Passages

by Olan Thorensen

  “Hold off. I may be a little better. I even feel like trying to eat some bread.” By evening, she was ravenous, the seasickness gone.

  Mark had a milder case, as had happened every time he went to sea in the U.S. Navy. His mild nausea was gone by the second day. Alys was their outlier. Not only did the motion of the ship not bother her, she thought it was part of a game.

  The seas were gentle, with enough wind to fill the sails but not enough to create more than three-foot swells. As a result, they reached the Novaryn port of Dawlber in eight days. Mark paid the captain the final two large golds, and the crew helped unload the Kaldwels’ belongings on the dock. The ship returned to sea immediately.

  “No reason for us to hang around,” said the captain. “We’re fully provisioned, and there are fish waiting to be caught. Good luck with whatever reason you had to get out of Frangel.”

  Alys waved goodbye to the captain. He tousled her hair and returned the wave before reboarding.

  “Well, what did you think of your first sea voyage?” asked Mark.

  “It was tolerable once I decided I wasn’t going to die from puking my insides out,” said Maghen. “I was almost angry at Alys. It may have been one of the best times she’s had. I was scared about her falling overboard until that crewman made a harness for her that tied around my waist. I certainly got tired of standing with her on the front of the deck, letting spray hit us, but it kept her quiet and calm.”

  “Well, we’re here,” said Mark. “We can’t carry all our things, so you stay on the dock while I look for transportation. We’ll find an inn, and tomorrow I’ll start talking with people about the best way to keep moving west. Maybe we’ll hire a guide to lead us as far as possible. That assumes I’m able to find people who can understand me. The captain says the language here is similar enough that we should have no problem, but we’ll see.”

  Something like Spanish and Italian, Mark thought. He’d heard that speakers of those two languages could get by in the other country, but “getting by” was chancy when trying to find one’s way in a strange country with unknown dangers.

  “What’s your ultimate destination?” asked a snaggle-toothed man. Mark had been referred to him as someone familiar with Tekleum, the next realm west of Novaryn. The man also spoke enough Frangelese to avoid the struggle Mark had had with other contacts. The two languages were similar, but Mark estimated he could understand only half of what other men told him.

  Mark hadn’t intended to share their destination.

  “Not that I need to know why you’re going wherever it is, but it changes the route. I couldn’t advise without knowing more.”

  “We’re going to Ganolar,” said Mark, referring to the continent to the west. That much information didn’t reveal Caedellium as their ultimate destination.

  “Then Heliom is where you’d best try to look for a ship.”

  Mark didn’t reveal that he’d never heard of the city.

  “Looking at a map, most people would think going straight west from here is best. But that’s not the way I would go if I were heading into Rumpas on the other side of Tekleum. The damn Tekleumese hate the Novarynese, and you’ll sound like one of us to anyone you meet once you cross the border. No, I’d go south to skirt around the Unrul Sea, then west to the Rumpas border and on to Heliom. Of course, the zerniks are more of a problem on the southern route, but you could run into them wherever you go in Tekleum.”

  Mark remembered using zerniks as a topic diversion with the Ostyns in Landylbury when he’d made the mistake of responding to the word Amerika. The dog-size pack predators reminded him of a Tasmanian devil he’d seen in a Sydney zoo.

  “But that’s me,” said the man. “You say you’re traveling with a wife and a child. I wouldn’t recommend any route in Tekleum, but if you’re determined, maybe straight west is best. It will avoid the worst of the zernik range and is a few hundred miles shorter.”

  “What would it take to get past the border and through Tekleum to Rumpas?” asked Mark.

  “You’ll need someone to get you over the border. Not me, of course. But as it happens, I’ve a cousin who knows the paths that avoid border guards and villages near the border. You’d have to pay him, but he should be able to get you at least fifty miles into Tekleum. After that, you’d be on your own. Be warned that the Tekleumese are generally morose and suspicious. If I were you, I’d move as fast as I could. Don’t talk to anyone and prove you’re a foreigner.”

  “Can you introduce me to your cousin?” asked Mark.

  “I don’t see a choice,” Mark said to Maghen two hours later. “This man, Nunstel, may be some kind of smuggler. He’ll guide us to the border and then into Tekleum far enough so the local people will be less suspicious that we’re from Novaryn. After that, we’ll make a dash for Rumpas about five hundred miles farther. With luck, we could make the next border in three sixdays.”

  “What about food and water?” asked Maghen.

  “Nunstel says water is not a problem—plenty of streams and lakes. Food is different. We’ll have to carry as much as we can, and I’ll have to hunt if we run short. There’s supposed to be game animals the zerniks like to hunt, and we’ll have to carefully pick campsites—the zerniks aren’t much for rocky ground or climbing. According to Nunstel, the damn things are less common than farther south. Those you run into are either solitary or in smaller groups than they used to be, but we’ll be cautious.”

  “Will we be blind again once we reach Tekleum?” asked Maghen. “Not knowing what the country is like?”

  “I’m afraid so, for the last half of Tekleum,” Mark said. “Nunstel claims to be familiar with the countryside for another couple hundred miles beyond where he leaves us, although it’s more what he’s heard from locals, rather than his own experience. He’ll tell us what he knows. He’s already indicated there are no major mountain ranges unless we stray too far south.

  “Nunstel will also help me buy horses and supplies tomorrow, and we’ll leave the next morning. That gives us two more nights here in the inn. Nunstel says he knows of inns and homes of people where we can sleep until we cross into Tekleum. After that, we’ll be sleeping outside again until we get to Heliom.

  “We won’t worry about traveling as far as possible each day. We’ll want ourselves and the horses to be as fresh as possible until we enter Tekleum. After that, we’ll push as hard as we and the horses can take it, until we cross the next border into Rumpas. Word is, the people there are less antagonistic to foreigners.”

  “How are we for coin?” asked Maghen.

  “I won’t lie to you. We’re spending it faster than I’d like. Oh, there’s still plenty left—I’m only comparing how much we’ve spent with how far we have to go. We knew we might have to look for work at some point. Once we leave Novaryn, we won’t be able to speak the local languages. My Suvalu will probably only work in port cities, so that’s where we’ll have to find work.”

  Nunstel’s description of the terrain proved accurate. They took eight days to reach the border, sleeping indoors and having hot meals in the evenings and the mornings. The rolling countryside had many farms. They passed fields of crops and fenced pastures with horses, cattle, and what looked like different breeds of the sheep-size krykors Mark was familiar with in Frangel.

  He was startled when, on their fourth day from Dawlber, he glanced at Maghen and saw tears on her cheeks.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked, drawing alongside her horse.

  She angrily wiped a hand across both cheeks. “I’m all right. It’s just that traveling like this, I can almost fool myself that we’re going on a trip to visit distant relatives or maybe coming with you to Landylbury. Things I’d look forward to. Maybe it’s too quiet after what we’ve been through. Before, there was so much to worry about—leaving home, watching for the men chasing us, the fights, and all the rest. Compared to then, these last few days have given me time to fully understand I’ll never see my family again.”

  Fres
h tears appeared. He shifted his reins to the hand of the arm holding Alys and reached to take Maghen’s hand. “You’ve been incredibly brave. Not many people, men or women, could have held up as well as you, after having all this dumped on you like a mountain. I’ll always feel guilty that you and Alys got torn from your home and put in danger.”

  She grimaced. “No, dearest, the saints tell us that fault lies with intent. How can you be at fault when we don’t know why the Narthani are so interested in you? You’re taking responsibility for keeping us all safe. I confess there were moments, the first sixday, when I was angry with you. Then I’d change from one moment to the next with being angry at the world, God, the Narthani, and back to you. But the uncertainty is gone. It’s unreasonable to be angry at the world. It just the way it is. Being angry at God is blasphemous, and I know it doesn’t fall to you. That leaves the Narthani.”

  She stiffened in the saddle. “I’m all right. Here. Let me take Alys for a while. It’ll help my mood to hold her and concentrate on something other than myself.”

  Mark transferred a smiling child to her mother. Being handed from horse to horse was a favorite game of hers. Mark watched his wife settle Alys in front of her on the saddle. He didn’t argue with Maghen’s understanding of the relationship of guilt to fault. Not that he couldn’t have debated the points, but guilt remained for reasons he couldn’t share.

  He had lied to her about how he’d come to Frangel. The reasons for not telling her were obvious and rational, which didn’t detract from the fact that he’d lied. He had also lied to her by omission about his entire reason for leaving their home. His worry about the Narthani was real, as was the knowledge that the guilds had learned of his whereabouts. He knew leaving was the right decision. Yet he couldn’t be sure how the urge to find out what waited at Caedellium might have influenced him.

  CHAPTER 29

  TEKLEUM

  They crossed the Novaryn/Tekleum border wearing clothes and headgear that Nunstel said would let them pass for typical Tekleumese. At the last Novaryn village, in addition to the clothes, they bought as much food and grain as the horses could carry. It was a delicate balance—more weight slowed the horses, but feed reduced the time they needed to graze. To help, they added another packhorse and replaced a sorrel when Mark noticed the horse favoring its right foreleg. For the next five days, humans and horses were fed from Nunstel’s packhorse. They traveled almost a hundred miles farther in Tekleum than planned—on the condition that their guide got to keep the extra horse.

  “Good luck to you,” said Nunstel on the morning of his leaving. He rode away without looking back.

  Mark shook his head. “That’s one of the longest sentences he’s spoken since we crossed the border.”

  Maghen chuckled. “I’m satisfied he got us here without trouble. I wouldn’t have minded if he didn’t say another word but got us to Rumpas.”

  “You’re right, and let’s get moving. We’ll follow his advice and stick to the roads as much as possible so we can cover ground faster. He says the Tekleumese are not that friendly, even to each other, so if we don’t acknowledge people we pass, maybe they won’t suspect anything.”

  Mark estimated they’d covered forty miles before stopping at dusk to camp a mile past a shabby-looking village. Nunstel’s opinion of the Tekleumese was accurate. They passed scores of wagons, riders, and walkers near villages, but they avoided eye contact and only twice did anyone say anything to them. Both times they ignored the speaker, only one of whom persisted and ended up sputtering what Mark figured were local curses.

  On the second day, they slowed the pace, covering about thirty miles. Mark worried about the horses tiring under their loads.

  “It’ll get better as we use up the grain,” he said. “Our best time will probably be when we’re almost out. After that, we’ll slow again to let the horses graze.”

  Mark had memorized the major features from a map of Drilmar, and each day he tried to visualize where they were. “I think we’re a third of the way between Novaryn and Rumpas. We’re making good time. If all goes well, we’ll reach the next border in two sixdays or less, assuming nothing goes wrong.”

  Something went wrong. They were three days from the Rumpas border when disaster nearly struck. Mark had noticed that grazing wildlife in Frangel often tolerated a human presence, as long as it was just out of reasonable musket range.

  They weren’t short yet of food, but when antelope-like animals strayed within range of his rifles, he grabbed the opportunity to treat his family. He took down a male at three hundred yards. They stopped early to dress the carcass. Mark cobbled together a frame, cut the meat into strips, and hung it above a big-enough fire to roast one haunch and smoke another overnight.

  They sat by the fire and shaved off slices as the meat cooked, ending up with fuller stomachs than since leaving the ranch. As they slept, Mark woke every couple of hours to rotate the meat strips and tend the fire, maintaining a constant source of heat and smoke.

  He’d always had an internal alarm clock, which was why he felt momentarily disoriented to wake up only a few minutes after going back to sleep—it wasn’t time to tend the fire and the meat again. He lay wondering what part of the night it was. He thought the stars were in the same position as when he’d awakened previously.

  A loud snort came from one of the horses staked nearby. Then another. Other vocalizations began, along with a stamping of hooves on the ground. He sat up and listened. There was something else besides the horses. A hissing sound, as if from a teakettle letting off steam. He put on his boots and stood. The strange sound was closer and merged into what sounded like a gargle. In the dim light he could see the horses bumping against one another, as if trying to cluster against danger.

  He shook his wife. “Maghen, get up. Something is out there.”

  “What—”

  Mark went to their stacked gear and unwrapped a weapons bundle. He stuck one of the double-barreled pistols in his belt and picked up a rifle and a shotgun.

  He handed the shotgun to Maghen. “Here. Watch out for Alys. I’m going to the horses.”

  The fire was still burning from the last wood he’d added. Keeping an eye on the darkness, he put several more pieces of wood on the fire. He had walked three paces toward the horses when a form flashed out of the darkness and landed on the back of the horse he’d been riding. As if materializing out of thin air, another form attached to a hind leg of a packhorse.

  The horses kicked into the darkness. Mark thought he saw one form go flying away with a screeching version of the hissing sound. Yet the creatures’ otherwise silence lent an eerie cast to the attack. The light from the fire shining on plunging horses and slashing forms created a strobe-like effect. He couldn’t tell how many of them there were, as forms dashed in and out of the firelight.

  Mark fired at the creature on top of his horse.

  BOOM.

  He didn’t know where he’d hit it, but it vanished into the night.

  The packhorse with the form attached to a leg fell to the ground.

  THRUM.

  Maghen’s scream and a shotgun blast from behind him made him whirl. A zernik had a mouthful of blanket and was trying to pull it away with Alys caught in the folds. THRUM.

  Maghen fired the second barrel—not at the zernik clamped onto the blanket but at another one coming to join the first.

  Mark tossed the rifle at the zernik threatening Alys and drew the pistol. He cocked the hammer as he aimed. The instant the barrel aligned at the target only twenty feet away, he fired.

  Boom.

  In the firelight, he saw dark blood gush in a spray. But instead of the zernik dropping dead, it went into a frenzy. Its head blurred, shaking back and forth, legs jerked independently, and a muted hissing joined the now awake Alys’s screams.

  Boom.

  Mark fired the second barrel of his pistol. The zernik jumped off the ground and collapsed, the blanket still in the animal’s jaws. Maghen tried to pull
Alys out from the tangled blanket. When she failed to free Alys quickly enough, she frantically hit the head of the dead zernik with the stock of her shotgun, yelling like a banshee.

  Mark raced to the unwrapped weapons bundle, grabbed the other double-barreled pistol and two of the smaller, single-shot pistols, and ran back to Maghen.

  “Stop, Maghen! It’s dead! Take the pistols!”

  She ignored him as he shouted at her a second time. When she ignored him again, he shoved the two small pistols in his right hand under the opposite arm and grabbed the expended shotgun from Maghen. She turned to him, her eyes wide, a furious look on her face.

  “Here!” He thrust the pistols at her. “Take these and guard Alys. I have to go to the horses.”

  Her expression cleared. She gulped, grabbed the pistols, and assumed a stance over Alys, who was still screaming.

  Mark turned to the horses, still agitated but now alone. The zernik that had attacked the pack animal was gone, but the damage was done. Even with only distant firelight, he could see that the horse was finished. A rear leg was gruesomely savaged, and a piece of hide was ripped loose on its side, blood flowing from deep gashes. He led the suffering animal, hobbling on three legs, a hundred yards away and ended its agony with a pistol shot behind an ear.

  He returned to the other horses and talked in as soothing a voice as the adrenaline still roaring through his body would allow. Gradually, they calmed down, as he touched each one. He kept his eyes on the darkness and strained to hear more of the eerie hissing that he now knew came from zerniks.

  Nothing. No hissing. Only the sounds of wind in nearby foliage, the horses’ vocalizations and hoof scuffles as they came down from their agitation, and the crying of Maghen and Alys.

  He wanted to go to his family, but the rational part of his mind made him reload all the weapons first. By the time he’d finished, Maghen sat on the ground hugging and murmuring to her quietly sobbing child.