by G. Howell
“I don’t know.” I shook my head, “My friends say that trouble stalks me. Sometimes, they seem to have a point.”
“Huhn,” he rumbled again and whisked his sideburns back. “Well, I haven’t seen any sign of it yet and I’m glad of it. Now, perhaps you’d like to start moving so we can get there in time for market day?”
------v------
There were a couple of heavy wooden, metal-bound chests to be loaded into the wagon. After he’d cautiously poked his head out and made sure that no-one would see us, I helped him carry them out the back of his shop.
I didn’t have much of a chance to look around in his store, but what I saw was interesting. It was a dimly-lit and cluttered place. Sunlight refracted in through bullseye panes, the thick, bottle-green glass distorted and warped the world beyond into a psychedelic smear of colors and shapes. What light did get through exploded into patches of caustic brightness and tiny rainbows that smeared themselves over walls and floors and furniture. Sample tables and shelves in the small front room carried stock: a mixture of iron and a few steel tools like axe and mattock heads, loops and rings for bridles and animal harnesses, knives and spare blades of various sizes, chains of assorted weights, pokers and coal scuttles, barrels of nails and metal spikes, barrel hoops, examples of wrought iron. I was surprised to see that as well as the utilitarian tools and equipment there was artwork: small figurines and busts of Rris, animals, intricate little replications of trees with interlaced metal branches and leaves. Some of the figurines looked a bit clumsy and out of proportion, but the plants in particular were extremely elegant. They reminded me a bit of English bronze sculptures from the 1800s.
“Your work?” I asked and nodded toward the table crowded with the art as I shouldered a chest.
Heksi blinked, looking distracted at the way I handled a load he would have strained at. “A,” he said. “A. Not much demand for them here, but in Open Fields they’re quite popular. Better money than hauling the same weight of nails that far.”
Any smith worth his salt could make nails, but what he had looked unique. At least, as far as I’d seen. Those little sculptures probably would be worth a fair bit. Even more so if the upper classes came to consider them fashionable.
After loading the wagon up it was back to hiding in the hay. I lay under a pile of stifling dried grass as we clattered through streets for a while until Heksi told me it was clear. I sat up, sputtering and pushing the straw aside. We were at the outskirts, at intersection on the edge of town. There was a ramshackle wall on one side, high hedgerow on the other. “That way,” Heksi barely slowed the cart as he gestured to the bushes. “The river’s there.”
I nodded, vaulted out of the back, and landed clumsily on a stone. I swore and hurriedly limped into the hedgerows before someone else came along. The wagon rolled off along the road, Heksi’s figure slouched on the drivers bench didn’t turn. Myself... I turned and headed for the river.
Of course I couldn’t just go along with Eksi. It wasn’t as if I could ride into town with him, down to the waterfront and help him load his cargo. So we’d decided on another plan. He’d told me of a place where I could wait and he’d collect me in a short while.
Again there were misgivings, but he’d had opportunities enough to betray me already. I couldn’t see why he’d do it now, but stranger things had happened. And the place he’d told me about was there all right. It was an old jetty lying forgotten on the riverward side of a copse of firs and bracken and a broken stone wall. Most of the jetty was gone, rotted away or recycled in some other construction. Weather-bleached wooden decking covered a couple of meters of the wharf out across river reeds but beyond that there were just rotting and drunkenly leaning wooden pylons. And beyond that the Wideweather Way river glittered under the summer sky, broad and slow.
I sat down amongst tall grass and weeds, leaned back against the sun-warmed stones of the tumbled wall, and waited.
Leaves hung over the wall, glowing emerald green from the hot sunlight backlighting them. A cool breeze occasioned down the river, stirring branches. Insects buzzed, dipping and swirling amongst leaves and grasses, low over the gently swirling water. Birds flitted amongst the reeds, diving at bugs. Twice boats passed by on the river, bound downstream: Once a broad-beamed coaster with faded and patched sails moving slowly; another time a sleeker vessel moving at a faster clip. Both were far out in the middle of a waterway that back in my world had handled cargo vessels hundreds of meters long. There wasn’t much chance of their spotting me. I just sat still and unnoticed in the undergrowth, watching them pass with crews going about their business on deck.
There was more time to think. And to worry. But no Mediators materialized from the bushes. No soldiers popped out of the undergrowth. So I just waited and watched the river passing and sketched in the dirt. Not pictures: names and tables. What I could do, what would likely happen if I did that. Trying to figure out what steps to take into an uncertain future. But the more I turned the situation over, the more frustrated I got: I just didn’t know enough. I didn’t know who was after me, or why; I wasn’t sure whom I could trust, where I could go... I just didn’t have enough information as to what the hell was going on.
So, that was going to have to be my first step.
Another boat distracted me from my makeshift notes. This one was a small dingy way out in the broad river, headed downstream from the town at a good clip. A single lopsided sail of faded green canvas caught the wind, swinging around as the Rris at the tiller loosened ropes and turned the boat toward shore. The sharp prow parted the reeds smoothly; the sails set to slapping loosely and the boat glided to the end of the jetty. Heksi caught a pylon, stopping the boat with its unpainted hull bumping against wood. “Hai,” he called over the sound of water and distant birds. “You coming or not?”
Old wood creaked under my feet as I cautiously worked my way out to the end of the jetty. The boat rocked as I clambered aboard, to the accompaniment of consternated advice and hisses from Heksi. I settled cautiously, near the mast. An inch or so of water slopped in the bottom. There was a distinct smell of fish and tar oil. “This is... you’re taking this all the way to Open Fields?” I asked, patting a gunwale.
“A,” he said, bringing the boom around to catch the wind again. “That’s a problem?”
The sailboat was only about six meters long. Just about the size of a recreational dingy back home. It wasn’t just an open hull: the neatly trimmed and recessed cockpit ran most of the length of the boat, up to the covered prow with locker space. The mast was mounted just forward of the cockpit, a single boom sweeping back to anchor the sail. Heksi was seated on a bench at the back, the tiller clamped under one arm while he tweaked ropes. I was a bit surprised to see he was wearing a vest of some kind, but was a bit busy getting seated without tipping us both into the drink. Two benches ran along the sides of the cockpit, just worn planks set against opposite sides of the boat. I carefully settled myself onto the one opposing Heksi. There was just enough legroom that I didn’t have to fold my legs up double to fit in. The chests containing Heksi’s trade goods were forward, stacked up against the cubby doors set in the prow.
While the vessel was battered and the woodwork scratched and gouged by use, it still seemed quite seaworthy. At least from what I could tell. Water seemed to stay on the outside where it belonged, and when Heksi got the sail up the whole boat responded quickly, catching the breeze and skittering out into the river. I looked over the side. The river here was wide and probably quite deep. And Rris have no love for open water.
They can swim for short distances, but they’re not good at it. And most of them don’t even have the inclination to learn to do that. They’re natural sinkers. With their fur and muscular density they can struggle along for a while, but swimming doesn’t come with anything like the ease it does for a human. And when their fur does get waterlogged, it takes them o
ne way: straight down. So, I suppose their unease around water is justifiable.
“Not a problem for me,” I said. “I just thought... this boat’s a bit small. It’s a long journey.”
He chittered and leaned back, resting an arm against the tiller. “I’ve done this often enough. And I can swim very well. How about you?”
“Well enough,” I hung a hand over the side, trailing fingers through the water and didn’t smile. His definition of ‘very well’ and mine doubtless differed.
He snorted and flicked ears, then patted the vest he was wearing. Not normal, I saw that at a second glance. “That’s a life vest? For floating?”
His ears twitched: back and down a fraction. I’d surprised him. “A, that’s right,” he admitted. “No spares, I’m afraid.”
“Don’t worry about it,” I said. The river was wide, but the shores were quite reachable.
He waved a one-handed shrug and leaned back, looking up at the sail. “Head,” he cautioned and I briefly wondered what he was on about, then hastily ducked as the boom squeaked and swung around. The dingy came about, taking a new line downstream.
About seventy kilometers. That was the distance from Rath’s Holding to Open Fields, seventy kilometers. Well, that’s the approximation at any rate. Rris have their own standards of measuring, but a centimeter is a centimeter whether you call it that or one quarter of a finger or a zigplif. It’s the same distance. And it wasn’t a distance we were going to be covering quickly. The boat did maybe five knots, at best, and it was the fastest ride around. So yet again it was a question of hurry up and wait; just sit while Heksi sailed us down the river to Open Fields.
Afternoon sunlight glared off the water, glittering from the gentle ripples and eddies in the dinghy’s wake. The riverbanks scrolled by for kilometer after kilometer. I trailed a hand in the cool water and saw wilderness, acres upon uncounted acres of wilderness: trees and hills and waterlogged meadows where moose chewed wet grasses and watched us pass. Occasionally there were indications of civilization: a clutch of houses nestled in trees, a lone jetty poking out into the water, a trickle of smoke from over a hill. Once we sailed past the remains of an old water mill perched on a low rocky bluff right on the river’s edge, a waterfall spilling down from under the rotting remnants of a water wheel. Several times we passed by fortifications, arranged along both sides of the river. It was a border, after all, and the forts all overlooked the waterway from vantages where traffic would have to pass by their walls. Some of the larger ones were in the old style: towers nestled behind high stone walls. A couple of those were in disrepair, with tumbled walls and towers embraced by creepers. Newer fortifications were smaller and of different design. They huddled low, buildings protected by thick bulwarks of banked earth atop which cannons and a few bored sentries watched the river traffic pass without paying it a lot of attention.
But, in between those odd instances, it was just more of the wilderness I’d spent days trying to escape.
It all felt so incredibly slow. Part of me was still accustomed to seeing the world passing by at a hundred kilometers an hour. When that flashing succession of glimpses of parts of the world was reduced to a single slow panorama, it just felt wrong. Some tiny part inside screaming for the world to speed up. But that wasn’t possible.
We did encounter other vessels a couple of times. Eventually we overtook the slower boat I’d seen go by earlier and there were a couple of slow haulers going the other way. Each time I had to get out of sight and the only way to do that was to curl up in the bottom of the boat and pull that tarp over myself. Lying there in an inch of water, under a piscine-reeking stained tarp while the sun beat down wasn’t an entirely pleasant experience. I could hear Heksi calling greetings and the yowling voices of distant Rris responding and I had to lie still until he let me know it was safe to throw off the stifling canvas.
Most of the rest of the time I was almost able to relax. Heksi didn’t seem to be about to betray me. He could have done so at Rath’s Holding; he could have done so when a boat passed, but he didn’t. Still, there was the possibility that he didn’t want to do so too close to home, where Ea’rest or other associates might hear about the betrayal. So how would he do it? Send messages on ahead to Open Fields where we’d have a reception committee waiting? There’d been boats ahead of us, something could have gone on one of those. But that was so convoluted and unreliable... perhaps I was being too paranoid.
But I still didn’t provide him with any exact details of my plans. Call me paranoid.
------v------
The sun was settling in to the western horizon as we reached a point where the river opened out into a delta of marshes and broad fields of cattails and reeds. Our little boat cruised on through half-hidden little channels that Heksi seemed quite familiar with, the sail barely swelling in the slow evening. Lesser channels branched out all over the place, cutting the delta into a fractured land of water and swampy marsh. Patches of solid land were scattered islands: some just isolated clumps of trees and brush, others large enough for small settlements. Flocks of birds cruised overhead, flapping down into groves and thickets of trees to roost for the night. And there were mosquitoes everywhere. Swarms of the little beggars flocked in to form persistent and whining clouds around us. Heksi sneezed and snorted as they lit on the skin of his nose and in his ears, setting them to flicking like the wings of some bizarre ornithopter. Myself, all I could do was pull the tarpaulin around me to cover as much bare skin as possible and swat whatever tried to bite at my face.
Thank heavens that whining torture eased as the marshes spread aside and the river delta gave way to the lake of Seasons Door. Open water and clear breezes stretched away ahead of us, the wavelet-rippled lake reflecting a twilight purple sky accented with touches of gold from the setting sun. The last time I’d sailed over this water had been on the Ironheart, the most advanced vessel on the water, fresh from his majesty’s shipyards, and I’d been looking forward to a busy if otherwise uneventful week. Now I was being smuggled in aboard a fishing boat which barely even classified as a dingy.
And I was damned lucky to have even that.
The Wideweather Way entered Season’s Door lake at the north eastern side of the lake. Open Fields was over to the west. With that little craft it wasn’t a matter of just cutting across the lake, we had to skirt around the shoreline in the growing darkness. That wasn’t a problem for Heksi. Even with only the faint glow from the stars and rising moon he steered the dingy through delta channels and shallows with an ease and deftness borne from familiarity and a literally inhuman night vision.
By the time the firefly specks of the beacons at the harbor entrance became visible in the distance, the day was long gone. The night sky over the lake was spectacular, with stars and the wisps of distant galaxies reflected in the black waters. Shoreline was basically where they weren’t: a deeper gloom in the darkness. Not too far away, I judged. Time to get ready.
I rummaged around in the murk in the bottom of the boat. It took a while before I found what I was looking for, and when I came up the silhouette of Heksi’s head was facing me with ears pricked. “I was wondering why you needed that,” he said.
The jar’s stopper was stubborn. I fumbled with it for a while in the darkness before I realized it was a screw-top, of all things. Just a twist and the top came off. The contents were black as night, which was the general idea.
“Makes me a bit less noticeable,” I said as I applied the lamp black.
I couldn’t see his expression but I think it was dubious as he watched me smear jet-black powder across my face, across forehead and cheeks and the bridge of my nose. Places where highlights might stand out on my face, then down over the rest of my body. The stuff was essentially fine carbon dust, like a primitive toner. Heksi used it for blackening ironmongery, and it blackened quite admirably. Skin that’d been pale in the moonlight
became... black. Essentially vanishing, to my eyes anyway.
“How’s that look?” I asked.
“Bit less noticeable?” the shadow of Heksi hissed derisively. “I think that would scare off a bear!”
“Less visible though?”
“A,” he conceded, “It is. If you stay still. Where did you learn that trick? Done it before?”
“It’s...” I hesitated. “It’s quite old where I come from.”
“Huhn, and you’re just going to walk onto the docks like that? It’s a good trick, but not that good.”
I paused in the application of the stuff and almost grinned. “Who said anything about walking?”
------v------
Water sluiced quietly around the little boat’s hull as it passed by the walls of the breakwater. From under the tarp, pressed against the wet boards of the hull, that sound was quite audible. I could hear the water, hear the sails creak and flutter as Heksi pulled them in. There was a distant call from another Rris, one of the sentries on the walls most likely.
“Not late,” Heksi called back. “Plenty of time until sunrise.”
I didn’t hear the response. The boat rocked a bit as Heksi moved about and reefed the sails, then a clatter as he unlimbered oars. Presently there was a creaking of oarlocks and a rocking motion as the boat sculled through the harbor and a while after that a foot prodded me.
“Anyone around?” I murmured.
“Unless they’re under there with you, then no,” he retorted.
I peeked. We were in the middle of the harbor. There were ships moored there, some with lights showing but most dark shapes with masts like spindly trees silhouetted against the stars. Nobody watching though. Over at the docks there were more lights burning, gas and oil flames reflecting across the dark waters. I nodded.