These Roads We Walk - Chapter Two
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JEZRA
The road had been a long and winding one, less-travelled as well judging from the shoddy state of it, winding as far west as you could get without kissing the coastline. The carriage, if you could call it that, lurched unpleasantly with each irregularity in the road, and after several hours of travel, Jezra was beginning to feel every bump and jostle right up to her teeth. She shifted uncomfortably on the scuffed and splintered wooden bench and shot an irritated look at the driver beside her, slack face lit unfavourably by the noon sun, which picked out each and every grizzled pockmark in his face. "How much farther to the next town?"
He didn't respond immediately. The horses pulling the thing were cantankerous, raggedy old nags that likely weren't smart enough to remember the task at hand without constant guidance. "A ways." he said finally. He reached into his worn, sun-faded jacket and pulled out a handful of seeds. He offered her one, and when she shook her head in distaste, popped one into his mouth and cracked it noisily, spitting the husk over the side. "Waterdeep ain't much farther b'yond that, I figger. Day or so, mebbe."
Jezra's nose wrinkled. "I've had enough of cities, thanks. Figure I'll find me some li'l town, a wide place in the road, see, get me some supplies, then head out in the direction least likely to get me meetin' up with anyone for a good long while."
The old man gave her an approving look from underneath bushy, graying brows. "Aye, ye've the right o' it, I think. Less stink that way, less stupidity."
They both grunted in agreement.
The sun was high overhead, and Jezra was beginning to wish she hadn't opted to stow her heavier leathers beneath the carriage with her pack. The heat would have been strenuous, but the sun itself was already blistering her shoulders, which ached with every movement, as much from the sun as from the trip itself. Truthfully, she could have gone below into the travelling compartment with the other paying customers, but one look at the stained tunic and lecherous gaze of one traveller and the bright, talk-to-me-please eyes of the other had been enough to send her climbing up next to the driver. She still wasn't much one for company, even a day after leaving Neverwinter. The pall the city and the events had cast over her would take a long time to shrug off.
Besides, the carriage driver, Gunderson by name, was hardly a bad sort. There had been no "dearie", no "sweetheart", no surreptitious glances at her anatomy. Gunderson was a man beaten into position by the world, and wise enough to know that the quickest way to make peace with anyone was not to speak to begin with. They had exchanged only the briefest of pleasantries, the required comments on each others' pasts.
"Got me a wife, see." Gunderson had said at one point, clucking his tongue to remind the horses to keep moving. "Some men, they'd go on abou' what sorta harpies they've got fer wives. Bollicks, I says. Ye wanna complain, piss yer trousers and doddle in the streets with the rest o' the idiots and leave the womenfolk t'their business. Dorcas might be a bit o' a hard case, but she ain't never gone and knocked me 'round the ears when I ain't been fool enough t'deserve it."
"Left home just three years ago when I was sixteen." Jezra had supplied for her part. "Damndest fool thing I ever done, and I done some stupid things, but all I could thinka at the time were adventure and coin. Don't think I've got me a room waitin' for me even if I had coin enough t'find me way back, but I wouldn't wanna anyways. Couldn't stand starin' at the same four walls like I used to. The curse of the road, I figure. Love it and hate it at the same time, aye?"
They'd made commiserating sounds about the information the other offered up, but that had been the extent of it. Neither the man nor the woman saw the point in learning more about some stranger you'd never see again.
Besides, the less you knew, the less you could have forced out of you later. If it came to that.
The shuttered windows on the side of the carriage banged open abruptly and a young man leaned out. He squinted forward into the dust, then craned his neck up to look at the driver. "Are we nearly there, then? Professor Phineus says he's been checking the map, and we should be there by now." There was a murmur from inside and he added. "Are you lost? Professor Phineus says if you're lost he can come up and--"
"Ye can tell yer Phineus that I says if he comes up here an' tries to shove that piece o' paper o' his under me nose, I'm pullin' over an' he can see the rest o' the way to Caer Fuleihn strapped to the back o' a mule, which 'appens to have more story-type know-how'n I've got in me li'l finger. Blast it all. Ye hoser." Gunderson added for good measure, looking satisfied as the windows slammed shut, and Jezra heard indignant voices from within.
"Caer Fuleihn's the next town?" Jezra asked doubtfully. She'd never heard of the place, but then she'd paid much attention to maps or any other form of geography, usually finding her way from one location to another by blind luck alone.
Gunderson snorted, chuffing laughter as they rounded a corner, a particularily large divot in the road making Jezra's teeth click together painfully as they bounced over it. "Caer Fuleihn's the next wide spot in the road, girl. Ain't more'n four or so fam'lies there, I reckon, an' a mouldy ol' stack o' hay for an inn, I'll wager, but damned if ye can tell 'em they ain't a hub o' commerce. Country life." He snorted again.
Jezra didn't comment. She knew all too well what he meant, the sort of blind, quirky arrogance that descended upon some small settlements, where they viewed outsiders as potential contaminants to their 'perfect' way of life. She had been much the way herself, nervously shieing away from passing travellers, until her thirteenth year, when she'd finally given an ear to the stories some of them had to tell. When she didn't speak again, Gunderson sniffed as he shifted positions with a wince of aching bones. "Heard tell o' them doin's up in Ne'erwinter?"
She stiffened slightly. "I might've."
He grunted. "Take 'em down a notch, I say. Ain't sayin' a loss o' lives is somethin' t'celebrate, but we go too long with trag'dy, some o' us peoples start gettin' funny notions, thinkin' they're invincible, or it's time fer greatness, or summat, and the gods decide t'give us a knock on the head an' show us who's boss, y'see." He sighed and shook his head. "We ain't ne'er gonna live in a peaceful world. Best t'just make the best o' it." Abruptly, he turned the carriage off to the side of the road, brought the horses to a stop, and stretched. "Right. Let's have us a wee bit o' a rest stop, aye?"
Relieved, Jezra swung off the side of the carriage and dropped to the road, clouds of dust rising about her boots. The conversation hadn't been heading in a comfortable direction. For as long as possible, she intended to forget all about other people, as soon as she could.
The carriage door swung open, and she sprang back, narrowly avoiding it. Staggering out was the bedraggled, dirty looking man she'd first seen when boarding, his long, frayed robes dragging in the dirt. He was tall and gangly, what little hair he had long and greasy and clinging about his unshaven face, in which his flat blob of a nose was decidedly off-center. He shot her an appraising look, eyes lingering about her hips and breasts, before dismissing her with a snort and tottering off into the sparse bushes that lined the road, a bottle hangling loosely from one hand. The carriage's other occupant, an enthusiastic and disshevelled looking young man with unruly blonde hair and unkempt robes, jumped out after him. He took two steps in the older man's direction before he noticed Jezra and spun in her direction, hand held out. "Jarred Jacobson, ma'am, pleased to meet you! Please excuse the Professor, he's had a rough night . . . er . . . nights."
With an inward sigh, Jezra took his hand gingerly and released it almost immediately. There was a time when she would have been only too willing to listen to him, eagerly sharing every detail about her travels, with a few well-placed exaggerations. "Professor, is it?"
Jacobson's smile slipped slightly, and he glanced nervously off into the bushes, where a loud, off-key singing could be heard over the unmistakable sound of someone urinating. "Yes. Professor Anderson Phineus. He's . . . quite brilliant. Smashing mage. Wonderful ideas, you know, but . . . well, a hard few nights, as I've said."
Not feeling herself to be in any particular position to pass judgement, Jezra only rolled her shoulders in a shrug. Because people were more apt to remember someone who had been impolite, she asked, "Where're ye headed, then?"
Jacobson, who had been frowning worriedly off into the trees, jumped at her voice and turned back to face her. "Ah . . . Athkatla."
"Long ways away."
"Ye-esss . . . yes, it certainly is." His smile slipped again, but Jezra felt one trying to reclaim her own lips. In his face, she saw the frightened, nervous youth she herself had been, although this one was almost certainly a handful of years older than she was; all ambition, all fear at a suddenly enormous world at heart. "But, you know, the Professor has been offered a very lucrative position with the Cowled Wizards, so . . . " He spread his hands expressively, trailing off.
"So yer his brave and noble assistant then, are ye?" Jezra asked wryly. Above, on the carriage seat, Gunderson chuckled and another seed casing was spat over her head into the road.
"I . . . well, I carry his things and the like, but . . . " Jacobson's face performed an odd sort of wince; clearly, he had realised too late that the best way to have made himself sound better would have been to lie. " . . . but, no, I'm . . . I'm just his student."
"I bet she'd have let you snog her once or so if you'd gone and told her all about how you washed the vomit out of his hair last night." a voice sang suddenly out of the open carriage, trilling and feminine.
Jacobson's eyes darted past Jezra to the carriage door. "You don't know anything about it." he snapped hotly, dull colour rising in his face. "And I'm just making a little conversation. It's important to always keep things pleasant."
From inside, there was a delighted laugh, a rustle, and a short, stocky form abruptly leapt out with surprising lightness. Although it's back was to her, and the figure wore an unflatteringly bulky mish-mash of torn and re-stitched leathers of various colours, Jezra could see enough to be certain it was female, even if the voice hadn't had a sound like smoke and honey. "You're so testy." she teased. "If it's so important to keep things pleasant, why doesn't your dearest darling Professor do the same thing for his smell?"
For an instant, the young man seemed to be swelling with anger or indignation, and Jezra deftly stepped aside out of the line of fire. After a moment, however, he only nodded curtly to her, and spun to march into the trees, calling for his teacher, the brambles whipping over his calves as he passed.
"That'un's a good boy." Gunderson commmented idly from above. There was a rustle, and another shower of empty seed casings. "Good boy, but a bit daft."
The woman tut-tutted a moment before turning around. "Saying he's a bit daft is like saying getting a hug from a Drow is a bit suspicious, don't you think?"
Before Jezra could stop herself, she had gasped.
It was a woman, yes, and it was clearly a gnome. In stark contrast to her sweet voice, however, her face would not have been out of place leering from a dungeon's darkened corner.
Perhaps at birth and for some time after, she had been a lovely creature. Some vestiges of that remained, in the surprisingly delicate structure of her bones, a patch or two of smooth, young skin, short, luxurious amber hair and almost fathomless eyes like freshly poured brandy. Her face was a mass of scar tissue, aged and white and ugly, some bubbling across her forehead, and more pulling the right corner of her mouth and her right eye towards one another, giving the ghastly appearance of a leering wink. Her nose had been broken several times, at least, knobbly and oddly flattened in it's appearance, seeming to pull her entire face off to one side. Her left ear had nearly been cut off at some point, and some field doctor's shoddy worksmanship had turned it into little more that a twisted, hard nub of flesh. Above and below her mouth were several neat, long-healed dimples from small holes.
She cast a critical eye over Jezra, cocked her head and grinned, the sight frightening. "Shut your mouth, darling. You're drawing flies."
Gunderson cackled. "Ye always gets the admirers, Errigal." he said, fondly.
There was, Jezra thought, no way to salvage the situation, no attempt at social grace that could possibly repair the way she had gawked and the stamp of horror that she struggled to wipe fully from her face, standing there in the sunshine with that unfortunate creature. She made several attempts, grasping at mental straws, before she said, stupidly, "D'ye know him, then?"
Errigal, if that was her name, ruffled her hair absently with one hand, the other still planted firmly on her hip. "Oh yes. The Professor Phineus and I are quite well acquainted, although I can't say as I'm terribly pleased to be sharing such close quarters with him. I meant what I said about the smell."
Despite the dry amusement in the gnome's voice and the lack of hostility, Jezra would have given anything to be able to climb back up to her seat and huddle there until Caer Fuleihn. She had decided she would have very little, positive or negative, to do with people for a very good while, and she had already failed quite abysmally at that. Somewhere in the back of her mind, Tomi Undergallows was crowing laughter at her, and she suddenly felt as unsure and wrongfooted as she would have back as a child before a visiting dignitary. "That's . . . that's too bad."
The gnome's ghastly grin widened, and when he gaze flicked upward, Jezra had no doubt she was sharing a look of amusement with the carriage driver. Her temper rankled, pushed by wounded pride, and she heard herself saying, a little angrily, "Look, I'll just clear off then, shall I, and ye lot go and gimme a holler when yer ready to -- "
"Do you like nettlewine?" Errigal interrupted.
Startled, Jezra blinked. "Yes."
"Pity I don't have any, then. You can share my waterskin though, if you like." the woman sat down quite simply on the side of the road, short, stubby legs sticking out before her, and, after a moment, Jezra surprised herself by following suit and taking the waterskin when it was offered, surprised at how thristy she found herself to be.
As they sat in silence, the rapidly dwindly contents in the waterskin passed between them, Jezra realised the only thing keeping her from staring further was the surreal quality to the entire day. The leavetaking from Neverwinter, the long walk down the road until she had flagged down Gunderson and his carriage, and the long periods of silence that followed with nothing but her own disjointed thoughts to listen to. And here, now, sitting with this disfigured gnome watching their driver spit the remains of his snack over the side seemed yet another queer piece in an increasingly odd puzzle whose picture made no sense.
She wondered, not for the first time in the past week, if she might be going mad.
"Phineus and the Cowled Wizards." Errigal remarked presently, and Gunderson laughed again. They seemed to know each other quite well. "The Gods help Amn."
After a moment, Jezra said, "Listen, I'm sorry about -- "
"Don't worry about it." Errigal interrupted, and Jezra relaxed slightly.
"I was worried ye might hate me."
"Oh, I do." The gnome finally looked at her directly, face perfectly serious. "I do. I do hate you. But it isn't anything personal. I hate Phineus, too, and even Gunderson. I find things are easier that way. What about you?" she asked, before Jezra could work out wether or not the gnome was having her on. "What do you find easier? I heard you bemoaning your wanderings earlier with our fine driver. And you look over your shoulder so often it's a wonder the whites of your eyes aren't attracting crows from miles away."
"S'true." Gunderson agreed.
Frowning at them both now, her discomfort lost in indignation, Jezra said, "It's not too much to ask for a bit of alone time, is it?"
Errigal chuckled, the sound musical. "Of course not. And what deep-dark secret are we running from today? Pre-arranged marriage? Murder a noble? What are the kids into these days? Tymora knows, I don't want to be out of touch at my next performance. Young ones can smell fear, you know." she added breezily.
"S'true." Gunderson agreed again, bobbing his gray head and casting about forlornly in his jacket for another handful of seeds.
"T'ain't nothin' like that!" Jezra said, sharply. Sharper than she had intended, and Errigal's smile changed slightly in quality. "I have me reasons, and I don't need to be explainin' them to ye and yers. Fair?"
"Fair." Errigal said, immediately. She already seemed to have lost interest in the conversation, and she rubbed idly at the mess of connecting scar tissue near her mouth with one finger. From the bushes, not too far away, came an angry, drunken shout and the loud sound of glass breaking. "I think our young man has found our esteemed Professor."
"Aye." Stretching with an audible pop, Gunderson sighed regretfully.
Jezra dusted herself off as she stood, skin protesting when she moved out of the shade of the carriage and into the sun again. She could only hope that the next stop truly wasn't too far down the road, and frowned inwardly. Her new life -- or at least, her different life -- was scant hours away, yet she felt no fear, no excitement, no nervousness towards it. Nothing. Only a dull sort of acceptance.
She had seen the same feeling in someone else's eyes, back in Neverwinter.
And it was then, with a loud crash of underbrush and a piercing yelp, that the kobold all but exploded from the woods in front of her.
It's flat scaled feet entangled with one another when it saw them, dark eyes goggling almost comically with something like fright, and it hit the ground painfully. Rather than try to spring at them or scrabble for the safety of concealing woods, however, the creature curled into a ball and shrieked, "You not hurts Deekin! Deekin not do anything, he swears!"
As Jezra could only stare, frozen in the position of boosting herself up onto the carriage seat, Errigal remarked calmly with a trace of amusement, "Looks to be one of those days, Gunderson."
"Ar." came the reply.
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Author's Note: And the story finally begins to hit it's stride, with more than two lines of dialogue, and much action begins next chapter. I don't mean to have every chapter end on some semblance of a cliffhanger, and it won't always be that way either. I totally swear. Twen, unfortunately, gets left where she is for the next little while as things happen, but, fortunately, hasn't been built up enough as a character for anyone to really care. Yet.