The breakfast table, a bare concrete block, had acquired a patina of windborne sand, and the chairs around it were a mix, mostly made of metal or dry wood. The building, its bricks painted white, served as Muster’s sole gathering place—tavern, restaurant, public square. Each of the outdoor tables had a single perfumed candle, lit to repel insects, but mostly ineffective, as Farisa still had to bat gnats away from her face.

They ate fresh-caught fish and crab meat—there was little else on offer. Seasoning was light and the coffee was weak, but the meal wasn’t bad overall.

Garet poured hot coffee from a steel pitcher. “Would you like some?”

Farisa said, “In this heat?”

“The locals say it helps them sweat. It surprised me too, when I first came here.”

“That’s right,” said Farisa. “Sometimes I forget you’ve been here before.”

Runar joined them. “When do we leave?”

“Claes and I just need a couple more days to get supplies together.”

Farisa had imagined they would be on their way shortly after landfall, but their journey would require a host of provisions, much of which could not have been carried over from Ettaso. Food cost the same here, though one had to pay in silver, but basic tools were priced three times higher than their usual level.

About an hour after sunrise, Mazie came out of their white tent, preferred over the local hotels for the fact of it cooling off quickly. The woman’s legs, bitten by bugs, had become as spotted as a leopard’s coat.

Farisa said, “Good morning, sunshine.”

“Fuck off.” Mazie rubbed her eyes. “Where’s Claes?”

“He’s changing our money,” Garet said. “The rate was better in Grunwind, but we would have tipped off the Company if we’d tried to convert it all in one place.”

Farisa said, “Is there anything we can do to help?”

“It’s a one-person job,” Garet said.

“I know, but he’s doing a lot.” Farisa imagined Claes, who had taken responsibility for negotiations and provisions—food and ammunition; wagons, which had to be tested not only for structural integrity but likely adaptability to the harsh terrain ahead; animals—would tire of having to haggle in the hot sun.

“Claes is a good reader of people and context. Down here, if you mention the Mountain Road, the price of everything doubles. If you are known to be with a large group, it is assumed that you are interested in the Road, and it’s the same.” Garet looked behind himself. “On a wholly other topic, we’re going to be joined by an old friend of mine. His name’s Saito, and he’ll be here tomorrow morning. He once hiked the Wyovian Trail, ocean to ocean, with no more than a knife, a canteen, and the clothes on his back.”

“That’s impressive,” Runar said.

“Aye, it is,” Farisa agreed.

“He’s the best crossbow shooter I’ve ever seen,” Garet said.

Runar said, “A crossbow? Why would we need a crossbow?”

Garet said, “In the bowels of Switch Cave, there are pockets of flashfire thick enough that even a spark would be the end of us. Firearms, in such places, are out of consideration.”

The rest of the day passed without much event. Farisa’s legs were starting to crave movement, so she walked Muster’s perimeter at least ten times. Lunch and dinner were such similar meals, she wondered if the people who lived here ever tired of the lack of variety. That evening, she slept lightly in socks under a blanket that she had used before, but that here felt scratchy and too short. In liquid half-sleep she pictured the beautiful places—the deserts, the forests, the mountains—she and these people would go, but was then struck by dread of Switch Cave—the endless darkness, the dangerous gasses, the drampfs and orcs.

It’s only a tunnel, Farisa. It’s nine miles long. You’ve done that in half a day.

After midnight, she fell into a deeper slumber, interrupted only once by a loud brawl a few streets away. She woke around dawn and the light came on fast, as if by a switch. The heat wasn’t as bad today—Garet’s thermometer had reached five flags by eight thirty, but an easterly wind was coming over the mountains, leaving the air so dry that to sit in the shade remained pleasant as late as noon.

Farisa and Mazie climbed a hill, about three hundred feet high, and, under a massive palm tree, watched ships enter and leave Muster’s harbor.

Mazie pointed at a small sailboat. “I think that one’s ’is.”

“Saito’s? It’s barely seaworthy. No, I think he’s on that white ship out there.”

“I ’ope not. It’s still two hours away.”

“For all Garet has talked him up, do you think he’d come here on that thing?”

“No.” Mazie rolled her eyes. “I think ’e’d come on a kayak.”

They were still arguing about this when the man—light-skinned, black-haired, middle-aged—reached the base of their hill and called for them. “Garet sent me to tell you that lunch is ready.”

Farisa stood up. Sunlight blasted her face. “Let’s go eat, Mazie.”

With the poise and reflexes of a cat, Mazie got down the steep hill in what appeared to be an effortless run. Farisa used a more cautious pace, testing her footing on the crumbly dust before shifting her weight to step. It hadn't taken so long to come up here, but coming down proved tricky. At the bottom, Saito extended a hand; to Farisa’s embarrassment, she required his help for balance when descending the last few feet.

Once on the flat, the three walked back to the tavern.

Farisa said, “Tell me about the Wyovian Trail.”

Saito laughed. “I was very young. I’m lucky to be alive.”

“Is it that dangerous?”

“The terrain itself is not dangerous, but…”

“Bandits?” Mazie asked. “Globbos?”

“They’d be my primary concern now, but they had no interest in that side of the mountains back then.”

“So what is it, then? Bears?”

“No. I saw so many bears, I became used to them. You learn where to go, where not to go, and where you can go but only if you’re not alone. I did get a glimpse of a stormcat once, on the Sapake Ridge, but the only animal I was afraid of was—I don’t know the word in Ettasi, but we call them miaki.”

“Oh,” Farisa said. “Like elk?”

“Much bigger,” Saito said, nodding to Garet as they rejoined the others at the tavern. “Ten or twelve feet at the shoulder.”

Mazie said, “Aren’t they ’erbivores?”

“They are, and they’re calm most of the year, but during their rutting season—the last two weeks of September—a bull will fight anything. If a rabbit causes a rustle, he will hunt it down and kill it. I, clueless on this matter, crossed their range at the worst time. It was just after sunset and I came over a hill and, as close to him as you are to me, a bull about twelve feet high.”

Mazie said, “Oh? What did you do?”

“Froze in terror, is the honest answer.” Saito laughed. “I was so young. Twenty. I tried to back away, as slow as I could, but every motion seemed to ruffle him more. I knew I couldn’t outrun him, of course.

“My senses dulled. I was sure I would be found dead there, if found at all, and probably not until spring. I heard a sound—it felt like she was my sister, but I have no sisters; perhaps one from a past life?—in the center of my head that said, Play dead. So I did. The miaki sniffed me, butted me with his nose a few times, could tell I was alive, but deemed me no threat, and left. There was still light in the sky when it was all over, but it felt like twelve hours had passed. No tale of great courage, but one I lived to tell.”

They reached the table, also a concrete block, that Runar and Garet had claimed. Saito sat first, then Mazie, then Farisa. Claes was still out somewhere.

“So tell us,” Runar said. “Where are you from?”

Saito sighed, then let out a chuckle. “That one question turns out to be many, and I can’t answer them all at once. I grew up in a fishing village on Zvai-Ren, about four hundred miles north of Mount Alma.”

“That’s fascinating,” Mazie said.

Farisa took a deep breath. There was little shade here and the service was slow.

Runar said, “Were you there when Mount Alma—?”

“I wasn’t. I had gone north for training. I haven’t been back since I was eighteen, nor can I go home.”

Mazie asked, “Why can’t you?”

Garet looked at Mazie.

Saito said, “The Road will give us plenty of time for that story.”

“So where were ya when Alma blew?”

“That was November, right?”

“November 21, ‘67,” said Garet.

“I was at sea six hundred miles away. I couldn’t see the thing, but I sure heard it. We thought it was a Geshna—”

I was at sea, six hundred miles away. November 21, ‘67. I couldn’t see it, but I sure heard.

“Global Company,” Garet interjected.

“—cannon volley, which was strange because we weren’t at war with them.”

Claes returned. He had managed to buy sourdough bread and olive oil, so instead of having plain white fish, they had plain white fish sandwiches.

“The seasoning’s fantastic,” Runar said as he sprinkled a spice, flecks of red and green, on his filet. “We should get more of this stuff before we leave.”

“It is good,” Farisa said. Then she asked Saito, “Given the likelihood of an Alma Winter, do you think there are going to be more people on the Road?”

“I’m sure of it,” Saito said.

“There already are,” Garet said. “Muster may not seem it, but it’s bustling compared to the last time I was here. This could make our journey safer, or more dangerous. It depends on....” He looked around.

“Who the people are,” said Mazie.

#

Farisa was itching to leave Muster by June 15. They had been here for long enough that she had seen all that could be seen here, and the mountains to their south were greener and would be cooler.

She had developed a good sense, by this evening, of which tavern patrons were locals as opposed to prospectors and Mountain Road people—eager men preparing to go, as well as weary return travelers. One pair of men regaled a small crowd with stories of the Ivory Ashes, though simple calculation proved their accounts false, because they would have been there in peak sandstorm season. Others’ stories, which seemed more reliable, told of bad weather, kindly strangers offering water, orcish attacks, the unexpected rate at which provisions dwindled, and the infamous Dark Man of the Desert spotted beyond Switch Cave. Was he an orc, a warlock, or (somehow) human? Some said he was a wandering ghost. The general sentiment, though people agreed on little else, was that anyone wanting to travel safely would give this Dark Man as much distance as the midnight sun gave its shadow.

Mazie finished her second glass of beer. “I’ve ’eard enough about this Dark Man to ’ave my own opinion.”

“What’s that?” said Runar.

“I’ll tell you if we see ’im.”

Runar looked at Claes. “On provisions, do we need anything more?”

Claes said, “We’ve got everything, but the animals.”

“You see a lot of people riding south on horseback,” said Garet. “They’re fools. In the lowlands, your whole life comes down to water—searching for it, carrying it, dividing it from hour to hour, day to day. Horses drink too much and, in the Ashes, they die in a day.”

Claes tapped the rim of Farisa’s beer bottle. “There should be none of this on the trail.” She felt singled out, because everyone was drinking. “In town, feel free to drink, but alcohol dries you out, and we can’t afford that in the desert.”

Garet added, “There are some who insist on having rum on the Road. They’re never the ones who make it.”

Farisa wondered what it meant to “make it” on a journey where even record-setters had been forced to turn around no farther south than sixteen or seventeen degrees.

The sun had now set, and the eastern sky was already dark. Night didn’t wait to fall, not the way it did in the north. A trail of cigarette smoke crossed Farisa’s nose, and she spotted a woman, about thirty-five with red hair, smoking at the next table over. Farisa had noticed her since midafternoon, but this habit of allowing tobacco vapors to waft in their generation was truly obnoxious, and the only reason she did not confront the woman is that the lowland heat had exhausted her.

“I know it seems like it’s taking forever to get out of Muster," Claes said. “We need at least three more untas and two more huskers.”

“I wish that we had come a month earlier,” Garet said.

Runar said, “What are they charging?”

Claes looked at his hands for a moment, then swiveled his coffee cup by the handle. “It’s not about price. The animals are just not there.”

The red-haired woman reached over and rapped their table.

Farisa looked at Claes, then at Garet. The Fifth Continent was considered a place where one did not interrupt others’ conversations. An accusation of cheating at cards could result in a deadly brawl. Unless there was occasion for commerce, one minded one’s own business. They would have preferred to ignore her, but the woman introduced herself anyway.

“My name is Talyn.” She removed the cigarette from her mouth. “I have four untas.”

“Thank you, but I’m sure we’ll find what we need,” Claes said.

“That I doubt. The only untas left are yearlings, and I don't think you want to ride one of those through ten-flag heat.”

“Who says we’re—?”

“Mountain Road. It’s obvious. You speak Ettasi, like me. Although the lot of you hide it well enough to fool most, you are educated people, with enough money to travel well, which means you aren’t the sort who would come here to pan rivers for five grot of silver per day. You’re a serious crew, and I know exactly where you’re going, but I’ll tell you that in the past three months here, I’ve seen hundreds of others with the same idea. The good animals are all gone.” She looked around, then raised an eyebrow. “I also know that you’re running out of time.”

“Is that so?”

“Leave now, and you’ll reach the Ashes in the middle of September. Wait too long, and you get there in October, which is when—”

“The winds pick up, and the dust storms start,” said Garet.

“You have better odds of finding a Yatek reindeer, at this point, than a quality unta. I don’t have any huskers, but I can get you some for the right price, even though the pickings are thin if you go out on your own.”

Claes pushed his coffee cup to the center of the table as if surrendering a poker hand. He whispered something to Garet, who whispered back.

“You said you have four untas,” Claes finally said.

“That’s right,” Talyn said.

“How much do you want?”

“It ain’t about money. I have a son.”

Garet chuckled, “We’re not going to buy your son.”

“We’re refugees,” Talyn said.

Garet looked around at the others, wanting them to know he did not yet believe her story, but said, “Tell me more.”

“His name’s Eric. Gets sick a lot. Crushing headaches, seizures. Most of the time, he has no issues, but he had a relapse and ended in one of the Global—Globbie hospitals. We’re four thousand in debt.”

“Four thousand?” Garet rubbed his forehead. “That’s a big number. A very big number.”

“I’m sorry to hear it,” Claes said.

Garet scratched his beard. “When I was here last, a road-worthy unta cost a hundred sixty-five, but everything’s marked up by a factor of five.”

“Correct,” Claes said. “So the market rate is eight twenty-five. That times four is thirty-three hundred. I think we can make your four thousand. We have it. This’ll clear your debt and you can safely go back home.”

Talyn’s nostrils flared. “I said it’s not about the money.”

Claes’s tone turned sharp and low. “Then what do you want?”

“To go along with you.”

“On the Mountain Road? With a sick child?”

“We don’t have anywhere else to go. Something tells me you're in the same situation.” Talyn looked around. “You’re unsure what you’ll find, or where you’ll stop, but you have nowhere else to go. We have better odds of survival if we travel together.”

“We should talk about this privately,” Garet said to Claes.

“I agree.”

Mazie and Farisa looked at each other. Runar and Saito did the same.

“We won’t decide this today,” Claes told Talyn.

“I can wait,” Talyn said. “You seem to be the ones in a hurry.”

Mazie asked, “Can ya shoot?”

The woman’s eyes widened. “I can. Pistols, rifles, crossbows.”

Farisa asked, “How old’s your son?”

Talyn paused before answering. “He’s ten.”

Claes said, “Ten?”

“He can trap, hunt, and fish. No ordinary child, I’ll say that. He’ll add more to our effort than he’ll take away. That, I promise you.”

Garet looked at his folded hands and said, “A promise on the Fifth Continent is worth the sum price of its words.”

“You don’t trust me yet. I understand. We’ve known each other all of ten minutes, so you shouldn’t. Please, for my son’s sake, don’t make any decisions until you’ve had a chance to meet him.”

#

Later that evening, Claes and Garet asked Farisa to follow them up a gravel trail into the hills overlooking Muster.

Garet said, “I would be remiss if I didn’t say that I don’t fully trust that woman.”

“No,” Claes said. “Not the way we trust each other. Still, she has four untas—probably the only good ones left. That will bring us up to seven.”

“What do you think?”

Farisa said, “Me?”

“We brought you up here because we thought you might have insight.”

“Right,” Farisa said, not sure what qualified her to make such a judgment. She knew nothing about the woman either, and could only add one more opinion to a list. “The untas. Have either of you actually seen them?”

“She took me to see them after dinner,” Claes said. “They’re in good condition.”

“My sense about her, to be honest, is that she’ll find a way to come along with us whether we allow it or not—like Ouragan.” She laughed. “Or like Mazie.”

“Mazie’s different,” Garet said.

Claes added, “Mazie’s one of us.”

Farisa laughed. “I don’t think Mazie’s dangerous, but...”

“There’s something odd about Talyn. What is she doing here?”

Garet said, “What are any of us doing here?”

Farisa said. “Could we afford to wait another week? My concern, personally, is that she doesn’t just ‘happen to have four untas’ but that...”

Claes said, “She deliberately bought the town out.”

“Exactly. So, if there are going to be more animals available, from returning travelers or incoming ships, would it be better to wait?”

Garet said, “My fear is that it wouldn’t be one week, but two or three. As for Talyn, she seems like she’ll be a competent traveler, an asset more than a hindrance. What I’m hung up on is her story. She says she’s a debt refugee, but there are easier ways to dodge a four-skid debt than the Mountain Road. She’s hiding something.”

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Claes looked west, at the ocean. “I agree.” He put a hand on Farisa’s arm. “I don’t know if I’m allowed to ask...”

Farisa said, “I think you just did. Yes, you are allowed to ask. I’m as much in this as the rest of you. I’ll do it. I might need time to recover, but I can go in tomorrow morning. How long can we stay here and remain on schedule?”

Garet said, “To be honest, I’ll be nervous if we’re not gone in two days.”

“Two days.” Each second in a mind costs three hours in recovery, but that’s in a normal climate. It’s five flags at night down here. It might be worse. “I don’t know how much I’ll be able to get, but I’ll go in at the first opportunity.”

Claes nodded. “You don’t have to. We can come up with another—”

“Don’t worry about me. You’re right to feel odd about her. I’ll see what I can find.”

Garet rubbed his forearms. “Let’s accept Talyn’s offer for now. If we need to shake her off later, we’ll find a way.”

#

Farisa convinced Runar to vacate his usual seat at the breakfast table, positioning herself beside the newcomer. During a lull in conversation, she took a deep breath and leaned forward, eyes closed.

The hot, dry air was more permeable by her mind than she had expected. There had always been resistance in the blue, a sort of viscosity inherent to space, but there was less of it here, so it took no struggle to extract a few of Talyn’s memories—if anything, she felt the opposite, with images and sounds striking all at once, too fast to be put in proper order, and that clash, rather than the exertion of the spell, was the cause of Farisa’s sudden fatigue.

“It turns out I’m not hungry,” said Farisa as she stood up from breakfast and left for their tent.

Talyn asked, “Is she…?”

“She’s fine. She didn’t sleep well last night.”

Halfway to the tent, she stopped a hemp hammock and felt a compulsion to sit down, then a temptation to rest her head, because a normal walking pace had winded her. She stared at the blue sky, watching the birds soar so high they turned into tiny black specks, then seemed to disappear, and then....

“It’s four o’clock,” Claes said.

“Yvec,” Farisa said. Ouragan had curled up on her chest. The sun had moved and she’d taken a sunburn on her left arm. “I did not intend to be here for so long.”

“Take as much rest as you need,” Claes said.

She sat up. “No, I should be more sociable.”

Garet was in conversation with a man she didn’t recognize. Runar and Mazie were drinking beers and laughing by an unused fire pit. Eric, a redhead taller than usual for his age, was sitting next to Talyn on a bench near a dried-up fountain about fifty yards off.

Farisa told Claes, “First, I need to speak to her.”

“Do you need—”

“I think it’s best if it’s just me.”

“Very well.”

Farisa walked over to Talyn. Quietly, so no one else could hear, she said, “There’s something we need to talk about.”

Talyn, her eyes gray and owlish, said, “Then let us.”

“Alone,” Farisa insisted. “That will be your preference as much as it is mine, once you hear what I have to say.”

“Run along,” Talyn said to Eric. The woman's pupils had narrowed. “This better be good,” she said to Farisa.

Farisa grabbed a discarded crate from the market, where the evening bustle had not started, it being still too hot. She turned the crate over and sat on it, across from Talyn. Farisa pressed her thumb against an index finger. “I think....”

She hesitated to say all she had discovered. Entering a mind did not give precise information. One could not easily tell desires from memories, dreams from waking truth, fears from real experiences.

Talyn seemed to sneer, then corrected her expression.

Farisa finished her sentence. “I think you’re lying to us.”

Talyn sipped lemonade from a glass jar. “Come again?”

“Eric’s not your son.”

Talyn’s nostrils flared. Then she set her glass down and pressed her palms together. She and Farisa locked eyes.

The young mage expected denial from the older woman, but instead she said, “You are correct. He is not.”

Farisa spread her knees apart; she had not expected this response.

Talyn cocked her head, and her sneer returned. “That’s what you’re on about?”

“If I went and told—”

“Claes? Tell him. I never lied to anyone. Had you asked, I would not have denied that he is adopted. Eric is my son. He is my adopted son.”

Farisa, being an orphan, took exception to Talyn’s asserted credit for motherhood. “You met him less than a year ago.”

“How could you possibly know that?”

“He told me.”

“He did not.”

“Then perhaps he didn’t,” Farisa said. “I know. That's what matters.”

“Leave my son out of this.”

“An adopted son, who just happened to follow you to every business transaction, just to tug on the heartstrings—”

“You do not understand this continent if you think that would work, Farisa.” Talyn looked back at the others in the group. “If you want to tell Claes—tell all of those people—to turn away my untas because I met the boy I rescued from orphanhood ten months ago, rather than ten years, go ahead. What difference does it make?”

Farisa pointed south, into the mountains. “Where we’re going, every detail matters.”

“Says a woman about a place she’s never been.”

“Garet says the Road is a place where secrets don’t live long, nor those who insist on keeping them.”

Talyn held a two-grot silver piece between two fingers and knocked its edge against the bench. “Oh, Garet says.”

Farisa straightened her spine. She wanted to respond, but was interrupted by Talyn’s next question.

“What else do you think you know about me?”

“I know that Eric’s illness is real, and I wouldn't wish it on anyone. Your affection for him seems genuine, too. I was often sick as a young girl—”

“You’re still young.”

“—so I empathize. You do your best to take good care of him, and that may save you in my book.”

“I am glad to be saved in your book,” Talyn said sardonically.

“Tell Claes the truth—the entire truth—before anyone else figures it out. Protect Eric from embarrassment at all costs. He shouldn't suffer for any of this. I suppose he is your son, as much as I am Claes’s daughter, which I am sure you can tell”—she scratched her bare brown shoulder—“I am not.”

Talyn laughed. “At first, I thought—”

“Oh, no. Not in a million years.” Farisa laughed. “He knew my father. He’s seen me in diapers.”

Talyn put a hand around her lemonade glass; the liquid had settled, forming a gradient of opacity from base to surface. “That wouldn’t stop some men I’ve met.”

“Stop, Talyn.” Farisa stretched her legs out. “The sun's still up. Too early in the day to vomit.”

Talyn smiled. “You’ll protect an old ‘liar’ like me?”

“I’m an orphan,” Farisa said. “You’re lucky it was me who figured it out.”

“The longer the journey, the luckier the people.”

“Don’t lie to me again, or to any of us. You do not seem to be a bad person, and we could really use the untas.” Farisa smiled. “Interrogation over.” Before walking away, she said, “I think we’re having dinner soon.”

Before Farisa had walked ten paces, Talyn called her name.

Farisa looked back.

“You’re one of the good ones.”

She turned around. “Thank you.”

“I wish there wasn’t such a sadness inside you.”

“Excuse me?”

“You spotted that I was hiding something—and what I was hiding—but I suspect that’s because you're concealing something, too. This morning, I felt it. Some conflict inside you, well... it seemed to be inside me for a moment, if that makes any sense. There's a story you’re not telling—could be, one you refuse to tell yourself.”

Farisa crossed her arms. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Something inside you is on the verge of tears. Maybe you should let it cry.”

“Mind your own business. I’ve no need for enemies, but don’t think I’m your friend,” Farisa said before turning her back and walking away.

#

As soon as night fell, Claes and Farisa went again to Muster’s outskirts. The air was humid and warmer than this time yesterday, and the eastern stars were a little bit harder to see.

Claes dimmed his lantern. “So?”

“Eric’s not her son,” Farisa said. “She admitted it.”

“I thought there was something there. I’m glad you found it.”

“Her affection for him is real. That I can tell. She means to keep him safe.”

Claes looked up. “What kind of world is it, where the safest place for a ten-year-old boy is... this?”

Farisa squeezed the back of her neck to relieve tension. “He’s some kind of refugee. I don’t know the full story. It probably has something to do with his seizures—mild ones, as far as I know, but with the stigma...”

“I understand,” Claes said. “You did well, Farisa.”

“I told her not to lie to us again.”

The next morning, rain pattered the top of their tent. Muster’s heat, it turned out, proved no impediment to cloud cover or precipitation. By noon, droplets were falling hot enough to sting the skin, and the town had turned into a muddy lake. Immobilized travelers piled up in the city; quarrels broke out over hotel rooms and campgrounds.

Runar pointed to a group of people, visible on the hillside. “They don’t seem daunted by it.”

Garet shook his head. “That group? They won’t make it halfway to Portal.”

“Portal is...?”

“The southernmost city in the world,” Farisa said.

“Aye,” said Garet. “It’s where the true Mountain Road begins. Twenty thousand people live there, mostly oddballs who would not thrive anywhere else.”

Mazie said, “They sound like my tribe, then.”

Farisa looked at her. They both laughed.

Claes came to sit with the others. They had spent a lot of time like this, sitting around the Muster tavern’s concrete block tables, waiting for something to happen, and now the thing that had happened was a rain squall. “I know you’re antsy to get on the move, and our provisions are together now. We’ll leave as soon as the rain breaks.”

Farisa looked east. The dark rain clouds showed no signs of readiness to leave. “I should imagine there’s worse weather on the Road.”

“There is,” Garet said.

“The issue isn’t the weather,” Claes said. “It’s people. If you’re stuck and they’re not, there's a good chance you’ll be robbed. Hitting this kind of weather is a chance you have to take out on the Road, but I’ll be damned if I let that sort of thing happen a mile from a city.

“Storms don’t last long here," Garet said. “And the sun dries the ground in a matter of hours. We’ll be out of here very soon.”

Runar said, “How soon?”

“Tomorrow, I hope.”

In fact, it rained for three more days.

#

Farisa, before she knew she had awakened, slipped her feet into shoes, grabbed her gun, and crept to the edge of the tent to see whose scream had interrupted the night.

“Tell me where your untas are,” yelled a male voice.

Across a broad puddle of rejected rainwater, the woman stood with hands up.

Farisa recognized Talyn’s voice. “I don’t know.”

She was telling the truth. Only Claes and Garet, who had gathered their provisions and stored everything in the hills, knew where they were.

Mazie was behind, looking over Farisa’s shoulder. “Is that Talyn?”

Farisa nodded. “We have to help her.”

“You ’ave a gun?”

Farisa raised her gun hand, but realized she could not see enough detail in the rain-slick dark to make a confident shot, as the man holding Talyn up seemed to be with others.

Someone else had crept behind her.

“Runar,” she whispered. “You scared the shit out of me.”

He put a finger to his lips.

They could see more—the stickup man had, indeed, come with a crew. It was unclear which group outnumbered which.

Farisa’s fingertips felt a rapid pulse in her neck. “What can we do?”

Claes, who had risen as well, shook his head. Against an unknown number, with the disadvantage of being inside a tent that blocked lines of sight but would not stop bullets, a firefight was no option.

Silence stretched the skin of the night. Even the humid mist seemed still. Farisa’s fingers twitched to confirm that time was passing.

An unfamiliar man shouted, “Guns down!”

The bandits knew exactly where he was, and aimed.

“Drop your weapons or die with them. You will leave this woman alone.”

One of the bandits fired at the interloper, who responded by firing a machine gun into the air, casting enough light to illuminate his face. The bandits’ arms slackened and their guns clattered on the ground.

“I’ll be taking your guns,” said the man. “So long as I’m in this town, you’re in some other business than robbery.”

“Kanos?” Runar whispered.

Farisa said, “You know him?”

“I know of him.” Runar, deeming it safe to approach the scene, left the tent.

Farisa followed, and heard others’ steps behind her.

Kanos picked up one of the pistols. “These are fine weapons. I’m not a brigand, so I’ll buy them.” He opened a long jacket and grabbed a coin pouch, then tossed it to one of the thieves. He did this for each of them. “In fact, I shall buy your freedom.”

“We are already free,” said one of the thieves.

“Not so long as you’re in Muster, you’re not, because I am here. There is a steamship leaving at six o’clock. Take the money I’ve given you and start a new life anywhere that isn’t here.”

The robbers dispersed. One seemed to nod at Kanos in thanks, which he ignored.

Kanos smiled at Talyn, “Need a new gun?”

“We’ve got enough,” Talyn said.

“You can never have too many guns.”

Farisa found herself impressed by Talyn’s composure. She doubled that, if she were robbed at gunpoint in the middle of the night, she’d have handled it half as well.

Kanos said, “How about you lot? Care for new weapons?”

Claes came forward. “What’s going on? Who were those—”

“This man saved my life,” Talyn said.

“I’m the mayor of Muster,” he said to Claes, holding a pistol by its barrel and handing it to the man. Claes shook his head.

Runar stepped forward. “Kanos?”

Kanos looked around. “Bad joke.” He smiled at Claes. “I don’t think Muster has a mayor. That’s what I’m told, though I’ve only been here two days myself. It’s something I say in a new city to impress the ladies.”

Runar looked the man over. “What in the world are you doing here?”

“Taking the Mountain Road, if it’ll have me.”

“You should come with us,” Talyn said.

“Talyn,” Garet said. “We discuss these things as a group.”

Kanos laughed. “I’m going alone. I wouldn’t do it any other way. I’ve got an unta, a husker, and five hundred pounds’ dry mass for food. Also I have this.” He pulled out a sheet of paper. “It’s an up-to-date water map. Jorked it off a soldat on the way here.”

Claes and Garet looked at each other, then Claes looked at Farisa.

“What, you lot want to ride along on my coattails?”

“Not at all,” Claes said. “I respect your decision to go alone.”

Talyn said, “I thought I owed you the offer, is all. You did save my life.”

“Our paths were meant to cross,” Kanos said as he looked toward the eastern mountains, over which dawn light had drawn an edge. “Of that, I am sure, but I doubt the set of you would enjoy travel at my pace.”

“Ah,” Talyn said. “We may surprise you, and the Mountain Road is a place where danger makes new friends. If we leave Muster at the same time, might you permit us to follow you?”

#

The next day, early in the morning, Farisa and Runar followed Claes and Garet out of town, to the same field where they’d had the previous discussion about Talyn.

Garet asked, “Should I have brought Saito? I can go get him.”

Claes shook his head. “I will ask him for his opinion, but right now I’m more interested in what Runar has to say.”

Runar pinched the bridge of his nose, then looked up at the sky. “Not very much. We’re both Silverton boys. That's about all I can say we have in common.”

Garet said, “He’s your brother, right?”

“Half brother.”

“Brother by another mother?”

“Aye, and by not much of a father, if Kanos’s life was like mine.”

Garet put a hand on Runar’s shoulder. “You’ve turned out alright.”

Claes scratched his beard. “So, you don’t know him well?”

Runar fiddled with his belt. “Not at all. He got in some kind of trouble with the Company. That could be a good thing or a bad thing.”

Garet said, “To make a friend of an enemy’s enemy is hardly the best operating principle.”

The others looked at Farisa, who traced a small circle behind herself with the toe of her shoe. She felt she ought to have something to say. “He did get Talyn out of that fix.”

“Possibly a setup,” Garet said.

Claes asked, “And you think that’s likely?”

“No, but I think it’s possible.”

Farisa ground a pebble into the dust. “Didn’t Kanos say he wants to go alone? We should let him.”

“Ah,” Garet said. “He was asking to join us; that’s what his insistence on going alone was. That’s the first law of this place. To get help, pretend you don’t need it.”

Runar said, “Growing up, I only met him twice. One time was at my father’s funeral. The other, we were both so drunk, I don't remember.”

Garet said, “We should not trust him too far, but as with Talyn, we cannot prevent him from coming along, and it might be useful to pool resources. Of course, the policy still applies that—”

Claes finished the sentence. “If he proves himself unworthy of our trust, we cut him loose, the moment it happens. Even if we’re miles deep in the Ashes.”

Garet looked up at the sky. “We should head back and get ready. It looks like we’ll be able to get out of Muster today.”

They all returned to the tent. Everyone was awake by then. The sum seemed to rise in unusual haste, and the ground dried out so quickly, by ten o’clock the only evidence of previous rainfall was the swiftness of streams. The nine of them—Claes, Garet, Farisa, Mazie, Runar, Saito, Talyn, Eric, and Kanos—had a quick morning meal in town, then walked into the hills on a rocky east-going road, turning off at a cairn between two leafless bushes. The footpath descended into a green valley hidden from view.

The untas, light brown in color, lazily batted away flies.

“They can handle midday heat,” said Garet. “They can even work in it, though they prefer not to.”

The untas’ curved necks and large noses made them look almost silly, but their size—twelve to fifteen hundred pounds, Garet said—calmed any impulse to take them lightly. The pasture, except in waist-high stands of grass around purple-flowered bushes the untas must have known to be poisonous, bore marks of their grazing.

“I was only able to get three,” Claes admitted.

“Not for a lack of effort,” Garet added.

“Three, plus Talyn’s four, and Kanos’s one, give us eight. Two of you will have to pair up.”

“Eric can ride with me,” Talyn said.

Claes scratched his beard. “That works. I’ll warn you in advance that these animals stink.”

Garet said, “It’s an odor you get used to, but not one you’ll ever forget.” He laughed. “I find it redolent... of summer.”

Farisa walked forward and patted the side of an unta’s head. The creature didn't actually smell worse than a horse, except for its breath, which reeked of rotting cabbage.

“Untas can carry two riders and a small trailer,” Claes said. “They’re not built for lateral loads, so two hundred pounds is the absolute limit. Put anything heavy in one of the husker wagons.” He pointed across the field to a cluster of four white animals.

When they walked closer, they noticed that the huskers looked much like cattle, except for the long black horns and immensity. The smallest of the four was twice the size of a grown bull.

“As for huskers, their spines aren’t built for riding,” Claes said. “So that’s off limits. They can, however, each carry a wheeled load of fifteen hundred pounds.”

“On the flat, they can carry several times that,” Garet said. “However, the terrain we’ll be going through is not easy, nor is the climate. We need these animals nimble, and we need them alive. They might look dumb, but they survive out here, which means they’re not. Huskers can live on cactus for two years, though my guess is that it would make them grumpy, which brings up another matter—they are temperamental.”

“In other words,” Claes said, “don't piss ’em off.”

Ouragan, spotting movement, ran into the field. A rust-colored snake hissed and the cat backed up.

Garet laughed. “Be careful of those too.”

Runar said, “How much food are we bringing?”

Claes said, “As much our animals—and we—can carry, but it won’t be enough. We’ll collect berries and mushrooms along the way, and we’ll fish the mountain lakes.”

Garet said, “Till Portal, we’ll be able to restock in each town.”

“We have thirty-six hundred pounds of food,” Claes said. “That’s four hundred per person. Flour, salt, dried fruit, salted meat. Beans, sugar, and oil. We’ve also got barrels of water, which we’ll refill at every clean source.”

“With that, let us round up the animals and get out of here.”

Farisa and Mazie looked at each other and smiled. They had been in Muster so long, they were antsy to cover their first miles of the Road.

Even with nine people sharing the work, it took hours to bring the untas and huskers together and affix their carriages. Farisa’s cotton shirt sprouted sweat stains from armpits to hips, and everyone else was working just as hard. By the time they finished, it was nearly one in the afternoon.

The trail, in their first day properly on it, was easy to see—trees were sparse, and shade was rare—as they climbed into the mountains. The setting sun reddened the ground, then disappeared behind them as they crossed over the first band of hills, dwarfed by the next range, which they would cross tomorrow. After they set their tent up for the evening, Farisa found a boulder from which one could still see the ocean. They had gained three thousand feet or so of elevation, which was not bad at all for half a day of walking.

Runar found water nearby and boiled it over their campfire as they ate their first dinner on the Mountain Road: bread, dates, and cured meat. Darkness, this far south, came quick: even though it was summer, the sky was black by seven thirty. As they sat around the flame, keeping distance from its unwanted heat, a cricket landed on Farisa’s shoulder; its chirps were as loud as a man's shouts.

Garet said, “What time is it, Farisa?”

She looked at her watch. It seemed she had received it five years, rather than five weeks, ago. She would need to wind it before going to sleep tonight. “It’s eight fifteen.”

“This old geezer’s turning in, then. No one’s going to tell you when to go to sleep, but out here, we use the morning hours for all they’re worth, so there’s no shame in going to bed at eight.”

“I might regret the coffee I had with dinner,” Farisa said to Mazie.

Claes said, “We should discuss the allocation of watch duties.”

“I’ll take the first half tonight,” Runar said.

“Then wake me for the second,” Claes said. “We’re going to rotate. It’s everyone’s job.”

Farisa tucked herself into the sleeping bag. The night was still quite hot, and her feet and ankles itched. Her legs were sore from hours of climbing and tired, but her mind was wakeful and her heart was racing. After a long spell of inability to catch sleep, she checked her watch. Ten fifteen.

She heard the wind outside; it had picked up. She put shoes on and left the tent.

“Can’t sleep either?” Mazie said.

“No.”

“It’s a beautiful night.” Mazie, who had been sitting next to the dwindling campfire, got up and followed the trail to the crest of a hill. They could see tomorrow’s first miles by the gibbous moon. “What a view.”

“It is,” Farisa admitted.

Mazie pointed out a flicker of red in the northwest. “Is that Muster?”

“I think.”

“It looks so small, from ’ere. How far do you think we’ve gone?”

“Not far. Ten miles, maybe twelve.”

“Until I met you, I never traveled ’alf that distance from where I was born.”

“Ha,” Farisa said.

“What?”

“I have the opposite problem. I have no memory of Loran.”

“The past.” Mazie picked up a pebble and threw it into the distance. “It claims it makes the future, but has no place in it.” She crouched. “Sit with me?”

“Sure.” Farisa took a spot next to Mazie, on the edge of a rock. She removed her shoes and put them at her side. “You know the routine. If you hear any of the men coming, warn me.”

“I’m not sure it matters out ’ere.”

“To me, it does.”

Mazie smiled. “I understand.”

Visible stars numbered in the hundreds, if not thousands. Distant hills were visible, but only in outline, subtle and white. Howls filled the distance.

“Are those wolves?”

“I think so.”

“I ’ope those aren’t in our direct path.”

“They probably are.” Farisa laughed. “I wouldn’t be so worried. They’re less dangerous than the huskers carrying our food and water—not to mention rock calamars, venomous snakes... jaguars, if we’re lucky enough to see one.”

Mazie moved a lock of hair that had come across her forehead. “Jaguars? And ya really think ye’re safer ’ere than on Ettaso?”

“Not at all,” Farisa admitted. “The danger out here, though, it's not personal. The weather, the wildlife, even the orcs have no idea who I am. It’s the same for all of us.”

A shooting star crossed the sky, giving a flash of green light.

Mazie’s eyebrows arched. “Wow.”

“You’ve never seen that before?”

“I ’aven’t.”

“I used to go out at night to watch them. The monks in Tevalon knew exactly which days of the year to go out and look. Of course, I could only do this in the winter; it never got dark enough in the summer.”

“You went out in the cold? Tevalon cold?”

“Aye.” Farisa said. “Under about twenty pounds of blankets, it’s quite tolerable. I saw the northern lights so often, I got bored of them. I suppose I miss them a little now, though.”

Mazie leaned back and smiled.

“There are nine of us. We all have our reasons for taking the Mountain Road. Yours, I can’t figure out.”

“What do you mean?”

“You had a boyfriend. Vikus. What happened with him?”

“Ask me any other question.”

“You were going to marry him, right?”

Mazie shook her head. “I don’t know.” She picked up a dried leaf and crumbled it in her hand. “It was ’is decision to break it off. All I know is ’e inherited some money.”

“Money?”

“It led ’im to see ’is future differently—to see that ’e ’ad one. I wasn’t part of it, ’e decided. I cried for maybe five minutes, no more.” She swatted a fly away from her ankle. “It will be better for both of us.”

The wolves’ howls seemed to be coming from two packs, miles away from each other, both groups moving south.

Mazie dug her toes into a pool of sand and knocked some down the rock face. “We’re very similar, ya know.”

“We are?”

“You said you came ’ere because, whatever ’appens, it isn’t personal. Same for me. I’m a Snake Bay girl. You can ’ear it in my accent. Well, if ye’re from Exmore, you can. There’s more life in a thimble of air ’ere than there was for me in the whole town, back ’ome. This is the one place in the world where we’re all equal.”

The two women watched the sky, their heads tilted back. The galaxy’s arch had risen, casting enough light that Farisa could see the lines and shadows of Mazie’s face; the woman’s hair had become darker than the night itself.

Mazie snickered as she said, “Ya know, I used to do drum poetry.”

“Really? Were you any good?”

“I wasn’t bad. Crime comes naturally to my kind.” Drum poetry—an artistic form neither sanctioned by the Company nor held in high repute by those it had assigned wealth—might not have been against any law, but it was certainly not considered legal. “Words belong to no one and everyone. If you love a word, or a rhyme, or a metaphor, you can steal it.”

“Steal,” Farisa said. “I’ve always called it ‘borrowing.’”

“You would.” Mazie chuckled, then put her shoes back on and walked back to camp.

Farisa followed. “Mazie.”

“What?”

Farisa smiled. “I’m... actually a little bit... glad you came.”

Mazie looked back and smiled. “I am, too. Good night, Farisa.”

Farisa spent a few more minutes under the stars, waiting for meteors, then returned to the tent as well, finding it had cooled off due to better crosswinds, and returned to her sleeping bag at the opposite corner of Mazie’s. As she closed her eyes, she heard the grass rustling outside. The huskers and untas, taking advantage of the night’s relative coolness, were ambling about for food. Ouragan purred.

The Fifth Continent no longer existed only in storybooks; Farisa was really here. The sun would rise in six hours over mountains taller than she’d ever imagined, more numerous than she could count. She understood, now in her heart as much as her mind, why so many people had taken this journey, even if few got far.