A Solitary Journey

by Tony Shillitoe

  Their dragon egg was not alone in the midmorning sky. Four more floated on the gentle breeze, each vibrantly coloured, one striped like a rainbow. ‘We’re lucky the wind was kind to us,’ Luca said, fossicking in a small bag. ‘Spring breezes are sometimes playful and tease us.’ He extracted three carrots and handed one each to Meg and A Ahmud Ki before he bit into the third. ‘I was feeling peckish. We’ll have a good feed when we land.’ A Ahmud Ki eyed the offering warily, but Meg, who remembered seeing and eating the orange vegetable on Queen Sunset’s table, bit into the crisp, sweet flesh and chewed. She broke off a small titbit, turned away from Luca who was busy surveying the scenery, and slipped it inside her tunic to a ravenous Whisper.

  ‘How many people live down there?’ A Ahmud Ki asked.

  ‘Not rightly sure,’ Luca replied. ‘Last count done by the government put it at more than three million.’

  ‘Three million people live in one city?’

  ‘Seems like a lot,’ said Luca nonchalantly, ‘until you find out that the Ranu capital has ten million people living in it.’

  ‘Yul Ithyrandyr?’

  Luca looked at A Ahmud Ki through blue eyes. ‘That’s right. Have you been there?’

  A Ahmud Ki blinked, glanced at Meg who was looking at him over her shoulder, and said, ‘A long time ago.’

  ‘It must have been,’ said Luca. ‘We’ve been at war on and off with the Ranu for almost twenty years.’

  ‘War? Why?’

  ‘Politics,’ said Luca disdainfully. ‘I was just a kid when it broke out. My father went. And my uncles. My younger brother, Dale, is somewhere on the front line now. It never seems to start or stop any more, almost like neither side wants to end it—just border skirmishes and occasional big battles.’

  ‘And you never went?’ Meg asked.

  ‘Me?’ Luca replied, and chuckled. ‘I don’t like the idea of putting on a uniform and marching in lines and shooting someone because a politician says it’s good to do it. I’m looking for adventure—that’s why I took you two on—not some dumb process where it doesn’t matter whether I get shot or shoot someone in the big scheme of things. I’m more of a romantic. I like the idea of saving the world or doing some heroic act against impossible odds. Do you think I’m crazy?’

  A Ahmud Ki raised an eyebrow. Meg smiled. ‘Does anyone live in the castle?’ A Ahmud Ki asked, studying the plateau.

  Luca snorted and shook his head, his black curls wobbling. ‘It’s been abandoned almost seven hundred years. Most of it is ruins, but they keep part of it open for tourists.’

  ‘Tourists?’ asked A Ahmud Ki. ‘Is that a religious sect?’

  Luca laughed and slapped A Ahmud Ki’s shoulder affectionately. ‘Ho, now that is funny!’ he blurted and clutched his stomach, leaving A Ahmud Ki staring with annoyed bewilderment and Meg watching in fascination. ‘Tourists!’ Luca repeated, as if the word itself was humorous, but when he caught his breath and realised his passengers weren’t getting the joke, he asked, ‘You do have tourists where you come from, don’t you?’

  A Ahmud Ki shrugged and Meg shook her head. Luca’s eyes widened. ‘Well, now, that is weird,’ he murmured. ‘Tourists are people who travel around paying money to look at things. We get hundreds every year. I make my living out of taking them up in my dragon egg.’

  ‘They pay money to look around?’ A Ahmud Ki queried, as if the idea was senseless.

  ‘Good money,’ Luca confirmed. ‘We’ll put down in that parkland near the river. Landing’s a bit more risky than going up and I’ll need you both to get ready to tie up the dragon egg when we touch down. Then we can go get the money you promised,’ and he grinned as he gave the burner a softer blast of flame.

  The green park beside the river was full of curious people who gathered around the dragon egg, pointing and smiling. The women were dressed in colourful full-flowing dresses and broad hats with feathers and flowers decorating the brims and their hair coiled intricately, and their children were fresh-faced and dressed neatly in little replica uniforms, and there were small, dainty dogs on leashes. The men wore unusual clothes—coats, trousers and shirts—some dark, some colourful, and some wore uniforms similar to the type worn by the Peacemakers in Port River. The uniforms sent a ripple of fear through Meg. Had news of the death of the dog handler and her escape beaten them to the capital?

  ‘Stand well back, everyone!’ Luca yelled as he threw ropes out of the basket. ‘I need both of you to slide over the side and tie the ropes down to the landing pegs,’ he said to A Ahmud Ki and Meg as he pointed to a square of sturdy pegs. A Ahmud Ki climbed out of the basket quickly, but Meg, with Whisper to keep secure, moved less assuredly and only secured one rope while A Ahmud Ki tied three. ‘All right, let’s move away,’ Luca said as he disembarked from the basket while the orange dragon egg fabric began to sag towards the ground, its hot air rapidly cooling. Luca led his passengers through the admiring crowd onto a paved walkway beside the river under the trees. Every plant was manicured and healthy.

  ‘Who owns this land?’ Meg asked.

  ‘Government,’ Luca replied.

  ‘They mow and trim everything?’

  Luca laughed. ‘They employ poor people. Government wages are the lowest there is.’

  ‘Where are you taking us?’ A Ahmud Ki asked, searching unsuccessfully for any familiar landmark.

  Luca stopped. ‘To a money-house, of course. Payment—remember?’ He shrugged. ‘Then I suggest you two go shopping for clothes and clean up. You’ll get arrested and slipped into a poorhouse looking like you do.’

  ‘Poorhouse?’ Meg asked.

  Luca pulled a face, and smiled. ‘Of course. I keep forgetting you don’t come from here. Government has poor-houses to keep the beggars off the streets. Everyone has to be gainfully employed in Central Andrak. You’ve either got a job, joined the army or are in a poor-house. Regulations.’ He turned and ushered Meg and A Ahmud Ki forward. ‘Come on. I’m hungry for a good meal and a better drink.’

  Meg held up her new multi-green shirt to admire it, holding it against herself as she gazed into the full-length mirror, before she slipped it on and buttoned it, checking the length and contrast against her new black trousers. Having bathed in the cubicle where the water came from an overhead spout, she felt refreshed and her hair was clean and curly, and it was good to be dressed in clean new clothes that fitted after so long on the run in dirty, torn and borrowed things. ‘So?’ she asked Whisper, who was perched beside the wash bowl. ‘How do I look?’ She scratched the rat’s ears. ‘I can’t take you with me. You have to wait here. There’s food on the table for you.’

  She had already left Whisper in the hired room of the stay-house earlier when Luca took them shopping for clothes, an experience that was strange and frustrating. On Luca’s advice, while he took A Ahmud Ki to a men’s shop she went into a women’s clothing shop to buy a shirt and pants only to discover that it catered mainly for dresses and strange contraptions the Andrak women apparently wore to tighten their waists and hold their breasts tight and high. Two young women were keen to assist her in choosing her clothes, which she found pleasant until they kept insisting that she buy the garments designed to squeeze and suffocate her. ‘You have a beautiful figure, miss,’ one girl told her again and again, while the other kept holding up the white breast restraints and the blue waist tighteners, saying, ‘Men won’t be able to resist you with those beautiful breasts,’ and ‘The fashion is a narrow waist—not that yours isn’t slim, but this corset will flatter you.’ She tried the contraptions to appease the insistent girls, but in the end she discarded them, wondering what drove Andrak women to torture themselves for the sake of getting a man’s attention. If anything, the attention of men was the last thing she sought, remembering the primal stares so many men gave her when she met them or walked past. She bought the shirt—the girls called it a blouse—and crossed the busy street to join Luca and A Ahmud Ki. She bought the trousers she wanted in the men’s clothing shop, surpr
ising the young man who sold them to her by correcting him when he said, ‘Your husband will cut a fine figure in these, missus,’ by replying, ‘My husband is dead and these are for me,’ and she scooped up the bag in which they were placed and followed A Ahmud Ki and Luca from the store.

  Everything in the city was big. The shop buildings were all at least three or four storeys with shops in the ground floor and a variety of workshops and living places in the upper storeys. The cobbled streets were crowded with pedestrians and wagons and horses as if everyone was out shopping at the same time—the kind of crowd Meg imagined filled the marketplaces in Port of Joy, although she’d never experienced one when she was the Queen’s guest. There were so many shops with so many goods, some Meg had never heard of. ‘What does that do?’ she asked as she stood at one shop window staring at a round face with numbers and handles that seemed to move on their own.

  ‘It’s a timemarker,’ Luca explained. ‘It measures time. You can put it on the wall of your house and know what time of day it is.’

  ‘What magic makes it move?’

  Luca chuckled. ‘It has springs and cogs inside. You wind up the spring and as it unwinds it moves the cogs and they move the hands on the timemarker’s face.’

  The concept made no sense to her. On the dragon ship she had seen cogs moving, but it took a crew of sailors to turn them. No one was moving the invisible cogs in the timemarker.

  Luca had guided them initially to the money-house from the dragon egg landing where they cashed the moneylender’s note and paid Luca, and then he took them to a stay-house. ‘I like this place. It’s called Mother’s. Very organised and great breakfasts.’ Then he took them clothes shopping, and when they were dressed he led them to a drinking-house.

  Meg was comfortable in her new clothes, although she was conscious of everyone staring because she was the only woman on the streets not wearing some form of dress. They also looked at A Ahmud Ki who was strikingly clad in a strange outfit of the Andrak fashion—a powder blue shirt with a dark blue tie, a grey coat and black trousers. With his silver hair cut short and his trimmed black beard he looked more handsome than ever—and exotic in his features. We are definitely outsiders, she mused as they weaved through the crowds.

  ‘I come here whenever I’m in Lightsword,’ Luca informed them as they approached an older building, but A Ahmud Ki suddenly stopped to stare at the rustic wooden exterior that was in sharp contrast to the surrounding stone as if he’d seen a ghost. Luca asked, ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘I know this place,’ A Ahmud Ki replied slowly.

  ‘The Inn of Dragons?’ Luca inquired and said, ‘It is very famous, especially with the tourists. I thought you hadn’t been here before.’

  ‘Not recently,’ A Ahmud Ki said, ignoring Meg’s warning glare.

  ‘It’s a replica of an ancient inn from the late Bretan period, rebuilt using old drawings and information. It’s very quaint and they brew a very good beer,’ Luca told them. ‘You see pictures of it everywhere.’

  ‘Fascinating,’ murmured A Ahmud Ki as he glanced again at Meg. ‘I’m keen to go inside.’

  ‘I’ll wait,’ Meg said.

  ‘Why?’ Luca asked. ‘Aren’t you interested in looking inside?’

  ‘But—’ She hesitated and finally said, ‘I thought women weren’t allowed in these places.’

  Luca’s eyebrow rose. ‘Is that a custom in your country?’

  ‘Yes,’ Meg replied.

  Luca grinned. ‘Not here. Women have no restrictions. They used to in my grandfather’s time, but legislation changed all that. Women and men have equal standing in Andrak now. Come in. I’ll buy the first drink.’

  The interior was dark with a low ceiling supported by thick wooden beams. The outside daylight only leaked through the old leadlight windows so lanterns flickered along the walls. ‘I like the authenticity,’ said Luca. ‘It has a cosy atmosphere with a touch of mystery.’ A Ahmud Ki recognised very little of the interior. The reconstructed inn had a hearth like the original, and a bar, but everything else was too clean, too organised. The inn he remembered sat above the Maze, the infamous route of tunnels used by the Andrakian Thieves’ Guild—a dark, brooding place—and its patrons were ruthless people who would rob you or slit your throat as soon as talk to you.

  Luca ordered drinks and the three sat at a table while he regaled them with information about the city, answering questions from A Ahmud Ki: questions like, ‘How do we get to the castle ruins from here?’ and ‘Are the ruins open at night?’ and ‘Is there a Thieves’ Guild?’

  Luca’s jaw dropped at the last question. ‘A what?’ he asked and he looked around nervously, a sign to A Ahmud Ki’s keen eyes that Luca’s answer was likely to be a lie.

  ‘A Thieves’ Guild,’ A Ahmud Ki repeated.

  ‘Not as such,’ Luca said, lowering his voice and leaning across the table towards A Ahmud Ki. ‘I’m not saying anything in this, but there are always rumours that the boss gangs have been doing things.’

  ‘What’s a boss gang?’ A Ahmud Ki asked.

  ‘A gang that works for one of the factory bosses or shop owners. They get thugs to beat up people they don’t like. Or they use forceful persuasion to convince someone to sell their business to them. The Peacekeepers are busy all the time trying to find out who killed who or beat up on whom, and they can’t often prove the bosses are involved.’ He paused and glanced around the inn again before saying, ‘It’s not smart to talk about them, all right? People have accidents.’ He straightened up, lifted his beer tankard and said cheerfully, ‘To your health,’ before finishing his drink.

  Meg listened, part curiosity and part politeness, to the men’s conversation. She sensed A Ahmud Ki’s rising interest in a world that to him must be both vaguely familiar and disconcertingly different, but while she sipped at the beer she felt heart pangs for her lost home. Tonight she would sleep, gather her strength and resolve, and in the morning she would begin searching for Emma and Treasure. From the dragon egg she’d seen to her dismay that there were hundreds of factories in the city, but her spirits were buoyed by the knowledge that in one she would find her children. Her plan was simple. First, she would eliminate the factories that didn’t use child slaves and then she would have to patiently go to each in the hope that her children would eventually appear. When she found them, she would buy their freedom. Money wasn’t the issue. She could create money. She couldn’t re-create her children.

  ‘Shall we?’ she heard Luca say, and she looked up to find the two men waiting for her to rise. She followed them from the inn, pleased that the Andrak people had made an effort to construct a link to their past because its atmosphere and familiarity comforted her, and she was certain it also comforted A Ahmud Ki. She didn’t see the figure sitting in the corner shadows as she left, watching her with malicious eyes.

  CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

  The city was full of surprises. In the morning, after a hearty breakfast was served in her room, with Whisper secured inside a carry bag she bought on the way home from the Inn of Dragons, she asked at the front desk of the stay-house for information on factories. The girl smiled and produced a piece of paper with a detailed city map. ‘There are three sectors of the city reserved for industrial matters,’ the girl told her as she spread the map on her desk. ‘The north-eastern sector, here; the western sector, here; and the strip along the south-western rim, here.’ She smiled as she looked up. ‘There are quite a few small factories scattered through all of the sectors, of course, but the government is trying to make them shift into the industrial sectors.’

  ‘Are any of the sectors using child slaves?’ Meg asked hopefully.

  The girl’s smile faded. ‘Slaves aren’t permitted any more.’

  ‘Yes. I know they can’t be bought or sold,’ Meg told her, ‘but some are allowed to use their slaves if they were bought before the law changed. I just wanted to know if you knew which ones?’

  The girl shook her head. ‘Not exactly. All I kn
ow is that the western sector is slave-free because it has been for a long time. I don’t know about the other areas. Why?’

  ‘I’m looking for my children,’ Meg explained. ‘They were sold into slavery here.’

  ‘Oh,’ the girl gasped. ‘Oh, that’s terrible. I’m so sorry.’

  ‘It wasn’t your fault,’ Meg reassured her.

  ‘But you must feel terrible.’

  Meg forced a smile. ‘I just need to find them.’

  ‘Do you know what kind of factory they were sent to?’ the girl asked.

  Meg visualised the document she discovered in the Slave Markets office. ‘The form had a name of the slave buyer—H R Papergoods.’

  The girl’s face brightened. ‘I can find that!’ she announced and stooped below her desk, returning with a thick red leather-bound book which she thumped onto the desk and opened.

  ‘What’s that?’ Meg asked.

  ‘It’s the Lightsword Directory. It lists the names and addresses of everyone in the city,’ the girl answered as she leafed through the book and stopped at a page. ‘“H R Papergoods; Factory; Paper production; Owner, Herron Rekasa; one-nineteen Farcastle Walk, North Sector”.’ The girl looked up with a pleased smile. ‘Lucky you knew. It’s not in the three sectors.’ She returned to the map and studied it and pointed. ‘It’s here.’