Tales of Ethshar

prospects and no family...

No family. That was the sticking point. His family was waiting for him back home, relying on him. He couldn’t let them down without even trying. Here he had had the phenomenal good luck to find his quarry quickly, as if by magic, and now he was considering giving up?

No, he had to go home, and to take Seldis with him, and then to help in whatever it took to dispose of the dragon.

He looked at her, lying asleep on the bed, her skin pale as milk in the light of the two moons, and then he rolled over and forced himself to go to sleep.

14

“We won’t be staying in inns after this,” he told her the next morning. “We should leave the highway late today and go cross-country.”

She turned to stare at him. “I thought you said it was another few days,” she said.

“It is,” he replied.

She glanced eastward, at the forests that now lined that side of the road.

“If you headed east for two days, anywhere along this road, you’d wind up in the mountains,” she said. “Three days, and you’d be on bare stone, wouldn’t you?”

“If you headed due east,” he agreed. “But I didn’t say that. We head north-northeast.”

“For three or four days, you said?”

He nodded.

“Why not follow the road until we’re ready to turn east, then? We’ll be almost paralleling it!”

“Because,” he said reluctantly, “I don’t know the way if we do that. I can only find my way home by following the trail of peeled branches I marked coming south.”

“Oh,” she said.

A few paces later she asked, “What were you planning to eat, if we’re leaving the road?”

He stopped dead in his tracks. “I hadn’t thought of that,” he admitted.

Seldis stared at him with an unreadable expression. “What did you eat on the way down?” she inquired.

“Squirrels, mostly,” he said.

She sighed. “I think,” she said, “that we had best go back to the Burning Pine and buy some provisions. With more of my money, of course.”

Shame-faced, he agreed, and they retraced their steps.

When they reached Laskros Wuller pointed out a bakery and a smokeshop, so they did not in fact return to the Burning Pine for food. They did, however, buy three more blankets there. Wuller was proud of himself for thinking of that, and thought it partly compensated for his earlier foolishness.

There were no other delays, but the shopping expedition was enough to force them to sleep by the roadside that night, without having left the highway. Wuller refused to travel after the light began to fade, for fear of missing his trail, so the two of them settled down a dozen yards from the road, built a fire, and ate a leisurely dinner of sweet rolls and smoked mutton.

They chatted quietly about trivial matters — friends and family, favorite tales, and the like, never mentioning dragons or anything else unpleasant. When they were tired, they curled up in their separate blankets and went to sleep.

The next day they proceeded slowly, watching for marks, and at mid-morning or slightly thereafter Wuller spotted a pine branch with the bark curled back on the top — the mark he had used.

Standing under that branch he could see the next, and from that one the next.

Retracing his steps from tree to tree, they left the road and headed cross-country, back toward his home village.

They slept two more nights in the forest, but late the following afternoon Wuller recognized the landscape beyond any question, and a moment later Seldis spotted smoke from the village fires drifting above the trees.

They waited, and crept into the village under cover of darkness, making their way silently to Wuller’s own home.

When Wuller swung the door inward he heard his father bellow, “Who the hell is it at this hour?”

He peered around the door and said, “It’s me, Wuller. I’m back.”

Wulran was speechless. He stared silently as Wuller stepped inside, and as Wuller then gave Seldis a helping hand up the stoop.

The two travelers dropped their packs to the floor. Wuller pointed out a chair to Seldis, who settled into it gratefully and then put her tired feet up on another.

“You can sleep in Aunt Illure’s room, I guess,” Wuller told her. He turned back to his father for confirmation, and was astonished to see old Wulran weeping silently, tears dripping down his beard on either side.

15

Wuller and Seldis arose late and spent the morning resting, soaking their tired feet and generally recovering from their journey. Meanwhile, Wuller’s family scurried about the village, passing the word of his return and his success in finding the girl the oracle had shown them. A council meeting was called for that evening to discuss the next step.

Shortly after lunch, while Illure was showing Seldis around the village, Wulran gestured for Wuller to come sit by him.

The lad obeyed, a trife warily.

“Wuller,” the old man whispered, “you know what Alasha thinks, don’t you?”

“About what?” Wuller asked.

“About this girl you brought back — about how she’s to rid us of the dragon.”

Wuller thought he knew what his father meant, but he hesitated before saying anything.

“She’s to be a sacrifice,” Wulran said. “That’s what Alasha thinks. We may have to feed her to the dragon.”

Wuller’s thoughts were turbulent; he struggled to direct them enough to get words out, and failed.

“It’s necessary,” Wulran said. “Give up one life, and a foreigner at that, so that we all can live.”

“We don’t know that,” Wuller protested. “We don’t know if it’s necessary or not!”

Wulran shrugged. “True,” he said, “we don’t know for sure, but can you think of any other way that fragile little thing could rid us of the dragon?”

Wuller didn’t answer at first, because in truth, he could not. At last he managed, weakly, “She knows tricks, family secrets.”

“She may know the ritual of sacrifice, I suppose,” Wulran said.

Wuller could stand no more; he rose and marched off.

Wulran watched him go, and was satisfied when he saw that his son was not immediately heading off in search of the Aldagmorite girl, to warn her of her fate.

Wuller wanted to think before he did anything rash. He looked up at the mountaintop, where the dragon was sunning itself, and then around at the village, where his kin were all busily going about their everyday business. The sheep were out on the upslope meadows, and the smith’s forge was quiet, the fires banked, but villagers were hauling water, or stacking firewood, or sitting on benches carding wool. To the west of the smithy, the downwind side, a hardwood rick was being burnt down for charcoal.

He pulled the rather battered charcoal portrait out of his sleeve and looked at it.

Seldis’ face looked back at him.