by Glenn Wilson
Only worse.
It wasn’t that he felt bad about potentially and permanently losing his friendship with Kieran and Brodie—or perhaps he did. But that was really infinitesimal to the bitterness and anger and shock. He was still shocked.
Only scoundrels stole, or idiots—or perhaps all the idiots who stole were still scoundrels, just of a less intelligent cut. And Kieran and Brodie weren’t scoundrels. Or perhaps they were, and it was merely Ian’s own error of classification that was at fault. But no, he couldn’t think of anything, trying over and over as hard he could as much as he could, that would have led him to suspect they would do something like this. Oh, Ian knew that regular people were always committing plenty of immoral things—swearing, bending the truth. Those things were all mildly immoral though, and never really done with any good reasons, but this was different. This was … he didn’t know what this was.
The day passed, but mostly without his notice. His mind registered the rising heat, the occasional change in wind. At some points in their northeasterly trajectory, conversation and happenings occurred within the rest of their party. But this he couldn’t care to observe for any length of time. Their brief stops, their lunch break passed without his attention. He was able to keep up his positions within formation passably well, and though he could probably do them in his sleep, today he didn’t make much of an effort to keep up the company’s standards. It wasn’t as if the rest of company was.
Almost as a flaunting of its own mystery, a reminder of just how alien they were in this place, the day persisted in its clarity. He found nothing in its clear hues. And the ground that he barely lifted his head from passed by without any ill omens as he went around in circles throughout the day, over and over.
It was with some surprise that he noticed evening drawing on, and they made a slightly later camp, as though to make up for their excursion. This made something anxious inside him hurt, to feel that he had neither gained nor lost anything he had sought for since the morning, but to know that he had lost an entire day’s time in it. The preparations for camp and supper slid by.
The rest of the party was still irritably upbeat on the whole. Will looked at him as though he wanted to talk a couple times, but otherwise Ian had no course with any of the others.
Immediately after the meal and his cleanup duties were finished, Ian took the longest path away from camp that he could devise. By this point, he had seemed to exhaust his ability to remain inside himself, so he took to listlessly watching the things he passed. There were more birds in this area than most of the others they’d traveled through. Distinctive, trilling flocks were incessantly settling down out of sight within the grass, only to be roused by a single member that went up ahead, voicing that sound that Ian couldn’t quite categorize. They would circle, almost settle again, then recoil back up, with individuals diving down through the tops of the grass and back up again. At what, Ian couldn’t see, but when he took the time to surmise, he supposed it was for some sort of insect or small animal.
There were also the fling birds, which were quite a bit larger and moved in much smaller groups than the trilling birds. Ian had read something about them in his yeoman, as their kind was unique to Orinoco and stood as an ornithological curiosity. While of fair size and bulk, they were even lighter than most birds were, save for their long tail-like appendage, which was weighted. When in danger or startled, as at several points in his walk, they would fling out of their concealment by means of hurling their tail up in the direction they wanted to flee. This would quickly catapult them away from danger at a speed that was hard to follow until their wings could carry them the rest, their tail securely tucked underneath them.
From these passing distractions, Ian took some merit. It was a simple thing, he reasoned. The feelings would subside. Feelings always did with time.
He began to recall his blessings in his mind upon reaching this conclusion, by now some distance from camp, and started to wheel back that way. His ambition, if it was actually that, was to order all the blessings that he could claim, classify them from larger headings and down into the smaller ones.
He wasn’t sure how long he had been at this—and it did bring him a small kind of delight, especially in thinking of all the ways that he could make his blessings grow—when he caught sight of Kieran and another person at a distance, moving perpendicular to him. He immediately knew Kieran by his shock of light hair, and the other had to be Brodie.
Frowning, wondering just how many nights he would be at this, Ian considered altering his route. Some daylight was still left. But no, he thought, he had been heading this way by his own accord. He had no need to change.
His curiosity grew increasingly piqued, however, wondering at their furtive pace, which he only caught once more before they disappeared entirely in a lower area out of sight. Not all that humorously reasoning that there wasn’t anything to steal out here, Ian quickened his pace, just a bit so that he might sight them again. He descended down a small hill, the rangers having gone into isolated bits of short but thick trees and foliage.
Ian held his rifle against his shoulder to keep it from bouncing as he quickly scaled down the last part of his hill. Staring along where he was perpendicularly crossing their trail, Ian started with some surprise to see that they had stopped just inside the trees, contrary to what he had expected. Ian started because he also hadn’t expected, and had really hoped, that they wouldn’t see him at any point. But Brodie immediately spotted him and nudged Kieran, who was looking forward. Looking back, quite grimly from what Ian could make of their expressions, they hesitated for a moment. But even more to his surprise, Kieran made a small wave for him to come their way.
Warily, though hoping that he would never actually have anything to fear from them, Ian agreed and quickly ran to them. His pace was a hybrid between expedient and careful, as he couldn’t decide which attitude he should be trying to exude as he ran.
Kieran put an unnecessary finger to his lips, Brodie only glancing at him before looking back ahead. Deciding not to care about these reactions, Ian crouched beside them and looked off in the direction that Kieran gestured. As the sounds around him stilled again, the imminent thrumming of insects returned, over which faint voices came.
He guessed that it was Elizabeth Wester’s voice before he was actually able to tell. A sinking feeling ran up through his gut. His mind ran through the possibilities, despite his best efforts. All of them led to the conclusion that the margrave’s daughter was walking outside of camp—outside of camp needing an escort—an escort that wasn’t any of the three of them—and an amiable escort to justify Elizabeth speaking in such warmly animated tones—
“—by the courts of the grand duke,” she was saying, “though his halls are not nearly so exquisite as the receiving halls of the arch bishop. We have a yearly invitation to take part in the Christmas celebrations there.”
Through the moderate foliage that separated them from the open area beyond, Ian could easily catch glimpses of Elizabeth Wester’s white dress and bits and pieces of the accompanying red, Bevish uniform.
“I have heard that the festivities occupy much of the nobility’s week,” Corporal Wesshire’s much lower voice came idly following hers. “It would seem a rare honor that a marcher lord from so far out would receive such invitations.”
“Oh,” Elizabeth said, “my father is well liked for such functions. I am not entirely sure why, as he is loathe of them, but I imagine most of it is political.”
And here she lowered her conversation so that they were unable to hear her, though they were then passing at their closest point. By now, they had all dropped as low to the ground as possible, Ian half-expecting such efforts to be in vain. Even from his rather compromised angle, he could see Wesshire’s head scanning around and especially into the trees where they were. But evidently they were obscured enough, as they passed without pause.
By the time Elizabeth regained her previous volume, after some equally soft answers from Corporal W
esshire, they were gone some ways beyond them, the topic still lightly on political considerations. But apparently the serious parts of it had passed.
Kieran cautiously sat up a little, Brodie wryly smiling back at Ian.
“Well, how do you like that?”
* * * *
Ian didn’t. Try as he might, there were numerous ways that he couldn’t and felt like he shouldn’t. And, as he mused the next morning as they broke camp, it only made his possibilities feel impossible, which had seemed plausible only the night before last.
There was some satisfaction in knowing that Kieran had finally seen the inglorious and utter destruction of his own chances, but it was a small, bitter satisfaction.
But it’s none of my concern, Ian thought as he idly kicked at the rocky soil. There had been some hardening of the terrain late yesterday, but it steadily escalated throughout the morning, and in the distance they began to come in sight of a rocky-looking northern horizon.
“We’ll make Mombosso by noon,” Will said to the captain and margrave, “more than plenty of time to fish, if you would so like.”
“That could be in order,” Captain Marsden said after first making a confirming look to the margrave’s expression.
Fishing, Ian thought, trying his best not to let that notion feel good. He had done only the barest of it when he was a boy, in the dirty Wilome rivers and down by the docks. He hadn’t had much time for such things though, and they had never been able to eat any of the fish for fear of lanphoid. But he remembered it being fun, and he wondered what it might be like to actually eat something he had caught.
The respite was brief, however, as he also remembered the state of things.
The rest of the morning passed uneventfully, with a sense of some directness to their pace. As it grew steadily hotter, the outcrops loomed from slight bumps on the horizon to large boulders that they began to pass in increasing numbers and volume. Just before lunch, they waded across a small foot stream that ran diagonally across their path. Ian heard Will tell the margrave that it was one of the loose strands that had managed to break away from the Mombosso River.
Their elevation began to rise slightly as they came within sight of a range of large rocks, haphazardly strewn in something of a line running west to east. The ever-workings of the motions of water became discernible, and Ian caught his first glimpses of the river.
“Strange that the river is above everything else,” Ian said as he came alongside Will.
“Yes, the Mombosso is unique,” Will said, “it is the definite division between the Hovoloko Plains and the northern wilds.”
“What’s all in that area?”
“The terrain is much less flat and less open,” Will said, “with the mountains continuing north and the forests crouching in closer from the east. The wildlife is fairly more dangerous, with more chance of lions and other large predators.”
“And the Chax?” Ian asked.
“Yes,” Will answered, “there are many tribes beyond here, and very few Ellosians ever see them. Mostly only the protected envoys from Carciti, who keep diplomatic relations with them. Right now, and for some time, there has officially been peace. But it is very dangerous for Ellosians there. For, if they believe that a human is alone, many tribes would not hesitate to kill him, as no one would know if it had been them or some beast or hazard.”
“But the Mombosso,” Ian said, looking down as his boots increasingly fell on more and more rock mixed into the ground, “how is it above everything else?”
Will shrugged, in a mostly human fashion, but with a slight click. “I am not sure anyone knows. It is a large branch of other rivers that run through the Quacu Mountains, and some of them are similar. There is much slate ore mixed into its rock beds, which is why it does not wear itself down very fast. Slate ore is very strong—but forgive me, the margrave is calling.”
Ian watched him go, and shortly had to head in the same direction alongside Captain Marsden, who was going through a mindful but hurried overview of their gaining of the river.
“And run your flank half a mile downstream,” the captain was saying to Lieutenant Taylor, “and I’ll run some of mine the other way. There shouldn’t be any concerns, I daresay. Not if they’ve been here for so long. That’s it, right up ahead there. The Fall Tower, as it is. That will be our base camp.” He paused. “Disgraceful, utterly disgraceful. Running off here and God knows where else in between with no protection.”
“Disgraceful indeed,” Lieutenant Taylor agreed, already in the motions of moving to take his flank down the riverside.
“Flank,” Captain Marsden said, turning to them, “secure the river for a half mile in that direction, then return to set up camp.”
“Yes, sir,” they said and snapped their heels.
As they turned to go, trotting at an easy trot, Ian glanced over to where the brisa and the rest of their charge were continuing straight for the Fall Tower, a fairly round piece of rock distinctively jutting up at an angle from near the river. But in the moment he had, he thought he caught sight of movement—figures moving near it, coming toward the brisa.
“Keep up,” Corporal Hanley called off to him.
“Right,” Ian said, frowning as he hurried after them.
Chapter 13
“Our birth is from the sky, from where we breathe and see. No matter what the jah do, our lives, our dreams flow from it. See it always changing, but always the same. Our life is in it, as it is in us. All the jah can never hold that.”
—Chax shaman
The securing of the river having been done in routine order, they made their way back a bit more leisurely than they’d come. Ian experienced something akin to aggravated impatience as they threaded their way around and through the rock croppings. Rory at one point even knelt beside the river to fill his canteen.
Rory and Corporal Hanley spent some time remarking how clean the water seemed, and how wide, but especially how surprisingly deep it ran, secure in its stone cradle, and how it would be nice to spend a little bit of time in one place, to try fishing in a place like—
Ian almost burst with the question, and more than once. But as he reasoned, if their party had been planning on meeting anyone here, then the other men would already know about it and Ian would look foolish for asking. And if they didn’t know, that would likely mean that they weren’t actually meeting anyone. Ian tried to figure the safest way to wheedle it out of them, imagining in his mind what a critical voice that was privy to his thoughts might say. And that critical voice sounded an awful lot like Kieran’s. The voice said something along the lines of how unwise it had been to alienate nearly all of his company mates—that Ian would probably already know about this issue if he hadn’t done that.
Not all of which was his fault, Ian argued to himself. And in half the cases it was more than justified.
Stilling himself, trying not to look as irritated as he was, Ian hung about on the side of their group closest to camp as the others talked, reasoning that either way he’d find out soon enough.
But they finally set off again, and after a few more minutes came within sight of the others. Their camp hosted a great deal of activity, which was half on the rocks, half off for their sleeping areas. It was difficult at first, but the closer they got, the surer Ian became that some of the people he was seeing were new.
“Hurry it up,” Lieutenant Taylor called to them, hastening their pace a bit, “there’s plenty to be done.”
As they came into the camp’s outskirts, Ian caught sight of Elizabeth Wester near one of the brisa, apparently listening to someone. He also saw that the other rangers had already returned and were nearby, unpacking their things. He caught a mildly horrified look on Kieran’s face as they approached.
“—and just how hot it really is here, it’s crazy,” a female voice was saying, evidently the one that Elizabeth was listening to with a reserved expression. “I can’t imagine people actually live here all the time, even with regulators.”
In a kind of meeting of ways, their group’s trajectory joined with Elizabeth’s, so that he caught sight of the person who was speaking to Elizabeth as they came around the brisa.
There was an immediate sensation of color, as Ian saw a red-haired girl of a slightly taller build than Elizabeth. She was wearing a ruffled light blue dress, and as he watched her talk to Elizabeth, the manner, the expression, even the voice, different as it was, was clearly of a similar make.
“The people at Carciti were so pushy,” the girl was going on, her voice such an unexpectedly high combination of confident enthusiasm. “I couldn’t believe how bold the beggars were, and so dirty.”
A well-educated sense of naivety, Ian thought, so amazed was he at the suddenness of it that he felt his pace grow clumsy. And it was readily apparent in the expressions of all the others, and everything seemed to be for a moment just watching.
Elizabeth was saying something low and probably sarcastic that Ian only caught the end of, “—can’t afford to bathe more regularly.”
“It’s such a dirty city,” the other girl agreed. “I’m so glad to be out of it. But here are the others, aren’t they?”
“Yes,” Elizabeth said, looking at Ian with a pair of tired eyebrows, “they’re all here now.”
“Great,” the other girl smiled, casting a quick eye over Ian and the others before darting off to the right, “I’m going to get my bag from father.”
As she vaguely passed in front of them, a wash of trailing blue and red, Ian caught Kieran’s eye. The same question seemed to be stuttering over his as Kieran looked after where the girl was heading, and then back to Elizabeth Wester.
Were these people related to each other?
All of them again were snapped back to more practical matters by Lieutenant Taylor’s unfazed orders. Some low conversation ensued as they went about their tasks. Ian noticed that Elizabeth requested Corporal Wesshire to come near her, and she gave a little smile as she talked to him about something, to which he didn’t make any overt reactions to.