Faith, Hope, and Charity

The Rider's Library

After Tress and Isra's exchange, the riders around us turn back to their business and return to their conversations Korban looks at me with a relieved look while Isaac smiles as if nothing had happened at all.

"Well, I'm glad that's settled then. Would you like me to show you to the library?" Isaac says.

"Yes." Tress shoots up and slides out from the table.

The rest of us stand= and I follow Tress and Isaac as they walk out of the dining pit and out of the plaza. Korban catches up behind me.

"Are you a merchant's daughter? Because the only person I've ever seen convince my mother of anything is Tythar and he usually has a pretty hard time."

I beam a smile, "I didn't even know if it would work. I was just afraid that someone would get hurt if they kept arguing."

Tress snorted, "It wouldn't have been me."

"I severely doubt that." Isaac said.

Korban slowed his pace and after several moments, I found myself several steps behind Tress and Isaac.

"Who's Tythar?"

"Isra's deputy. He and Lazar are from the same village." After a moment, he continues, "But really, if you don't mind me asking, who are your parents?"

"I couldn't tell you if I wanted to, Korban. I was a baby when my mother sold me and by then my father was gone. But Charity told me stories about him. He used to be a slave in Nakhot, but he escaped. She said he was a really big man with a big beard and long, curly hair. When she asked why he had so much hair, he said that when he was a slave, the taskmasters wouldn't let them grow any hair. So when he escaped, he let it grow so that they couldn't recognize him."

"How did he escape?" Korban asks. The same look that he had when he was listening to Tress is in his eyes now: like he was painting in his mind with the colors of my words.

"He never went into detail about it, but Charity said that he broke one of the pumps that carries the water to the city and then hid in the caverns. After a couple of days he got back to the surface and hid until his hair got long enough. Then he left the city."

"And how did your mom factor into all of this?"

"Charity never told me much, just that she never was a slave."

"Oh."

Isaac and Tress have lengthened the gap between us and turned a corner. I start to speed up, but Korban says, "I can get you there too. I've lived here my whole life."

I let him catch up to me and then we start walking again.

"So where did your father go? You said that he had left by the time..." He trails off.

"I don't know. That's one of the parts that Charity never talks about."

"It sounds like she's keeping a lot from you."

"I know she is, but it's not because she doesn't want me to know. Hope asks her to tell the stories a lot, and she loves us enough to tell us."

"Loves you enough to tell you?"

"Korban, it hurts her to tell those stories, more than either of us know."

We walk in silence as we turn the corner and start up the hill towards the house he showed us last night. Now people and griffins are trickling down the street. All of them resemble Stoneheart with their grey feather pelts and yellow eyes though each has character that surrounds them like a dust cloud. Someone waves to Korban and he waves back.