Lawrence Watt-Evans - Taking Flight

They made better time the following day, passing Castle Angarossa at midday and coming upon the battlefield early in the afternoon. Abden’s cairn was undisturbed, but the other corpses were gone-none of the travelers could do any more than guess at what had become of them. Kelder’s own guess was that some of the local inhabitants had been sufficiently public-spirited to remove such an obvious health hazard.

The hard part of their self-imposed task proved to be finding enough combustibles to build a proper pyre; with the highway tidied up there was very little to be found, and in the end Kelder resorted to knocking at the door of a nearby farmhouse and paying far too much of Irith’s money, as well as all his own seven bits, for a wagonload of stovewood and some flammable trash. Pleas that it was needed for the humanitarian gesture of a proper funeral were countered with remarks about the expense and effort involved in obtaining the wood in the first place, and the discomforts of eating undercooked food or sleeping in a cold house.

Several wagons and a full-blown caravan passed during the period between their initial arrival at the cairn and the eventual lighting of the pyre, and none of them stopped or provided any assistance at all. In the end, though, Kelder struck a spark, fanned it into a flame, and stepped back as it gradually spread through the pile on which Abden’s mutilated remains lay.

“I wonder if we’ll see the ghost,” Asha said, staring.

“You probably won’t,” Irith said. “People usually don’t, especially after so long.” She paused, then added, “Sometimes I do, though, because of the magic.”

“Tell us if you see him,” Asha said. “Tell me if he’s smiling.”

Irith nodded agreement, then leaned over and whispered to Kelder, “He’s probably gone mad by now, being trapped in two places for so long.”

Kelder frowned and whispered back, “If he has, will he recover?”

Irith shrugged. “Who knows? I’m no necromancer.”

It took the better part of an hour before the corpse was consumed, and Irith did not have the stamina to watch constantly; finally, though, she glanced up and started.

“There!” she said.

The others looked, but saw nothing more than rising smoke and crackling flame.

“Was he smiling?” Asha asked eagerly.

“I didn’t see,” Irith said. “He was facing the wrong way, and I just caught a glimpse.” She hesitated. “I’m not really sure I saw anything.” She noticed the expression on Kelder’s face and added, “Really!”

“He’s gone, then?” Ezdral asked.

“I guess so,” Irith said.

Kelder noticed that Asha was crying silently, tears running down her cheeks, her chest heaving.

“I guess we can go, then,” Ezdral said, with a look at the descending sun. “Which way? Back to Castle Angarossa?”

Asha looked up at him. “Why would we go back there?” she asked through her tears.

“For someplace to sleep,” Ezdral said. “It’s the closest place.”

“But it’s the wrong direction,” Kelder pointed out.

“It’s ten miles to Yondra Keep,” Irith responded. “We couldn’t get there before dark.”

“We can sleep outdoors, then,” Kelder said.

Irith considered that as Kelder turned away from the pyre and set out westward. She ran after him and said, “Listen, Kelder, maybe we could find a wizard in Castle Angarossa who could break Ezdral’s enchantment…”

“Are there any good wizards there?” Kelder asked, cutting her off.

“Well, not that I know of,” she admitted, “but I mean, I don’t really know. ..”

Kelder didn’t answer; he simply walked on, away from Castle Angarossa.

“Look, you like to do good things for people, right?” Irith persisted. “And all this trouble with Asha’s brother was King Caren’s fault, right? So maybe you could do something about it…”

“Like what?” Kelder demanded. “I’m an unarmed traveler without so much as a bent copper bit in my pocket, and he’s a king, with a castle and guards.” Championing the lost and forlorn had to have limits; a child and a drunk were quite enough. The people of Angarossa and the traders who used the highway did not strike Kelder as being sufficiently lost and forlorn to merit his attention; he couldn’t tackle everybody’s problems.

“Well, but I have my magic…”

“So you can do something about King Caren?”

Irith didn’t like that idea at all.

“Oh, all right,” she grumbled. “I suppose one night outdoors won’t kill me.”

The rain trailed off to nothing a little after midnight, and half an hour later Irith finally stopped complaining and telling the others that they should have gone back to Castle Angarossa.

When they arose and Kelder saw Asha shivering in her sopping blanket he felt mildly guilty about his insistence on continuing westward, but he set his mouth grimly and said nothing.

Damp and miserable, they set a slow pace at first, but the clouds burned off quickly, their clothing dried, and they gradually picked up speed, reaching Yondra Keep shortly after midday. As they ate a late lunch in a little cafe in the village, Asha asked, “How far is the next town?”

“Only a league,” Irith said, before Kelder could remember.

Asha nodded. “What about the one after that?”

Irith had to stop and think about that. “From the town of Amramion to Hlimora Castle must be, oh … three leagues? Four?”

“Amramion?” Asha asked. “Are we near Amramion?”

“Of course,” Irith said, startled. “I think it’s less than two miles to the border.”

“Maybe I should go home,” the little girl said uncertainly, peering down the highway.

“What about your father?” Kelder asked quietly.

Asha looked down at the table, and began to pick carefully at a protruding splinter. She gave no answer, and the subject was dropped.

They ate in silence for a moment, and then Asha said, “At least it’s all over for Abden. He’s out of it all.”

No one said anything in response to that.

“I think we’ll stop at Amramion for the night,” Kelder said, breaking the silence.

That was what they did.

They were questioned briefly by the guards at the border post, but they knew Irith, and could see no harm in an old man and a child. Kelder they had reservations about, but eventually they took Irith’s word that he was harmless and let him pass.

The party reached the village of Amramion a little past midafternoon, where they stopped at the Weary Wanderer and took a room; Irith admitted after they left the building that her funds were now running low, and they would need to find some way to obtain more, or else would need to start relying on charity or theft.

With that in mind, the party split up; Kelder went to look for work in the village, while the other three climbed the little hill to the castle and knocked at the postern gate, seeking a consultation with the king’s wizard, Pirra the Mage. Irith was recognized immediately, and the three of them ushered in.

Kelder heard about it that night at supper, as he massaged sore muscles and wondered why the only work he seemed to get was chopping wood. It wasn’t work he enjoyed at all.

Of course, he knew that was why he was able to get it-nobody else liked it either. And it was simple-anyone with strong arms could do it, and you didn’t need to worry about coaxing hostile animals or tying knots wrong or anything like that. It was something you could trust to a stranger who might be clumsy or half-witted.

Of course, since it meant giving him an axe, you didn’t want to ask a stranger who looked dangerous to chop your wood.