by L J Chappell
The boy looked away slightly: perhaps he was blushing, or felt he should hide a grin that he couldn’t prevent. He was comfortable pushing his own credentials and competence, it seemed, but expressions of unashamed approval from his father to a stranger were altogether different.
‘So, are you far from home?’ the woman asked.
‘Recently I haven’t really had a home,’ he improvised. ‘I’m from all over, sort of. But I’ve spent the last few years in the north. In Urthgard.’
‘I don’t know the name,’ she shook her head.
‘It’s right up in the far north. It’s cold, really cold there, especially at this time of year.’
‘And where are you heading?’
‘We have business in Carissola,’ he explained. As soon as he said it, Lanvik wondered if he should have been more cautious, more guarded. His instincts told him that the family were genuine, exactly what they seemed, but he wasn’t completely confident that he could trust his own reading of their faces and expressions. He didn’t remember ever talking to another Human directly, but he wasn’t sure that mattered: his reactions should surely be instinctive, shaped by his whole upbringing, whether he remembered it or not.
‘Do you know Carissola?’ the woman asked.
‘No.’ Lanvik shook his head. He chose to add: ‘I’ve never been there,’ rather than “I’ve never heard of it”.
‘Oh, it’s nice. You’ll like it. It’s warm, like here, but not jungle. It’s clean. Civilised. But it’s a long way from here.’
‘Yes. We’ll try and arrange something from Sherron.’
‘I don’t think there’s a direct boat,’ the man warned. ‘You might get lucky with a private vessel, but otherwise you’ll have to take two or three boats to get there.’
The conversation lapsed for a bit, and Lanvik sipped from his mug. ‘Is the fort always so quiet?’ he asked.
‘This is about the quietest I’ve seen it. There are a few weeks around midwinter and around midsummer when no-one wants to cross.’
‘Why?’ Lanvik asked. ‘It’s not as if the jungle’s too cold to travel,’ he chuckled.
‘You might not believe this after your time in the north, but I find time of year a bit chilly.’ In the slightly cooler breeze of the evening, Lanvik was beginning to feel pleasantly comfortable instead of over-dressed in his single top: now that he looked, he saw that Panat was wearing a jacket and a thin scarf and Limenith had a cardigan pulled across her shoulders.
‘This is about the coldest that the jungle gets,’ Panat explained, ‘but you’re right: it’s not so cold that it would make travel difficult. But at midwinter, the trading networks in the north close down: there’s less food and less fruit being harvested and people stop travelling. for leisure or trade. And the north is where most of the people live, Humans as well as Elves, so that affects everywhere else as well.’
‘It’s a different story in the summer,’ Limenith added. ‘Then it’s simply too hot – too hot to do anything, really. So no-one travels then, either.’
Another man had walked across to them from a different group. He smiled to Panat, and acknowledged Lanvik with a nod. ‘Are you coming over? A couple of songs before bed?’
‘Of course. This is Lanvik: he’s passing through on the way to Carissola. Lanvik, this is Mattar, an old friend.’
‘Pleased to meet you,’ Mattar smiled honestly. ‘Will you join us?’
‘Yes, I’d like that,’ Lanvik smiled back. He didn’t know when he might get another chance to relax with other Humans.
‘I’ll stay with the wagons,’ Geitar offered.
‘No, no,’ Limenith shook her head. ‘You go with your father and Lanvik. I’ll tidy up here and keep an eye on our things.’
Lanvik walked with Panat, Mattar and the boy Geitar across to where twenty or twenty-five Humans had congregated around one of the smaller fires, sitting in a rough circle around it. There were no Elves there, Dark or Light.
A number of casual introductions were made. No-one said anything about his name, “Lanvik”, so it didn’t sound as outlandish as he had feared it might. And no-one had commented on his clothes, or on his short hair. He’d been worried – nervous that there was something that might set him apart or seem suspicious to other Humans: something that should be obvious but which he’d forgotten.
He relaxed a little more: smiled, talked and joked with them, sometimes joining in with songs that he picked up from the voices around him. They had simple tunes, played on basic home-made instruments, but he liked them and strummed his fingers on his leg in time to the music.
‘Do you play?’ someone asked him.
And that allowed him to talk, to describe his lack of ability, to laugh at himself. It became a funny story: “Not even a tambourine. Not even a drum.” And everyone was relaxed and open and friendly; they laughed when he was trying to be funny.
For a moment he wondered if this was what it felt like to be among his own kind, but that wasn’t it. It wouldn’t have mattered if they’d been Elves: these were simply people who had come together by accident, and were making the most of a little time. There was no time for suspicion or reticence or for getting to know each other beyond the most superficial level. This was simply people being honest and open, rather than the guarded, cynical and suspicious members of Kiergard Slorn’s Company.
Over the next hour they became more restrained as the fort around them quietened; people gradually drifted away from the fire in ones and twos. Lanvik said goodnight to Panat and Geitar and left them. He hadn’t felt tired until a moment earlier but, as he walked back through the fort, he found himself yawning and remembered that he was supposed to be sleeping: that they had a long day’s travel tomorrow.
He looked south. Now that he knew what to look for, he could see the faint purple glow above the fort wall: the Spoiled Land. According to Kiergard Slorn’s map, beyond the Spoiled Land to the south was mostly desert, and that was where the Dragon Lords lived. He knew nothing at all about the Dragon Lords except the name: from what he had heard, that meant he knew about as much as most other people.
He smiled to himself at the idea that even if his memories came back, they wouldn’t fill all the gaps in his knowledge. There were things that he might just be ignorant about.
When he returned to their shelter and lay back down to sleep again, it was Bane who was on watch.
Staring upwards, he wondered why he hadn’t admitted his memory loss to Panat and Limenith: why he hadn’t felt that he could tell people. It would have made things a little bit easier, he supposed. Perhaps he was afraid. His lack of memories was a weakness, and he was afraid that it would make him vulnerable, an easy target; afraid that people might take advantage of his situation. But that meant that he had to stay wary and be careful, not admit what he didn’t know, and not ask questions which might expose him. And that had meant that he hadn’t been completely able to relax this evening.
Even so, he had felt genuinely cheerful simply sitting and talking.
Perhaps it had given him a better sense of who he was as well: a better sense of what his values and his instincts used to be, or still were. Was that the kind of person he was – simple and open and honest? Or perhaps he simply enjoyed spending time with open and relaxed people: that was surely normal.
But it felt like more than that. He felt a sense of warmth towards other people that most others in the Company didn’t seem to: He wanted to understand people, to know them better; he felt concern for them, unease at their pain or possible pain. Perhaps before he had lost his memory, he had been some kind of helper, or carer – a doctor, or a priest. Surely not a killer. Would he feel this way if he really was some kind of killer?
He couldn’t believe that he’d killed: certainly not deliberately murdered someone.
There was no evidence one way or the other about the kind of person he really was, of course, except that he felt so uncomfortable with Kiergard Slorn’s apparently casual approach to killing: it
was part of what the Company did but in some way Slorn seemed to relish it, to take pride in it. If killing was an abhorrent thing, then that kind of killing was surely even worse.
Have I ever killed? Used a weapon against people? Or magecraft?
He didn’t think so, didn’t feel he could have done – that was too far away from the way he thought about people. But perhaps there had been an accident, a fatal, lethal accident, and it was the shock of killing – of doing something so at odds with the person he was – that had made him lose his memory: perhaps in order to erase one single, unpleasant memory.
In which case he supposed that yes, he might be a killer.
Chapter Three
Four Days in Sherron
1
That night, Lanvik dreamed of the red-haired woman again, in the same house as before. He recognised the panelled wood on the walls, the angular rooms and the huge windows that overlooked the hills. They were arguing. He could see her shouting and felt himself shouting back, but the dream was silent so he had no idea what they were arguing about. In his right hand was a mage’s staff. Why did he have it? Why was he holding it?
He raised the staff, angrily.
Was he going to attack her? She seemed to think so. She flung her hands up in front of her face as if to deflect a blow.
Then he opened his eyes.
Garran was shaking his shoulder. ‘You alright?’ he asked. ‘You were shouting.’
‘Sorry,’ Lanvik said. ‘Bad dream.’
‘Well, don’t bother getting comfortable again. It’s about time to wake up.’
Lanvik looked around. There were people moving about the fort already, visiting the washhouse or preparing food: Garran was right – he’d be better waking and washing. A few of the Company were already up – Garran’s brother Ubrik, Kiergard Slorn and Menska.
If his dream was really a memory, he wondered if it could have been prompted by talking to Panat and his family: by spending time with other Humans. Perhaps that had been more similar to what he had known before, and that familiarity had brought back the memory. If that was true then maybe when he was with the Company he had less chance of recovering any memories, since those experiences had nothing at all in common with his previous life.
Perhaps he should spend more time with Humans.
But if memories came back that were disturbing – violent, or alien to who he felt he was now – then he would rather be somewhere safe with people he trusted. And that didn’t include any Humans, for now. So he would wait until later.
Or was that only the voice of his cowardice – his fear of what he might find out?
The place he had dreamed of seemed familiar, but he couldn’t remember if he’d felt that familiarity before. Was he only recognising it from the first dream? He tried to visualise the room, and then asked himself what was behind the doors; what were the views from the other windows; what was in the places that he hadn’t seen in the dream? No answers came to mind.
He ate a light breakfast with the others, and when they suggested that those who had been on foot yesterday should ride today, he agreed. Yesterday’s walk through the jungle had been nervous and tense: not at all what he had expected and not at all pleasant. If he became bored with riding in the wagon, he supposed he could just get off and walk again.
Despite causing the caravan to leave Harrata unusually late the day before, the same people managed to gather promptly at the east gate before the eighth hour. Lanvik assumed there weren’t many distractions or last-minute tasks to complete here in the fort so they were able to set off in good time, again adopting that snaking single-file on the road.
The route took them gradually downhill, with some twists and turns and low river crossings, so yesterday’s journey must actually have been a gradual climb, though he hadn’t noticed any incline once they’d entered the jungle.
Yesterday had been dry, although the branches on either side of the road had dripped occasionally into pools of still, dirty water and large patches of mud: today was misty with a constant light spray. Riding on the cart was like passing through an uncomfortable warm cloud and slowly but inexorably becoming more and more damp. There was no shelter from it. Like many of the wagons in the convoy, they had a tarpaulin spread over the back, protecting their cargo, but unlike in Tremark, when Ethryk had fixed material over the top of their wagon to keep out the snow and wind, the passengers had no protection.
The journey turned out to be no more relaxed in the wagon than it had been on foot. If anything, because his head was higher above the ground, the jungle canopy with its weird noises and smells seemed closer and more threatening. As the journey progressed, he found himself looking up more and more and occasionally he glimpsed shapes moving among the branches.
At midday, the caravan stopped for two hours to rest and feed the animals while their escort patrolled a wide perimeter around them. The site showed signs of continual reuse for the same purpose – the foliage had been cleared back further than along the rest of the road and there were numerous traces of old litter.
Four hours after that, the road finally emerged from the jungle onto a low coastal plain, flatter and more welcoming than the land around Harrata, though with the same thick red soil. From there, they were able to see the Inner Sea – a pale blue ribbon on the horizon. It didn’t seem far away at all, but the majority were in favour when the Commander of the escort suggested they rest again. This time they only stopped for an hour: it seemed the road was not completely safe, even if they were now out of the jungle, and no-one wanted to be too far from Sherron when night fell.
They finally reached the little town an hour and a half after sundown: it looked no bigger than Harrata, perhaps twelve or fifteen thousand souls.
A number of the wagons and some of those on foot peeled away from the jungle road before they entered the town – people with business elsewhere – and inside Harrata, the caravan split into a dozen parts, each heading in a different direction. Lanvik caught sight of Panat and his two wagons heading south along the shore; he waved and they waved back.
‘New friends?’ Magda asked.
‘Yes,’ he agreed. ‘I met them last night.’
‘I don’t need to tell you to be careful,’ she said, which he supposed was her way of telling him to be careful.
‘Yes, I know.’
They had already decided that the harbour would be their first destination. Before arranging any accommodation, it made sense to establish how long they were staying in Sherron: that would depend upon how and when they were leaving.
Anslak and his three wagons were also heading to the harbour, together with around a third of the original caravan: he already had warehouse space booked to store the goods he was carrying. He promised that, wherever they decided to stay, he would drop their trunks once he’d unloaded everything else here. They would have to let him know where that was in the next half an hour or so.
Ubrik and Bane stayed with the wagons, ostensibly to help Anslak and his men unload their goods, but everyone knew it was really to watch over their possessions.
Outside the harbourmaster’s office, the others found a large noticeboard under glass, busy with dozens of printed and hand-written timetables and schedules. Most of these consisted of a simple list of destination ports, which days of the week or month they sailed and at what times. Most included a list of charges, and several carried details about capacity, terms for carrying baggage or freight, and additional terms for livestock or draught animals.
Pinned to the bottom of the board were smaller notes, mostly detailing private boats that were available for hire or that would have space when they next sailed.
Karuin seemed to absorb the information quicker than the rest of them – she elbowed other travellers out the way, and once she reached the front, she pressed one finger on each notice in turn, and then ran it quickly down or across the schedule of departures and arrivals.
‘There’s nothing leaving tonight,’ she told the oth
ers. ‘And there’s nothing at all that will take us as far as Carissola. The furthest we can get at this time of year is Marsalea: there’s a direct ferry every two weeks, and the next one leaves in four days.’ From the map, Lanvik knew that Marsalea was roughly half-way between the Isthmus and Carissola. Karuin continued: ‘Other than that, there are a lot of regular boats running up and down the coast and out to the closer islands. A couple leave every day, so we could probably set off sooner if we wanted to, and hop from island to island.’
‘The little boats probably only run during the day, so we’d likely end up spending at least as many nights ashore as we would here,’ Kiergard Slorn said. ‘If anything, that journey would take longer to reach Carissola. I’d say the Marsalea ferry is probably our best choice. From Marsalea, there are likely to be direct boats to Carissola – there will certainly be boats with a couple of stops.’
‘We’ll have to pay for the extra nights we spend here,’ Vorrigan reminded them. ‘We could try to arrange something with a merchant ship going all the way. It would be more expensive and might only be hammocks, but it would get us there quicker if that’s what we want.’
‘I didn’t think we were in a hurry,’ Magda said. ‘We have a long time until our meeting with the client. Even with the normal ferries, we’ll still get there with more than a week to spare.’
‘Well, what does everyone think?’ Slorn asked. ‘Should we catch a ferry tomorrow to one of the closer islands, try to book passage on a merchant ship, or wait here until the Marsalea ferry leaves?’
They voted, and almost everyone preferred to wait in Sherron.
‘Let’s find somewhere to stay for four nights. And then we can get the trunks.’
Anslak had said that they would need to be ready for their trunks in half an hour but in reality it took him more than an hour to unload and stow his own goods. By that time Magda and Vorrigan had found them rooms.
Sherron was the kind of place that was often busy with arrivals and departures, with loading and unloading, but it was seldom a destination in its own right. It was a place where business was transacted and it was a staging post for goods and people crossing the Isthmus, so there were a large number of inns, taverns, hostels and hotels to cater for these brief visits. A number were closed completely for the season, but those that had remained open had plenty of empty rooms available for reasonable prices.