by Iscah
The girl shook her head. "But my father did leave me some books and his journals."
The bookseller's eyes lighted as only a bookseller's can do when books are scarce and he learns of new ones. "Bring them here around sunset, and I will help you search them for clues."
The girl was so happy that strands the color of gold shot through her hair. The bookseller saw this, but he said nothing.
Chapter 9
The girl with no name left the dusty volume at the bookseller's and danced her way back to the stable where she had left her goats and her books. She spent the afternoon poring over them. The journals did not tell a clear story. They were a jumble of sketches and notes that spoke of travels and broad interests but lacked personality, save in a few pages where her father had taken the time to write out a proper entry.
The first such entry read thus:
The sea crossing was rough. We were tempted by the tempest surrounding the Floating Isle, but it proved too much for us. Our small boat was tossed about like a toy on the waves. Only the greatest determination and concentration allowed us to find a safe path through the rolling waters. We lost all bearings for a time. The night remained too cloudy to follow the stars, so we had only our peeks of the sun to guide us. I had faith that if we could stay on a western course we could make landfall before our rations ran out. In truth we would have died without Sargon's invaluable talent for enchanting the salt out of the water to make it drinkable. He was chosen for that skill, and I celebrate now the wisdom of that choice.
We made landfall on the country of Cordance, by chance in a deserted portion of the beach. After making a few repairs to the boat, we sailed north, keeping in close sight of the shore and discovered a large number of scattered settlements and lonely fishermen until at last encountering a large port such as I have only seen on rivers in our Wizard's Land. There is clearly no guardian patrolling this shore.
I had worried that three hundred years of separation would leave the language unintelligible, but other than some peculiarities in phrasing, accent, and idioms, we were able to get along fairly well. Seaside sees it's share of traders from northern and southern shores, so our foreign fumbles did not draw undue attention.
This was followed by a list of idioms and common phrases in the Cordance variation on Western Coastal. Some of which were very familiar to the girl in Gourlin, but others amusingly peculiar to Cordance.
She turned the pages past a crude map of Cordance until she reached another entry.
In Pinnacle City, Sargon and I agreed to part ways. He will travel the coastal countries, while I go east and further inland. Our plan is to meet back here in three years time to compare notes, and if the king wills, return home.
And so followed more crude maps and curious lists. Her father had journeyed around north of the Gourlin desert by joining a caravan. He had traveled the countries that bordered Gourlin to the north and east, all the way to the Eastern Road, which promised more to explore than three years would allow. He then traveled south, nearly to another sea. His motives were unclear, but he double back to a mountain settlement and there met the young woman who would become the girl's mother.
I find as I travel a willful ignorance of magic. Its presence has been assigned to children's stories and charlatans. These tricksters have led the general populace to believe that magic is purely a product of their ancestor's imagination and ignorance. I do nothing to dissuade this belief in a general way, but the loneliness of my journey does incite in me a desire for kindred spirits.
Having found a young woman whose laughter lifts my spirits and contains a desire for exploration as strong as my own, I found myself compelled to marry her. I will make my reports as I am duty bound to do but wonder if my companion would be capable of making his voyage back to our land without my assistance.
The girl noticed that the sky was beginning to dim and hurried back to the bookstore with the books under her arm. The keen-eyed bookseller was closing up shop when she arrived.
"Come into the backroom," he said as he barred the shutters.
The girl followed him and found the backroom larger than the front. "We do most of our work, the copying and binding back here," he explained. There were several tables and benches in the backroom, many of them spread with open projects. There were shelves here too, but rather than books, they were lined with stacks of paper, leather and cloth, as well as ink bottles, quills, brushes, and other tools of bookmakers.
"I do most of the binding work myself," he continued, "but I employ a couple of scribes. Most of our orders are to copy short documents for legal affairs, but between those demands, I keep them busy making books."
"I think I would like that kind of work," the girl said.
The bookseller looked dubious. "It's tedious, precise, and exacting work, not suited to the temperament of young girls."
"I'll get older," the girl said. "But for now, I'd like to find my father first."
"Naturally," the bookseller said. He lit a candle and motioned for her to lay the books before him. "Do you have a place to stay, Mortagin's daughter? I'm sorry I haven't asked your name yet."
"You can call me Mortagin's daughter," said the girl. "I need to find my father to learn my name."
"Is that a peculiar practice of wizards to leave their children without naming them?" the bookseller asked shrewdly.
"I have no idea," the girl said. "Perhaps I can ask when I find him."
"Your father was looking for books that held lingering traces of wizards from the time before they departed our land. After a long talk, he agreed to show me a little magic," said the bookseller. "Do you know any magic, Mortagin's daughter?"
"I've learned a little from books," admitted the innocent.
"Would you show me?"
The girl had never been asked for a demonstration before and was quiet for a moment pondering how she might please the bookseller, for most magic is subtle and not given to show. As night was falling, she hummed and worked her fingers around the candle flame, brightening its glow.
"I can change the taste of wood to repel bugs," the girl said.
The bookseller smiled. "If you could do that for my shelves and books, it would be very useful."
"I'd be happy to," the girl said eagerly.
The bookseller shook his head. "You should always ask for payment for your services, child. Otherwise men will take advantage of you."
"Oh," said the girl, seeing sense in this advice. "What would you pay me to keep the bugs from your shelves then?"
"Where are you sleeping, little magician?" asked the bookseller.
"At the inn, but there are lots of other people in the same room."
"I have a wife and two young children, so I can't take you home," said the bookseller. "But if you don't mind a pallet in the shop, you may sleep here. I have done so myself when an order must be filled quickly."
"I do think I'd like that better," agreed the girl.
The shopkeeper smiled. "I must trust you're not a thief, but I think a chance to look through your books will compensate me for the risk."
"You said you would help me find clues," the girl reminded him.
"And I will," the bookseller said. "We will make that part of our bargain." He carefully turned the pages of the journal with his long fingers.
"I tried to start at the beginning," said the girl.
"Normally a good place to start," said the bookseller. "But I think we are more interested in the end." With that he took the second journal and found the last page with any writing on it. "Here are the last words in your father's journal: Flying caravan may be fastest."
The girl looked at the words and frowned. "What does it mean?"
The bookseller opened his mouth and closed it again. "Perhaps we had best answer that in the morning when our minds are fresh and the sun will save us the cost of a candle."
The girl pouted with disappointment but thought it best not to argue. Before the night grew too dark, he walked back with her to retrieve th
e rest of her books and belongings, at least the ones that were not easily replaced. The goats and the wagon would spend another night at the inn stable.
As they returned, the bookseller explained that he lived above the shop, so he did not have far to travel and would hear any trouble downstairs. While she knew it was a warning for her against mischief, it also made her feel safe and easy as she prepared her pallet that night.
The stars hummed a lullaby, and a family of termites nibbled to a dull tempo on the floorboards. "You must find a new home tomorrow," the girl whispered to them.
There were limits to how small she could make herself. She had tried to be an insect once, and while she managed the basic form, she could only shrink to the size of a small dog. There were spells to make things shrink very small, but they were not for living things. Living things were too complex and rarely survived being squished together. The largest thing she had ever been able to change into was that medium sized bear.
But dreams lack all restrictions. So that night she could be small as a bug or big as a mountain.
Chapter 10
The next morning the girl used magic to change the taste of all the wood in the shop to repel termites and other bugs while the bookseller read her father's journals between customers. "Did you find anymore about the flying caravan?" the girl asked at lunchtime.
"Not yet," said the bookseller. "But I haven't finished reading them yet."
A week passed while the bookseller read the first journal. He was kind enough and gave the girl a few jobs to keep her busy while she waited for him to finish.
The bookseller's wife was more uncertain of their new tenant. "My husband tells me you're looking for your father?" she asked, when she brought down lunch for them. The girl nodded, and the wife frowned. "You have eyes like my husband," she said shrewdly.
"Oh, I'm sorry," said the girl, for she had been copying unintentionally again. She closed her eyes and rubbed them while she concentrated. "Is that better?"
The wife said nothing but walked away quickly.
The girl offered to read books to the children like she had before, but the bookseller said that was his wife's job. She was their teacher outside of school and liked this work. His wife kept the children away from her, so that the girl only saw them when they left for school in the mornings.
She tried to get the scribes to teach her their trade, but they insisted the work was not suited to young girls. She milked her goats in the morning and found a place to sell the milk, which paid for their keeping at night, and when she had no jobs to do, she read.
Another week passed before the bookseller finished reading the second journal.
"Did you learn more about the caravan?" the girl asked, and again the bookseller shook his head.
"I did learn more about your father," he said. "While I do not mean to discourage you, I think he would have returned if he were able."
"What do you think has kept him?" asked the girl.
"He may have been forced to return by his companion and king to the land of wizards," said the bookseller. "He may have fallen ill. He may be lost. He may have been imprisoned. I can not tell you why he stayed away. Only that you can get a sense of a writer from his writing, and this is not a man who would abandon his child."
The girl with no name blinked back the tears that formed in her eyes. She could not remember being so happy and so sad at the same time. "If he can't come to me, then I'll go to him," she said with determination.
"Then I can tell you this," said the bookseller. "The flying caravan travels from Laughing Peak to the town of Paradox to Moore's High in Uritz."
"You already knew?" the girl realized. "You could have told me that two weeks ago!"
"And watch you run off before I was sure I had not missed something more likely," said the bookseller.
The girl still felt angry but could not find words for it.
"You could go south to Laughing Peak. It's a little closer, but there's no good road leading directly to it. Or you can follow the stone road to Middlefort and then take another to Paradox."
The girl nodded, and without another word, she left to get her goats.
Chapter 11
The country of Gourlin was very proud of its roads. There were ten stone roads leading out from Middlefort, as straight as roads could reasonably be, to the ten largest towns and from the ten towns there were other roads, not always stone, leading to the small villages and outposts.
As the girl walked down the even road with her goats and wagon, she found herself changing with each step. One moment she was angry with the bookseller for delaying her journey, and with the next step, she was sorry she left so quickly. There were a few times she almost went back for proper goodbyes, but somewhere farther down this road, she might have a father, a father who might be trapped in a prison or lying sick in a bed, who might need a rescue, and who might have a name for her. These thoughts kept her traveling forward.
The road was not busy in the same way the town square had been busy, but the girl passed more people in larger groups coming up and down it. Some gave her a wave, a nod, or a smile as they went by, and others paid her no mind. Sometimes there were minutes between meetings; other times there were hours.
Watching the other travelers did make her wish she had a cart big enough to ride. Her feet were sore from walking. She began to think eventually she would want to buy new shoes, and she would need to pay for a night in a tavern. Her mind worked as hard as her feet as she walked down the long, nearly-straight stone road.
It was after dark when she reached the tavern. She was relieved to discover she still had enough to pay for a room and a meal, but the lightness of her purse concerned her. The snippets of conversation she heard from other travelers troubled her. Many of them remarked how things cost more or sold for more in Middlefort.
The girl listed in her mind the things she had brought with her, but there were few of them she was willing to part with.
"I don't like being poor," she said out loud, realizing for the first time that she knew the name for this condition.
"No one does, little urchin," said an older woman further down the table.
"I would try to find work," she told the woman. "But I need to travel to Paradox first to find my father."
"Find work with a caravan then," the woman suggested.
"I'll try that," the girl said, feeling her spirits brighten a little. After all a tavern seemed like a good place to find travelers, and all of them seemed to be going to or coming from Middlefort.
It took asking nearly everyone in the tavern, some of them twice, but the girl finally found someone who agreed to let her travel with them in return for doing the wash. They left early the next morning, a small group of merchants, and when they stopped for lunch not far from a stream, the girl was given a basket of clothes and told to hurry.
There was no time to let everything dry. The party had two wagons with wooden roofs. The girl had to clamber up the side with a stepladder and tie the wash to the roof, so the sun would dry away what she had been unable to wring out. After the rest of the party was refreshed, and she was very tired, they set off again. She saved a few steps by finding an easy perch on the tailboard of the larger wagon, but every bump threatened to throw her off.
She thought the journey might be easier if she turned into a bird, but she did not think she could keep control of her goats or carry all her books that way. It would mean leaving too much behind.
They reached another tavern before nightfall, where she enjoyed a good night's sleep, and the next morning they repeated the same process, though this time her water had to be drawn from a well.
She should have been more tired, but new sights kept her alert. After the second tavern, the traffic on the road became heavier, and the sight of houses grew more frequent. By the time they passed the well, the road was lined with clusters of shops, even though they had not yet reached the city walls. She could see them in the distance. While most of the c
ountry gradually sloped inwards to this central city, Middlefort itself was up on a hill. Not a high hill or a sharp hill, but high enough. She could see a little over the walls. The city seemed to ripple in the distance and spill over into the surrounding countryside.
To one who could hear the stars chirp and the sun sing, it buzzed. All the people in the city made it buzz, while the stones whispered ancient stories. There were plenty of horses on this portion of the stone road, even a few unicorns. The merchants stopped at one of the shops, and the girl rested her feet. While she sat, she saw her first pegasus. Its wings looked too small to let it fly, but she still found it a striking sight.
For her day's work, the merchants covered another night's stay for her at an inn just outside the city. In the morning, she thanked them, and they parted ways. The merchants were not traveling any farther north.
She milked her goats, drank a little, and managed to trade the rest for some breakfast. While she ate, she tried to plan the rest of her route. There was a road that circled around the city, and therefore no need for her to actually travel inside the walls. While it might be a little longer, it would be a simpler and less crowded route.
In truth, the girl found a place where the buildings had sprouted like trees (some just as tall) to be a little intimidating. She decided to skirt the city. Even walking around rather than through, she saw more shops and houses than she had ever imagined.
The people seemed endless. Even in Ellsworth, she believed with enough time she could have come to know everyone at least by name, but in the city that would be impossible. It was nice that no one stared at her, but no one really looked at her either.
The girl came to another stone road, but the sign told her that the road headed west and not to Paradox. She kept walking and found the next road was the one she wanted. She was tempted to start down it at once, but as difficult as things had been with the merchants, she thought the road might have been more difficult without them.