Griffin's Fate

Chapter Seven - Part One

A decade ago, when that random bard from Gloxy had stopped in Raylim's shop, he'd wrapped Ken's young mind up in his stories. Ken still remembered the slender man's ruddy brown goat beard, and his thick sage-and-butter accent, when he'd said there were three kinds of places. Ones where the people moved. Ones where they didn't. And ones like Soffold, where the land and the sea moved them. The first was the most fun to perform for. The last made the most money, in reminding fishermen and farmhands they could dance and flirt.

But Wiohl was the middle kind of place. The Vales had been warned it had never been the same since a plague last winter. Its adults and children stood in the dirt road, with grubby, unwashed faces. They stared at the two foreigners and their strange wheeled contraption. Leesher's tinker getup was nigh-on mystical, and just as untrusted. Wiohl was just ten buildings and a bridge over a river, but those stares made the crossing painfully slow. Ken urged their horse on, and kept his hazel eyes on the rooflines or the plain stylings of the Wiohlian shoes. He made a friendly wave to a group his age and got puzzled glances. Like his face was built out of the wrong kinds of shapes.

Never linger in the middle kind of place, the roguish bard from Gloxy had said.

When they finally passed the stone boundary markers across the river, Ken flicked his fingers and muttered a cleansing prayer. His Mum did too. She was quick to light a stick of incense off the back of the cart. The trail of bluish jasmine smoke in their wake would draw off the malaise.

"Broken spirits are like rubble," she said, looking forward at the road. "It is right to want to help. But they can bury you, if you are not careful."

That evening brought a new waystation, with a new cast of faces. Ken was trying to do better at learning the helpers' names. This time it was easier, as the staff were wildly different in build and height. The new chaperone guards were Cam and Gidgill, who would ride in opposite directions in the morning with whoever followed them. Aksona was tonight's cook, and her stew was better than the others Ken had eaten. He tasted lots of thyme and basil. It was different, for once. When he'd complimented her on it she'd hugged him like a big sister and said he was a charmer. The two guards were in their forties, while she was only a little older than Ken. And Leesher's sour old face was there too, still bearing a grudge for a whelp making fun of his stories.

But Ken's Mum went right for their first floor room again, like she was hiding herself away. He sat beside her on the straw bed, and cupped one of her little hands that looked lost. She'd been quiet today.

"What's making you nervous?" he asked.

"Miltalak." The odd sound pooled on her tongue. "Where we are headed tomorrow. My Papi would talk about seeing their warships. And how proud those Miltalaki engineers must have been, when their blades cut gashes in the ocean." She moved her hand like a ship's keel and bounced it on his palm like he was the waves. "But none of those beautiful boats ever came home. I worry it is not safe for us, even with the escort."

"There's no way around?"

She shook her head but made a sly chuckle. She patted his hand and rose to make tea.

"I guess the mapmakers did not expect an Arnabi mage would need to get to school."

He smirked, but truthfully he wasn't ready for those kinds of words. They made for a rough night. Apparently he wasn't the only one. The sun rose and for the first time, a waystation was not on schedule. Aksona's kitchen was cold and empty. The two guards hadn't left their quarters. And twenty merchants and farmers were packed, ready to leave. The crowd hovered behind Muriel in the hall. She was the brave one, they'd all decided. She knocked sharply on the guards' green-stained door.