markets of the Hundred. Had you no other purpose? Sightseeing?'
'As if any priest would wish to risk execution in the south just to see the fabled eight-walled city,' replied the envoy with a chuckle, easily falling in with Kesh's change of subject. 'Silk, it's true, can be bought anywhere, but I was looking for a particular… grade and pattern. 'His frown was startling for being so swift and so dark, but it passed quickly, and Kesh wondered if he'd mistaken it. 'I did not find what I was looking for. Did you?'
The riposte took him off guard. 'I'll only know when we reach Olossi.'
'Who will you sell the girls to?'
'Girls?'
'The two girls.'
Keshad smiled nervously. 'Whichever man will pay the most.'
The envoy glanced back at the wagon. His gaze burned; for an instant, Kesh thought the man could actually see through the canopy and mark the treasure Kesh had hidden all this way by using the time-honored method of illusionists: distract the gaze with the things that don't matter so that your audience doesn't notice the one thing that does. Ilu's envoys were notorious, seekers and finders who noticed everything in their service to Ilu, the Herald, the Opener of Ways. They were always gathering news and carrying messages; the temples even sold information to support themselves.
Still, this was none of Ilu's business. Kesh had come by this treasure as honestly as any man could. It was his to sell and profit by, his to use to get what he needed most. After so many years toiling, this trip promised to be the one that would at last bring him what he had worked for, over twelve long years.
It hurt to think of it, because he wanted it so much: Freedom.
'Look there.' Perhaps the envoy meant the distraction kindly, seeing Kesh's distress, but even if this were so, it was just as obvious that the sight relieved him. 'The first mey post. We have reached the Hundred at last.'
The white post had carved on it the number one, being the first mey of the road. Above that was engraved the name of the road, written in the old writing, more picture than letter, and recently repainted in the grooves with black ink: WEST SPUR.
The envoy padded to the side of the road to cover the top of the post with his palm. The mey post stood chest height. It was square at base and top but tapered so that the base was larger than the squared-off top where, in time of peril, the base of a wayfarer's lamp could be fixed into a finger's-width hole drilled deep down into the wood. At first the envoy stared north along the road, which began here its most precipitous drop out of the mountains. Then he shut his eyes and bowed his head in prayer as the seventeen carts and wagons of the merchant train trundled closer. When he looked up, he gazed toward the nearest prominence. A rugged mountain rose just off to the east with forested slopes and a bare summit surrounded on all sides by bare cliffs. Keshad thought he saw light winking up there, as if caught in a mirror, but when he blinked, the illusion vanished.
'Home,' said the envoy with satisfaction. He removed his hand and began walking again to keep ahead of the wagons. Kesh hurried after him. 'And hope of a dram of cordial at the Southmost.'
Brakes grated against wheels as wagons hit the incline. Kesh looked back. The black mey marking, which had numbered one viewed from the south, numbered sixty-four seen from this direction: the distance of the road called 'West Spur' from founding post to founding post. The other end of the West Spur lay a few mey outside the market city of Olossi, their destination. For him, this was the last road he would walk as the man he was now.
He felt sick with determination, with hope, with memory.
'I will let no obstacle bar my path,' he muttered.
'What? Eh? Forgive me, I didn't hear.'
'It was nothing. Just thinking out loud.'
'Like the winds, to whom voice is thought, and thought voice.'
'No, more like a mumbling madman who doesn't know when to shut up. There's the border gate.'
Stone walls stretched east and west as far as Kesh could see, with miniature towers anchoring each side of the road. Armed men leaned on those narrow parapets, eyeing the approaching caravan. Below, by the log barrier, a pair of young ordinands lounged against the fence, laughing as they traded stories with those of the caravan's guards who'd been walking point.
'Heya! Heya!' shouted their captain from the east tower. 'Get you, and you, to your posts!'
The ordinands scampered back across the ditch on a plank bridge to take up their places at the second fence, this one gated and closed.
'The guard force has doubled since last time I came through here,' commented the envoy.
'Are they expecting trouble?'
'It's always wise to expect trouble in border country.'
Kesh grunted in reply as he dug into his travel sack for his permission chits, his ledger, and the tax tokens he had received from the Sirniakan toll stations they had passed.
'If you'll excuse me, holy envoy. I must see to my cargo. If you would be so kind as to share a cordial with me at the Southmost, I would be honored.'
'Indeed! I thank you. I'll drink with pleasure!'
The envoy strode ahead. His staff, tattoo, and colors were chit and ledger enough. In the Hundred, the servants of Ilu could wander as they, and the god, willed. Only Atiratu's mendicants had as much freedom. Kesh certainly did not. He dropped back. The forward wagons creaked and squealed as drivers fought against brakes, beasts, the weight of their cargos, and the steepening pitch of the road. It was a good location for a border gate. Any wagon that did not slow to a stop would crash into the ditch, and charging horsemen who cut off the road to avoid fences and ditch would shatter themselves against the stone walls.
Farther back, a wheel, stressed to its limit by the wear of the brake, wrenched sideways and broke off its axle amid curses and shouting. The wagon tipped sideways and with a crack and a shudder blocked a third of the road.
'Out of the way! Out of the way!'
'You cursed fool!'
Kesh jumped back as his hired driver, Tebedir, barely swung past the wreck; then Kesh got a toe on the boards and leaped up beside him.
'I replace wheels before they is too weak to take the strain,' said the driver without looking at Keshad as the wagon rocked with the shift in weight. 'No savings in scanting on repair, if you ask me.'
'It's why I hired you,' said Kesh, 'despite the cost.'
'No savings by hiring cheap.'
They jolted to a stop behind the third wagon, to wait their turn. Ahead, a pair of Silver brothers or cousins- identifiable by their pale complexions, slant eyes, turbaned heads, and the silver bracelets jangling from wrist to elbow on their arms-were arguing with the clerks checking off their ledger. Kesh chewed on his lower lip. Tebedir chewed a cylinder of pipe leaf, spat it out, thumbed a new leaf from the lip of his travel sack, and rolled it deftly before slipping it between parted lips. His teeth were stained brown, but he had a nice grin.
After a while, rubbing his stubble of black hair, Tebedir said, 'Slow today.'
Kesh wiped sweat from his forehead, although it wasn't unusually hot. 'The guards are expecting trouble.'
'Rumor in camp tells it no merchant can travel north past a town the Hundred folk call Horn.'
'It's hard to imagine, although I've heard those tales, too. That would mean the markets of Nessumara and Toskala are closed to every merchant trading out of Olossi.'
'Still, young master, we are only going this far as Olossi. It is no matter to us.'
'That's right. No matter to us.'
As the second wagon moved through, Tebedir gave the reins to Kesh and clambered down to take the beasts and guide them over the plank bridge. Kesh didn't like heights-they made him dizzy-so he didn't look over the edge and down into the ditch, although he'd heard that the ordinands cultivated adders in that trench. It always seemed when he crossed that he heard hissing, but that might have been the wind scraping through the pines and tollyrakes that grew in the highlands around them.
No, that was hissing. Aui! Had she taken it into her head to waken now? He turned. One of the girls was peeking through a gap in the canvas sheeting tied over the scaffolding.
'Tsst! No! Not allowed!'
She saw him. One dark eye, all he could see, flared as she startled back. The cloth was pinched shut. A voice
