by C. Night
He heard a horse whinny from behind him. He moved towards the sound and saw a tall tent with open sides that clearly served as a stable. Rhyen remembered that he now had a horse, and he enthusiastically pulled some grass as he walked over to the padlock. Many horses sauntered up to him as he drew close, and a few tugged playfully at his hair and clothes, nickering as he scratched their foreheads and stroked their necks. One big bay leaned into him, enjoying his petting so much that Rhyen had to take a step backwards to keep from being bowled over. Rhyen was grinning when Cinnamon bumped his back with her huge head. He really liked horses after all, with their summery scent and companionable manners. He presented his horse with the handful of sweet grass, and she thanked him by snorting over his hand. Her lips tickled his palms and, impulsively but cautiously, Rhyen hugged her around her neck. He’d never had a pet, and he knew that horses were work animals, but still he felt a surge of affection for the animal.
“Beautiful creatures, aren’t they?” asked a sly, musical voice from behind him. Rhyen yelped with surprise, then instantly wished he had never been born. It was Soti, sitting prettily on the makeshift fence, watching him with amusement etched in her porcelain face. Fortunately she had added a light green cloak to her wardrobe, which covered most of her, and thus spared Rhyen the embarrassment of making it look like he wasn’t looking at her. Her red hair was pulled neatly behind her ears, and he saw that they really were pointed. He gritted his teeth and tried his best to make his face turn less red.
“Yes, they are,” he agreed dutifully, wishing she would go away. He felt very foolish.
She smiled wider, as if she knew what he was thinking. “Your horse is a good one. I raised her myself. She will not lead you astray.”
Rhyen tore his eyes away from Soti and focused on the horse. He patted Cinnamon. “She is a good one, my lady.” He was ashamed she had caught him hugging his horse like a little boy, but no sooner had he thought this when she said, “It’s nice to see a man love his animals. It speaks a great deal for his character.” Rhyen looked at her with some surprise.
Soti smiled at his confused expression. “You can tell what sort of a person someone is by how they treat their lessers. I see a good heart in you, Rhyen Hyldhem. Do not lose your compassion.” She held his gaze for a moment, then slid off the fence as lightly as a feather. She began walking back to the palatial tent. “Your master is waiting for you,” she called over her shoulder.
Rhyen watched her walk away. It was much less distracting now that she was wearing her cloak. “What was that about?” he asked Cinnamon distractedly. She didn’t answer.
Rhyen met Cazing and Rode at the entrance of the tent. His master held out a round of warm bread for him, which he took gratefully. His stomach was growling. A servant brought out a small stool and his boots, which looked freshly polished. Rhyen sank down onto the stool and fumbled his feet into them. He smiled at the servant, who bowed as he removed the stool and disappeared back into the tent. Rhyen started to work on the bread as his master and Rode said their final farewells. During this time, Cinnamon, Brefen, and the packhorses were led up to them. How the servants managed to saddle and load them so quickly was a mystery to Rhyen, who had been with the horses only a few minutes ago and saw no servants around at all, but he was nevertheless thankful. It occurred to him that eventually he would have to learn how to saddle a horse. But for now he was glad it was already done, because, as they were actually leaving, Rhyen was again excited. His apprenticeship was about to start.
“I’ll send word to Avernade from time to time to catch you up on our glass venture,” Rode was saying to Cazing. They clasped each other’s arms fondly. “We’re splitting the profits 70-30, yes?”
“As long as I’m the 70, sure,” Cazing replied. “Take care, Rode. Stay out of trouble, or at least don’t get caught at it!”
“Same to you, my friend.” Rode smiled at the sorcerer, then turned to Rhyen and grabbed his shoulder. “It was an honor meeting you, Rhyen. Keep this old dog on the straight and narrow, and don’t believe anything he says. He’s a notorious liar.” Rode winked at Rhyen.
“Said the horse trader,” Cazing muttered good-naturedly.
“Thank you,” Rhyen said as he mounted Cinnamon. He had done it right, and on the first try, to his great amazement.
Rode held out his hands. “Look at that! Well done, Rhyen. I told you you’d get it.”
Rhyen waved. Cinnamon was already turning, keeping pace beside Brefen. They were finally going.
It was still early, and the sun was just rising over the tops of the trees lining the road from Ikha. Rhyen felt full of energy. He was looking around at the sights he had beheld for years as though he’d never seen them before—the stately trees, the cultivated farmland, the distant glint of sunshine on the River Waine to the south. It seemed to Rhyen that his senses were heightened. Never before had the leaves looked so green, the earth so red, the sky so blue. He worked hard to keep from grinning, trying to act like he wasn’t so excited. They went a ways before, unable to contain his enthusiasm for the voyage any longer, he burst out, “I didn’t realize you wanted to leave so early, Master.” His voice sounded a little too cheerful even to his own ears, but he couldn’t help it.
Cazing guffawed. “I had to get away from his wives.”
Rhyen looked at his master, eyebrows raised. “Come again? I thought they were really nice.”
Cazing shook his head. “Not like that, Rhyen. I’ve known Renna for as long as I’ve known Rode, and Olpha half as long, and I have to tell you—those women are like my own family. And Soti seemed great. But that’s the problem. They’re too nice… they always have some sister or friend who they want me to meet.”
Rhyen absorbed that, head tilted in thought. “I didn’t know that elves could marry humans.”
Cazing laughed so hard that a flock of birds rustled out of a nearby tree and took off. When he found his voice again he chortled, “Rhyen, it happens all the time! Most elves don’t go for humans because we live such short lives in comparison. But magic wielders, especially sorcerers, live very long lives.
“Renna has a lovely twin sister named Nevardha. I enjoy her company very much, but Renna has been pushing me toward her for about a hundred years. And then Olpha took up the cause, and my guess is that Soti will too. And I know that if we’d have stayed longer, the subject would be broached, and all three would be against me. Besides, I don’t want to marry again. So that’s why we slunk out of there so early.”
They were riding side by side, the packhorses tied in succession behind Brefen. Cazing leaned over and clapped Rhyen on the shoulder. “Women—don’t ever try to outsmart them, Rhyen. I have always found that the best policy is to just run away.”
Rhyen looked at his master, chuckling, but saw that Cazing was quite serious. Rhyen hastily coughed to cover up his laughter. They rode in silence for a while.
Rhyen eventually wondered about his possessions. He hadn’t thought to ask where they were before leaving Rode’s. He turned slightly around in his seat to see if it was lashed to one of the packhorses. That’s when he noticed that there were saddlebags on Cinnamon. Curiously he unbuckled one and lifted the flap. Inside he found, neatly folded, his clothes. He turned and checked the other side. The rest of his belongings were carefully arranged inside. He craned his neck to check directly behind him, and he saw that his blanket was tightly rolled into a long cylinder and tied to the saddle. “Huh,” Rhyen said under his breath. Rode’s servants were extremely efficient. Rhyen vaguely wondered how he didn’t notice the bundles before.
Throughout this all, good Cinnamon walked on, unruffled even in the slightest that her rider was twisting this way and that while astraddle her. “Huh,” said Rhyen again, impressed as he continued to look through the saddlebags. The servants had packed his possessions much better than he had.
“What are you ‘huh-ing’ about?” asked Ca
zing somewhat irritably. “And it better be a good explanation, because I’ve got a splitting headache, and you’re not helping.”
“They packed all my things,” explained Rhyen, “and did a much better job than I did.”
Cazing snorted. “Rode always was a bit of a show-off.”
Rhyen looked sideways at Cazing. His horse was free of saddlebags. “Did they remember to pack your stuff too?”
“I’ve got it all here,” said the sorcerer. With his free hand he shook the brown satchel that hung around his shoulder and neck and rested against his hip.
Rhyen laughed. “That’s it? Won’t you get cold?”
Cazing shaded his eyes from the sun and groaned. “What are you talking about?”
“You don’t have a cloak or a coat or a blanket or anything.” Cazing looked at Rhyen as if he was an idiot. “And winter is coming,” Rhyen finished lamely.
Cazing sighed and looked forward. “No, Rhyen, I’ve already told you, I have everything I need in this bag, including blankets and cloaks.”
“It is magic, then!” Rhyen exclaimed triumphantly. “I knew it! How does it work?”
“Good gods, Rhyen, we have plenty of time to talk about magic when we get to Avernade. Now, however, I’m going to have to ask you to stop talking so I can sleep off this drink.” Cazing spotted the disappointment on Rhyen’s face. A kindly expression came over his, and he said, “Never trust elf rum, Rhyen.” Cazing smiled a sort of grimace at his apprentice, then groaned and slouched in his saddle. “I always seem to forget that myself.”
“That’s why I started drinking water, sir,” said Rhyen earnestly, glad that his master was not upset with him.
Cazing looked over at him incredulously. He chuckled under his breath. “Is it now?” he asked, amused.
Eventually they arrived at the ford. Cazing nudged Brefen, and they followed the curve of the River Waine. Rhyen had been expecting to cross at the ford, which would lead them south, but now they had turned west. Avernade, Rhyen knew, lay far to the south. “Where are we going?” he asked. They hadn’t spoken for several hours, and Rhyen’s voice came out dry and scratchy.
“To the village Fayer. It’s decent sized, and we can resupply.” Cazing’s voice was rough too.
“Resupply?” Rhyen was confused. Except for occasional draws from their water skins, they hadn’t touched their supplies.
“We won’t get to Fayer for a week. Maybe more, depending on the weather,” Cazing added, looking at the sky. Rhyen glanced up as well. It was the deep blue of a coming storm. He thought he heard thunder rumbling far away.
Cazing sniffed. “I wish your Name day wasn’t in the late summer, Rhyen,” he said crossly. “It’s the worst time to travel. Why couldn’t you have been born in the spring?”
“Sorry,” Rhyen replied, shrugging and grinning.
Cazing gave a bark of laughter. “Ah, well, it’ll make the trip more exciting, racing the weather like this.”
Rhyen looked at the sky again. Indeed it was going to be a race against the weather. Ikha and the surrounding areas were famous for the raging thundershowers in late summer and early autumn. In fact, most of Conden was affected. With mountains on almost three sides and the ocean on the other, weather patterns were treacherous at best as wind and precipitation were funneled through the country. As a child, Rhyen had heard that in Zirith frost was the only sign of approaching winter. He had never known a winter that hadn’t been preceded by lightning, thunder, hail, and tremulous gusts of wind.
They stopped shortly to take their repast. Rhyen was grateful to slide off Cinnamon’s back. His legs were sore, and he walked about in circles before and after lunch, stretching. Cazing seemed to have recovered enough from his binge the night before, because Rhyen saw him drink from a flask in between crunching bites of apple.
Rhyen had always been fond of apples. He ate two that lunch, and while he tossed the cores aside, he wondered if the seeds would ever become trees. Apple trees were scattered in orchards all around his hometown Yla and through the fertile country that surrounded Ikha and bordered the Waine. He realized that he didn’t know much about Avernade—just that it was a mountain village far to the south, almost at the Condenish border. He vaguely wondered if there would be apple trees in Avernade.
“Master,” he began slowly, “would you tell me something about Avernade?” Curiosity for what would become his home had flared up inside him. His excitement wavered slightly, and some fear of the unknown settled upon him. Rhyen realized that he suddenly missed the stately brick walls of Ikha, even though he not been away from them for more than a day. He felt very foolish, and he shuffled his feet like a little boy.
Cazing must have noticed the change in his young companion, because he answered him, painting a picture of the village in Rhyen’s mind as he spoke. Cazing’s voice was distant, as though he was speaking from far away, and his eyes dreamily gazed into the distance, remembering. “Avernade is a beautiful town, Rhyen. I’ve always been partial to it. The trees are tall with huge thick trunks, and big bushy tops bursting with leaves… in the autumn they change colors and rain down on you, and the wind blows through and shakes them until it sounds like music.”
Cazing laughed at his own whimsy. “I’m becoming a poet in my old age! Avernade mostly exports lumber and wool. They are goat and sheep herders, and their wool is the highest quality craftsmanship I’ve ever seen. The city, I gather, has shrunk since I last saw it—it is rather hard to get to in the best of times, and many only visited to see the sorcerers of the Tower.” He paused at that before falling gloomy and silent. Rhyen did not press him. They mounted and started off again soon after.
They stopped for the night when twilight fell. They retreated up into the higher ground and tethered the horses. Cazing showed Rhyen how to remove the saddles from the horses, and how to wrap their lead rope around a tree branch to keep them there. They didn’t bother tethering the riding horses. “Let them wander if they want to,” Cazing said. “Elven horses always come back.”
Rhyen spent some time wandering along the edge of the forest, collecting wood for a fire. Except for the faint rushing sound of the river, it was completely silent. He was reminded of the dark figure who had lingered in the trees, watching him. Though night had fallen, and all was in shadows, Rhyen looked carefully into the forest, widening his eyes against the dark. If there had been anyone watching him now, they escaped his gaze.
He dumped the firewood in a heap and, following his master’s gruff instructions, pushed stones into a circle around the wood. Rhyen walked to the edge of the Waine and filled a pot with water. When he came back, Cazing had a blazing fire going, and was pulling food from one of the sacks the packhorses had been carrying. Rhyen’s stomach was growling.
While Cazing chopped various things and threw them in the pot, Rhyen grabbed a handful of the long grasses that lined the road and rubbed all four horses down. He patted all of them and, sneaking a glance at the sorcerer, secretly fed Cinnamon an apple he scavenged from their stores.
Dinner was a quiet affair. The silence was comfortable, though, and Rhyen was feeling very fond of his master. They spoke only to ask each other to pass things, but the feeling of comradeship remained.
Rhyen found that he enjoyed travelling. He had never slept outside before, except during the brief journey to Ikha as a child and once while camping even before that, and initially he was a little hesitant. But that night as he unrolled his blanket and pulled a (slightly squashed) pillow from his saddlebags, he found that he was excited to try it. In all the stories he’d ever heard, the heroes always slept outdoors, under the stars. Rhyen would have dearly liked to stare up at the stars while drifting to sleep, but they had encountered a heavy rain in the afternoon that day, and the stars were blacked out by the still rumbling clouds.
Rhyen settled down in his blankets. He never knew how tiresome travelling could be, and
now his eyes were heavy with sleep. He looked across the fire at Cazing, who was leaned back and smoking, staring into the fire. “Are you not going to sleep?”
Cazing held up his pipe. “Once I’m done.”
Rhyen noticed that Cazing was sitting on the earth, cloak wrapped about his shoulders. He wondered if he should offer his master his blankets and pillow, but before he could get the words out of his mouth, he was asleep.
Rhyen woke early the next morning. Dawn was barely kissing the sky, and much of the light was still deep grey. Now that he was awake and hearing the deafening snores of Cazing across the smoldering embers of last night’s fire, Rhyen was amazed he had slept at all. The noise was incredible, and even if he had wanted to, Rhyen couldn’t have gone back to sleep. Rhyen saw with great surprise that Cazing was wrapped in blankets, his head pressed into a fluffy pillow. He wondered if Cazing had really gotten them from the tiny bag he always wore.
He stumbled out of his blankets, pulling his boots on. He grabbed a clean shirt and some socks and stumped down to the river. He splashed water on his face and pulled off the old shirt, which smelled like stale sweat. Rhyen wrinkled his nose and splashed more water on himself before pulling on his clean shirt. He could still hear snores, meaning his master still slept, and so, with nothing better to do, Rhyen dunked his dirty clothes in the river, washing out the smell, and wrung them out until they were only slightly damp.
He strolled around for a while, taking in the sights and sounds. The rain clouds of yesterday had dissipated. Rhyen guessed that the sky would be clear and the air hot. Dew was twinkling on the grasses and the leaves of the trees. Birds chirped all around him.
Eventually he found his way to the packhorses. The riding horses were no where to be seen, and Rhyen fervently hoped Cazing was right about elven horses always coming back. He patted the packhorses, and realized he had awkwardly been calling them “packhorse 1” and “packhorse 2” in his mind. So, as he stroked their long brown necks, he decided to name them. He chose Tuprine for the one with the white front hooves and Lezo for the one with the dark mane.