Though the loss of Kin as our leader had hit us hard, we were still a decently experienced caravan. I myself was in my sixth year, Patrick and Sinna in their fourth, and though Lian Cre was only in her first, the rest of us had the skill and general know how to make up for it.
We took Selepation Cave right on Midsummer's Day, skipping the festival to the twins' annoyance, two and a half months after departing from Shella. Kin's advice came in the form of constant letters, the mail moogles catching up to us in the evenings when we halted. We trained furiously in those months, as much to grow used to our new roles as to bring Lian Cre up to par. We still weren't the best, but we were good enough. Given enough time, we would again become the well oiled clockwork Tipa's caravan had once been.
Our speed in getting to Shella to begin with had helped negate some of the time we spent there, but we were still behind. We had multiple mail moogles pursuing us, despite my reassurances to Roland that we would be there, damn it, now stop writing to me.
The race home was marked by few incidences, though I really did feel terribly guilty for running that poor little mail moogle over. I didn't know he was holding another one of Roland's letters, honest. We rolled into Tipa two weeks into our grace period with cries of "Welcome!" and "Took you long enough!" After the first time, it wasn't as funny as everyone thought it was.
Still, we had two weeks to rest, and we would make the most of it. Of course, the following two weeks weren't exactly restful.
The Fourth Lesson
Faith
Faith is a powerful tool, whether you choose to believe it or not. All caravans traveled by faith, especially in the days following Tida. If the sunniest village in the world could fall, so could us all.
You have to understand, I may seem superstitious and crazy to you as the tale progresses, but when I was your age, the only things I trusted in were the comrades at my back and the worn racket in my hand.
In time, I came to realize that there was more beyond this world than anyone beyond Shella had ever imagined. I began to trust others, to believe in all the stories I'd ever heard, and, yes, to have a little faith on long shots.
Roland practically shrinks beneath my glare despite his authority "At least they're trained?" he offers, gesturing to the two children who are supposed to be awaiting my inspection. And they are children, barely sixteen cycles and squabbling like ones much younger.
"Althea!" the boy protests as the girl--they look fairly alike, I can already see the problems starting--slams his visor down on his helm. The rest of his words are unintelligible but the tone of complaint is not.
"No," I say. "No." Backing away with my hands raised, I emphasize my refusal. "Absolutely not."
The village elder frowns. "You're underrepresented, they volunteered, and it's increasingly likely that you and the twins will retire at the same time. Do you want to leave Tipa in such a disadvantaged situation a few years from now?"
For all that he's a tad heavy-handed when it comes to caravan dealings, Roland is a sharp man. He's used to assessing people with only a second's glance, and he's damn good at it. He knows what to say to manipulate me.
Despite realizing the ongoing influence, I can't deny the truth in his words. Besides, our caravan hasn't had a Lilty member since Droma Wren retired and named Kin her successor.
Politics. Kin took care of that once, now I must. I sigh. "Well, let's see what young, ah," I raise my eyebrows at Roland, "What are their names?"
"Alder is the boy, Althea is the she-devil," his lips quirk into a grin. He is missing some of his teeth. "As a former hellion you should do fine."
"That was one time," I remind him crossly. "Years ago."
He pats me on the shoulder. "What else are the elderly for but to humiliate the young?" he asks, not expecting an answer, and at my snort his face grows serious. "Alder is the blacksmith's son, Althea his niece. If she gives you any serious trouble feel free to leave her at Alfitaria, you've got Moschet Manor second on the list this year."
"Second?" I say after a moment, still watching the two Lilties roll around in the dirt in a mock battle. Oh, that's a good hit! The girl, Althea, is more aggressive, but the boy packs a mean right hook. "What's third?"
Having been in constant correspondence with the other villages for the past month organizing the year's schedule, I know Roland has something arranged. He sighs and runs a hand through his ever graying beard, and my limited knowledge of body language tells me that the news is not so good.
"I specifically requested Goblin Wall for your first stop," he says. "They had a bad year last cycle and I'm hoping a caravan stopping in will distract them from our fields." A useless hope, but reasonable enough to assume that we can at least whittle down their numbers significantly. "Moschet Manor was all that was left this side of the Jegon, so that's second. And third, well...you have to understand, Alfitaria is angry you took the myrrh at the sluice. It was completely irresponsible. Really, what were you thinking?"
I shrug, letting the words slide off of me. Kin's life is worth a few angry sproutheads. "What's third?"
"I couldn't get anything better," he warns. "You'll have to take the ferry to the Lynari Desert."
"Lynari? As in the Leuda Isle Lynari?" I ask, incredulous, and at his nod, "Lynari! With two greenies and a first year? Does Alfitaria want us to die?"
He shakes his head in a dismissive gesture that sends white hot rage shooting down my veins. "You broke the rules, Zin Del. We had last choice. You're lucky we had a choice at all."
Two new recruits and one of the harshest places in the world, and I'm lucky?
There is a clatter of armor as both Lilties tumble into the stone base of the crystal, yelling all the while. I sigh. If I can turn their attentions to monsters, maybe they won't be half bad.
The sigh turns into a snort. Who am I kidding? With our recent luck, this is likely to be the first in a string of disasters.
Althea is still looking me over, has been sizing me up since I met the twins before the crystal. She really is a hellion, though they give the boy too much credit. He's worse than she is, I can see in an instant, if only because he hides it better. We'll have our hands full with them.
"So I'm assuming you're properly kitted," I said, nodding towards the forge, "But you're going to want extra clothing. Shirts, breeches, underclothes, your winter gear. We'll be up in the highlands for winter. There's not much snow but it's bitterly cold."
The two nod and I make a mental note to mention this all to Alder's father. There's no telling what they'll remember from all of this.
"The King of Alfitaria did us no favors this year. Normally I'd take you both through the River Belle or the Mushroom Forest as a first stop." As memories of our last walk through the giant fungi arise so does sorrow, and I decide against the place. Not now. Not yet. "Instead we'll be heading to Goblin Wall. You know why," and if Althea doesn't, Alder certainly will.
With that explained, I can't think of much else to say. I'm fairly certain I covered all the basics. We have a week of relaxation left; anything I missed can be covered at some point.
Two greenies, Lynari, and a new leader. How I wish Kin were here to lead me now. How I wish I were still just his second.
Even Roland hears my sigh, and he pats me lightly on the shoulder. "Very well," he says, nodding to the children. "You'll do us proud."
Something about the way he's not looking at the two when he says it makes me think that maybe, just maybe, he might have a little faith in me, too.
The night of the rejuvenation ceremony, dark clouds gather and hide the stars from view. Even the moon dares not show itself in the face of such an impending storm. The air is thick with the electricity in the air, the buzzing whispers of the crowd only adding to the tension. They gather thickly behind us, pressing closely in order to witness this annual miracle.
We stand proud, the four of us, torches in hand. Behind us stands Anjalya, Kindryth's younger sister. She, too, carries a torch in her large paws, for our comrade who couldn't stand with us today.
(A year ago, Lian Cre stood behind us in Trin Mar's place. Tonight she stands beside me, eyes glistening in the firelight as the ceremony progresses. I don't ask. None of us do.
Sometimes grief is too private to be shared.)
Words heavy with age and destiny fall from Roland's lips, a language I don't speak, but know in the way I know my mother's touch. The language of the old ones, used to bathe the crystal in purifying myrrh. The sacred tongue, as ancient and instinctive as a baby kicking in recognition of its mother's voice.
"So mote it be!" Roland cries at last, the crystal suddenly glowing a pure, brilliant light. Below it the shard gleams, a short blinding streak across my vision. The crowd behind us is deathly silent at the spectacle. I close my eyes against the glare, waiting for the brilliance to fade.
It doesn't, and suddenly I am far, far away from Tipa.
"Zin Del," a voice whispers, echoing through my entire body. In that instant it's as if every pump of my heart muttered those two syllables and every rush of blood through my veins whispered those words.
"Zin Del," and this time the voice is louder, echoing beyond me, the musical noise bouncing around some great chamber. A strange mixture of tinkling bells and soft lullabies, it's both incredibly familiar and intensely foreign.
"Zin Del!" it calls, and I open my eyes to the blue of a sky I have never seen beyond the miasma's taint.
"Zin Del!" the sound is rougher now, and something grabs my arm. I reach for my racket, but it's gone and I turn the motion into a strike--
"Damn it!" Patrick hollers as I chop his wrist, immediately releasing my arm. I look around, bewildered, as he sinks back to his haunches. "Well, she's just fine," he calls to the pressing crowd. "No need to worry about that one."
My mother rushes in, having finally worked her small stature past the others. "Baby, what happened? Are you ill? Do I need to have Roland delay the caravan for a few days?"
At first, I'm startled. My mother hasn't been around to tend my injuries for six years. And then I melt beneath her concern, beneath the way her fingers brush my forehead soothingly as she looks me over. "Ma," I say, unable to keep from smiling, "I'm all right." I turn to look at Patrick, who still crouches beside me and relay my mother's query. "What happened?"
"You fainted during the really bright part," he says. "Lian Cre managed to grab you, and you both dropped your torches. Be glad she did get you, otherwise you would have been squashed by the crowd," he nods sharply toward the happily dancing group around the crystal. "They didn't even wait for their sight to return before they all ran forward, the fools."
I touch his arm, stroking the smooth skin bared by his shirtsleeve. It would have been impossible for Lian Cre to carry me over here. "Patrick, thank you. And thank her for me." The Selkie is nowhere in sight.
He nods, then rises to his full height. "When you feel better, come find me," he says, then casts a short look at my mother before returning his gaze to me. His eyes are dark. "I'll save a dance for you," he adds and then turns away, disappearing into the crowd with ease.
My mother eyes the place where he vanished with interest. "The rancher's son, Zin?" Her tone is far too curious and even a bit smug.
"He's a mean hand with a sword, Ma," I offer. "And you should see him cast a spell."
"I think I just did," she says, and the look she offers me has nothing but wickedness in it.
I roll my eyes.
We manage to leave on schedule, despite my mother's concerns and the storm setting in with a vengeance. I can barely hear Roland's customary farewell over the sound of the heavy rain and distant thunder. The villagers, who normally see us off by waving until we are out of sight, only emerge onto their doorsteps to call goodbyes as we trundle past their homes.
Only my parents and sisters, the twins' parents and brother, and Alder's father emerge into the downpour. They watch us pack, occasionally offering advice and pressing more food, more clothing on us. Though the blacksmith is short and foul-tempered with the rain, he claps me firmly on the back and tells me to watch out for his boy, his niece.
"Of course," I say, shocked he would even have to ask.
"No," the man says, blue eyes crinkled with laughter. "I don't mean keep 'em safe, they'll do fine at tha' on their own. I mean watch out for them." He actually grins when my eyes widen with understanding and I can't help but smirk. Like I'd let greenies get the best of me. "They're nasty when they've got a mind to it. Taught 'em everythin' they know."
"Yeah, right, old man!" calls the scratchy voice of Althea, her head emerging from the tightly battened down wagon. "We taught ye a thing or two!"
He laughs, his grim visage suddenly lit up with delight. I can suddenly see the father he must be inside the house, the father that would allow his niece to call him names. "Get ye back in the wagon, lass! Ye'll be fair drowned out here if'n ye don't!"
Watching them makes me suddenly look for my own family. They stand farther back from the rest, Pou Kel and Yun Soh, Sia Noh and Yis Dah. They look lonely.
My father sees me looking back to them, and extends his arms in a gesture I know so very well. I don't even hesitate, though it might be considered undignified for a caravan leader to act so impulsively.
I dash across the remaining space and leap into my father's arms, flinging my own around his shoulders so that he can spin me around the way he did decades ago. The world blurs as we turn, greens and browns and blues flashing, with the occasional purple of my mother's and sister's hair and the pink and white of my other sister's mouth as she shrieks and laughs at the water my hair flings at them.
At last he sets me down, chilled hands on my shoulders. "We'll miss you," he says simply, and my family closes around me in one last, sodden embrace.
"And I, you," I whisper.
My mother presses her palm to my cold cheek. "Be safe."
I nod, though that is not the life I signed up for.
Once again, I leave everything I love behind.
Seven years ago I thought it would be old hand by now, walking away from my home and family. In some ways I wish I were so carefree. In some ways I'm grateful I'm not.
Not far from the village the hard packed road turns to slop along the sides, and after only a few hours of travel the wagon squelches into a muddy rut and stays there, rain still tapping at the various puddles and our --thankfully waterproofed--canvas roof.
Patrick smartly removes his boots and socks and rolls up his breeches before leaping from the driver's box to inspect the mess. His feet immediately sink to the ankle, and I groan as I tug off my own boots and stockings.
"Well now," Patrick calls from beyond the wood and canvas barrier, and I move to the tailgate to exit as well. He's picked up the Fum drawl of his parents even in the fortnight we've been back, but soon enough we'll all start to blend into our normal talk. Kin was always the worst with this, unable to drop his formal mode of speech for several weeks.
I slide off the tailgate and also land calf deep in the mud. It squishes between my toes as I wiggle them. "Can we get out or should we wait it out?"
Patrick looks to the sky, then to both horizons as he contemplates the question. Then he bends down to look once more at the wheels, and then at our papaopamus, who is splattered with the glop. "I reckon," he starts, then shakes his head. "Sorry. I'm thinking that we're just going to have to slog through it. Won't do any good to stay in it. If we dig out some of the mud from in front of the wheels, then help push and pull, I think we'll be out of this fairly soon."
Relaying this to the others has them piling out of the wagon at their own pace, with only Althea dallying, wrinkling her nose distastefully at leaping into the mud.
"Sissy," Alder mutters audibly, and Althea quickly emerges, disgust evident at the way the mud reaches past her knees.
With only one actual shovel, another two are quickly improvised from pots tied to the Lilties' lances. Both insist on shoveling first, worried for their weapons. I take the actual shovel, with all of us switching when we begin to ache.
After I have just been switched back into shoveling, Patrick calls a halt to the operation. "Let's try to get out," he suggests, moving forward to take the lead reins. The rest of us dutifully troop back to the tailgate.
"One," I shout, knowing Patrick will hear my bellow with ease. "Two!"
On "Three!" we all throw ourselves into the wagon, Patrick shouting verbal commands. The wagon begins to roll forward slightly, slightly--then stops.
"Alder, Althea, get up here and dig!" the Clavat shouts, and I'm glad he's so good with names because I probably would have just called them sproutheads for lack of a better term. The two immediately duck out from where they had squeezed between the rest of us, and soon I can see mud flying past the corner of the wagon.
"Again!" shouts Patrick, and we all strain ourselves against the wooden bulk. It moves, the wheels making horrible squelching sounds, but it moves! Heartened, we dig our heels in and push.
With a massive, sucking sound the wagon breaks free of the rut, rolling back up onto the annoying but not particularly deep mud of the banks. The Lilties cheer and even Lian Cre claps both Sinna and I on the back. Sinna leans on me as we walk around the wagon.
We are mud splattered and disgusting looking, and I can feel the grime setting in. "Let's get off the road," I say. "Stream nearby?"
"Not far," Sinna says, and points to a copse of trees not a quarter of a mile away. I nod, and Patrick climbs back onto the driver's box. Alder is about to climb onto the tailgate when I pull him back by his collar.
"Nobody goes in there until we're all clean," I order. He bites his lip, then nods. What can I say? I keep a clean house.
We make camp not far from the road, for fear that going farther might get us stuck again. Our first act as a caravan this year, beyond freeing the wagon, is to take the chalice to the stream for a group bath. We're so filthy that no one even bothers to strip down. The clothing is sodden anyway.
Come morning, the rain is gone and we all heave sighs of relief. We're already unified, I think as I take on my regular morning chore of making breakfast, and then realize that the minute those two aren't exhausted I'll likely find all sorts of disgusting things in my bedroll.
Laughter erupts from the driver's box of the caravan and I look over to see Alder hopelessly tangled in the reins, his robin's egg eyes wide with shock as our papaopamus slowly licks him from chin to eyebrow. Patrick is collapsed over the seat, a hand across his forehead as if he were about to faint, laughing himself silly.
Sinna begins to scold her brother from where she stands on the tailgate of the wagon, hanging our wet clothes from the rafters. Of course Althea quickly misunderstands the target and jumps in to defend her cousin from where she is scrubbing the dried mud from the caravan sides. Feminine voices argue back and forth as Lian Cre approaches me from the side, eyeing the carnage and my carefully blank expression in turns. Her steps squelch gently on the still muddy ground.
"An interesting start," she offers, a quirk to her own lips as our papaopamus begins to munch gently on the hapless Lilty's sprout.
"That's one way to put it."
Perhaps I'm not leaving everything I love.
I think about this as we gather around the small fire to eat. The porridge is warm and filling. Patrick ruffles Alder's sprout and Sinna is all smiles. Even Lian Cre manages to grin at the Lilty boy's crestfallen expression when he learns that getting stuck isn't exactly a rare occurrence, particularly during the autumn rains. I can't help but laugh when his face falls further when Althea mentions the snow we'll get on the Alfitarian highlands.
Perhaps I'm taking some of it with me.
As I look beyond the chalice circle to the miasma blurred horizon beyond, this thought is both comforting and at the same time absolutely terrifying.