of art as her finger traced its way along the mountains. It touched the Pass.
“You are going to the Pass? You must be a merchant. I hope your party is full of guards. Slavers regularly prey on merchants heading to the borders of Magia all along the route and wizards are on the other side ready to take anyone they choose as serfs, who are little more than slaves for the Mages of Magia.”
Norra felt a pressure inside of her and then her eyes began to well up as the immensity of her task in Magia suddenly weighed her down. Her path lay forward not backward, regardless of how she thought. “I have to go into Magia.” She sniffed and tried to control herself. “I’ve come all this way and I don’t know what to do!” Why did she have to collapse in front of a shopkeeper of all people?
She put her hand on the map and felt something. Through her tears she asked, “Is this map magic?”
Herran laughed. “Yulga was a mage. He flew around Taxia making sketches from high in the air, so goes the story. However I know the map is good. This is an original and is rather expensive, but I show it off to customers. We have serviceable copies of this. I am surprised you can tell.”
“Oh, I’ve been told I have a little talent.”
He smiled. “Unique, a woman with talent. I thought that extinct. That’s why you’re attempting to go to Magia?”
“Not attempting. We’ve got to go there and that’s all I’m going to say about it.” She turned around and began looking at titles stamped into the leather books, hardly reading the words. She had to get hold of herself. Why did everything seem to bog down here?
“May I suggest something?” Herran looked down at the map. “There’s another way over the mountains. Over here, please.”
He had a cheerful lilt to his voice and it reminded her of someone else, but she couldn’t bring up a face. She turned around and looked at the map Herran laid on another table. “Those are mountains with snow-covered peaks aren’t they?” She looked him in the eyes and thought those were such nice eyes. Norra shook her head to get his image out of her mind.
“There’s a faint line going up into the mountains from this village. I can’t say the village is still there, but there is a line of hills shaped like… cones. If Yulga drew them, I’d bet they are really there.”
“I don’t know if we can get there.” Norra felt helpless and her eyes filled again.
“Yes you can.” Herran grasped her hand and Norra felt a bit lighter for some reason, but when he moved it, he slipped Yulga’s map off of the table and put it back in its drawer.
“I have just the map, I think.” Herran went to another of the flat files and pulled out another map and laid it on the table.
“This isn’t as nice.”
“Current work. You can see the difference can’t you? That’s what makes Yulga’s work so wonderful. The Port Administrator commissioned the survey last year that resulted in this map. This is a copy of Yulga’s but updated.”
“The Pass is here, running from Torell Port?” Norra ran her finger along the dotted line that went along a river for most of the way. She searched along the other route that ran south but there was no dotted line west to the secret pass. “I don’t see the cone hills.”
“They aren’t on this map, but I’m sure they exist. Maybe the years have worn them down a bit. The Yulga Pass should be right here.” Herran put his finger down.
“This doesn’t follow a river,” Norra said.
“Sharp eyes. No river here. It’s all desert full of the native tribes. However, not to worry, you can see there are oases all along the way. If you have the map and know when the road turns north towards Yulga’s Pass, you’ll be just fine.”
“We have a guide, but his experience is… questionable.” Fear crept up her throat. Clint just couldn’t be trusted.
“No guide? You need a guide you should trust.”
“Do you know of any?” Norra said. Herran looked trustworthy and he seemed to be at so much ease around her. At least he didn’t have that look in his eyes that worried her about Clint. She felt as if she could rely on his word.
“Excuse me for a moment.” He went through the beaded curtain. She could hear rumblings of conversation. Another employee worked in the back.
“
Did your associate know anyone?” Norra said.
“As a matter of fact he did… me.”
“Don’t you need to work in this shop?” Norra said, wondering if his offer was being made because of her tears.
“No. I’m helping out my great-uncle. I spent some of my childhood helping him, but I’m not really needed. I’m waiting for an appointment as a geographical instructor at Taulone University.”
“If it’s still there,” Norra said.
“Why do you say that?”
“Wizards are fighting each other for territory. There is a Mage war coming and all Polda is worried.”
Herran laughed. “I can believe that. Torell Port is the only city of any size in the whole country. Not much here to interest wizards, other than goods going over the Pass, of course.”
“Can I ask you a question?”
“You certainly can,” he said as he put the map back.
“Why didn’t I ever know about Magia? I still don’t know how I’ll get around once I get there. There’s supposed to be a spell that cleanses it from men’s minds and yet it seems that the port is set up to trade with the magicians.”
“To answer your question, there is a spell the Master Mage cast over all of Polda. However, he left Taxia alone because of the trade. If you left Taxia, within months, you’d forget about Magia.”
“The captain knows about Magia. My guard does.” Norra folded her arms and tried to avoid looking at Herran.
“He sails the seas and probably hasn’t been on land long enough. A wizard or someone with power won’t forget. I daresay you didn’t.” He smiled at her. “Made your decision? Do you want me to put my qualifications in writing?”
Norra didn’t know if she wanted Herran along with them or not. On one hand he sparked her interest and he attracted her, on the other, she didn’t want to be disappointed with another Clint-type decision.
“How are you with a sword?” Norra looked around, but they couldn’t spar in the shop.
“We can go outside, if you want to test me.” He eyed Norra’s sword. “My great-uncle keeps an old sword in the back.”