by Iscah
So she looked for an inn or some sign of a group getting ready to travel the road to Paradox.
Chapter 12
Her journey along the road to Paradox was very similar to her journey from Ellsworth to Middlefort; only she traveled with a different caravan and had different duties. The second caravan she found was an extended family of merchants who took their children with them as they traveled. The girl was hired to keep the younger children occupied by reading to them from her history books. She liked this for it allowed her to ride in a large wagon with the children rather than make the entire journey on foot. Her goats and small wagon were tied by a length of rope to the back of the large wagon.
The family was loud and easy going. She shared her goats' milk, and they shared their food. At night, they told stories to each other around the campfire. One of the men played a lyre, and one of the women played a pipe. The others would improvise instruments and sing with them. The girl had had little exposure to the music made by men, but she found she liked it.
It reminded her of the nursery songs the old man would sometimes sing. He had never sung very well. His voice had been wheezy and untrained. He would often stop in the middle of songs or mumble through forgotten words, but it was not until she heard the family sing in clear, strong voices that she understood how badly he had done it.
One of the older boys tried for her attention, but he did it so clumsily she had no idea what he was doing.
The music made the girl miss playing with magic, but there was no time for spells. While the road was a little longer, time seemed to pass more quickly, and four days later, they arrived in Paradox.
Paradox was a hilly town, not as neatly laid out as Ellsworth had been. It possessed not a town square so much as a wobbly town trapezoid. More of the roads were paved or partially paved, and no one was fussy about having animals on them. There were extremely smelly little wagons whose drivers seemed solely dedicated to scooping up droppings and transporting them to pits outside of town.
The girl hoped they were paid well.
She said goodbye to the caravan that had brought her and began making inquiries about the flying caravan. She was relieved to learn that they were due to return from Laughing Peak any day now.
She also learned that flying was not a fanciful description. The flying caravan used a team of pegasus to fly over the desert to the mountain country of Uritz. The girl found this exciting but problematic. Her goats could not fly, and her books were heavy. The flying caravan was far more concerned with weight than their earth bound counterparts.
She made the difficult decision to sell her goats. They had been loyal friends and providers on her journey thus far, but she was not sure how long she might need to stay in Uritz. She could not bring herself to sell her books, even though they would bring her more money than the goats or wagon with the right buyer.
She bought a traveling pack and packed what she believed to be the most essential of items for a journey. The rest she sold or traded. She learned there were caves to the northwest of town and went searching until she found a small one that she believed she could find again. She wrapped her books in a sack and used magic to repel everything she could imagine might damage them.
She kept a book of magic for her traveling pack as it seemed the most useful thing to have, and she did not think she could live without something to read. She also kept her father's second journal to prove who she was.
Two days passed as she anxiously awaited the arrival of the caravan. To save money, she slept in the cave beside her books and walked back into town each morning to see if the caravan had come. On the third morning, she noticed several of the town's children making their way to a hill to the south. Curious, she followed them and soon learned that they too were anticipating the caravan's arrival.
It was midafternoon when the first farsighted child spotted the caravan in the sky. By then several adults had also come to join the crowd that gathered by the hill.
The caravan consisted of two large carriages, each suspended by six pegasus, three in front and three behind. They were tethered together by an odd network of ropes and widely spaced wooden yokes. There were smaller carts suspended between two pegasus each, and a few pegasus who were circling with riders but no other significant load.
They landed one by one, touching down at the top of the hill and taking a gradually slowing run to the bottom. The crowd had left a wide strip for them. The children cheered, and the adults applauded as each team made a successful landing.
The girl observed that the wings on these horses were much grander than the pegasus she had seen in Middlefort. The horses themselves seemed a bit smaller than those she normally saw pulling carts.
The caravan proceeded to the edge of town. The girl hung back as the carriages and carts were swarmed by eager townspeople. Some were merchants waiting for deliveries. Others were individuals in search of some trinkets not available locally.
The stars were out before the crowd left. A canvas had been stretched out between the carriages to shelter the tired pegasus. Some of the caravan's merchants had retired to the inn for the night, but others remained behind to guard the caravan. The girl watched them build a fire and move with purpose from task to task. The large man with a curly black beard was directing them, so she approached him cautiously.
"I wondered if you recalled a man named Mortagin?"
The large man scratched his beard thoughtfully. The girl was about to despair of getting an answer, when the man finally said, "Sounds familiar, but I can't place it."
"I think he may have traveled with you about twelve years ago. I'm told he had a short, stiff beard just starting to grey from brown."
The large man squinted at her. "Do you think I'm old enough to remember what happened twelve years ago? I was a young man, then."
The girl shrugged. "You're older than I am. Is there someone else, who might remember, traveling with you?"
The large man waved his hand and gave a short, loud laugh that made his beard bounce. "Just having a go at you, little skirt. I remember, though just barely. Left him in Uritz if I recall. Only remember because he prepaid for passage back and never took it."
The girl was encouraged by this news. "I'd like to go to Uritz," she said.
The black-bearded man shook his head. "Don't fly no girls. Wind kicks up their skirts too much. Nothing but trouble."
"Oh, I don't mind wearing pants," the girl said quickly. "And I don't mind working for my fare."
The bearded man laughed again and shook his head. "Run along, little girl. The skies are too rough for you."
"I've flown before," the girl said indignantly.
"But not with me, and nor will ya," the bearded man said. "No women folk is the rule, not even little ones like you."
The girl felt her face flush and stalked away. Silently she determined that she would somehow ride with the flying caravan to Uritz.
Chapter 13
The first thing the girl did was buy a pair of pants and boy's tunic with long sleeves. Since the tailor refused to fit them to her, she got a length of rope to tie them at the waist. She had always worn dresses because that was what the old man had bought for her. There had been no reason for her to think much about it. But she realized as she walked down the street that other people did think about it quite a bit. Women gasped when they spotted her, and men made remarks that were so cruel and crude she was more confused by them than offended.
The girl had changed into many things in her life, but she had never been a boy before. As she thought things over in her cave, she realized it was the only thing that would do. It was not just her skirt that the caravan leader had rejected; it was her gender.
Well, why not be a boy? she thought to herself. She supposed boys were just as good as girls. In her fairytale books, princes, soldiers, farmers, and tailors were just as often the heroes as the girls were. Maybe a little more so. The girl tried to think hard about boys she had seen close to her own age. It was
enough of a change to pretend to be a boy instead of a girl than to pretend to be older too.
She flattened the little bumps on her chest, stretched her shoulders out a little broader, and shortened her hair. She snuck back into town and studied the boys there, copying noses and chins and hands. She did her best to look like a boy who had just finished school, thirteen or fourteen, a little awkward and gangly but strong enough to be useful.
With this new face and body, she went back and asked the large bearded man if he had work for her.
"You're in luck, lad," the large man said. "One of my riders has a wife in this town who's just about to give him their first child. He's wanting to sit out this flight, and I can't blame him. Good man. You ever fly before?"
"No," she admitted, doing her best to copy a boy's voice. "But I learn fast. Do you want me to ride?"
"Think I may swap you out with one of my inside men. Don't want to risk the pegasus."
"What does an inside man do?" the girl asked.
"You ride inside the carriage and make sure the cargo stays tied down," the bearded man said. "If things go wrong, you pull a cord which rings a bell, and I try to set down before there's damage done."
"I can do that," the girl said eagerly.
The black-bearded man looked over the lad before him. "I'll try you. We'll give you a few riding lessons before we leave. I like having some riders in reserve. It's a tough job."
The girl spent the next week at the camp of the flying caravan pretending to be a boy. She had wondered at first if she might be treated better as a boy than a girl but soon put that notion to rest. Different certainly, she was allowed and expected to do more, but people were far less patient and polite to her. While in essence they did the same sort of work that the merchants of her first caravan did, taking goods from one place to another, the men of the flying caravan were a little younger and thought of themselves as adventurers as much as merchants. She had fallen asleep to the sounds of the men in the first caravan discussing matters of money: how much they could charge, how much they might make, what sort of wares they should try to acquire for their return. In the flying caravan, everything seemed to be a competition: who had flown furthest, fastest, done the most of this or that. It really did not seem to matter what the subject was, only that one man could best another at it.
As she had never done most of the things they compared or done them very little, she was laughed at and ignored. They seemed to enjoy finding little ways to embarrass her. She tried to stay out of the way as much as possible and be accommodating, but her quiet and compliance seemed as easy for them to laugh at as anything else.
Even so, she could not help but be fascinated by some of their stories and felt a growing desire to have something of her own to brag about. The riding lessons began with a crash course in pegasus care. She learned why the pegasus she saw before had smaller wings. Cross breeding a pegasus was illegal in Uritz but common practice everywhere else. The flying caravan voluntarily complied with Uritz laws on the matter, both to show respect and maintain enough wings span for flight.
A pegasus saddle had extra straps, since there was greater danger in the rider falling. There were a few extra commands to learn, mainly "up" and "drop", which was different than the command to land. She had to tighten the leather around her thighs after mounting.
"These pegasus know the route," said the man training her. "You just need to stay in the saddle and keep your eyes open."
Her brief training involved not so much a flight as a particularly long jump from one hill to another. The pegasus liked to run with their wings out, which made for light feet and a relatively smooth ride. It was enough to make her understand why the men found flight so fascinating.
She also received a hasty education in knot tying. Everything on the caravan had to be tied down securely. "The Urites are a self-sufficient lot, so they don't import anything they need, only things they want," the black-bearded man explained when she asked what they were carrying. "They buy perfumes and glassware and other little fineries. We bring home pelts and metal work. Far more danger of things breaking on the way up than the way down, but lighter wares."
Uritz was a mountain country, and the girl was warned that higher elevation meant colder. She put the last of her money into a warm coat and hat.
Dawn broke on the day of the flight, and the girl ran around tying and double checking knots. Quietly she cast her own spells to make them more secure. Then she was rushed inside the largest carriage, where she would ride with the oldest man in the company.
There was a little wooden seat of sorts built into the side of the carriage and a place to tie a rope around her waist if she wished. She could not see much of the outside. There was a small glass window in the side of the caravan which was warped and would have been difficult to see through even if it was not half-covered by boxes. The carriage jostled and shook as they gained speed on the ground before taking flight. The girl gripped nervously wherever she could find a hand hold, while the old man chuckled at her.
The thought of flying had not scared her too badly; since the caravan had gone this route many times before, she had put her trust in the men who knew it. But in the air, every buffet and jostle reminded her that a fall promised death and most of the things that could go wrong were entirely beyond her control.
After a few hours without catastrophe, she began to relax. "What do you do if nature calls?" she asked the old man. He pointed to a small flap at the carriage's rear.
Slowly and with a growing sense of horror, she realized what it was for.
"Don't worry," the old man, seeing a lad's hesitation, but not fully understanding the source. "It's uninhabited desert below. You won't hit anyone."
The girl chuckled nervously, but said, "I think I can hold it." The men's lack of modesty with each other had surprised her more than a little, but she had always managed to turn her own head and look away. The old man shook his head but had the grace not to ridicule her.
The flight tested the patience of the girl's bladder, and the landing shook her considerably. It was more than a small relief to see the carriage door open and be allowed to untie the rope. She was allowed a few minutes to seek some privacy in the woods, before returning to help set up camp for the night.
The caravan would spend nearly a month in Uritz, trading and recovering from the intense flight. The riders were exhausted but recounted the details of the flight to each other before settling down to sleep.
While it had been a long day for her too, the girl found herself filled with nervous energy. She sat with knees to her chest and looked off the side of the mountain at the chirping, twinkling stars. Her father had come to Uritz the same way, but where had he gone?
Chapter 14
There were few places in Uritz that could be called a town. Moore's High was one of the larger settlements and only had a population to match the village where the girl had been born. No one had ever been able to make a proper count of the Urites. There were homesteads further up and down the mountainside, many impossible to find unless you already knew where they were.
Still wearing the face and form of a boy on the verge of being a young man, the girl helped feed the pegasus and unload one of the carts. When the company took a break for lunch, some of them walked into the village, and the girl went with them. It was nowhere near the cold bite of winter, but the mountain air was certainly cooler. The girl was glad to have her coat and hat.
The few people they passed on the road into town looked at her suspiciously, but their more disapproving looks were saved for the boisterous members of her party. The riders were well rested now and in better spirits. They jostled each other playfully as they walked and shouted hellos to familiar faces. Moore's High had no town square that the girl could determine, but there was a strip of shops, stands, and public buildings.
The view off the mountainside in the daytime was even more impressive than it had been from camp the night before. From the strip she could see
the neighboring mountains and more spires beyond. Their tops white with snow, even though there were still months to go before winter.
The riders met some friends and turned into a pub. The girl followed even though her pockets were empty. She was hungry for something more than food. The men were clearly welcome in the pub. They shook hands, slapped backs, and sat in chairs the wrong way. The girl hung back while they ordered their drinks and food. When the party had settled into a loud but steady rise and fall of conversation, she quietly approached the bar.
"Not hungry, lad?" the bartender asked.
"No, I um..." she tried to keep her voice where the others would not hear her. "Do you know of a man named Mortagin?"
"Aye," said the bartender. "Thirsty?"
The girl shook her head. "I don't have any money with me. Do you know where he is? Or where he went? It would have been about twelve years ago."
The bartender grunted and began wiping the bar.
"Please, sir, I need to find him."
The bartender looked up and smiled. "Walk down the strip, and you'll find a path behind the candlemaker's. Follow that up the mountainside, and you'll find a Mortagin. Don't know if it's the one you're looking for, but he's been there about twelve years."
"Thank you, sir!" The girl hurried out of the pub and down the street, looking for the candlemaker. She found it, slipped through the narrow alley between it and the next shop, and found a dirt path that twisted up into the trees.
It was a bit of a climb. The path snaked through the trees. While not steep by mountain standards, it was more than she was used to. She spent the walk up trying to decide what to say to her father if she found him. After all, he might not even know he had a child, but at least she had his journal to show as proof. Unlike most people, her father would know about shifters, so he would not be surprised or frightened by what she could do.
She had expected to find a house at the end of the path, but instead the path ended at a gate and a stony clearing. There was no lock on the gate, so the girl swung it open. There were scattered trees between the stones, crooked but blooming with purple and pink blossoms. The clearing seemed to stretch around a stone outcropping and open onto a cliff where another fence had been erected for safety. The girl walked through, still hoping to see a house or a cave, but she had not gone far before the regular placement of the stones and etchings of names and dates made her realize she was in a graveyard.