Sayvensdee, the 27th of Harvest, 768 A.E.

  As Sechsdee had wound down, Anthea’s energy had begun to flag. It had become clear to Rolf, if not to the other two that she would not make it to Norsjalde unless they carried her. Rolf hadn’t thought he could carry her that far, and Bedros had still been weak from his wounding and subsequent healing. So, he had played the ‘bad guy’ and suggested they stop.

  His first suggestion that they camp out among the cover of the trees and push on in the morning had been met with something near hostility from Anthea, who deeply wanted to reach the town before the Dee was out. A quarter Ouer later, when Anthea had stumbled and barely managed to get back up, he had made another such suggestion that they stop. Anthea, much to Bedros’ relief, had disappointedly accepted this one. Bedros’ eyes had shown deep concern for Anthea as well as illustrating his own weariness.

  It was at the turn of the Dee when Rolf set up a small fire. While Rolf cooked a thin stew over a very modest campfire he had built, Bedros began to set up the light-giving crystal light pods around them in a small circle. To Rolf’s surprise, Anthea’s pallor began to fade and she took a healthier color to her cheeks.

  “You look better now.” Rolf ventured, catching her eyes as he stirred what would shortly be their meal.

  Anthea nodded and looked away into the fire. “It’s the rest. I felt faint. Sitting down helps.”

  “Perhaps, but I think it’s more than that.”

  Bedros settled down on a heavy rock he had dragged over. His visage in firelight was rather fearsome. His curled horns glinted dangerously, and his large eyes seemed to absorb the firelight until they glowed with a reddish-orange haze. His hairy features were cast severe shadows, highlighted by the glow of firelight.

  “What do you mean?” Anthea asked, glancing at Bedros before looking back at Rolf.

  Rolf took a glance at Anthea’s protector, and decided the issue was not worth pursuing. If there were something he needed to know, she’d surely tell him. Until then, it was best not to anger her or her companion. “Ah… nothing. Don’t mind me.”

  A few Mynettes of peaceful quiet passed, punctuated by the chirrup of crickets, the crackle of the fire, and the hum of voracious mosquitoes that the fire warded off just beyond its smoky grasp. The wind whispered through the cedars they camped within, each well over a dozen Mayters tall. They swayed gently in the wind, their trunks occasionally creaking if a particularly strong gust of wind came through.

  “Do you worry that we keep secrets from you, Rolf?” Anthea asked.

  Rolf looked at her for a moment, surprised at how hale she looked now that she sat within the halo of light that the crystal pods bathed them in. “I know you keep secrets, but they are yours to tell.”

  “You would not ask?” Anthea asked in surprise.

  “I want to, but I know better than to do so.”

  “Is this the way of your kind?”

  Rolf thought for a moment, trying to think of how best to summarize his people’s views. “My people respect straight-forwardness. They expect that they will be told that which they should know. To do less than that for someone is to dishonor them, for you deem them not trustworthy of knowing.”

  “Then I will pay you the honor of telling you the truth about the crystal pods. I owe you that much for saving our lives earlier.” When Rolf nodded and paid her his full attention, she began explaining, ignoring the looks from Bedros that urged caution. “Aureans are tied to the sun and the moon. Maletos and Haestos give us their light so that we might live. We need it to survive.”

  “Truly? You would die without light?” Rolf asked in surprise.

  Anthea nodded solemnly. “In a few Dees, yes. Even a night without light can cause one of us to sicken.”

  Rolf thought for a moment, watching the way the light of the fire seemed to gravitate toward her or at least soak into her features until she glowed. “How can there always be light though? Half of the Dee there is only the dim light of the moon or no light.”

  “We have found ways on our mountaintops to trap the sun and amplify the light of the moon. These crystal pods are just one way my people create or capture light to stay alive.”

  “I saw one of them at my Familienheime. I thought it strange but did not know there was such a reason for its existence. Your people are very ingenious, very creative. I doubt the Kerathi would ever be so resourceful, except in finding new ways to kill each other.”

  “Your people are very warlike, yes?”

  “Your mother didn’t tell you?” Rolf asked.

  “She spoke little of her own kind.”

  “The only thing we enjoy more than killing each other, is killing Aynglicans.”

  Anthea frowned and felt obligated to ask, “Why do your kind hate them so?”

  “I’m not sure. I think we’ve always just been at war in one fashion or another. They look more like us than any people, save the Rumani perhaps, and yet they are so different. They are farmers, builders, and thinkers, while we are warriors, hunters, and destroyers. We are only creative in finding ways to bring ruin upon others. It seems a culture destined to fail sometimes, yet we are still here.”

  “And yet there is beauty among your people. The Thaumaturges, like myself, are capable of healing and much good, are they not? They take flowers and work great deeds with them.”

  “Yet even they can be used as tools of war.” Rolf said in disgust, sighing. He gave the stew one last stir and then began doling it out in battered tin bowls with matching spoons.

  Bedros ate surprisingly quietly, holding the dainty spoon between his thumb and forefinger. He could eat what they ate because it had no meat in it, though Rolf tore up bits of jerked meat to put in his own bowl. Anthea declined his offer for meat in her own bowl.

  Anthea blew on a spoonful of food, letting it cool before she ate it. Rolf simply slurped it down, seemingly with no care for burning his tongue or throat. He ate mechanically, as one who took no comfort in a meal – albeit a bland one – would do. Occasionally he would look up to watch with a small measure of humor as Bedros ate daintily.

  “The deaths we dealt todee, they weigh on you?” Anthea asked quietly, her voice nearly a whisper, but one that carried, nonetheless.

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  Rolf smiled ruefully at her. “More than they should. I always knew it would come to that between Lamont and I, but I worry about what happened to him so much as I worry for my mother, who may face Lamont’s father’s wrath now. Beljd is not a pleasant man. It was his heavy hand that raised and shaped Lamont into what he was.”

  “You don’t have to come with us.” Anthea offered, not wanting to tear him away from his home as she had been.

  “My friend Olin will take care of my mother and my home. He’s promised to do so.”

  “You trust him with such important things then?”

  “He told me about Lamont’s plan to attack you and Bedros. He is a good man. I’ve always thought so.” Rolf declared.

  “Perhaps she will be fine then?”

  “Perhaps.” Rolf said, finishing his food in an angry slurp that signaled that he was done talking.

  He banked the fire then and cleaned up the pot and bowls when they were all done eating. Before he was finished, Anthea had already gone to sleep, pillowing her head on Bedros’ lap. Bedros sat there stone still, watching over her protectively.

  A pair of crystal pods, one situated to either side of Anthea, bathed the camp in more light than the fire could hope to offer. Rolf was only slightly nervous about having such a well-lit camp. Their deeds the Dee before might draw unwanted attention, but no one would likely be looking for them yet. Besides, who was he to deny her something she needed to live just for the sake of being a little more discrete?

  As he prepared to go to sleep himself, Rolf wondered if the Ox-Man would get any sleep but didn’t think on it overlong. He stretched out his cloak and pitched down on it, falling asleep quickly, as he always had been able to do.

  Despite having slept in a well-lit camp, Rolf woke feeling fairly rested. He had woken up from time to time during the night only to find that all was well and that his new companions had not disappeared. Bedros had remained in his protective pose all night, somehow managing some sleep here and there. The light had been constant all through the night and into the early morning, so Rolf had slept with his cloak partially pulled over his face to shield his eyes.

  Travel was quiet. No one had much to say, but there was a sort of calm and ease that came because he had been let in on some of Anthea’s secrets. Her trust had made him one of her companions and so they were all easier around each other. Rolf was quietly digesting what this meant to him as part of her entourage, as well as considering where to go, once they’d reached Norsjalde. Bedros seemed to have accepted his presence too, for he no longer favored him with long gazes of what had seemed halfway between suspicion and caution. Now Bedros’ looks were more appraising, as if he were accustoming himself to the presence of another person. Slowly, the Ox-Man was letting his guard down.

  Rolf was surprised by how hale Anthea appeared in the morning. She exhibited little more than a little stiffness in her arm, which was still in an improvised sling. Her pace was not slow or tired, or exhausted as her wounds may have left her. Bedros exhibited more signs of exhaustion than she did, though Rolf figured that was because he had slept less than the two of them had.

  The distance they traveled that morning was far less than what they had covered the Dee before, as they’d journeyed the lion’s share of the distance before bedding down. They had only a few Kilomes to travel, and they covered it in an Ouer, putting them in sight of Norsjalde in the fourth Ouer of the Dee, slightly before mid Dee.

  To Anthea, Norsjalde was a surprise. After Harsbrukke, she expected little of any Kerathi settlement, but Norsjalde shattered her ideas about the scope of Kerathi civilization. What lay before her was an entire valley, that stretched down to the sea, filled with houses and buildings. Smoke rose from hundreds of chimneys and the clatter and clang of industry filled the air.

  Where Aureans build vertically, digging shafts into mountains that they filled with life-sustaining crystal pods or building towers that soared ever closer to the edge of the sky, Kerathi built outward in sprawling settlements. They lacked the spires and impressively flawless-wrought spires of crystal, glass, and stone, but the sheer amount of ground covered by this settlement made it larger than Cenalium in terms of area covered.

  “Big, eh?” Rolf grinned. “It’s much bigger than Harsbrukke.”

  Anthea nodded, sweeping her eyes across the town like a panorama. “I had thought it to be another village like Harsbrukke, just on the sea.”

  Rolf laughed. “Hardly. Harsbrukke is just a small inland hunting village. Our clan is new. Esben earned enough honors fighting the Aynglicans that he was allowed to break away from the clan of his father and begin his own. In a few generations, perhaps we will grow sizeable enough to move off the island and find an island of our own.”

  “Esben was that famous?” Anthea asked surprisedly. “He seemed very regular to me, if imposing. He didn’t really seem like a famous person though, not that I’ve met many.”

  Rolf nodded, continuing to walk down the gravelly road into Norsjalde. “Regular? He’s perhaps the greatest Kerathi of the last three generations or more. The honor bestowed unto him was a rare one. It has happened only a few times in many Yarres.”

  “And all those people in Harsbrukke, they are his offspring and relatives?” Anthea asked, walking beside him, with Bedros at her other side.

  “Many are friends, or the families and relatives of friends who were so distantly related to their own Herskers that they had no chance of ever gaining any influence in their own clans. So, they took a chance and joined a new one, knowing that in a clan so small, there was a much better chance for their own advancement or the advancement of their children.”

  “That seems so strange.”

  “Why? How do your people decide who rules? Strength of arms and great deeds win our people respect and honor, and then the greatest among us rule. In times when there are no great wars or great deeds to be done, the children of our greatest rule us.” Rolf explained.

  “I see.” Anthea replied, trying to think about how her people chose their rulers. “Among our kind, we have rulers that are chosen. I don’t really know how. I just know that they surrender all ties to family when they assume their position as Grand Helion, Greater Helion, or as Voice of the Firmament, so that they will favor our people as a whole and not just those they know. They lead our lives and guide us to do what is right.”

  “That is not so much different from our kind.” Rolf insisted. “We have to choose leaders who we believe have done the grandest deeds and have the most honor.”

  “Perhaps.” Anthea said, but she had her doubts.

  Around them, the buildings began to grow closer. Already they were passing a few of the outlying farms and fields, each taking up wide expanses of ground that seemed outlandish to an Aurean girl who had always seen every square Mayter used purposefully and efficiently in Cenalium, where there was no room to spare.

  Rolf halted, waiting a few moments for Anthea and Bedros to realize he had stopped. They turned to look at him.

  “What is it?” Anthea asked, glancing around warily.

  “I think you should put my cloak on and pull the hood up.” Rolf suggested, pulling the cloak out of his pack. It was too warm for him to wear it this early in the Dee, though at night it sometimes got cold enough that he would need it.

  “Why?”

  “Because, speaking frankly, you’re going to draw attention, and many men here won’t care that you’re as young as you are. You’ll bring us more trouble if you don’t cover up than if you do. It’s rather evident that you’re a foreigner just from the company you keep, let alone your own looks. We’ll have to find outlander lodgings near the docks until we can book a ship off the island.”

  “I thought we’d leave right away.” Anthea replied, as if it were just that easy.

  Rolf shook his head wistfully. “We must wait for a ship going our way, and for the tides. It could even be a few Dees.”

  “A few Dees?” Anthea said worriedly. “I can’t wait that long. I need to get to Aetheline, and what’s a tide?”

  “That can’t be helped, Anthea. Believe me, I’ll get you out of here as soon as I can, but I can’t change when the tides come – they’re when the water is high or low during the Dee. There are shoals and rocks that can make passage out of Norsjalde dangerous or impossible of the tides are unfavorable. I also can’t change the schedule of passenger vessels. Fishing and whaling ships won’t take on passengers, only workers.”

  “Then may Gandahar and Sellae smile upon us.” Anthea said with a heavy sigh. “You’re certain about the cloak?”

  “Unfortunately, yes. And if Bedros weren’t so tall, I’d try to hide him somewhat too. It just can’t be helped. However, if you’re covered up, he’ll draw the eyes, and not you. It’s safer that way. My people may be civilized according to the rough definition of the word, but they’re not always gentlemanly.”

  “If it must be done…” Anthea replied in resignation, pulling the cloak over her and upping the hood.

  Then the three of them walked into Norsjalde, trusting that Rolf could find his way. Around her, the city grew and Anthea couldn’t help but smile to think she was in her first real city ever, other than Cenalium. And if it wasn’t the most grand and beautiful city in the world, it was still very different and interesting in its own way. Besides that, she also had a chance to make good on her promise to Esben to make an offering to Gandahar and Sellae, and here in the city there would surely be a place to do that.