Lawrence Watt-Evans: Taking Flight

When she stepped away she was just a girl-a very beautiful one, but a girl. Then, suddenly, she had wings that unfolded behind her, those great glistening white wings he had seen before. Kelder revised his earlier estimate; her wingspan was more than fifteen feet, and might be a full twenty.

She folded her wings, and then they were gone again. Kelder started to ask something, then didn’t bother.

“Magic,” he muttered to himself. “Wonders and magic.”

“What about him?” the guard called, pointing at Kelder.

“I met him up the road,” Irith called. “His name’s Kelder.”

“That right, boy?” the guard called.

“Yes, sir,” Kelder replied, “Kelder of Shulara.”

“You a trader?”

“No, sir.”

“You of noble birth?”

“No.”

“You armed?”

“No, just a belt knife.”

“Doesn’t count. You a magician?”

“No.”

“You swear that you’ve told me the truth?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Irith?”

“Oh, I don’t know, I just met him,” Irith replied, a bit flustered. “But I think it’s all true. It’s the same thing he told me!”

“All right, go on, then,” the guard said. “And you, Kelder, you be careful of Irith.”

Kelder blinked, and nodded. The soldier waved them on, and they walked on.

Kelder puzzled over the guard’s last sentence. His knowledge of Trader’s Tongue was still far from perfect, and he wasn’t sure whether the guard had meant that he should defend Irith, or beware of Irith.

The latter didn’t seem to make much sense. She might be a shapeshifter, but she was still just a girl. And the guard himself certainly didn’t seem very worried about her; he’d greeted her as an old friend.

So he must have been asking him to look after her.

Well, that sounded fine to Kelder. He was very interested indeed in looking after Irith indefinitely.

And the guard knew who and what Irith was, and had greeted her by name. He had seemed willing to take her word for Kelder’s identity. That implied, at the very least, that she really had traveled the Great Highway before, probably more than once. Kelder looked at his companion again, wondering how she had managed it. She must have started traveling awfully young!

Impressing her was going to be very difficult, he realized, if she had traveled so far and seen so much. He wished he knew more about her, and more about women in general. All the other girls he had associated with much were people he had known since childhood; he had had no practice in getting to know females, in attracting their interest-and he needed Irith to be interested in him. She was so beautiful, so endearing, that just walking beside her was a constant blend of agony and delight-delight at her presence, and agony at the frustration of doing nothing but walking beside her. He wanted to touch her, hold her-but he didn’t have the nerve, yet.

The mere fact that she was there meant she liked him, since after all, she could fly away at any second-but he had no way to judge how much she liked him, or what she wanted from him.

Boiling with indecision, he walked on, watching her.

They reached the town of Amramion a little over two hours after crossing the border.

It was quite a pleasant and interesting town, as far as Kelder was concerned-the largest he had ever seen, though the village surrounding Elankora Castle had come close. The castle that stood at its center, atop a low hill just south of the Great Highway, was rather larger and more sprawling-and less fortified-than the ones he had seen back in Shulara and Elankora. It had four small towers and no keep that Kelder could spot; it had a dozen half-timbered gables, and no curtain wall.

Around it were scattered scores and scores of houses and shops-the shops of wheelwrights, wainwrights, blacksmiths, poultrymen, and more. And all along the highway there were carts and stalls where the locals offered for sale all their best produce-fine dyed wool, and smoky-scented hams, and early vegetables of half a hundred varieties, most of which Kelder had never seen before. The earthy smell of fresh produce and the tang of the hams reached his nose and set his mouth watering.

Irith seemed unaffected.

At either end of the town were inns, standing close by the roadside and marking the ends of what was, in effect, a long, narrow open-air market. Four inns stood at the west end, where Kelder and Irith entered; Irith told him there were three more at the far eastern end.

Kelder, now ravenous, didn’t care to walk that far for his breakfast. He strolled perhaps a hundred feet along the market, weaving through the crowd and looking over the merchandise. He bought himself a slightly underripe orange-obviously imported, as the Amramionic climate was clearly unsuitable for oranges-and headed for the nearest inn, hoping that the fantasies he had had about life along the highway might yet come true, at least in part.

Irith stopped him.

“Not that one,” she said. “It’s second-rate. This one!”

She pointed to one of the others. The signboard depicted a robed man sitting cross-legged, holding a staff and hanging his head heavily. “It’s called the Weary Wanderer,” Irith told Kelder. “They make the best biscuits on the entire Great Highway here.”

Kelder followed her inside.

Ten minutes later he was glad he had, because if the biscuits were not the best on the Great Highway, then Kelder had spent his life with some very wrong ideas about biscuits. He had never encountered any so tasty. In fact, his entire breakfast was phenomenally good.

Of course, hunger makes the best sauce; he knew that. Even so, the food at the Weary Wanderer was exceptional.

Although Irith had insisted she wasn’t hungry, she, too, ate and drank eagerly. Besides the famous biscuits, the specialty of the house was a thick, frothy lemonade which obviously contained more than just the usual water and lemons and honey, and Irith and Kelder each downed several mugs of the stuff.

Somehow, Kelder was not particularly surprised when the innkeeper greeted Irith by name. She didn’t intrude on the meal, however; once she had delivered their breakfast she returned to the kitchen and left the travelers in peace.

The only drawback to the meal came at the end, when Kelder, who had offered to pay the bill, discovered that he owed about twice what he had expected. He had made the offer partly because to do so was the traditional male role when courting, and partly because he had seen no sign that Irith had any money. Now, though, he almost regretted it.

“That’s a lot,” he said.

Irith shrugged. “Only a fool sells the best for less,” she quoted. “Besides, prices are always higher along the highway.”

Kelder grimaced, but he paid.

Thus fortified, the two of them continued on their way, strolling onward through the town of Amramion and out into open farm country again. Traffic was heavier now; they encountered an occasional wagon, and entire parties of travelers. One red-dressed woman had a dulcimer slung on her back, and Kelder brightened at this sight-a minstrel, surely, the first he had ever seen.

It was about noon when they passed another isolated guard tower. Irith identified this one as marking the border between Amramion and Yondra, and this time the guard let them pass without comment.

“They’re Amramionic,” Irith explained when Kelder asked why the guard had ignored them. “They monitor the traffic into Amramion, but not out. If it were a Yondran guard he’d have asked us questions, but Yondra doesn’t post guards at the borders.”

They walked on.

Irith seemed tireless, and after a time Kelder found himself trudging wearily along while she scampered ahead, looking at flowers and butterflies. Stones and dust didn’t trouble her at all, even though she was barefoot, and he marveled at that. His feet ached, and his own half-boots, new a sixnight before, were visibly worn, yet she was scampering about like a squirrel, her feet in nothing but her own skin.