046 – Paths

***

I had always thought of myself as a good person who lived in a normal world. That was not true. I was a normal person who lived in a good world. It was easy to be good in the metropolis, because the whole city was designed to make it easy. Everyone was well fed. Entertainment kept people happy. Work kept them busy. Arbiters settled disputes before they got out of hand. Never once was I in situation where violence or murder were realistic possibilities.

In this new world, society’s rules had adapted to the harsh conditions of life. People killed and ate animals because they would starve otherwise. It would be absurd for me to judge them as evil for such an act. Pretending that I was good and they were evil might soothe my feelings, but it would be a dishonest way to avoid the difficult ethical problems facing me. My original morality was unsuited for the modern world and needed to be adjusted.

My basic principles hadn’t changed, and I didn’t simply accept all modern beliefs without question, no matter how bizarre or stupid; but I did need to synthesize these conflicting ideas into some practical way of existing. A new path. I wanted to survive but not betray my true self.

Life in the metropolis was safe and grounded. Simple beliefs about goodwill and pacifism worked well when they were never challenged by violent upheavals and other humans with opposing viewpoints—and opposing spear points. Those old ways did not suffice in this era.

The tithe barn caught fire and sent up dancing flames that lit up streets of South Bowbridge. The alarmed townsfolk rushed to the scene to extinguish the fire, but found it already blazed out of control.

“That’s your distraction?” I said.

“Part of it.” Zambulon responded with an evil look in his eye. He relished a chance to cause some destruction. “But it won’t get us our mounts. We need to cross the river.”

The fire alarms had drawn everyone away from the bridge. No one watched over the gate. The four of us removed the bar keeping it shut. The rusty hinges let out a shrill creak as we pulled open the doors. The town was now open again to cross river traffic.

Most of the angry mob on the other side had already gone home. Only the angriest of the Traditionalists camped out in front of the door, about two dozen men and women. When the gate opened, they spilled past us and went to voice their complaints to the priestess at the lunar temple.

Groups of more civic-minded townsfolk rushed across the bridge to answer the fire alarm. They might be angry, but they still felt a duty to work for the volunteer fire brigade. The citizens of both towns belonged to the same church and wanted to save the tithe barn.

All these people mixed together in the darkness of the gloam, so no one could tell who was who. Some fought and others tried to help. The festival descended into pandemonium.

As people streamed south across the bridge, they left the town of North Bowbridge mostly vacant. We crossed the town to the main gate on the north side of town.

“Yurk and Hwilla. You two open the gate. We’ll meet you there with horses shortly. Strythe, follow me.”

This was the first time Zambulon willing paired himself with me. Yurk and Hwilla went off on their own. We went to a large wooden stables not far off the main road. Zambulon kicked in the building’s side door, busting apart the feeble lock that held it secure. Inside, he lit up his new lumestone.

“We’ll take a team of horses and a coach for the trip, and four additional riding horses in case we need to move quickly. After that, we’ll burn this place to cover our theft.”

“Ho! Who’s there?” a voice called out. A stableboy came into the barn, holding up a covered lantern in one hand. The sound of the breaking door had woken him.

Zambulon did not hesitate. He whipped out his sword and cut down the young man in a flash. The body fell lifeless to the manure covered floor.

“What was that for? You didn’t have to kill him,” I objected.

“No witnesses.”

“We could have knocked him out or something.”

“We aren’t going to take any unnecessary chances. And we aren’t here to make friends either. Get to work.”

“What about the other horses? Are they witnesses too, or can I let them out before you torch the place?”

“Just make it fast.” Zambulon dragged the corpse of the stable boy to a pile of hay and then doused it with lamp oil. Another burnt sacrifice for tonight’s festival.

I let the horses out of the back of the stables and shooed them into the lane while Zambulon harnessed the others to a four wheeled coach. The locals might not realize the coach had gone missing after the place burned down. Zambulon snapped his finger as we left, and the funeral pyre ignited.

We lead the horses on foot down the street. The moon was a dark purple bruise in a black sky. It made a striking image as it passed in front of the galactic hub, a dense cloud of the brightest stars in the sky. I could see why the modern people picked nights when the astronomical bodies all lined up to hold their special feasts. The lunar eclipse was ending, and a bright sliver thread of light appeared at the edge of the moon. We didn’t have much longer to escape unnoticed.

“I’ll drive the coach. The three of you ride the horses just in case we’re followed. We may need to flee. Strythe, lead the fourth horse by the reins for me.”

We mounted our horses and continued onto the king’s highway. Zambulon seemed dissatisfied that his plan had gone so well and that we didn’t meet more resistance at the gate. He wanted to vent his dark anger by slicing up some guards. But the people of North and South Bowbridge had their own troubles to deal with and took no notice of our escape.

***

We made our first camp at a fork in the road. After several days without pursuit, we were fairly sure that no one suspected our involvement in the arson at Bowbridge. The locals probably blamed each other for the fires and forgot about the presence of the four travelers passing through town.

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“Strythe and I will take the first watch. You two can sleep until midnight. I’m going to go hunt for some food.”

Zambulon purposefully left Hwilla and Yurk to themselves. He let them sleep and take watch at the same time. And he avoided them by patrolling far from the campsite. The two lovebirds sat close together, sighed, smiled, giggled, and held hands. Young love. It was very wholesome and also pretty disgusting for everyone around them. Zambulon had the same expression as someone in the throes of seasickness concentrating hard on not vomiting.

Hwilla and Yurk leaned against each other inside the cabin of the coach while I attended to the animals. The horses needed some time free from their harnesses and saddles. They grazed on fresh grass nearby and devoured what fodder we had brought with us on the coach. I made a small campfire and encircled it with stones so that no one traveling the highway would see its light.

Several hours later Zambulon returned with a brace of wild hares. He said nothing to me as he pulled of their skin and butchered the animals. I watched him do his bloody work.

“I don’t approve of killing stable boys. Or normal citizens in general.”

“You’re too soft. The strong hunt the weak. That’s how things work.”

“Beasts hunt from hunger. They kill to survive. Killing a man out of spite is different. There’s no reason for it but to vent your anger.”

“You should be glad I don’t vent it your way.”

“That would be fine. I can take it. I’m a swordsman,” I said. “A duel between two swordsmen is a willing trial of strength. They both accept the possibility of death the day they picked up a sword. And it’s the same with nobles fighting nobles, soldiers fighting soldiers, monsters and monsters. It may be a foolish waste, but at least the victims made a choice. Killing normal people, bystanders who want to live peacefully, that doesn’t sit well with me. I won’t change my mind about that at least.”

“You’ve forgotten how the world operates, Strythe. The strong rule; the weak submit. The worthy are rejected; the foolish prosper. The gods dispense no justice, no matter what the priests say. The world isn’t fair.”

I stared across the fire at him. “Maybe it should be…”

“Would you fix it? Only Saints and madmen think they can change the world. Those who try are cast down, the way the gods tumbled the Ancients’ blasphemous tower.”

“Hmm. Perhaps I’ll build a new one of those. I’d like to have words with these moon people everyone keeps talking about.”

“Madman,” he scoffed.

Zambulon was a very angry young man, and not because I annoyed him or a girl rejected him, but from some deeper nihilism. But then, that shouldn’t have surprised me. Happy people don’t join necromantic cults. He wanted something from the Phantoms that this unfair world could not offer him.

***

I awoke the next morning at sunrise. The others breakfasted on the last of Zambulon’s hares. It was the first food we had since the festival in Bowbridge.

“I saw a plantation nearby when hunting last night. We can try to buy provisions there and more fodder for the horses. I also want to ask the locals where we are on the map, so that we don’t take any wrong turns.”

A knight owned a large plantation near the crossroads. Fields and pastures surrounded a central estate, and an ancient wall surrounded the barns, workshops, and the family manse. Workers repaired the crumbling brick wall with a layer of cob. It had been many decades since a war threatened the land, and all the defenses needed to be mended.

Zambulon went to speak with the master of the estate while the three of us waited outside. Hwilla and Yurk sat next to one another atop the coach while I fed the horses.

“What are those women with buckets doing?” I asked.

“Those are milkmaids,” Hwilla said.

“Ugh. What does that mean?”

“It means they milk the cows.”

“Seriously? And the cows agree to that? I have to see this for myself…”

I walked off across the plantation to investigate, leaving the two young lovers alone to flirt.

It turned out that the milkmaids used their buckets to milk the cows rather than drinking right from the source. And the auroch cows raised no objection to this madness; they looked quite at ease. I spoke with the girls briefly and discovered they solidified the milk to make cheese, which did not spoil as fast as the liquid form. This whole time, I had been eating fermented mammal mucus and no one told me.

When I came back, Zambulon had returned.

“We’re at a crossroads on the map. The highway continues straight north, but the county roads bend northwest toward our destination. So we can take several days off our travel time by taking a short cut,” he said.

“Isn’t the highway better maintained?” I asked.

“Yes, but it’s also more heavily traveled. We don’t want anyone going to Bowbridge to notice us. There’s an off chance they could connect us to the arson and murder. Traveling on smaller roads will keep us out of sight.”

“Okay. That sounds like the safer option.”

“Not exactly. The knight warned me that the road cuts through wide swaths of hills and forests where brigands live. They sometimes rob people traveling along the road. He said it wasn’t safe for a small group with a single coach to pass through the wilds.”

“Oh. That’s bad then.”

“For normal people. A few bandits are nothing but a minor nuisance to a group of four swordsmen.”

We purchased some supplies for ourselves and our mounts and then loaded them all onto the coach. I was wary about going into the wilderness controlled by robbers. For the first time, I no longer had Malisent bossing me around and making life hard, but at the same time, there was no powerful witch there to save me from danger. The four of us were newly enkindled swordsmen. Normal people might not pose a threat, but a real swordsmen could defeat all of us with ease. Our two senior disciples only knew a single rank-one tier-one technique, and the two juniors didn’t know any at all. Even without considering techniques, we lacked practical experience in combat. Zambulon’s shortcut made me uneasy.

Our coach rolled upon the narrow road, which was much bumpier than the king’s highway. The horses moved slower down the dirt path. Farms and plantations became less common sights and then disappeared entirely. The woods grew thicker.

When the first settlers came to Sandgrave, they burned down the native forests. They cleared out all the dangerous trees and the worst of the toxic vegetation. With no place to hide, monsters fell to human hunters. The massive destruction changed the landscape and left many rocky wastelands and bare hills. But that had happened centuries ago. Settlers replanted the less noxious varieties of trees, and those had grown into whole new forests over time. No place on the continent was perfectly safe, but the peninsula’s forests were not the odious death traps of those north of the Highshield Mountains—or over in the Spitpoison Valley.

The settlers reintroduced a few wild animal species to the peninsula, such as hares and crows and carp, but most of the creatures fell in between the categories of animals and monsters. They were too weird to be called animals, but not big and scary enough to be labeled as monsters. Colorful birds sang and screeched in the trees. Dog sized rats scurried through the underbrush. Snails as big a person’s head clung to boulders. Frogs with skin flaps between their limbs glided from tree branch to tree branch.

The forest thrived with mutant life. I, for one, had no desire to go camping among all the weird little creatures that crept through the woods.