“No people one shall ever encounter in this verdant world, this vibrant Thach, will ever be as simple, nor as easily cowed in battle as the People of Hamur. They are a clannish, and uncivilized people, with little in the ways of native arts, nor innovations. You may as well ask them to fly as to ask them to aspire beyond the raising of their crops, and herding their sad, undersized pack animals. The Hamurati even lack the sophistication to worship the true and proper gods, insisting upon following the ramblings of local mud-hut dwelling shamanic charlatans, and celebrating the sun. They make poor servants, as they resist learning to read, write, or speak any civilized language. Certainly they will not speak any language that is not their own Hamurat,unless forced. It has been noted by many past scholars that it would be best to wipe them from all lands beneath the Grace of the Five Heavens, and reseed these lands with the Children of Vel.”
-from Charissielle’s Light, by Nikofilio diOraff, in the 3rd year of Ciccodrili II’s Reign, Old Velspe, translation by Dux Panno DiMani
Walking west along the old Royal Road, Wallan was satisfied with himself and happy with his decision to do most of his traveling these last seven weeks by moonlight. Making camp early every afternoon as he strode west, and then waking by moonlight to begin his travels again long before the Sun made its way back to the horizon every morning. Out in the Southern Plains as he now traveled, Wallan was surprised by the beauty of the orange and pink tones of the sky as the sun rose. The green tips of the tall grasses growing along the sides of the road looked almost blue in the slowly rising dawn light.
At various points in his long walk, as he passed by cultivated fields, with the grains being grown an almost shocking light green by the noonday sun, and in the dramatic red and purple light of the setting sun, the crops, their heads bobbing in the evening breezes, all looked almost black.
Wallan knew he would be missing most of the problems that solo travelers encountered on the open roads of the Kingdom. While he might regret having not replaced his boots when he had changed his uniform for very plain, rugged, unremarkable clothing, Wallan knew all of his other choices had been the right ones.
And by the road signs, span markers, and towns he had passed, Wallan found he was making exceptional time in his long walk to his destination. He had been afraid the journey would take him two full seasons by foot, and it now looked as though walking all through the Spring would see him reach Caerly, rather than getting there at the end of the Summer. He knew the Summers here in southern Hamuria could be blisteringly hot, and was relieved to have done the bulk of his walking before those days arrived.
Cold camps, well off the road, as hidden as he could get in the tall grasses of the plainslands, dried fish strips, and basic dried fruits stolen from the quartermasters’ tents, then later purchased to replenish them in various towns along his circuitous route as each supply ran out, and doing the bulk of his walking in the darkest hours before dawn were all going to serve him well. He smiled like he rarely had cause in the past. His cheeks almost hurt him now as an uncontrollable smile threatened to crack his lips.
He had learned many things about himself on this journey. Some of these things were very odd, indeed.
First: Wallan found that he could not sing. These last several years spent around campaign campfires had taught him all of the applicable lyrics. Many beautiful lyrics. A book full of inspirational lyrics. A handful of nonsense lyrics, mostly to workchant pieces. So many dirty lyrics, too, he thought. But, the masters had made it clear that apprentices should never lower themselves to any act that might have impugned the dignity of their station. It was a stupid rule, and had not been enforced evenly.
Wallan might not now be 18 or 19 years old (it was difficult to know exactly how old he was, as the Masters had done their best to strip much of the past from the minds of each apprentice. “Blank tablets write better” as the saying went) and Wallan was just now learning he had a horrible singing voice. It regularly cracked, and sped up and down the scales without regard to any rules found in any books he had ever seen on music theory. He knew there was an entire field of magical study that relied upon musical harmonies, and the ability of the wizard to sing, or play an instrument. One had, Wallan believed, talent in that field, though she never used them that he had ever witnessed.
Even the chants used to mark cadence when marching sounded...off… to his ear. Warblings and rickety caterwauling, at best. At first he wondered if he had somehow damaged his hearing by over extending some of his spell work in the first town he had passed through. But, no; time had shown him that HE was just bad at it. Very bad. His chanted cadence had actually been so off, Wallan had made himself lose steps several times, and finally tripped himself. Best, he then decided, just to walk on in relative silence.
Many decisions being made at the beginning of this long walk were slowly being changed as new information was gathered and had to be weighed.
However, the boots he had been issued by the camp quartermasters had been the most comfortable, and durable pieces of footwear he had ever owned. All the years he had spent in the Golden Tower, he and the other students all wore woven linen slipper-like shoes. They had been comfortable, most times, but would not protect your feet from falling books, nor being stepped on like the boots issued to him in the army. Deciding to keep them was an absolute.
So far, at least.
Had he seen anything on his long walk that looked like they would have held up nearly as well, he might have chosen to buy, or steal, that pair. But, the chances that he would be recognised for his boots were slim enough that he didn't bother. Just to be certain, he had prepared a good lie in case anyone might wonder, here at the very edge of the kingdom, why a young man like himself had been wearing military issued footwear. The boots had stayed.
“Maybe I could play an instrument.” As his mind jumped from one track to another without a bump to slow its progress, he mused aloud to himself, and possibly the tall grasses that grew along the roadside. “That's all down to maths, dexterity, and repetition. It’s practically a form of magic all its own when you consider it. Should be as simple as slipping on mud.”
He stopped in mid stride as the silliness of the concept washed over him. “Oh, I bet the idea of a lute playing mage would infuriate Master Burnesh. He might just drop from the rage.” Wallan said, and then chuckled. As he laughed, he caught sight of himself in a puddle near his foot on the roadside. Even without casting illusions, he looked vastly different from the, admittedly, pudgy boy who had fled the Legion’s camps those few months ago.
The lean rations and the hard travel had melted the excess weight from his frame, and given him some harder edges than he had ever had as a scholar and an apprentice mage. A military life he may have lived these last ten years, but as an apprentice in the King’s Sun Legions, as resplendent as he might have thought he looked in his gold and red trimmed uniform, he had to admit to being more of a pampered bookworm, who might have had daily chores, and excruciatingly painful lessons from the Masters, but never anything so physically stressful that would have added muscle to, nor dropped fat from, his growing frame.
Every town he had visited these last several weeks, in those few shops that were prosperous enough to have windows, and local wells, Wallan's reflection had gotten more and more thin, his natural tan had reappeared, and his face and hair… completely shaggy, an unkempt mane of auburn curls growing beyond control as his journey continued.
His new darker looks agreed with him, he felt. While he would like to shave, it felt good, in a free spirited, rebellious way, to let his hair and beard grow out. Certainly, One would criticize him mercilessly for letting himself become such a shaggy mess, but One was far behind him now. As were the rest of his Pride. He had never thought about leaving his Pride, that tightly forged group of Apprentices serving the King, and Kingdom. But, now he wondered why. Almost every breath felt like a fresh breeze, and every step along the Royal West Road was almost a bound, as he meandered toward whatever life had in store for him now that he had fled the Army, the Kuljat Almulajat, and the demands of the Masters.
And the sun felt so good on his face as he walked, or slept in the tall grasses off the road, and had darkened his skin to something closer to what his parents would have recognised in their son. Even his ears, notable to other Apprentices as his most recognisable feature, looked better proportioned on his head now that Wallan had grown out his hair and dropped the excess weight from his frame. At least, that was what he had begun to hope.
Five was a Piincar, of the oddly pale people usually found further to the East, Four was mixed, and had a pleasant skin tone and a blending of the looks of various peoples that made up the Humarian populace, Three was a member of the Blues, a race more formally called the Gorma, descended from the people of the far northern tribes of old; and Wallan had always thought the gentle gradations of blue and greens in their skin tones were ...beautiful? Striking felt wrong to say; the term had a kind of violence to it that Wallan had never quite understood. And breathtaking was too close to the Void spell, Chanilanail, that he had mastered for suffocating groups of soldiers; not quite the tone he was looking for, either. Pleasant… lacked. It was just too understated a statement. Three and Two used to get sunburned sometimes, and it would give them indigo highlights. Stunning…? No… appealing?... I’ll have to think about this some more. …Later.
Aesthetically appealing would have to do. For now.
Two had been mixed, as well, of Piincar and Ocre, though some of the Masters had speculated that he had Gorma mixed into his lineage as well.
Hundreds of years of trade and mixing had meant that while most people in the far off north were Blues, the people of the western steppe beyond the mountains of Hamuria were predominantly Ocres, called ha’Donna; Hamuria and surrounding lands to the West where sand and dust danced on the winds across the horizon beyond the mountain ranges that shielded the East of the Kingdom from the incessant pounding by the deserts. The various peoples that made up humanity in Hamuria were mixed and freely moved from place to place enough that no one blinked at seeing a Blue the central kingdoms, nor Ocres living far to the north in Kjolta. While there were many of the Piincar people in Hamuria, like Five, their pale skins often stood out more than those of the Blues in the average crowd. Piincar came from, and tended to remain in, the Eastern Kingdoms, like Velspe.
The non human races were not accorded such equality, trust, nor freedom of movement, at least within Hamuria. Most were hunted and killed in “civilized” places. As the army had moved further into Velspe, Wallan had seen burned out villages that he was told by a pair of officers had been Hearainan steadings, and it was best they had been destroyed by the Velspe before the Hamurian forces had needed to deal with them. Wallan had never seen any member of the non-human races. At least, not outside of books and tomes he had had to study in his lessons with the masters; most common people of the Kingdom assumed the non-human races no longer lived, or that they were nonsense myths meant to scare children.
He had read a few tomes that had stated some kingdoms had active trade with various nonhuman races, and even allowed them to settle and become citizens. The ports of Kjolta took in trading ships from all over the world, and Velpse’s ports were known to be the largest hubs of trade. Salmet and Hamuria were both known for not allowing any “others'' to enter their cities.
In the Golden Spire of the Kuljat Amulajat where he had studied, there had been a display in one of the lecture halls that contained the mounted skulls of many different races, human and otherwise. Gobhanni, Hearainan, Cuileanan, Altiniyean, various others, all in cases that lined the walls of one of the greater halls. Wallan studied them from time to time, dreaming of someday meeting the various peoples of this world. He didn’t see much difference in the overall morphology of the “nonhuman” skulls from the human skulls. There were size differences, and some differences in arrangements of teeth in the jaws, or odd flows and bulges to various crania, the Hearnainan’s and the Altiniyean’s skulls would begin to grow differently as they reached the greater extremes of age, horns and antlers on the former, and elongation of the skull with extremes in dental growth in the latter; but, overall, they all looked like skulls of “People'' to Wallan’s, admittedly, untrained eyes.
The tall grasses that grew off to either side of the road, “Sandalda Headara,” his wandering mind immediately supplied, had grown to the height of his shoulders in most of the plains lands he now walked through. Their green feathery heads, “beards” his rebellious brain interjected, were just beginning to turn golden at their tips. He would occasionally tread off the road proper to feel the leaves, stems, and even the puffy, but not yet rattling, seedy beards of the tall grasses brush against him as he walked along.
He had not been a real soldier of any kind. Two might have been, but with his ...dysfunction… with magic, Two had had to be. Two could not manifest magic outside of his own body. Inside of his own body, Two could use magic with uncanny efficiency, and produce effects that made him the equivalent of an entire squad of soldiers. He had often been assigned to be the Pride’s own personal guard.
Wallan and the rest, however? Scholars in training who doubled as engines of destruction when the Sun Legions required it. Wallan frowned, thinking of the odd, hard life Two had chosen when they all escaped. They, his adopted siblings and he, had spent almost a full day trying to convince Two to change his mind. The last he had seen of Two, his forehead had begun to glow with a slave’s mark Two’s magic had constructed in the flesh of his skin. His ability would let him change it anytime he wanted, and maybe he would choose freedom for himself someday. If anyone could say, it wasn't Wallan.
His own facility with changing his appearance had been another lesson on his long walk. Two could have just changed the structures of his features, the magic crawling across his form, restructuring the planes and angles of his face and body. He said it was supremely uncomfortable, even painful, and to add mass Two ate like a troll to give his body the means to grow.
Wallan would have to suffice with illusions. He wasn’t comfortable with the idea of reshaping himself, the way Two could. Very few wizards would ever even attempt such a thing, for fear of killing themselves because they had forgotten, or not known, how their organs fit together. Two… just did it. It was natural to him, if a relatively slow process. A good illusion, or a glamour, which involved all of the senses- not just sight, could be cast in the span of a heartbeat by experienced mages.
The small spells that changed his appearance to others' eyes had been the hardest trick for him to pull off in each town. He had trained for over a decade in what his Masters had insisted the Crown needed. Spells to wreak havoc. Spells to bring destruction, and enchantments to make a field of enemies attack their own allies rather than the King’s armies. Spells and wardings to protect soldiers, and other spells to ravage the ranks of those foes of the Kingdom at which he and his fellow apprentices had been pointed.
Delicate, little, teeny, tiny, fiddly magics like these were, to Wallan, like using a sword to scratch an itch on your nose. The first few attempts , Wallan had been slightly afraid he had been about to remove his own head. It made for an awkward, panic laced half an hour outside that first small town, far to the east of here. Twenty-five minutes of sweaty “Oh, Glorious Gods of Dawn, will this even work?” as Wallan strived to formulate the right mixes of energies and willpower to bring his illusions into being.Then five more minutes of staring at his hands as he procrastinated finally releasing the spells out into the world for fear of what harm he was about to do to himself. And possibly to the nearby town. Wallan was a trebuchet, but here he needed to be a teaspoon.
Years of theory beaten into him, and those same years spent reading about the methodologies of the more refined uses of The Art in books was all well and good, but...he had once seen a soldier swinging his weighted practice sword at the target posts all day as a punishment, then at sundown reach up to brush a stray hair from his face. The resulting smack was comical, as the man’s muscle memory and his extreme exhaustion mixed with his sense of kinesthesia had been so thoroughly off track for the delicate task.
He chuckled at the memory. Mostly because it wasn't Wallan who had received that smack. And he had then learned that throwing huge amounts of energy, willpower, and applied spells around did NOT, in fact, make it easy to manipulate the fine gossamer filaments of magic needed to make his nose look different, to tint and texture his skin in new ways, Wallan had thought he looked silly with the pale skin of an Inlander, but in the town where he had lightened his skin to a rosy, blushing pink, not a single person had looked askance at him. For his hair to look straight and blackish, rather than its natural curly reddish, brown-ish color took even less effort. He had even tried making his hair as light as blond, and sunshine tinged as any Lapodian he had ever seen. He thought he looked silly, but, again, no one noticed at all.
In this town he was an old man, slow and deliberate. At that next town he had been a matron, striding with angry purpose. At the next, Wallan had been a spindly lieutenant carrying a messenger pouch to a far flung garrison. He was getting better at the more refined work as he trudged along on his path. Tens of days on the road he had spent casting small spells to change his appearance in small ways. It had been exhausting as daily routines went. But, practice and repetition had made up most of his apprenticeship, and it felt good to sharpen these skills still. Especially, Wallan noted, if it could save his life.
At each town, a different look, a different sound to his voice. At one town, unfortunately, he had tried too hard, and created a very unpleasant scent. Body odor, random cow, and rotten tomatoes... It had been a learning experience.
And at each town he had bought some minor provisions, some bits of clothing. Changing his Royal Pride trimmed tunic and hose for rugged pants, comfortable shirts and a sturdy jacket, all of the style worn by local young men of more humble means. He had a good dagger. (Stolen from the camp at the warfront where he had been living for the greater part of these last three years.) A short sword of not noticeable quality. (Similarly liberated from the Quartermasters' tent.)
He had very basic training in how to use the weapons, and was passing familiar with them; but ultimately they were just for show. No matter how good your ability to thrust with a sword may be, Wallan knew he could send a blade of air, water, or even galvanic force over 100 strides, and could hit any target he could see with that harnessed lightning. Swordsmanship and the well trained archers were impressive, but Wallan knew his worth on the field.
But...no human had seen him as he actually appeared in at least two months. It was an odd feeling, when he came to realize it. Six, or “Wallan” as he had now begun to think of himself, had simply not existed to the rest of humanity for at least two months. Maybe as much as four months, if he thought the Masters had been seeking “Six” where only Wallan now walked.
He had kept his magic use as minimal as possible to keep the masters from tracking him. He knew he should be more careful; a few of the Masters at the Kuljat Almulajat could track and trace magic use in the kingdom; it was a matter of Listening. He knew that his anonymity was a matter of making as little noise in the magical sphere as possible. He thought that thus far his illusions had been less than the least whisper in a large crowd. Especially with the war with Velspe ongoing to the East. His own whispering in the wind should go almost unheard on the thunderous maelstrom of battle happening daily to the East.
And that was all behind him, hopefully, forever now.
Changing his appearance had made him anonymous to anyone who cared enough to follow his path, and used so little magic when compared to sending lightning through an enemy legion, or folding the land on which they had been charging up and over the invaders like a blanket on a cot.
A big, grassy, death filled blanket over a cot populated by screaming, terrified soldiers who would never be seen again.
Those thoughts sometimes brought Wallan to tears as he walked along the Royal Road in a way that “Six” had never been able to express all those years in the war camps.
Another unintended realization he had recently made: Walking at night had given him the opportunity to pray every sunrise, as well. This was what he considered the third important thing he had learned. (Third? Fourth? Twelfth…? He had learned a lot, and time was funny when you were alone, and keeping track of these things had been difficult. So… Third, for a given value of nebulous certainty. Definitely…ish… Third.)
His family, from what little he had been allowed to remember of them, had always prayed at sunrise before he had been taken from them and given to the Masters to start his novitiate years. And while he had tried to pray properly all the years of his apprenticeship, the Masters, and then the Army, had always had other ideas of what he should have been doing at dawn.
This long walk had allowed him to renew his daily devotions. Wallan wasn't sure he was doing it right, though. It never seemed as hollow an experience when he had been surrounded by his family, and been seven years old. Now at roughly seventeen, (eighteen…? Nineteen…? Time again...weird) it just didn't have the same feel. It may have been that his parents’ voices singing the morning prayer were now missing, and his own voice just didn't measure up to their’s, or it could have been his uncertainty in the right words to sing. Maybe it was just his bad singing voice?
It was bad. He knew it. Had anyone heard it, he would have been shamed. Possibly pelted with rotten food, or beaten with reeds.
And now he was ...almost at his journey’s end. His goal was finally coming into view.
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He could just see the edges of the town, proper, coming into view as he walked along the road. The sun, rising behind him, his poorly sung prayers this morning fading away in this new day’s light as it had just begun to pick out the edges of the wall surrounding Caerly, and a few small rooftops could be seen poking out of the morning gloom.
The trip had taken him four months so far, and he was now more used to walking than to sitting still. It felt good to lose himself in the physical act of walking, and he had hoped to find work doing something the people who tried to claim him would never expect to find him doing. At the last three towns Wallan had looked differently than he did now, and had confirmed with locals that he was on the right track to reaching the furthest farming community he could get to, and still remain IN the kingdom. Caerly was small, untroubled by all reports, and completely below the notice of anyone not living there. It would be perfect. He hoped.
Ledgers, and occasional maps, he had seen in the tents of the various officers had convinced him that hiding here in Caerly would be a better idea than running to another kingdom, as three of his five siblings had proposed, or even running off to no kingdom as Four and Two had suggested, though each in different ways.
Wallan was horrified by the notion of “going to sea,” all of that deep, salty water couldn’t be healthy for a person. And while he had never seen a desert, that didn’t feel like a real choice to him, either. A desert, to Wallan, had always looked like the sea, just much slower, and more hot. One had been headed to the deserts, and those kingdoms West of Hamuria. To far away cities where trade was brisk, and the Masters would never be able to enter. Cities like Makab would kill a Master of Hamuria on sight, if they could.
Or, so the stories went.
The maps he had seen, and been made to copy as training for much of his spellwork, had told him there were many other kingdoms on the other side of the sea, and that there were at least six more across the Great Western Desert that men called, much to Wallan’s smug satisfaction, the Glass Sea.
Thelopha, the Boy King of Hamuria, was working hard to consolidate all of the surrounding kingdoms into Hamuria, as it was. Some distant day all of the peoples on this continent might be viewed as Hamurians. Wallan hoped not, but at this point he had his own more immediate needs to see to.
Caerly was getting closer. As he walked the road, he could see some small homes starting to stir in the early morning as light just began to creep through windows, and wake roosters. He took a strip of dried fish from his pack, and chewed one end as he walked along. It might not be that he could find what he needed today. Or even that he could find what he needed in the next few days. Wallan had money to live on, and if he budgeted well, could survive months, or even years, until the right position opened up.
He just needed to remember to not flash his readily available funds around where anyone could see the larger denominations. Five had been insistent that they each take what was a huge amount of money, but to keep it well hidden and only use it sparingly. It’s easier, Five had told them, to live in anonymity on the funds they had liberated, than to get jobs and risk exposing themselves.
Five had also planned to live reclusively, though.
A simple job. One that didn’t require an apprenticeship. Nothing that required reading, nor even the ability to read. Nothing that required math of any kind. He didn't want to be found by Master Kyt. Not by any of those bloody handed monsters in the army, and especially not any of the master mages. When you worked a job that had you writing reports, SOMEONE would be reading those reports. And he didn’t want anyone in the government to notice him. Not now, and not ever again.
Five of the Six had set out in different directions from the camp at the Eastern edge of Hamuria, doing all they could do to confound the efforts of their masters to ever find them again; they had each not even told the others what names they had chosen for themselves, nor in what direction they had each been headed (save for the two who had been too excited to not tell…) because any information any of the six possessed on the whereabouts of the others would be dangerous. It was information that could be pulled from those who were caught.
It had meant that Two was most endangered, because they all knew what his plan had been. Five had been the least open, but he had cried the most as they all separated. Five had never been the most powerful of them all, but he was the most naturally intelligent. The most well studied, and the best student. Five had taught the rest of the Pride as much as the Masters had, some days. Five had been able to do as much with his limited power as Four and Three due solely to his intelligence, and wide study of all of the available magical forms.
Five had made the discovery. It had been Five’s innate intelligence that uncovered the Masters’ plans for them all. It had been Five who had, ultimately, produced the proof, and patiently worked to convince the entire Pride, even One, of the real danger they were all now in.
They had been apprenticed together. They had grown up together. They had been at war together. They had learned horrible things together. They had escaped together. And now, for everyone's sake, they would live their lives never being together again. It was the promise they had all made.
Now, as golden light openly warred with the receding grey darkness of the predawn hours, Wallan was here.
The royal maps had noted the size of Caerly, and had given details with small pictograms. This town supposedly had two inns, a smithy, and a small barracks post for up to twelve soldiers. Farming population, no Royal Factor’s office in the town, the region itself having a roving tax collector and tithes sent with military caravans seasonally.
“A well made map is a treasure to anyone who takes the time to read it.” Wallan smiled as he said it, repeating the favorite phrase of the Captain who used to train him and his fellow apprentices to read maps, and follow them to travel the land.
Wallan wasn't happy about the barracks full of soldiers. But with such a small detachment, they were most likely to be men on their way to being pensioned out, and not even have a proper officer to take charge. Possibly Caerly would boast a single sergeant, maybe a captain, at most.
The town grew grains, vegetables, and some kinds of fruit that the kingdom sent royal factors and quartermasters to buy. Maybe twice a year? Wallan wasn't certain of the exact scheduling, but maps couldn’t tell him everything. His life in the camps taught him much about how the military worked in times of war, but there were always details he didn't know. Many details, he suddenly thought, that he had never even thought to think about.
On his long walk to Caerly he had spent a good amount of time thinking about his “story.” Why was he there, what did he want, who he was, and who, and where, he came from… the few books he had read on the topic of infiltration had lead him to believe that Wallan had better have answers for any and all questions, and that they had better be so believable as to be completely commonplace.
The road had begun growing cobbles under his feet as he walked. The dirt of the track he had been following finally giving way to a worked surface as his steps brought him closer to the walled town. It made him wonder how far out from the town had they stopped paving the road, and just given it up for a lark. There were the occasional side roads he had passed, he had assumed they lead to various local farms, orchards, and steadings. Some of the wider, more well trodden paths leading off to other small settlements and towns.
Inside the town walls, he had no doubt, the roads and streets were all properly paved; but how far out from the town did they stop? And a town this small, how small the maps had all reported Caerly as being, he was sure there weren’t too many streets to begin with.
The cobbles he stood on here were as tightly fitted to one another as any he had ever seen, but time, wind, rain, and the perversity of the Gods had them half obscured by dirt and grasses and weeds grew up where they could, being kept from the road’s path itself only by the feet, hooves, and wheels that regularly moved along the track. Questions for another day.
The walls, as he approached Wallan saw them by the first light of the morning’s sun, were heavier and more substantial than he had imagined a little nowhere town at the edge of the kingdom would ever need. These walls, however, looked three spans high, or the height of two average grown men stacked one atop the other.
Beyond the town’s borders to the West and South were mountainous cliffs and heavy forests. If one could climb those cliffs to the south, they would be met with only the Southern Sea. And over the mountains to the West there was the southern tail of the desert called the Glass Sea. If you could traverse THAT, you would find the Kingdom of Salmet. Crossing a desert, then a set of ridiculously high mountains… Wallan wasn't quite sure why a wall had been built at all. It seemed like a waste of time and materials.
From outside of the walls, he could hear the noises of the town waking up. Standing so close to the walls, it almost looked like a small city, and not a little farming town as he had been led to believe. He stood and listened to the sounds. Felt the air, and the light of the rising sun now shining on the back of his neck. Caerly was easily three times the “town” he had been expecting.
Before taking another step, glancing down, Wallan found himself being inspected by a small cat. White muzzled, with a tawny mix of earthen colors splashed randomly through her, Her…? Hrrm, yes, her... coat. Smiling, he broke off a piece of the dried fish he had been eating, tossing it to the cat, in appreciation. Cats were important in the army camp. They killed the vermin that would otherwise steal the rations, and bring disease to the troops. He imagined cats would be important in a farming town for those same reasons.
The delicate little beast looked down at the fish, then up at Wallan. Wallan looked back at the cat, smiling. She then looked again at the fish, pushing at it first with her right paw, then with her left, until she finally grabbed it up in her jaws and made away with it across the bridge short and around a corner into the shadows, and off to parts unknown.
“Huh.” He walked across a short bridge, and finally through the open portcullis.
Coming through the wide stone portal into a small courtyard, Wallan took note of the three streets that radiated out from the large oval courtyard. To either side of the entrance through which he had just passed, stood two large guard stations. He then took note of the shop fronts lining the middle street marching away from him.
Then he noted the four men in uniform standing around him in the wide open yard.
Glancing from one to the next, he took note of uniforms (clean, well tended, a private, two corporals, one...sergeant major? That was unexpected in such a small post, but, then again, this place was bigger than he had expected), then he noticed the stances (arms crossed on three, thumbs hooked into the belt of the fourth), and the fact that all four had not drawn their swords. Nor the truncheons they carried on their belts.
That was nice.
All four men were tall. Much taller than Wallan, but that didn’t bother him, as while he thought of himself as being the proper size for a young man, he had become used to both being the shortest member of his Pride, and being towered over by the military men and women that had surrounded him this last decade or so.
Expressions of boredom on three faces, and consternation on the fourth.
This fourth face was the sergeant major. He was tall, balding, though what hair was present was considerably grizzled, he was mustachioed, and had very tan skin. Almost as tan as Wallan’s own skin, though much more ruddy than his own more earthy tone. His left eyebrow was crawling up his forehead at a steady pace.
“Um, hello…?” Wallan said as calmly as he could.
“This isn't him.” Said the sergeant major, his face relaxing. The other three men relaxed into themselves, and released all the tension they had been holding. “You, boy, what are you about?”
“Um, sir, I’m new to Caerly, and am looking for an inn. And after that, a position. My parents died, and left me with…” He was cut off as the man snorted out a laugh.
“I don't care about your life story, boy. Follow the broad street two blocks, the Mother's Pony is on the left. If you don’t want that, there are three others further along the lane. Each has a large sign. You can read signs?” Wallan nodded mutely. “Good. Move along, son.” The command was implicit, and unexpected.
“Um...I…” Wallan hadn't thought his story would be brushed aside so quickly as trivial. I hurt a little; he had put such effort and forethought into it.
“We’re busy! Run along, boy!” This sergeant was good at giving orders. Wallan felt his legs moving him along before he had thought to move them himself. “GIT!”
As he scuttled past, he heard the corporal snicker to himself, and saw him smile at Wallan as he pointed the desired direction.
Looking up at the sign for the Mother’s Pony, Wallan was glad he could read. Bright, bold, well painted blue letters spelled out “My Mother’s Pony Inn.” and there was a small red circle in the bottom left hand corner of the sign.
There were no icons on the sign hanging resplendent in the morning sun. Meaning, to Wallan, there was nothing on the sign to tell the illiterate what this business engaged in. There were large windows, shuttered, and a large iron banded door. A wide bench in front of one set of windows was perfectly positioned to catch the morning sun, before the overhang of the building’s second and third floors would shade anyone seated there from the noonday sun, if Wallan estimated correctly. And when it came to knowing where the sun and moon were at all times, his studies had prepared him for a lifetime of awareness.
Wallan reached the door. It was locked.
They may not be open so early, he thought.
That first thought being followed by, how are they not up and moving in the wee hours to cook for guests, and make ready for the day?
He sighed, then, and sat on the bench. Taking out another fish strip, he eyed it sourly. He had been hoping for a real meal this morning. His thoughts slowly buzzed and bubbled through his mind as he sat staring at the dried fish flesh. “But, at least I made it here, finally, and maybe lunch will make up for this lackluster reception.” He said to himself with a gusty exhale.
He put the strip back into his pack, and took a quick swallow from one of his waterskins.
Wallan sat back on the bench and looked at all of the other buildings he could see on the street around him. Most had signs with words only, and no images, nor icons. There was a surgeon’s parlor across from him. “Maestra Vearna’s Surgery.” No traditional images of leechcraft on the sign, just words. And where the Inn’s sign had a small red circle, the Maestra’s sign had a blue circle.
There was a chandlery a few doors down, they had the traditional candle on a horse’s saddle along with the words “Harmo’s Chandlery.” And the lower right hand corner had a small brown square.
Interesting, Wallan thought.
Almost an hour had passed, when Wallan had been startled out of what was the beginnings of a good drowze by the large door to the Inn opening up, and an absolutely huge man trundled out. He turned to stare at Wallan, his muddied red and gray hair, including his slightly brighter red beard, in great disarray, and his puffy face still creased with lines from having been slept upon.
The man grunted at Wallan. He then cleared his throat with a thick, broken cough, and asked in a surprisingly mellow voice, “Good morning, young master. Are you looking for lodging or a meal?”
Wallan nodded, and said simply, “Yes, sir. To both.” He stood, taking back up his travel pack, and watched the man smile so deeply, his hazel eyes were eclipsed by his cheeks from below, and his brows from above.
The innkeeper turned to gesture through the door, and ushered Wallan into the spacious inn. He noticed the shutters had been opened, and the morning sun shone through the windows and onto the cleanly gleaming wooden tables and chairs of the main floor of the inn. All of the surfaces were scrupulously clean, and had been oiled in the very recent past.
“Take a seat where you would, and I will be right back out with breakfast. Then we can have a word about your stay here at my inn.” The innkeeper bustled back behind the bar, and from there to a further back room Wallan assumed either was the kitchen, or led to the same. For such a large man, he walked soundlessly, and with great grace, from what Wallan could judge.
As he sat, the tallest woman he had ever seen came out from the suspected kitchen, draped in a selection of blue and yellow cloth of high quality, and a shawl that even covered the top and back of her head, not quite covering the massive cascade of her salt and pepper spring-like curls of hair. She glided through the room holding a platter in one large hand, which she deposited at his table on her way to the fireplace. She walked with a graceful swaying of her hips that, after a moment’s thought, Wallan realized had more to do with the practiced grace of a person used to weaving between tables in the inn, rather than any attempt at any kind of natural allure or seduction.
…One could learn a lot from her, though… He thought.
Once there, long curls of dark hair interspersed with gray bobbing as she worked, she knelt down to tend to the hearth. She slowly cleaned out the excess ashes, and left the still smoldering embers of last night’s fire in place to start today’s, using a selection of chopped kindling from a rick by the hearth, and then adding a single split log from another rick on the other side of the hearth from the first rack.
Once it was obvious she would be at this task for a few minutes, he turned to the platter she had left him. It held a large mug emitting steam, a small plate with recently cooked slices of some greasy, marbled meat, and a bowl of random items that smelled strongly of vinegar, herbs, and crushed mustard seed. He could make out the forms of at least two hard boiled eggs, and several vegetables of unknown type, all heavily pickled. There was a half loaf of brown bread, its edges freshly toasted, and a lump of butter the size of his fist, with a sheen on it that looked odd to Wallan, but turned out to be honey.
It would have been enough to feed him for the entire day, almost any other day of his life up to today. Even had he been working hard all day, this spread might have been too much.
The woman unfolded her frame from where she had been coaxing life back into the fire, and turned to Wallan as he used his belt knife to first slather the honey butter mixture onto a thick slice of the bread, then to used the tip to spear a piece of the meat and lay it across the mess. Her long, pale face, eyes dark, smiled broadly as she watched him eat the bread and meat with one hand, and pull the gently steaming mug closer with the other.
It was some kind of tea. More black than any he had ever had before, and tangy, sharp, and sweet all at the same time. The flavor was familiar, but the name of it escaped him. It had a dog’s name… the herb was commonly used for sore throats in the capital.
While she watched him begin to eat, he watched her back, smiling back at her between increasingly sloppy bites of food, and louder and longer sips of the tea.
When the cuts of meat were gone, he blinked in surprise... then Wallan began to add to the bread from the bowl of pickled...everything. It was delicious.
Eggs and a mix of roughly cut vegetables had been preserved in a mix of herbs and strong vinegar. Salt, and some other leafy things had been added, but Wallan wasn't sure about what and how much. He didn’t recognise most of the vegetables. One or two he had even had to poke at to confirm they were vegetables at all. He could have Delved all the ingredients, but that would be a silly use of power, and he didn't want to let anyone know he was of THAT persuasion. Delving took him a minute or two, even a small Delving like this would have been, and he guessed he could have covered by saying he needed to sit and pray over the meal. He knew some people did that. But, for now, the curiosity over the nature of this repast was less urgent than the actual eating of the repast.
The food, more than he had eaten in a handful of days at a time since leaving the Army, was fast disappearing. It might have been surprising to him had he seen anyone else attacking seemingly innocent food with such dogged savagery.
Before he realized she had gone, the tall woman had glided back into the room, and carrying a giant blue glazed teapot, refilled his mug of tea. She glanced at his emptying plates, and issued a delightfully full throated laugh. Her smile was so warm, and so filled with kindness. Wallan almost wanted to cry, wondering what kind of life any child of this tall woman would lead. She spoke in a language that to his ears was a melodic susurrus of consonants, Kalkt, the language is called Kalkt… Wallan could read it quite well, but was abysmal at speaking it… she turned, and headed back to the kitchen, dodging around the innkeeper as he returned. Walland noticed that next to one another, the couple looked quite ordinary and proportionately perfect for each other. They were both just very tall, large people.
He slowly lowered his bulk into the chair opposite of Wallan’s own with a sigh and small grunt. “So,” the innkeeper began, “you are looking for a room. I am this Inn’s proprietor, call me Arla.” His voice was deep, and pleasant, now lacking the cracked stone nature it had earlier, Wallan supposed from sleepiness. His accent was strange to Wallan’s ear, though; long vowels, and random stressed consonants. Possibly Kjoltian? Three speaks it like a native...“How long are you planning to stay? My stable boy had not woken me up when you arrived, so I think you don’t have a horse to stable, yes? That will save you some money. Yes. Hrrm…though, if you have a horse elsewhere, you should bring it here to stable. Very secure, and we have the best grain for our guests’ horses.”
He smiled up at the big man as he finished swallowing more tea, “Ah, no, I don’t have a horse, Sir. I’m not sure how long I will be in need of a room. At least a week, I imagine. I am looking for work…” Arla’s eyebrows shot up at that.
He gave Wallan a skeptical glance, and with narrowing eyes said “A single room is three full coppers a night, with board, five coppers.”
Wallan knew nothing about at what price he should be either offended by or grateful for, so did the most logical thing he could think of, and began bargaining. “If I am here at least a week, that is a dependable week’s worth guaranteed custom to you, three and a half.”
The laugh that greeted Wallan was seismic, and he wondered if he should check himself for loose teeth. It wasn't scornful, nor derisive laughter, but loud, heartfelt, and incredibly loud. Wallan thought he may have overplayed the idea of haggling.
“Oh, my! No. This will not do!” Turning toward the kitchens, Arla bellowed “Kamma, we need more sugar in this tea! This fey thief looks to steal all our pants from us! HA!”
The tall woman, Kamma, peaked out from the doorway, and shook her head with a look of exasperation. She then spoke in a very broken Hamurat “We have not enough pants! No pants for pretty eyed Gobhanni boy!”
As she ducked back into the kitchen, Arla turned back to Wallan, and they held each others’ gazes for a few heartbeats, one expression clearly saying “Don’t laugh, you know what she meant” and the other “I swear by all I hold dear, I will not laugh, and stop making me blush!”
“Now… I can see how you might want to save your vast wealth, and keep the poor and oppressed people of Caerly under your boot heels, my good Lord, but mutton costs more than bread, and a solid board is better for a young man looking for work.” He then squinted harder at the young traveler. “For a week, four and a half.”
Wallan wanted to just say four coppers, and be done with it, but he had learned in his travels that it was custom and courtesy to let the merchants call the final offer, and would save all egos involved if he allowed Arla to set the price. “Your inn looks clean, and more importantly, it smells clean. The food this morning will make me fat if I let it. I cannot imagine a more pleasant inn to spend my money at than here with you and your lovely daughter. Three and three fourths.”
Alra smiled at the ridiculous flattery, and jumped on the game, saying loudly “For you, four coppers, and tell no one, or they will make me a beggar and laugh at me!”
“Done!” Wallan said, and held out both of his hands, which Arla took into his own gigantic hands, with wrists crossed, as was the custom when bargains were struck outside of formal contracts, especially here in the southern parts of the kingdom.
Hours later, having paid for a week’s lodging and food in advance, then having thoroughly washed the road from himself in the inn’s small bath house, Wallan was exhausted and used the small bed in the tiny, but comfortable room to take a nap before setting out to start to explore the town and possibly find a way to support himself.
As he began to drowse, looking out the small window across the room from his bed, under which an efficient, if compact, writing desk sat against the wall, Wallan saw a small cat watching him through the levered wooden slats that made up the window. He smiled to himself. Cats were, after all, good luck.