Tales of Ethshar

“Don’t tell me your troubles, boy,” the driver said. “I’ve got my own problems.”

“But couldn’t you help me? I need to find a magician, so I can find this girl...” He realized he had left the sketch with his pack, back where he had slept. “If you could give me a ride to Sardiron...”

The driver snorted again. “Sardiron! Boy, take a look which way we’re going! We’re heading for Srigmor to trade with the natives, we aren’t going back to Sardiron. And I’m no magician, and I don’t know anything about any magicians. We can’t help you, boy; sorry.”

“But I just came down from Srigmor, and I don’t know my way...”

The driver turned and stared at Wuller for a moment. The oxen plodded on.

“You just came from Srigmor?” he asked.

“Yes, I did, and...”

“There’s a dragon there? Where? Which village?”

A sudden rush of hope made Wuller’s feet light as he paced alongside. “It doesn’t really have a name — it’s not on the highway...”

“Oh!” the man said, clearly relieved. “One of the back country villages, up in the hills?”

“I guess so,” Wuller admitted.

“Then it won’t bother me,” the driver said. “Sorry, it’s not my problem. You go on south and find your magician.” He turned his eyes back to the road, and said to the woman, “As I was saying, the raft starts to sink, and they’re too far from shore to swim. So the witch goes into a trance and works a spell to keep it afloat, and the wainwright gets out his tools and starts trying to patch the leaks and caulk it all up, but the Tazmorite just sits there...”

Wuller stopped, and watched in dismay as the wagon rolled on northward.

He had not expected a reaction like that.

On the rare occasions when an outsider happened into his native village, he or she was invariably made to feel welcome, given the best food, drink, and shelter that the village could offer. He had expected to receive the same treatment in the outside world.

It appeared that he had misjudged.

Or perhaps, he told himself, that rather hostile pair was a fluke, an aberration. Surely, most people would be more generous!

He turned and headed back down the road, collected his belongings, and marched on southward toward Sardiron, certain that the pair in the wagon could not be typical.

8

The pair in the wagon had not been typical; most people either wouldn’t talk to him at all, or shouted at him to go away.

It didn’t help any that all the traffic he encountered was northbound.

By mid-afternoon he had met half a dozen such rejections, and gone a full day without food. He was debating with himself whether he should leave the road to hunt something when he glimpsed a building ahead, standing at the roadside.

He quickened his pace a little.

A moment later he spotted a second building, and a third — an entire village!

Fifteen minutes later he stood on the cobblestones of the village square, looking about in fascination.

Roads led off to north, south, and east; he had come in from the north, and to the south lay Sardiron of the Waters, but where did the eastern road go? The mountains lay to the east, and while they did not look as tall here as they did back home, surely that was just a matter of distance. Why would anyone want to go into the mountains?

The square itself amazed him. He had never seen cobblestones before; the only pavement back home was the slate floor of the smithy. Here, a broad circle, perhaps a hundred feet across, was completely cobbled. He marvelled at the work that must have gone into the job.

At the center of the circle was a fountain, and he marvelled at that, too. He wondered how they made the water spray up like that; was it magic? If it was magic, would it be safe to drink?

Houses and shops surrounded the square, and those, while less marvelous, were strange; they were built of wood, of course, but the end of each beam was carved into fantastic shapes, like flowers or ferns or faces. He recognized the smithy readily enough by its open walls and glowing forge, and the bakery was distinguished by the enticing aroma and the broad window display of breads and cakes, but some of the other shops puzzled him. The largest of all, adjoining a shed or barn of some sort, bore a signboard with no runes on it at all, but simply a picture of a lone pine tree surrounded by flames.

Curious, he took a few steps toward this peculiar establishment.

An unfamiliar animal thrust its head over the top of a pen in the adjoining shed, and suddenly something clicked into place in Wuller’s mind.

That was a horse, he realized. The shed was a stable. And the building, surely, must be an inn!

He had never seen a horse, a stable, or an inn before, but he had no doubt of his guess. An inn would give him food and a place to sleep; he marched directly toward the door.

The proprietor of the Burning Pine blinked at the sight of the peasant lad. The boy looked perhaps fifteen, and most northern peasants kept their sons at home until they were eighteen; if one was out on the road at a younger age it usually meant a runaway or an orphan.

Neither runaways nor orphans had much money, as a rule. “What do you want?” the innkeeper demanded.

Startled, Wuller turned and saw a plump old man in an apron. “Ah... dinner, to start with,” he said.

“You have the money to pay for it?”

Wuller had never used money in his life; his village made out quite well with barter, when communal sharing didn’t suffice. All the same, his uncle Regran had insisted that he bring along what few coins the village had.

Wuller dug them out and displayed them — a piece and three bits, in iron.

The proprietor snorted. “Damn peasants! Look, that’ll buy you a heel of bread and let you sleep in the stable — anything more than that costs copper.”

Old stories percolated in the back of his mind. “I could work,” Wuller offered.

“I don’t need any help, thank you,” the innkeeper said. “You take your bread, get your water from the fountain, and you be out of here first thing in the morning.”

Wuller nodded, unsure what to say. “Thank you” seemed more than the man deserved.

Then he remembered his mission. “Oh, wait!” he said, reaching back to pull out the sketch. “I’m looking for someone. Have you seen her?”

The innkeeper took the drawing and studied it, holding it up to the light.

“Pretty,” he remarked. “And nicely drawn, too. Never saw her before, though — she certainly hasn’t come through here this year.” He handed the portrait back. “What happened, boy — your girl run away?”

“No,” Wuller said, suddenly reluctant to explain. “It’s a long story.”

“Fine,” the innkeeper said, turning away. “It’s none of my business in any case.”

9

Wuller was gone the next morning, headed south, but not before listening to the chatter in the inn’s common room and asking a few discreet questions when the opportunity arose.

He knew now that he was well inside the borders of the Baronies of Sardiron, that this inn, the Burning Pine, was the last before the border on the road north to Srigmor. Each spring and summer traders would head