> Remains found by Blum, who was on latrine duty. Said he broke his shovel on it. Idiot.
>
> It seems to be located at the centre of what was a raised mound. Didn’t see the signs at first, but on reflection this area has been undertaking heavy erosion in the last century or two, so no surprise there. Maybe we’ll find their burial goods in another chamber?
>
> The remains are in a fetal position, sitting upright inside a small cavity. The walls seem to be water resistant, some kind of pottery or clay.
>
> Remarkably well preserved, I’ll need to do a layout to be sure, but I suspect it’s a complete skeleton. It looks pristine, I don’t think I’ve ever seen bone this untouched at its age. Some kind of preservation technique? I’m going for a closer look.
>
> …
>
> I have no words. How is the damn thing so heavy? I could barely lift the skull. I thought it was filled with something at first, but no, just dozens of times what it should weigh. We don’t have the means to transport it, fascinating as it is.
>
> I’ve taken a knucklebone, just for my own, but ordered the chamber resealed. Poor fellow deserves the rest.
>
> “Human Skeleton Excavation Field Notes”, journal entry by Mnalin Rugi, ruins delver.
The return to the company of Wildberry Expeditions was made without the haste that drove their exodus, but rather with the urgency of wanting to leave something behind.
Jack and Isabelle were swiftly reabsorbed back into the company, all of whom made no mention of the absence of any new faces. Their journey resumed, and if anyone but Jack noticed the glint of self-satisfaction in the eyes of the scavenger birds that followed the caravan, of the sudden avian disdain for the usual scraps they received from the passing of humans, they made no mention.
The ensuing days fell into a rhythm. The nobles ventured out early and returned late, if at all. The caravan traced behind them along a less used track, partially overgrown. They kept their course by the occasional pile of flat signal stones they encountered—markers left by the forward party of the nobles. Whenever they came upon such a stack, some member of the caravan would dutifully knock the small towers down, ensuring no other passerby would wander off course. It was in this way that they kept any correspondence at all with the nobility, who were otherwise entirely out of reach and contact, even during their short visitations.
They were only a few days out from their first true destination, some outlying fort town where they could replace their lost amblers. The last touch of civilization before even the haphazard roads they currently navigated would disappear.
Following the suggestion of Jam, Jack kept his company to Stroph limited to mornings and evenings. Letting Stroph dictate the latter, and himself the former. The first morning that he took up Stroph's company, without any words of admonishment, Stroph had needed to look away for several minutes before returning his face to view. They made no mention of the fact that Jack always left his side when the caravan began its journey. Jack had resolved to let whatever secret Stroph carried sit undisturbed, until its bearer chose otherwise.
This new routine left Jack with the bulk of the day suddenly without clear purpose—a vacancy quickly occupied by rotating figures of the caravan, suddenly moved to introduce him into their trades and extract whatever remnants of energy he might have left for their own purposes. Much of it was rote menial efforts, the claiming of an additional pair of hands for simple repair work or other drudgery.
He learned how to set a fire that would only nibble at its fuel of dried ambler dung, lasting hours through the night with little tending. He learned how to dig a small hollow to sit a cookpot atop, and the way to bore an air tunnel into it so the least heat would be lost. He was shown the knots and way of harnessing to ensure the amblers wouldn’t develop painful sores from rubbing, and the kinds of grasses they favoured when the camp was pitched.
Much of what he was shown could be, and was, accomplished with cards. But the advantage, he realized, lay in the redundancy of skills. Everyone knew a bit of each other’s trades, and could assist readily as needed. So Jack too was expected to learn a bit of everything. But one member in particular took more of his time than anyone.
Issaiah, the old cook and herbalist, made true on his promise, and would take Jack out on forays off the regular course of the caravan. He'd come, a wizened little man the colour of dark polished wood, and smile beatifically at whomever had taken Jack until they hurried him along to join Issaiah.
They would take a slow, meandering route from the caravan, quickly becoming outpaced by it. Issaiah pausing time and again to point out curiosities, sometimes settling for minutes to sit silently and take in the world. After these meditative moments he would inevitably resume their pace with renewed purpose and pretend to stumble across a plant of great interest, whereupon he would expound at great length the uses and means of preparation of the herb.
He was a teacher unlike any Jack had ever known. It was only on the third such outing, and the fourth occasion that Issaiah had somehow manoeuvred Jack to sit once again on the herb of their pursuit that Jack finally saw the mischievous twinkle in his eye, and understood the resulting scolding to be entirely manufactured. And so he learned to watch his feet.
Once Jack understood the truth of Issaiah’s whimsical temperament, much of his otherwise inscrutable behaviour came into focus. The meandering diatribes he launched at everything from sharp stones—he always walked barefoot—to stinging insects, became hilarious soliloquies seemingly improvised on the spot.
On one occasion, he yelped and jumped at least four feet into the air only to land on one foot and hop around while clutching the other, until he finally pulled a long, hooked thorn from the pad of his foot in sneering triumph. Jack could only hope that Syra never met the man, as his curses had been inspired.
“Foulest extrusion of the illest ambler rump, should I return you whence you came? For surely it could not worsen the shadow-stain you cast to be reshaped in the spastic clenching of a diarrheac anus!”
For all the man’s florid vulgarity, he was also capable of a tenderness so enrapturing that Jack had been left in tears. Coming upon a spiderweb dappled in dew, he whispered of its beauty for half a morning, so eloquent and varied that he never once repeated himself. At the end of his praise Jack would have sworn that he saw the spider come forth and bow in gratitude.
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But there was one question that weighed on Jack; why was Issaiah not the one to go with Isabelle and the nobles? He was clearly an adept healer, even providing Jack with a salve to help strengthen and repair his abused muscles from the efforts of lending his strength to move the caravan.
It was a difficult inquiry to make. There would be an element of accusation, impossible to avoid. Why did Jack go, where his efforts were ultimately meaningless, when Issaiah might have actually managed to save even one of the fallen. Finally Jack couldn't put it off any longer and asked, only to be blindsided by the answer.
"That quick-like mount could not bear the likes of me!" Issaiah responded with a high fluting laugh, "It'd snap in two methinks, maybe even three parts!"
Jack looked incredulously at the man, a full head shorter and shrunken with age. His expression was an entire question in itself.
"Tchh, and I thought you had finally managed to learn to see," he admonished Jack playfully. "Go on then if you don't trust. Lift this little old man up!" he lifted his arms up and tried on a devilish grin.
Bemused, Jack braced himself to lift the man, expecting some kind of trick. But the moment he tried to raise Issaiah up, there was not even a hint of budge.
'It's like pushing on an oak beam!'
He redoubled his efforts, getting even closer, but the man felt heavier than stone.
"Woah there lad, you wouldn't want me tipping over on you!" he admonished, "here, just an arm now. You can manage that surely."
And Jack could, just barely, while bracing against Issaiah, push the arm a handspan from his torso, and no more.
"It's more common than you'd think, out here among the caravans. Cards that change you, bit by bit," he seemed to grow then, pulling on a past where power was his domain. He loomed, impossibly, he loomed from below. "I used to be as strong as the hills and the mountains!" The last bellowed out into the world in a commanding bass, "The umbrar would have met my mettle and been like mist before my storm!"
Whatever power he drew upon was gone as quickly as it came, and he returned to the shape of the funny little man with twinkling eyes.
"But I grew heavy too, almost heavier than I could lift with all my strength. So I learned patience, and care, and came to teach foolish boys instead. I find it suits me better."
And they continued on their way.
Jack had noticed before, but for the first time truly saw the deep footprints Issaiah left even in hard packed earth.
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Fort Hilltop was indeed on a hilltop, but years of growth had led the ‘fort’ to become more ‘town’ but certainly not ‘city’. The differentiation didn’t matter much to Wyli. It had been explained to her as an important distinction, that this was a small place—a claim she still didn’t quite believe.
Just one more claim that didn’t make sense. All of it was unintuitive to her—the overabundance of people; the strange rules about clothing, behaviour, and what not to eat.
When she had been younger, the last in particular had been a source of frustration. There were far too many rules about what not to eat. At a certain point she had made the mental switch from trying to find the list of excluded items to merely the included ones. That had made things simpler, but there were still things that confused her.
Some things must be heated before being eaten, while others absolutely not. Some heated and then allowed to cool–but not overly much.
What was called cutlery was even worse. It was placed in the mouth, it came in close contact with things that should be eaten, but it should not be eaten at all! This had only been further confused by the many varieties of bread that held foods and were also eaten.
Slowly the rules had crystallized, the understanding that it was her cards that made her different. That no one else could bite through metal. They couldn’t enjoy the sudden burst of heat as steel compressed between their teeth, becoming ever more malleable and red-hot until it could be swallowed down to sit warm in their belly.
Spending more time with her father’s caravan had helped, made her understand how she was different. But no one there had minded the young girl who liked to crunch gravel, or would admonish her for biting into trees to lap at the sticky sap that welled forth.
Now that she was older, what she struggled with most was controlling those impulses—the desire to act as she willed. She knew what she should do, but could never shake the feeling of inauthenticity.
She doubted it would ever become second-nature, to fit into the expectations of the world of cities and towns. But she would achieve the capacity to pass herself off as a native of them. It had so rankled her to have such interesting places cutoff from her, while she learned how to fit in. Recently, her father had finally declared her ready for a final test.
She was going to trick a rich boy into thinking she was normal. If she could pass herself off as a member of the Small Society, with all its fussy rules and expectations, she could manage anywhere.
They had been due days ago, to meet her here at Hilltop. The frustration of maintaining character had begun to wear on her, even while she acknowledged that it was a lesser task than what she hoped to eventually attempt.
But that morning, she’d finally heard word that Wildberry Expeditions would be arriving. Finally.
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She was looking out over the approach to her rooms, when she spotted them. Her father and the boy.
He wasn't much to look at, by her standards at least. Too pale, even if he had clearly darkened a bit on his exposed skin. She had been taught to look at clothing and understand what it meant, another thing that didn't come naturally to her. His was functional, intended for traveling, but also clearly quite new.
Her father had described what he thought the boy's life would have been, to set her expectations. Not a noble, but an imitator. The son of a lesser house, pushed to carding something of scholarly or mercantile value. He would have spent most of his life cloistered away, peering over dry books, never encountering the least excitement. She pitied him, at least a little. He remained in that life until something had gone wrong. Her father hadn't known what, likely something to do with his cards, or offending the wrong person of higher status. Something that required him to leave his safe, familiar city and be thrust into the world.
It was to their advantage that he had this vulnerability. She was trying to pass herself off as something she wasn't and, if he figured that out, well, it was better to hold leverage. But that wouldn't be necessary. He would never see past their first layer of deception. He would believe that the 'tutoring' that he'd been brought on for had been a ruse to attempt a favourable marriage for her, never realizing that there was more truth to it than he'd ever know. Who would suspect an ever deeper game than the one they first uncovered?
Plus, it would be easy to fluster and flatter him. She'd show her father she was ready, and then there would be nowhere in the world closed off to her.
The knock came.
The boy entered slowly, looking at her nervously. She'd already determined the face she would present to him, someone demure, trusting, innocent. Even if the subterfuge rankled him, her presentation would undermine any animosity towards her person.
"Hello," she said bashfully, glancing away shyly.
"We've got a serious problem," he spoke in a hushed, rushed tone, crossing the room quickly to whisper to her, "your father is trying to set us up to be married!"