The sun had long since set, but even in the dark Anthē was able to lead the way easily across the flat, lifeless earth and into Ir, from which the brothel-tent was pitched only a short walk away. Within minutes they had caught sight of the pale orange lights of the town, which they then had only to follow. All at once they were walking along an alley that joined a well-trodden main road. For the most part the town had settled down for the night, though light still peeked through the windows of a good number of buildings and there were a fair number of people still roaming the streets, the occasional cart pulled along by a tired horse. Zantheus ignored the pleas of a couple of beggars beginning to shiver against the desert cold.

“So this is Ir,” he said after a while.

“It is too late to find Tromo now,” said Leukos. “We’ll have to spend the night here and begin looking for him tomorrow.”

“I know a place we can stay,” said Anthē. She seemed to look on the town with a sort of suppressed thrill, though it was clearly familiar to her.

Zantheus was still too much in a state of shock and confusion to protest. He was also tired from his day’s walk through the desert, so he went along with the girl. Leukos kept his pace too, ever writing. She took them off the main road on a route down some side streets that they would not be able to remember in the light, struggling to discern her exact location and having to double back on herself a couple of times. Eventually, however, she stopped by a door, fairly certain that she had found the place she was looking for, though as far as Zantheus was concerned the structure looked exactly the same as all the other wooden boxes that the town passed off as houses.

“Yes, in here...” Anthē murmured, and pushed. The door was open.

Inside the little room that lay behind it was an old man sat at a desk reading by the light of a candle.

“Welcome,” he grunted without looking up. He wore spectacles and had a bushy white moustache.

“We’d like rooms for three please,” said Anthē politely, walking up to the desk.

“I’m afraid we’ve only got a small single and a double left,” said the old man. He span round a book that lay on his desk and flicked it open, still not looking up.

“I suppose that’ll have to do then, Luma,” said Anthē.

Now he looked up. “Who’s that then?” He squinted in the candlelight. “How do you know my name, young lady?”

“Luma,” said Anthē kindly, “it’s me.”

No success.

“Anthē!” said Anthē.

The old man peered more closely at her. His eyes grew big and round.

“Why, Shul’s tongue, so it is...” he whispered, stunned. “Little Anthē...my, haven’t you changed...” He raised a hand to touch her cheek, as if to feel that she was really there and not some sort of ghost. Anthē recoiled instantly.

“Yes I have,” she said. “I’m a lot older now. A lot wiser, too. These are my...friends. Leukos and Zam... Zark...”

“Zantheus,” said Zantheus.

“We’d like rooms for three please,” Leukos reminded him.

“Yes, yes of course,” said Luma, coming to himself. “Sign here please.” While Zantheus wrote their names in the book he continued to stare quizzically at Anthē, ignoring him and Leukos. “Anthē...your mother...she said that you’d-”

“Never mind what she said,” said Anthē. “I’m here now. Show us to our rooms, please.”

Sensing her tone, the old man refrained from asking any further questions. He picked up his candle and proceeded to lead them up the stairway behind him. It creaked with each step, and he asked them to be quiet as they arrived on the landing above so as not to waken the other guests of the inn. He took them along a narrow corridor, stopping at the fourth door on the left.

“This is the single,” he told them. Just as Anthē was about to open the door, Leukos stepped past and entered in front of her, opening the door with his elbow.

“Thank you,” said Leukos and promptly shut the door in their faces. They heard it lock.

“Funny sort of chap,” said Luma. “Never stops writing! Anyway, now for the double.”

Anthē was furious. But before she had a chance to complain Luma had set off down the corridor once more. Zantheus went with him, not yet aware of what a “double” entailed. Three more doors on the right and he discovered.

“Here we are,” said Luma. This time he opened the door for them to come in and went to light a candle on a table near the entrance. Apart from the table, the room contained only a small window with drawn curtains, and a double bed. “Breakfast is at six, lunch at one, dinner at six. The door locks from the inside. If you have any problems, come down and find me. Good night.” He shut the door quietly behind him.

Anthē and Zantheus looked at the bed.

After a while, Anthē got in. “You’d better not snore,” she said. “And if you lay so much as a finger on me, I’ll-”

“I would not dream of such a thing!” said Zantheus, bristling with righteous indignation. “I am a knight of the strictest discipline and utmost virtue. I will sleep on the floor.”

“Suit yourself, then,” said Anthē, already on the verge of dropping off. “Blow out that candle, would you?”

Zantheus puffed on the flame and the room went black. He lowered himself onto the loud floorboards and assumed his usual sleeping position, lying flat on his back with his arms rigid at his sides.

----------------------------------------

When Zantheus awoke, it took him a while to remember where he was. By this time he was used to realising he was not in his cell at the Sanctuary. His mind searched through all the possible options for where he might be: He was not on a mountain; there was no snow. But neither was he on a ship; he was not swaying. Nor was he on a hill; he was not lying on a slope. And this time he was not even on a beach; he was definitely inside a building. Ah. Yes, that was it. Now he remembered. He had come to a town he had never been to before to look for a boy whom he barely knew with two total strangers he had just met, one of whom he was reasonably certain was a madman. He dealt with the pang of frustration he felt at this by sitting up and reciting the Articles under his breath so as not to wake his female room-mate –not out of considerateness, but because he wanted her to remain asleep for as long as possible. This girl called ‘Anthē’ had proved herself to be quite irritating and precocious in the short time he had known her, and he wanted to minimise the amount of time that they had to spend in one another’s company.

There was a knock on the door.

“Are you two awake yet?” said Leukos from behind it.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

Anthē sat up in the bed, bleary-eyed, with a moan.

“Yes,” said Zantheus.

“Go down and have breakfast,” said Leukos, still from behind the door. “I’ll join you in a minute.” The heard his footsteps as he walked off.

Anthē got up and without greeting each other the two of them went to down to breakfast in the ground-floor dining room. The other tables were all unoccupied, save for one, at which there sat a sinister-looking man dressed all in black, with his head covered as well by an intimidating sort of hood and scarf. A fearsome brown dog sat obediently at his side. Zantheus ate the porridge Luma served with one eye on the man, not saying a word to Anthē, who stuck to bread and jam.

When they had finished and Leukos did not appear they decided to go upstairs again and find him. Just as they got up to leave, the intimidating man covered in black stood up too, and came over to their table with his dog.

“Excuse me,” he said in restrained tones, as if imitating courtesy rather than rehearsing it, “but have you seen a man with red hair writing on parchment anywhere around here?”

“Why-” Zantheus begun, but then stopped. He had been about to say “Why yes, he’s staying at this inn, in one of the rooms upstairs,” but something about the man’s voice and appearance stopped him, and he paused.

The dark man all in black seemed to think that Zantheus was just asking him “Why?”, so he responded “Let’s just say I have some busssinesss with this man, and I would very much like to find him.” He had lingered over the ‘s’ sounds in ‘business’, making him sound either as if he was very angry or had some kind of speech impediment. But what was strangest of all was that as he said this he looked from side to side, as if scanning in the room for something that Zantheus and Anthē could not see.

The dog at his side started to growl.

“Sorry, we haven’t seen anyone like that,” said Anthē, thinking quickly, sharing Zantheus’s instinct.

“Well, pleassse let me know if you do come acrosss him,” said the man, before turning and walking out of the dining room, animal in tow.

When he had gone, Zantheus and Anthē looked at each other, united for the first time in their confusion.

“What was all that about?” said Anthē.

“I have no idea,” said Zantheus. “The boy is very strange.”

Just at that moment Leukos appeared in the doorway. He came and sat down next Zantheus and Anthē, perfectly calm.

“Leukos,” said Anthē, “there was a man in here asking after you just now.”

“Oh, was there really?” said Leukos.

“He was dressed all in black and he had a scary-looking dog. We didn’t tell him you were here because he looked sort of…dangerous.”

“I can’t say who that might have been. How strange.”

“Are you sure?” said Zantheus, unsatisfied. “He seemed to know you, Leukos.”

“No clue who you’re talking about, I’m afraid.”

“But Leukos-” said Anthē.

“I don’t want to hear another word about it,” said Leukos, suddenly sounding stern. “If this person is meant to find me, he will. Though I have to say, by the sounds of him, if he crosses your path in the future I would appreciate it if you did the same thing again and refrained from informing him of my whereabouts.”

Neither Zantheus nor Anthē were convinced.

“You cannot expect us to believe you do not know who this person was!” said Zantheus.

“I think I can,” said Leukos, “and I might remind you, both of you, that if you want me to lead you to Qereth, then you will. Have you got that clear?”

It seemed as though they would get no further so, reluctantly, Zantheus and Anthē dropped the matter for the meanwhile. To change the subject, and thinking of getting to Qereth as fast as possible, Zantheus raised the issue of where to start looking for Tromo.

“Well, I suggest that we split up to look for him, rather than search the town together, as that way we will find him faster,” said Leukos.

Zantheus thought about this. He did not want to split up from Leukos. He did not trust him, and he was worried that he might wander off by himself and leave him without a guide to take him to Qereth. And he wanted to reduce the amount of time he spent with Anthē, who annoyed him intensely. The ideal state of affairs, he thought, would be if he and Leukos found Tromo together and somehow conveniently ‘lost’ Anthē on the way.

“Why do not Leukos and I go together, and you can search on your own, Anthē?” he said.

“Why should I go on my own?” Anthē questioned him immediately. She did not really want to spend more time than she had to with this bothersome man, but at the back of her mind she was worried that Keleb would have sent someone to come after her. “I don’t even know what this boy looks like!” she said in her defence.

“Zantheus says he’s small with mousey brown hair,” said Leukos. “And he can’t speak, which should be a fairly big give-away. But that’s irrelevant –Zantheus, I think it would be more suitable if you and Anthē searched together, and I searched by myself, seeing as Anthē knows Ir very well and I know it a little.”

“…alright,” Zantheus reluctantly agreed. Despite his reservations and not wanting to be paired with Anthē, that did seem to be the fastest way to search. “But you had better be here at the inn when we come back for lunch, Leukos.”

“Of course,” said Leukos. “Come on then. We’ve got a boy to find.” He quit the room.

“Lunch is at one!” said Luma as they passed him in reception.

Ir was probably more appealing in the dark. Crowds of people bustled across dirt roads, chattering inanely, hurrying from one place to the next. Street sellers peddled their wares out of mobile carts, or from stalls on the side of the road. On stepping out of the inn, Leukos went one way, and Anthē and Zantheus went the other. Because Leukos had dismissed any further questions about what had just happened at the inn, refusing to disclose anything to them, a conspiratorial conversation struck up between them.

“Who is that boy –where did you find him?” said Anthē.

“I have no idea. He found me. On a beach in Midbar, I think.”

“What about that man with the dog? Why d’you think he was looking for Leukos?”

“I do not know. Only he can tell us.”

In search of Tromo, Anthē took them to Main Street as agreed. As they wondered aloud about who Leukos was and he had offered to take them to Qereth, they stopped at several of the more popular roadside stalls and asked if anyone had seen a small boy of about six or seven with mousey brown hair, wide eyes, and an inability to speak. No-one had. They went into a few of the bigger market-houses and asked the same questions, and got the same answers. One or two people recognised Anthē and gave her the same confused treatment as Luma had done, so she explained to them that she was back in Ir for a little while but would be leaving soon. On one occasion she asked Zantheus to wait for her outside a market-house while she spoke to the owner –someone who had been particularly surprised see her– about a ‘personal matter’, and he had to reluctantly agree to this too. During the course of the morning they worked their way down the Main Street shops, entirely unsuccessfully. Slowly Zantheus got more and more worked up. He did not have time for this. He did not want to be wasting time looking for this boy when he should be making his way back to Qereth. Wretched child! Where had he got to? He wondered how much time would need to pass before he could mention the possibility of moving on again without being reprimanded by the girl.

Over lunch back at the inn, he considered doing this, but in the end he decided against it. He was not in the mood to receive another telling off from someone he barely knew. He would wait till tomorrow, one more day, then he would absolutely insist that they move on. Instead, they talked with Leukos about whether they were going about looking for the boy in the right way. Anthē was adamant that they were, she reasoned that sooner or later everyone passed through Main Street, and if anyone had seen in him, it would be one of the sellers there. When they had finished working their way down that street, then they could think about employing another search tactic. Once this was agreed, they sat eating their fish and rice mostly in silence. The only other diners on this occasion were three merchants who chattered about the rising and falling prices of different goods; the black-clad man was conspicuously absent.

Their afternoon inquiries proceeded in much the same manner. Zantheus was getting almost unbearably frustrated. He was basically superfluous now –Anthē had been referring to him for descriptions of the missing boy, but now she simply repeated what she had already heard them say several times. He was just about to raise the idea that they should split again so they could each search for Tromo individually when they received the first useful piece of information they had been given all day.

“Sorry, I haven’t seen him,” said the seller, in this case a woman in possession of a staggering collection of smelly liquids contained in oddly shaped glass bottles –an ‘aromatherapist’, she called herself. But, unlike any of the sellers before her, this woman added something. “You could try that place on Yashar Street, though...”

“What place?” asked Anthē.

“You know, they have that place for lost children. An old lady, she takes them in.”

Zantheus tried not to take too much encouragement from this, but it was difficult not to feel optimistic. “Where is this street?” he demanded.

“I know where it is,” said Anthē. “Do you know how far down?”

“I’m sorry, I don’t,” said the woman.

“Never mind,” said Anthē. “Thanks, you’ve really helped us!”