John was
woken up by the dog licking his face. He briefly considered casting a small
stinger on its nose, but then he thought better of it. You shouldn’t irritate
your host’s dog with recreational magic. That was the first rule of being a
good guest.
He lay for a moment protecting his face from the dog and considering
what had happened. His teleport had gone seriously wrong and he appeared to have
jumped somewhere off the map. If Aristarios were of any reasonable size and in
either of the northern continents then he would know about it. Could he be in
the Far South? Well, if he were then surely he would receive a mail from
Laurence very soon. In fact, maybe he had some mail paper with him; maybe he
could try to contact Laurence straight away.
John got up and searched through the many pockets in his cloak. There
was a lot of junk, he realised. He piled it up on a table by the mattress: some coins, the Quiena scroll, some orange
peel, bits of ordinary paper with scribbled notes, and, finally, an old bit of
mail-paper. It was a message from Laurence when he’d been in Ortia. Almost all
of it was filled with writing and therefore unusable, but the very bottom of
the paper was blank. Of course, he didn’t have any ink yet, but he was halfway
there.
He put all of his possessions back in his cloak and went in search of
somewhere to wash.
It seemed to be morning, although outside it was still grey and drizzling.
There was no sign of Eoothon – John wondered exactly what he did all on his own
here. He headed to the door and stuck
his head out. It was still very wet. John looked around for somewhere to
freshen up. There was a bowl on a table filled with water. Perhaps here you
just left the bowl outside and there was always water in it. Perhaps, in fact,
one never needed to wash – ten minutes outside would do. He splashed himself as
best that he could. It was too cold and
wet to wash properly. Shivering he went back inside to look for food.
There was a hunk of bread on the table and cold meat. This was
essentially what he’d had the previous day, but he was still hungry. He sat on
a rough wooden stool and began to worry. The CRS were clearly after the scroll
and had found new and exotic ways to try to destroy it. They had learned to
control that strange blue space and the things within it. That had definitely
been Kratos that he had seen, but how had he been able to see him? Was it him
controlling the disc and the ray? What
on earth was the blue spce anyway? There were too many questions and no easy way
of answering them, particularly here. What was clear, however, that the scroll
was important and had something to do with Melloreis. And it was important enough
for the Enemies to go to extraordinary lengths to obliterate it, He had to find
a way to get home to sort it all out.
As he finished eating, Eoothon returned from the forest. He was dressed
from head to toe in waxed leather clothing. He was well prepared for the
weather. He looked at John with curious interest.
‘Wakar at lasting. Gud. Eatar also, gud also’
John nodded.
‘You have been very kind – but I need to get to Aristarios’ he said
‘What sayar?’
John stood up and pointed vaguely outside.
‘Aristarios’ he repeated.
‘Goar polis?’ asked Eoothon.
‘Yes. As soon as possible’ said John
Eoothon considered this.
‘Down track – there findar Kolios micropolis. Walkar hexahour to
Kolios. Aristarios more’
‘hexa?’ asked John
Eoothon counted out five on the fingers of one hand and one finger
more.
‘Six – ah yes – hexa – six, of course’ John said
‘Ombro still. Getilwil wet, well wet’
John looked outside again – the rain had settled down to a moderate
patter, but he would still get very wet after six hours outside in it. Oh well.
‘I have to go.’
Eoothon frowned.
‘hold’ he said
John waited, but now he was keen to leave.
Eoothon went into the room where he had slept and pulled out something
from the cupboards at the far end. It was an old set of waterproof clothes.
John accepted them eagerly.
‘Let me pay you for them’ he said, handing over all the coins he had.
Eoothon stared at them.
‘These nomismas ungood. Usecan not them.’ Eoothon handed the money
back.
‘Takar it. Giver Euphonia in Kolios. Returncan me laterly’ he said
John nodded and indicated that he definitely would return them. He
tried again to shake Eoothon’s hand and this time the elf allowed him too, with
a half-smile on his face. John put on the, very tight, waterproofs and waved
goodbye to Eoothon with words of gratitude that Eoothon didn’t really
understand.
John left the cottage and followed the one and only path down the
road. His host had given him the final
bits of bread and venison and now he carried them in a paper bag. The rain was
light but continuous and he walked through a completely uniform environment,
with extremely tall trees hemming him in on the left and right. The path was
very narrow and dark. He wondered when even Eoothon had walked down this road
last. He plodded on, both anxious and daunted. He just had to keep walking. The
strong impression was forming in his mind that something dreadful was going to
happen, or more likely, had already happened, and while he was here he could do
nothing to avert or ameliorate it. This was going to be a long walk.
***
The day wore
on and on. Nothing changed to the left or right of him, or, for that matter, in
front and behind. Twice it stopped raining for about ten minutes, which was a
pleasant change, but that didn’t last long and so he just carried on, down the
narrow path. Every now and then he saw a large bird of prey overhead and twice
a startled deer ran from the path into the forest. He’d eaten his bread and meat about an hour
into the journey and so by the fourth hour of plodding he was hungry and tired.
At least he wasn’t thirsty.
He sat down by the side of the path and yawned. He was still exceptionally worn out from the
big jump – it might take a week before he’d feel fully well. Certainly all but
the simplest magic would be beyond him for quite a while. He leant against a
tree just off the path and looked up into its crown. How high was it, he
wondered, and how far would one have to go up until, looking down, one could
see something that he would recognise. Maybe never – maybe he was under a
different sky.
Weariness overcame him and his head nodded forward. He dozed, and his dreaming mind rushed out
over a vast landscape of endless trees, never finding anything that he
recognised, never seeing anything new.
***
Somebody was
poking him with a stick, again. He groaned and awoke, pushing the stick away.
There’s was a sharp pain in his hand and then he woke up completely. A small
group of elves dressed in some sort of uniform were surrounding him. Their
leader had poked him with a sword and now he had a badly cut hand. He staggered up.
‘Stop’ he shouted. The elves took a step back and the leader withdrew
his sword slightly. Their wide eyes stared intently at him.
‘Who are?’ asked the leader
John heard a whisper of ‘What are?’ from one of the other elves and a
buzz of excitement went through the group.
‘John Ismay, from Eth’
‘What?’ said the leader, frowning.
John realised that they were never going to understand what he meant.
‘Human’ he said, pointing to himself, ‘friend of elves’
He thought briefly about using the little magical energy he had to
scare them off, but then immediately realised that at some point he was going
to need to have someone close by to ask the way.
‘Friend?’ asked the leader, lifting up his sword again.
A thought occurred to John.
‘Eoothon is my friend’ he said, pointing to the waxen jacket. Another
murmur went through the group
‘I’m a traveller’ he said, ‘I was staying with Eoothon. He has a dog –
sorry, pooch. He was very kind’
The group went into a little huddle. They looked more frightened than
aggressive. That didn’t stop John’s hand form hurting, of course, but it made
them seem a lot less of a threat. The leader approached him again.
‘Dropar xiphos, xenos-elffriend’ he said. John struggled to understand.
He opened his waterproofs up and showed that he had no weapon inside his cloak.
This seemed to satisfy the leader at least partially. The group surrounded him and they escorted
him on into the settlement. John realised that he’d fallen asleep about fifty
yards from the village, within one bend of the guard post – no wonder that they
had found him so easily.
The village was hacked out of the impenetrable forest but it had proper
houses and, most enticingly, a wide made-up road leading out of it. In
addition, for the time being, there was a break in the clouds and the rain had
stopped.
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