The Cinders of Dezu

8th: Manifestation (1)

Cairo's palms felt very sweaty. He rubbed them on his new pants over and over again as his legs dangled from the back of the wagon. Julian thought he was nervous.

"It's alright man, we got this!" he said, giving his shoulder a gentle reassuring shake.

His legs dangled off of the wagon next to him. He spoke low enough that the driver couldn't hear. Cairo readjusted his open vest. It didn't fit too bad, all things considered. When they had changed earlier that morning he wondered if Harper had measured them while they slept.

Julian had again flipped through the Dezuian Survival Guide until he found the section about Talia again. Wherever they were, the book said they would be near a town. If they wanted to meet Talia after sending the signal, they had to find their way into the town the following morning. This lead to a reference for another section of the book that discussed travel and city dwelling.

The book said if you could make it to a main road you could hitchhike into the nearest town on someone's wagon or selling cart. In exchange though, it was customary to assist a seller going to market with unloading their goods. You could also work for them for a small wage as a 'Wandering Hand', a kind of freelance volunteer to the local market sellers.

So the two had dressed themselves in the local fashion as provided by Harper and collected their things in the burlap bags he'd given them. They didn't know or much think about when they would be back. But as Cairo locked the doors with key they had been given, he noticed for the first time that the doors of the house had holsters meant for barricades. It explained the wooden slats he had found stacked near the couch. He thought last night would have been a very good time to have known about them.

He decided it didn't matter whether or not he had gotten to know all the ins and outs of the house. As he'd left that morning, he told himself he would never be back here again. If he could help it, once he'd retrieved Raina, he'd make sure not to spend another night in this place called Dezu.

The man who had stopped for them on the road was a light skinned man with sandy brown hair and hazel eyes. He must have been somewhere in his late thirties with a friendly smile as he sat atop his wagon. Next to him sat what the boys had decided must have been his son. Not much more was expressed other than a gesture for the two to get in the back, indicating to them how common a Wandering Hand must have been.

Cairo leaned his back against the wooden crates and sacks bundled up behind them, still rubbing his hands on his clothes. This whole thing had been strange and it was true that he was feeling nervous about going into the city. But the way his hands were sweating... he wasn't that nervous. He couldn't keep his palms dry for the life of him.

"You should make a list! You always feel better when you make lists, right?" Julian said with a reassuring smile. Then he added, "I mean like... you should do it in your head cuz' we don't have paper."

They hadn't been paying attention to the direction they were going but the book assured them that whoever was traveling with goods on the road would be heading into the nearest town. So when the wagon stopped it took them a moment to realize why. They turned around to see a stone wall, perhaps about ten to twelve feet high. They were positioned in front of it's entrance, a large set of opened steel doors. They clearly needed two people to drag them open as they were tall and wide enough to let caravans of various sizes through. There, two men stood at the ready with short swords holstered at their sides. A third man in the center walked up to address their wagon.

He looked friendly and casually spoke to the driver about his goods with a smile. After a short discussion, he was given the go-ahead and they continued forward. As the boys passed the guards, they tried not to look out of place. They gave them a wave. The two men on either side of the doors gave them a friendly nod. Julian cocked his head as he noticed the guard on his side of the wagon had something going on with his nose. It was pointed in a way that felt very alien, but he couldn't put his finger on why.