The next morning, the dragons of Choave's caravan packed up and departed early. Rather than go straight on to Mosdenechrak (which was their next proper destination and was northeast of Tassilya), they departed to the northwest for Tanoriz, in which theome there was nothing at all to find for merchantgons save that there was one very well-regarded inn run directly by the land god of Tanoriz, whose name was Enderenuskeld.
There was no grant of the necromantic blessing that day. Choave said the distance between Tassilya and Tanoriz was too short to justify the spell’s risk, and that they would be in Tanoriz shortly once they were beyond the forest of Taithorkey. Denziu didn’t mind. Two days of relative ease while selling charms had left Denziu feeling much restored from prior fatigue, and zie felt zie was keeping up better than ever. All the exercise from the caravanning would surely show in zir legs.
As they travelled along the road beneath the dense canopy of Taithorkey’s vast-treed forest, Denziu asked Ekis, “So what’s Tanoriz like?”
Ekis promptly lifted her head and spoke loud enough to be heard by the rows ahead and behind, “Hey, Mosdrao! Tell Denziu what Tanoriz is like!”
“The inn there is legendary!” called back Mosdrao. ‘They sell steak for the price of pottage, and pottage for the price of air!”
Ekis turned and called back towards the row behind them, “Omrezen, what’s Tanoriz like?”
“Terrible. Nobody hunts in this theome, the land god Enderenuskeld just summons food at his Inn!” called back Omrezen.
Chatulerin added, “It’s good for our budget, seeing as we don’t hunt along the way.”
“If food is so cheap here, why don’t people settle in the area?” asked Denziu.
“It’s forbidden,” called back Mosdrao. “Enderenuskeld asks people not to, and I’ve never heard of anyone defying him.”
“Sometimes I order meat here,” said Lorma. “I like that the summoned meats here were never first alive.”
Ekis gestured forward with a hand and said, “This is a good place! We visit here twice a year!”
A few hours into their journey, the trees of Taithorkey were starting to thin out in favour of smaller trees and broader grassy clearings. There were no more tree-villages overhead, though treehouses never quite stopped, and indeed there was to the edge of the theome an increasing density of houses along the road. The road to Tanoriz seemed to have a lure all its own for settlers.
While passing through a civilised area, or what Denziu had thought looked like a civilised area, Choave's voice cut through Denziu's long-walking reverie. “All stop!”
The road crossing the border of Taithorkey and Tanoriz was, as it turned out, a toll road.
It had not been a toll road the year prior.
It was not a very well-organised toll road right now.
It looked rather more like a highwaygon trap. They were surrounded by vashael with weapons and vrash with ugly war paints. A pale green vrash with a violet skull mask was leering at Denziu from the roof of a nearby house. Denziu tightened zir grip on zir wagon. This was too precious to lose.
A red vashael who Denziu assumed was the leader of the highwaygon group approached Choave at the head of the caravan. He was carrying a spear. "We've need of your goods, good merchantgon."
"At fair prices?" asked Choave.
"In a manner of speaking. We're the new maintainers of this road. Keepers of the peace. Long-suffering defenders of those who can afford to travel long distances just to eat a meal in a new place," said the highwaygon leader. “We won't take all you have. This is just a toll. Now, consider yourself warned." The red vashael said all of this, and then made a hand gesture to the others.
The highwaygons surged close. There were only twelve to the fifteen of the caravan (though three of the caravan were either izerah or vohntrai, both smaller kinds of dragon), but most of the caravanners were hitched to wagons and none of them were fighters. Such a hazard as active banditry was so rare across the Tachanigh-Kelkaith trade corridor that none of them were mentally prepared to fight.
Choave raised his empty hands to the approaching highwaygons. "No, friends. Just a small toll. We will gladly pay."
The "small toll" was more irregular than that. The highwaygons looked into each and every wagon and took something from all of them. Denziu would've fought for zir wagon itself, but they laughed at Denziu's nervousness and didn't try to take such a prize. Instead, they offloaded Denziu's personal cask of late Shaleara cider. That was a bit too 'easy come, easy go' to make an issue of. From several of the merchantgons, they demanded a few coins each. The caravan's two 'passengers' (only one of whom was in the passenger carriage) got the same treatment and were shorter of coin in the passage of the bandits. Chatulerin, who kept the treasury, lost a small bag of coins that Denziu prayed were not minted of too precious a metal.
From Lorvaza's wagon, there was a jingling heist followed by a sharp cry, "That is NOT a small toll!" There was some shouting hostility from this, threats from the bandits and snarls on both sides, but then the leader of the bandits intervened, and affirmed (rather surprisingly, Denziu thought) that indeed the toll was to be small, but there was to be something from everyone. Thus it was that a moment later, the highwaygons took something different from Lorvaza: the bin that Denziu knew contained nothing but Tekagoli charms. Those, Lorvaza agreed, were a small toll, and so the highwaygons took away a small wealth in pewter figurines on straps. Lorvaza said nothing about the ill tidings on them, and neither did anyone else in the caravan, though of course they had all had their attention drawn.
It was not a small value to lose, given that the charms were profitable to sell at a merchantgon's mark-up, but it was a victory of an esoteric kind: the luck of Baggil's infliction would be surely worse upon awful bandits than it was upon goodly merchantgons! If they wore those charms, their days as a bandit group would end in misery.
Not that the goodly merchantgons were free of misery. What had been a high-spirited trot to Tanoriz Inn became a miserable slog to Tanoriz Inn. With anxious and irritable spirits the dragons of the caravan growled that they would tell of this loss to Enderenuskeld, and though they walked through green fields of tall grass where the wind swayed shimmering bands of grass alongside the raised roads of that grassland, there was little joy in the journey.
Slowed by their poor mood, it took entirely too long to get to Tanoriz Inn. Hours passed again before the orange-scaled incarnate avatar of Enderenuskeld met them at the door to his inn. The land god appeared to be perhaps the only fat izerah that Denziu had ever seen. He greeted them with an air of solemnity and bid them enter.
Tanoriz Inn was a vast hall. It was a singular building intended to serve many dragons as an eatery and for overnight lodging. There was even a landing platform high overhead where dragons could enter it from above, and a caravanserai dome for hosting caravans.
The servants of Tanoriz Inn were abundant. They were abnormally small, unpatterned vashael of muted colours. They seemed to be rushing about various tasks even as the group approached the inn, and there was one scrubbing the floor in the caravanserai dome as the caravanners entered to stow their wagons. Everything they saw seemed spotless.
They went next to the great hall of the inn, which was famed for the cheap and excellent food served there. There were other dragons in the inn that evening, but Enderenuskeld joined Choave’s caravan at dinner in the great hall. To Denziu’s surprise Enderenuskeld ordered a small feast for himself, though zie knew that land gods have no need of food.
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“I could tell watching over you that something went wrong,” said Enderenuskeld while they were all waiting for food. “Yet it seems to have occurred before you stepped foot in my theome. What happened?”
“We got attacked by bandits!” said Chatulerin, incensed.
“They stole from all of us,” said Denziu. “I lost a cask of cider.”
“They tried to steal my fate-charms, but I fended them off. They stole instead an entire bin of Tekagoli luck charms!” said Lorvaza.
Up to this moment, Enderenuskeld had been properly grave. Yet at the mention of Tekagoli luck charms, his reserve cracked, and he laughed uproariously. "Praise Baggil!" he said. “I’m not of a mind to take ANY action against bandits on the border who’ve just stolen Tekagoli luck charms. Trust in Baggil's seerage, for I know already who has just ended early the formation of a bandit group!" Such was the response of Enderenuskeld.
They did not bear Choave's blessing that next day, but Choave said that Enderenuskeld would take care of it, and indeed Denziu felt remarkably refreshed from sleeping at Tanoriz Inn. Zie felt in top form and like zie'd gained improbably well from the exercise of the days in getting to Tanoriz. The soreness that zie’d been living with was gone in their muscles.
The caravan set out at its usual brutal fast walk with their wagons. Denziu did manage to keep up, but zie felt the challenge which on other days had been kept away from zir awareness by Choave's blessing.
The roads in Tanoriz were good yet strange, for past the inn they were elevated. They were broad roads raised up on short, stout columns with tunnels dug in the low spaces under them. The grasses grew high in Tanoriz, and the animals scurried along even under the roads. The good roads of Tanoriz criss-crossed the grasslands without breaking it up, an unusual road maintained by the magic of the land god. At least, Denziu presumed it was magic work. If there had been some work-crew through to build the elevated road, they were certainly beyond the knowledge of Denziu. How old was the road?
The road to Tanoriz Inn had been borne down under a grim mood that had kept Denziu from thinking of anything very bright and new, but now Denziu studied the landscape with a keen eye even as the caravanners walked along the roads pulling their wagons. The whole of Tanoriz seemed to have a healing aura that made zir capable of facing the labour of the walk, and through the challenge of that walk zie longed... to stop and study the land they walked past. Not to take a break (or not just to take a break) but to study the soil here and see what underlay the beautiful grassland's vibrancy.
“These grasses grow so high,” Denziu said to Ekis. “The soil here must be truly excellent.”
“Is that a specialty of yours?” asked Ekis.
Denziu grinned. “Yes, that’s why I’m called Clayseller! I wasn’t always selling pottery. I’m a good contact for vrash farmergons, because they can learn to mimic the best soils. I built up my savings training all the farmergons in Denxalue,” boasted Denziu.
“Denxalue isn’t known for its produce…” said Ekis sceptically.
Denziu’s brows knitted as zie stewed on that reply. They walked on in silence for a bit. Eventually, Denziu said, “You’re right. I spoke rashly. I earned more training many farmergons in Tekagol than all the farmergons in Denxalue.”
“Will you later come back here to Tanoriz to take a soil sample, then?” asked Ekis.
“I might. The ability of the vrash to reform soils is a sacred gift,” Denziu said, marking the place in mind as somewhere to visit again in the future.
It was a long walk, and Denziu was glad of the company of Ekis. The wonders they saw daily were shared between them.
Today Denziu was marvelling at Enderenuskeld's great tracts of land, here where the land god had built the roads for even the smallest scurrying wildlife to have sanctuaries under them.
“Do you think all of this wilderness has some value to return to the dragons of Theoma?” asked Denziu.
“Hunting! For us! For other predators! Animals graze here or hide in the grasses,” offered Ekis. She looked out across the grasslands they were walking past. “Of course maybe… Enderenuskeld just loves this kind of landscape.”
“Do you think he cares about the health of the animals?” For there was surely no other reason for the elevated paths that let the scurrying animals cross under the road without nature being segmented by the passing of wagon trains.
“I think he cares for the health of all that lives!” Ekis’ tone could not have been brighter. “This is a lucky land!”
All day long they were occasionally passed by other traffic as well. They noticed particularly the many times they were passed by running izerah, sometimes a runner in one direction, twice as often a runner in the other, all carrying packs upon their backs. Ekis said, “This is a popular place for long travels afoot among the izerah! We can run forever and this place heals us further with every step, so of course there are a lot of izerah who visit Tanoriz!”
Ekis was easy to talk to and Denziu was glad that they’d fallen in next to each other on the roster. Nor did the other caravanners mind their chattiness; there were other conversations in other rows of the 2x6 arrangement of wagons.
The two of them talked about the grasslands all day long. With the mind that had learned of soil from a childhood love of mud into an adult career helping farmergons, Denziu wondered at the purpose of the grasslands that grew wild here.
The theome might be a reservoir of a kind, zie decided; a reservoir of animal flesh. Zie thought of all the bone and ivory for sale in Taithorkey. To have all these grasslands here tended where there was nothing but Tanoriz Inn might be worth something to Taithorkey. Did the herbivores of the forest eat the grass here as well? Denziu was not a hunter or studier of animals, and didn't know. Yet surely even if they did not, all the small animals of Tanoriz must be keeping the predators of Taithorkey's great forest fed, and in this land's protection the well-fed predators of Taithorkey were such as hunters could claim.
Zie had read that east from Taithorkey (but more saliently to Denziu who was of Nidrio, north of Nidrio) there was another of the impassable Sacred Forests called Ayadaro, where the wildlife grew to truly impressive sizes. Ayadaro was a very dangerous place where nobody lived and only brave dragons hunted. It might also be a reservoir of animal flesh. All of these wilderness areas where the animals passed and made their homes more readily than could ordinary dragons, they all fed into each other to uphold the wealth of the dragons who lived in the theomes. With Taithorkey flanked on both sides by wilderness areas that could not be developed, there was space in this region for many hunters and their prey.
The conversation with Ekis kept Denziu occupied for all the hours it took to walk to the edge of Tanoriz, and Choave didn’t push their pace that day. At the end of the day's journey when they stopped at the edge of the theome, it was to pull their wagons off the elevated road on a down ramp that led into a crushed up bit of field. The permanent stone firepit in the field made it clear that it had hosted many travellers over the centuries. They drew the wagons about the firepit in a ring and hung up tarps between them just in case there would be rain that night. With a collective prayer to Enderenuskeld that he would bless them in spirit with another night of his gracious hospitality, they lit a bonfire in that firepit.
The great centre of Mosdenechrak being not terribly far from the boundary of Tanoriz, the group stopped just inside the theome's boundary to camp for the night. They knew full well that they were stopping at the edge of the theome, for the road signs declared the edge of it.
They stopped early. It wasn’t quite evening yet. The city of Mosdenechrak was some half a day's walk from this point. In zir inexperience Denziu asked, “Why don’t we go on further? We could reach Mosdenechrak in the morning if we kept walking on the road from here and camped farther on.”
“All things and all dragons are more enduring in Tanoriz than in other theomes,” declared Choave. “I don’t want to miss a moment we can justify spending here. Everything we have is getting farther from breaking as we spend time here.”
“He’s telling the truth,” chimed in Kishka. “If you looked at the wagon axles before we arrived and then looked again just now, you’d see they’re less worn. Enderenuskeld just goes about fixing things all the time, and he doesn’t tell anyone that he’s doing it.”
As they cooked meals around the field’s stone campfire pit, Choave surprised Denziu by singing for the group a rousing rendition of "Ode of the Ageless", a primordial hymn of praise from no particular faith sung in glory of all the land gods, who gave to all dragons that they should live forever if they could but love their safety.
When that song had finished, Mosdrao took over, proudly displaying his purple scales and green scratch-line patterns. This was Mosdrao who was called 'of Jiasote', another of the freepacted merchantgons like Denziu, and he sang for the caravan "Seekers Few and Fleeting", a more obscure song that Denziu had never heard before that was a bit of a rejoinder to the more renowned "Ode to the Ageless", for Seekers was about the great power attained by the few who sought to wrest secrets from the grip of danger on Theoma. This rarer song was a great treat to hear, but Denziu would not have known the name of the song had Mosdrao not told them what to call it as he finished it.
When Mosdrao had stood down, there rose the vrash Omrezen, whose colours were a gleaming green-limned-in-white. She was yet another of the freepacted merchantgons. She sang a lively song of hunting that she clearly expected everyone to recognise, and which Denziu politely pretended to recognise though zie knew not a word of it nor what it was called. When she was done, they stopped, for meals were done cooking. When they had finished eating, there were more songs again, with the travelling vohntrai leading a hymn that they all knew well: "Renew Me, Oh Gloried Fate".
In this way they spent a good fraction of the night trading songs, though Denziu and a goodly half the caravan pled ill-trained voices or poor memories for song when the group's attention fell on them. This singing for the group was an uncommon entertainment that they could not quite be roused to perform without hymnals in hand.