Never leave home without at least one clean pair of socks. Unless you're a halfling, in which case, socks are your racial enemy, and you get a +2 attack bonus when fighting them.

Adventures in Fantasyland

Presented by The Management

- Calanteli, LuckyShadows & Llandaryn -

o - o ^ o - o

4. Of Caravans and Hangovers

Daniel closed his eyes as the world below him rocked alarmingly and his stomach heaved in response. He'd only been on the horse for half an hour, and he'd already managed to fall off three times - two of them before the caravan had even left Here. The single saving grace to this whole episode was that his horse was a knobbly-kneed nag that didn't seem capable of independent thought. And it was so old and bony that even if it had wanted to run away, it probably couldn't have. It seemed quite content to follow the rest of the caravan, and he wondered if the horse had done this Tour before.

In comparison, the horse of the Silent Soldier was a tall, deep-chested, arch-necked, high-stepping, snow-white monster which every time it looked at Daniel, gave him the impression that it wanted to eat him bit by bit, chew him up and spit him out all over the ground. It was constantly prancing and snorting impatiently, and everybody on the Tour wisely gave it a wide berth.

The sun was currently sitting just above the horizon in a clear sky, and the day promise to be warm and bright. These were less than ideal conditions for someone of Daniel's calibre and complexion. The last time he'd gone out in the sun for more than a few hours, he'd ended up with the most horrific sunburn. And that had been in a British winter. Since then, he'd coped by only having sun in small doses, an hour at a time in winter, fifteen minutes in summer. He doubted that sunscreen existed here in Fantasyland, but at least his robes were airy and comfortable, and the wide-brimmed wizard hat would keep the sun from his face.

Something thin and pointy dug into his thigh, and he carefully let go of the reins with one hands - his knuckles were white from gripping them - and reached into his pocket to draw out his ID card. So far, he hadn't been able to convince the card to go back to being the Hierophant. He'd tried begging, threatening, and asking nicely, but the words Daniel The Strange, Age 18, Place of Residence: Here, hadn't changed in the slightest. He supposed he couldn't really blame the card. It couldn't be nice, being the Hierophant, having to mingle with the royal Emperor and the haughty High Priestess all the time.

He put the card in his pocket, and as he did so, he heard a small rustling noise in the undergrowth to his left. He dared to take his eyes from the dusty road, and peered into the hedgerow for a moment. A small cactus jumped out of a clump of gorse and waved one prickly arm at him.

"You aren't supposed to be here!" he hissed. "Go away, or I'll get an Auditor down here, and you won't like that one bit!"

The rest of the guards and mercenaries pointedly didn't watch him speaking to vegetation. It was common knowledge that the best mages were eccentric, and the worst were criminally insane. It was pretty much expected of them, and until he was required to perform actual magic, he knew everybody would just leave him alone. Of course, once he failed to produce any magic when it was expected of him, he'd be royally screwed, but he'd just have to cross that bridge later.

When he looked up again, the sun was directly overhead. The caravan driver began to pull his team over to the side of the road, and the guards and mercenaries started to dismount. Everybody began taking out some of their rations - stale bread, cheese, and a small wrinkly apple - and they sat down on the roadside to eat lunch.

"Um, excuse me," said Daniel, stopping his horse beside the caravan. "How can it be lunch time already? We've only just set off from Here."

"First time on the Tour, eh?" said the driver jovially.

"On this Tour, yes."

"Well, that's just the way it works. Caravan-lag, you see. We've been on the road for hours already. Here's more than ten miles behind us."

"Yes, but, you see, I have a very astute sense of time," he persisted. "And I assure you, we can't have been travelling for more than forty-five minutes."

"You don't have to believe me," said the driver, unphased by logic. "Just look at the sun. Everyone knows it takes hours for the sun to get from the horizon to overhead. Ergo, we've been on the road for hours."

"Yes, but-"

"I expect the heat's been getting to you." The large man patted him on the shoulder, no doubt in what was supposed to be a comforting gesture. "You just take it easy until you get used to the caravan-lag. Once you've adapted to life on the road, you'll feel every minute of it."

"I don't want to get used to it," he sulked.

"That's the spirit. Now, go and get yourself something to eat. We'll be leaving soon, and you don't want to be left behind, do you?"

There was nothing else to do. He dismounted (see also: falling from horse) and led his steed towards an unclaimed patch of road-side. He didn't bother tying the horse to a tree, as the rest of the guards had. For one, he didn't know how to make the official horse-knot, and for two, he knew his horse didn't have an ounce of spirit in it, and was as likely to run off as it was to sprout wings and fly.

From his backpack he took out some of the stale bread and cheese that had been provided to him at the caravan sign-up, and spent a good five minutes chewing his first mouthful. He knew that once it was gone, he'd have to survive off stew for the rest of the Tour, and it wasn't something he was looking forward to. Aunt Bertha was a great fan of stew, as well as broth, porridge, dumplings and black pudding. Sometimes she'd been known to eat them all in a single sitting (she was what his father politely termed 'a large lady', having a build somewhere between that of a rugby union player and a hippopotamus). He'd once spent a week with Aunt Bertha, in her cottage down in Dorset, and she'd made him eat stew for dinner every single night. Now he avoided the stuff like the plague.

As he ate, he heard more rustling sounds behind him, and a few moments later a small cactus approached him warily, stopping by his knee. Then, a second one appeared by his other knee, and he was left with the strong impression that they were watching him quite intently.

"Look," he whispered, loud enough for the cacti to hear but quiet enough that nobody else could. "I don't know what you want from me. Why can't you go back to your own Tour? It's got to be nicer there than it is here. At least you don't have to deal with magic and dragons and long-lost heirs. I imagine it's quite nice over there, with all the expansive deserts and whatnot." The cacti were still. "I'm sorry if I brought you here, I really am. I don't want to be Nerev'At. I didn't ask for this, and it's not like it's even helping me."

"Wizard Strange," called the caravan driver. "We'll be leaving momentarily. You might want to get back in the saddle."

Daniel sighed. Watching him get on the horse had already become something of an entertainment for the rest of the caravan. They all stood around snickering and grinning whilst he hopped beside the horse, one foot wedged in his stirrup, and not one of them offered to help. Especially not the dark, greasy-haired mercenary Daniel was sure was a spy for enemy bandits.

Well, he thought, as he hauled himself into the saddle on his third attempt. It seemed his skill was improving. It could be worse. At least I'm not being chased by Germans this time.

o - o - o - o - o

A rough hand shook her awake. "Up ye get, lass," came the accompanying command from a gruff voice. Ari slowly opened her eyes and was greeted by an artfully stacked pyramid of empty tankards. The sight of this image elicited a mournful groan from her parched lips as it brought into sharp focus the fact that she had drunk way too much last night. And had spent the last of her money. Which, in turn, meant that she would not be able to buy a glass of juice or water… or anything else that was not alcohol… and rinse out her mouth and clear her groggy mind.

Raising her head with some effort from the greasy tabletop, she clutched at her temples as the room began to spin. She squinched her eyes shut and willed the nausea to pass. Taking deep breaths, she fought the urge to dispose of the results of last night's copious consumption on the floor next to her. After many minutes of struggle, the queasiness mercifully departed. She hated to imagine the scene that would have ensued had she lost the battle…

Opening her eyes again, she saw the innkeeper (who, she learnt last night, also doubled as the barkeep, receptionist, maître d' and head-waiter) give her a knowing, if slightly exasperated look, as he cleared away the tankards.

"I see drunks in here every day o' the week. Don't expect me to feel any sympathy for ye," he informed her curtly and began wiping the table in a manner that somehow managed to emphasise his point.

"Water," Ari croaked out in response.

The barkeep sighed with barely suppressed frustration. "This here be a bar. We ain't got no water. The closest thing we have to it is piss-water, which you seemed quite happy to drink last night. If you want something as puritan as water, go to the well or the horse trough."

"Please…"

There must have been something in her eyes (despite the fact that they were puffy and red and wholly unattractive at the moment) that made the barkeep sigh again, though this time in defeat, and waddle over to the bar. He rummaged around for a couple of seconds, muttering choice swear-words under his breath, and reappeared a minute later with a tankard of water.

"Thank you," she mouthed and took a huge gulp, ignoring the fact that it tasted like it had been collected from the bilge of a ship and probably contained any number of water-borne diseases. She would deal with that later. For right now, her top concern was getting up from this stool in one piece and making it outside so that she could…

She mis-swallowed a huge gulp as the cosmic importance of a lone thought hit her like a sledgehammer. After several painful minutes of wheezing and spluttering, during which the barkeep looked on with only a mild hint of concern, she finally managed to gasp, "The caravan!"

"Left hours ago," came the informative reply that she was dreading. "'Tis nearly noon, ye know. Caravans leave at the crack of dawn."

"WHAT?" The scattering of early patrons collectively turned their heads towards her, to see what the commotion was about. A few eager hopefuls even swivelled their chairs around to get a good view for what was about to happen - be it screaming-match or bar-fight. Even the lone fiddler, who, up until now, had been playing a slow, melancholic air, switched to a lively jig in preparation for the upcoming scene. But he and the others were sorely disappointed when they got no entertainment. Instead, they had to content themselves with watching Ari grab her pack and rush out the door at full tilt, her hangover forgotten.

"Hey! Ye better be payin' me for that water! 'Tis a rare commodity that…!" the barkeep called, but Ari zoomed past him without any misgivings. She had no time and no money. Plus, wasn't water supposed to be free in bars?

Bursting out the door, she was momentarily blinded by the fierce midday sun and slapped in the face by a hearty gust of the sand-laden wind. Coughing, she made her way towards her horse, which, thankfully, was still tethered exactly where she had left him. Vaulting into the saddle, she galloped towards the caravan. At least, she tried to. She had not ridden in years and it took her a couple of false starts and some angry snorting from the poor animal before they even got moving forward, let alone galloping. They always made it seem so easy in the books and the movies, Ari thought ruefully as she tried to settle herself into the rhythm of the horse. Hero jumps from the balcony into the saddle of his faithful steed and immediately sets off at a thundering canter to save the world. No questions asked. Of course, such was the stuff of fiction. She, unfortunately, was living in reality.

Reaching the caravan post, she reigned in her horse, which, fortunately, got the point on the first try and slowed down, but did not execute the dramatic gallop-halt sequence she was hoping for. In fact, by the time the horse had finally transitioned from canter to stop via the intermediary trot and walk, they had managed to overshoot her intended stop-point by several yards. Dismounting, and feeling like a complete git, she led her horse back to the patiently waiting man who was dressed in dusty robes and wore a bemused expression.

"Don't worry," he told her cheerfully. "After a couple of weeks in that saddle, you'll be doing all sorts of enviable horsey tricks! If you're lucky, you might even end up being dragged along next to your horse when your foot gets caught in the stirrup while falling off."

"You make it sound like that always happens. Surely that's a very rare occurrence that only befalls those who do not know how to ride properly." She remembered vividly how the paramount importance of the correct foot-in-stirrup arrangement had been repeatedly impressed on her during her riding lessons.

"Oh, no," chuckled the slightly portly man. "In Fantasyland, you always get dragged behind your horse. There would be no fun without that, would there?"

"Right…" Ari failed to see the humour or the fun in the situation. She decided to press on to the matter at hand. "I need a place on a caravan out of here. Leaving now, preferably. Or in the next couple of minutes."

"Sorry, no can do, lassy. Protocol strictly states that all caravans must depart exactly at sunrise. No exceptions, allowances or deviations. I could book you a spot for tomorrow's caravan bound for…"

"I don't think you understand. I. Need. To. Leave. Now."

"Ah, the impatient first-timer," smiled the man in apparent understanding. "So eager to be off to save the world that you have no time for all the regulatory red-tape. But, the rules are the rules, and where would we be without them? In anarchy, that's where! We would be reduced to uncivilised savages who fought to survive in a lawless land without the necessary safety-nets of order, administration and bureaucracy with which to maintain our sanity! You wouldn't want that now, would you?" The man's voice had grown frightfully ominous and his eyes had taken on a frenzied sheen. Ari took an involuntary step back, ready to run for her life in case the man decided to take out his pent-up frustrations on her. But, in the next second, he reverted back to his former, cheery self. A wide smile plastered itself to his lips as he said, "Now. Should I book you a place on the caravan leaving tomorrow at first light?"

"Erm… No, thank you…" She had no desire to travel on a caravan organised by a crazy man obsessed with officialdom, and one who probably stabbed unsuspecting anarchists to death in their sleep. "I… I think I will make my own way."

"Don't be ridiculous! It's a jungle out there! No one survives in the Wilds alone. With a caravan, at least, the orcs or bandits (myself, I prefer the bandits - much more civilised!) will only slaughter your travelling companions while you will either be Left For Dead or Sold Into Slavery. In this way your survival is guaranteed by The Management so that… Hey! Where do you think you're going?"

Ari did not dignify the man with an answer as she pulled herself into the saddle and beat a hasty trot out of the town. A couple of dozen yards down the road, she came to a cross-roads decorated by a crudely-made and not very instructive signpost. It bore arrows indicating three possible directions. One, entitled 'Here', pointed back to where she had just come from. The second, directed her to the left-fork and towards 'There'. The third proclaimed that by following the right-fork, she would end up 'Everywhere'. She had definitely had enough of 'Here' so she only really had two options. 'There' seemed to be the safest option - it had a slightly more tangible and definitive ring about it than the more ambiguous and possibility-laden 'Everywhere'.

Having made her decision, she turned her mount onto the left-fork and hoped for the best.