Rob Scott - Lessek_s Key

As Mark busied himself with the coffee pans, Gilmour moved around the boulder and gazed at the hills rolling towards Sandcliff Palace. In the twilight they were brown fading to purple, flanked by the grey-black northern mountains. He pitied those who died late on a winter’s day: the journey to the Northern Forest – a journey Gilmour wasn’t even sure he believed in any more – would be long and tiresome, especially for someone his age. To pass this way after the leaves had fallen, the naked trees and hills cold in the late day sun, would be an anticlimax to a life filled with love, passion and engaging pursuits. He reached out with his mind, hoping to detect a soul making its way across the burned-over ridge, to offer a greeting and ease the loneliness of that final trek, but he could sense nothing.

He had just started back towards the fire when he heard Mark shouting.

‘Stand still – right there! Show me your hands!’ The foreigner’s voice drowned out whatever anyone else was trying to say.

Another, unfamiliar, voice answered, ‘I didn’t see you. I can’t believe I didn’t see you.’ He didn’t sound that concerned that he might be run through in the next breath, but rather, someone genuinely surprised. ‘Four horses and three men- four men-’ Gilmour had come around the corner, ‘-and I didn’t see you. Gods rut a dog; you’ve got a fire burning and I didn’t see you!’

‘Hands, asshole!’ Mark, an arrow drawn full, didn’t notice his slip back into English.

‘My hands? What? What should I do with them?’ The stranger spoke calmly, apparently unafraid of the angry bowman.

‘Turn them over. I want to see your wrists,’ Mark said.

‘What an odd thing to-’

‘Now, asshole, or I will drill you through the neck.’

‘I don’t know why-’

‘Shut up,’ Mark interrupted, ‘and pay attention! I want to see the backs of your wrists, so turn your hands over. Do it now, or die. No discussion; your decision. I will not care, not for one moment, if your body rots on this hill for an eternity.’

The man stretched out his arms, causing his tunic sleeves to ride up his wrists, and did his best to show his hands from every angle. ‘I must say, I have been detained from time to time in my life, but this is the most curious demand I’ve ever heard,’ he said conversationally. ‘Where did you all come from? Is it magic?’

Mark ignored him. ‘Do you see anything?’ he asked.

‘No,’ Garec answered.

‘Nothing from over here either,’ Steven said, ‘and I’m getting nothing from-well, you know.’

Mark still held the arrow nocked. ‘What are you doing here?’

The man, who looked somewhat younger than Garec, was dressed in the ubiquitous leggings, a wool tunic with a leather bandolier and a heavy brown cloak. His hood was up, but he had made some effort to cast it back from his face, hoping that eye contact with his assailants might convince them of his peaceful intentions. Still waggling his wrists, he said, ‘My name is Rodler Varn. I’m from Capehill. I make, uh, well, deliveries into Gorsk from time to time.’ He indicated the bandolier with his chin. ‘A bit of root, that’s all, and not much. I’m not greedy. I take what I can carry and go in on foot.’

‘Fennaroot,’ Garec said, surprised, ‘you sell fennaroot in Gorsk?’

‘What’s fennaroot?’ Mark kept the arrow trained on Rodler’s chest but looked to the Ronans for clarification.

Gilmour said, ‘You remember your first day out of Estrad, Mark? The root I sliced for you?’

‘Oh, yes, right: it gave a real kick. We tried to get some in Orindale, but it was out of season or something.’

‘Malagon made it illegal,’ Garec added. ‘That’s why we had trouble finding it.’ He moved over to the man and opened one of the leather pockets in the bandolier. He held up a piece of nondescript dirt-covered root. ‘He’s telling the truth.’

‘It’s dope?’ Mark asked. ‘So you’re a drug dealer? Oh, that’s just terrific, the one person we meet out here is a drug smuggler.’ He chuckled and lowered the bow.

‘Fennaroot has many uses, Mark,’ Gilmour said, keeping an eye on Rodler Varn. ‘It’s not very powerful in its raw form-’

‘But let me guess,’ Steven interjected, ‘dried and crushed into powder, it packs a significantly more powerful punch.’

‘Yup,’ Mark said, ‘just sprinkle a little on your pancakes and you’ll be swimming the English Channel.’

Rodler, still exposing his wrists for their inspection, called, ‘Hey, Southie, can I come up now?’

Wheeling back, Mark drew the bow again and trained it on the stranger. Rage twisted his face and for a moment Gilmour feared he would kill the fennaroot smuggler. Mark’s voice was grim. ‘My family has put up with racism for generations, and where I come from, the appropriate thing for me to do right now would be to express my sincere outrage and disgust at your narrowmindedness. But guess what, asshole, we aren’t there, are we?’ Gita Kamrec of Orindale had called him a South Coaster in the caverns below Meyers’ Vale, but Mark had let it pass; there had been nothing pejorative in her usage, and she had obviously earned the respect of the numerous black members of her small fighting force. But that had been some while ago, before something fundamentally good had snapped inside Mark’s mind.

‘I don’t believe Eldarn will miss you,’ he continued. ‘They might pin a medal on my lapel. Ridding the world – even this rotting nightmare you call a world – of a racist drug smuggler might be the best thing I’ve done since I got here.’ Mark laughed, an unfunny sound that rattled around in the back of his throat and died.

‘Wait, wait, one moment, wait, please,’ Rodler begged. ‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I didn’t think there was anything-’

‘And that makes it even worse-’

‘But wait, wait, if you’re heading for Gorsk, I can get you in,’ Rodler was pleading. ‘I can get you past the patrols.’

‘We’ll be fine,’ Mark said, his tone still uncompromising.

The man fell to his knees. ‘I can get you silver, lots of silver. Is that what you’re doing out here? Or is it Sandcliff? I can get you into Sandcliff.’ His voice cracked in desperation; Mark grinned, wondering if he had pissed his leggings.

‘What do you know of Sandcliff?’ Gilmour interrupted, raising one hand to Mark as if to stay the execution – even if only for a moment.

‘The Larion palace, I can get in there.’ Rodler’s eyes were pleading; maybe the old man was the leader of this odd company. ‘That’s where you’re going, right? Sandcliff?’

‘How do you know?’

‘Well, you’re an old man, really old – what else would you be doing out here during this Twinmoon, running along the edge of the border and heading east?’

‘Adding ageism to your list of transgressions is not impressing me, shithead.’ Mark refused to look at Steven.

Rodler tried to explain, his voice still shaking. ‘You built a small fire in the lee of this rock, hoping the smoke will disappear in the twilight. You obviously have some magic, because I nearly stepped on you and I don’t generally miss four men, four horses and a burning campfire, especially when they’re directly in my path. So I’m guessing you have some cloaking spell keeping you hidden, or at least keeping people around you distracted by other things.

‘And him.’ Rodler pointed at Steven. ‘He looks fit enough to run from here to Capehill, so why carry a staff? He doesn’t need it for walking – his legs aren’t injured and he has a horse-’ Rodler’s half-guesses were coming more quickly now, ‘and I have never seen anyone this close to the border who hadn’t planned somehow to get into Gorsk. Of course, no one I have ever met along this ridge was going into Gorsk for benevolent reasons. Resistance fighters, root peddlers like me, even a few merchants, but no one comes this way to see the sights.’ Rodler paused in his rant to check on Mark, who still had a shaft nocked and drawn full. ‘But I know things about Gorsk – I’m well connected there. And I will never again use that term, I promise, and I am deeply sorry I offended you. No offence was intended, I swear. I’m telling the truth: If you want to get into Sandcliff, I can get you in.’