I had a poor idea of the concept of money. I had a poor idea of how to do anything, really. I struggled because I didn't really know how to interact with people freely, or what to do with myself without someone to tell me.

It was incredibly difficult.

A large city seemed like somewhere I could get lost in a crowd, but it also felt too overwhelming. And I worried that Waterdeep, being such a large place, might have an enclave, even a hidden one. No, maybe I could keep moving around.

There wasn't much of a way to get further from Thay going West. The Sword Coast was as far from Thay as could be without crossing the sea, so that seemed untenable.

I told myself, they had no reason to think I was even alive. I wasn't running. I was just staying dead to them. My master was likely dead anyway, and his wife and oldest child would have no interest in launching some incredibly long-distance bounty hunters after me to drag me home; it was too far to justify the expense.

I touched my collar absently. It was crafted from adamantine in a thin seamless piece, welded to my neck a few years ago, as a sign of my master's favor. It was actually more comfortable than the iron collar had been.

At least, I thought one slave could not possibly justify that kind of expense. But an oracle might.

Luskan scared me. I was too afraid of the chances of such a sketchy place having a connection to any Red Wizard. Baldur's Gate was the same, anywhere south really.

I swallowed. Should I try further north? Or further inland and north?

Think.

I rubbed my temples as I studied the map I had swiped from the merchant, squinting in the half-light from the street as I leaned against the wall in the alley. I was just one more tiefling vagabond, so long as I kept my mask pulled up. But out of winter, people would start to question it, and I worried about the spring.

Winter.

Ten Towns. If I bundled up, and headed to Ten Towns, who would ever guess otherwise? I needed some money for supplies, heavy winter clothes, that sort of thing. But it would be somewhere I could hide, far enough away from Skullport, and I thought well away from anything Thayan.

It took me some time to gather and scrape enough coin together, either stolen or from odd jobs, to have the money to travel. I did not like staying in Waterdeep. It was too risky, too close to Skullport.

I could get lost in the city, but if my master lived, how long before he came here?

I would almost be relieved if he did. I could just bow my head, as if I had waited for him this whole time. He'd cup either side of my face and caress my cheek. Tell me I was a "good boy" which would get me aching for him.

Best I not let that go any further.

A blacksmith told me that she didn't have the tools to remove the collar. I was almost grateful that she didn't. She said that she couldn't get the metal hot enough to bend safely while it was on my neck, that she didn't have a tool that could otherwise safely cut it.

I managed to get hired on to help guard a caravan to Neverwinter—one of the contractors fell through on the day they were set to depart and I could leave at a moment's notice.

Traveling with the caravan, I wasn't outgoing, because I had never been allowed to and didn't know how at this point, but I wasn't shy. I was genuinely curious about those around me and I learned, quite quickly, that people like you more when you ask about them and let them talk about themselves. Since everyone else had lived so much richer, more fulfilling lives than myself, I was more than happy to listen, and deflect when asked about myself.

Sometimes, someone commented on the collar. When I didn't know them well, when we first set off, I just said it was a piece of jewelry, and refused any follow-up questions. Later, when I was better known around the caravan, had made a few "working friendships" of the sort that wouldn't last once we weren't traveling together but who I would joke and drink with on the road, I told anyone who asked where to shove it if they asked.

Until one of the spellcasters got a good look at it during a meal. She said, "Do you mind if I see the band on your neck?"

I frowned. "Why?"

She smiled warmly, which I recognized was to put me at ease. "I think there's a minor enchantment on it I've never seen, and I just wanted to examine it, if I may."

My heart fell into my shoes. It was bespelled? All this time, and I had never realized? What did it do? I had to know. I lifted my head. She seemed genuinely curious, not malicious. I said, "If you tell me what the enchantment is."

"Of course."

We stared at one another, in awkward silence.

She said, "Can you take it off?"

The look on my face must have told her everything, because her expression turned sympathetic. She said, "I'll just examine it from here. Can I move your hair?"

I moved it for her and she peered at the collar in the light. I tried to tilt my head to help. She said, "Spell runes in the adamantine." Her face screwed into a frown, and she got up to walk around me, moving my hair to get a look at the runes. She sat down, removing a notebook, scribbling a few of the symbols she found into it. She bit her lower lip and chewed as she thought, examined, poked at it with magic and mundane means. She closed her notebook. "It's a pretty mild spell, I think. Just a location spell."

I thought I might choke. If my master lived, and could track me, he'd know I'd tried to run.

She must have misinterpreted the way I paled. She said, "It's keyed to the original spellcaster. But it definitely has a range. I'm guessing only one mile."

My eyes flicked down. "Thanks."

She paused. "Do you want to take it off?"

I looked away. "Is there a way to?" I made a face. "A blacksmith said I needed the right tools. If it's enchanted, would it be a different matter entirely?"

She frowned in thought. "It would be a process, to remove it."

"What about removing the spellcaster's tether to it?" I said carefully, with some hesitation. I had almost said "my master's". Not a conversation I wanted to have right now, though she probably guessed. He had put me on a leash, and I hadn't even known.

She said, "I wouldn't even know where to start. It's a simple spell, but done by a powerful wizard." She frowned. "You were valuable to them."

I stared at my hands. "Well. It doesn't matter. He's probably dead."

Her fingertips touched my shoulder and squeezed gently. "I'm glad you got away."

I felt like the collar was choking me, for the first time since I was five. I pulled away. "I need to think about this." Before I got broody and started navel-gazing. I didn't want that for my life. I just wanted to move on.

I wandered around the perimeter of the camp, until I had calmed down and settled my nerves. One mile wasn't a very long range. And as far as scrying went, my master could already scry on me. This meant nothing.

But it did.

"Valac," one of my compatriots said, waving a hand. "Have a seat."

With little else to do and really needing a distraction, I plopped down beside them. A couple of them were quite determined to be friends with everyone there, making a game of guessing about them. They guessed badly about myself, and I was cryptic when I was made to give them the truth. I wanted to step away from the game, but it wasn't often turned toward me, so I minded less than you would think.

A few others had gone to their watch shifts or to bed. With the smaller group came more intimate questions.

Who was your first love?

First kiss?

How many lovers?

I would never have called my master my lover. I was an object for him to slake his lust upon, nothing more. His wife didn't want him fathering a bastard, and I was convenient, so in his way, he was faithful to her. Just the term "lover" implied so much more than we ever were. It was the same for every other roll in the hay I could think of. So in truth, I had to reply with a much lower number. I said, "Mostly trysts. Nothing longterm."

"How old are you, Valac?" one asked.

I made a face. "Oh, I lost count. Who cares once you're over twenty?"

That successfully changed the topic to a laughter about how right I was, how little those milestones mattered with time.

We were beset by goblins on the road once, who had lain some pit trap for a wagon, fortunately spotted before a horse broke a leg, and we had to earn our keep fending off the attack, then spent even longer taking shifts filling in the damned hole and looking over the road for other similar holes. The latter of which I was good at, my strange abilities giving me flashes of the creatures as they dug them with their clawed hands like dogs or using crude broken tools.

We lost some travel time, but no one died in the attack. The horses were spooked but hadn't bolted.

On another night, as I kept watch, I saw what I gradually realized was a dragon, flying over the sea along the coast. I smiled when I watched the creature playing in the surf, careless and free. My heart soared with her.

Thay had black dragons, in places, but nothing like the young bronze dragon playing in the surf. Such creatures were repulsed by Thay. Only evil dwelled there. Only despair.

I wished I could help the people within it. I wished I could help the people who profited off of it to understand the suffering they caused. I really believed that if they just understood, if they could learn compassion, they would make amends and dedicate themselves toward kindness.

I know I'm naive. I just have to believe the best in everyone around me. I have to believe that everyone is capable of being kind.

If it's not true, what hope did I have?

That was what that young bronze dragon was to me; hope.

#

We rolled in to Neverwinter by late evening. The caravan master had made the decision to push on with torches for a couple more hours, rather than camp one more night when she could be sleeping in a warm bed.

My fellow hires-on discussed accommodations they planned for, the brothels they would visit. A couple mentioned a bathhouse, and that was met with some groans of delight at the idea and I was invited to go as well.

I hesitated. A bath? I couldn't remember ever being in a bath. A bath was something for my betters. While I was struggling with how to articulate my refusal, one of the others answered for me, "Of course he's goin'. Needs it too."

I started to slink away, but one threw an arm around my neck goodnaturedly and pulled me along with the rest of the crew. They were laughing and talking, telling stories on the way.

We paid, then made our way to the changing rooms. An attendant kept the room clean and watched over belongings. Not really knowing what to do, I just did what my peers did and removed my armor and clothes, shoved all of it into one of the lockers, and followed them, naked, out into the bathhouse.

There were benches over grates and racks of soaps, brushes, and the like. The room was steamy with warm water running in a decorative fountain at the center of the room that people filled small buckets from. I picked up a bucket, like the others, and filled it, took it to an empty place on the bench. I was so nervous I nearly sat on my tail. Dump water on, another bucket of water. Soap. Scrub. Another bucket of water.

Someone said, "You have such long hair. You should wash it before you get in."

I nearly choked. "I couldn't possibly—"

"Here. I'll do it for you," she said. I tried to object, tried to stop her. Some part of me was terrified of being found out, but I didn't know what to do to prevent it. She lathered up my scalp with soap and it felt so good to have her massaging my scalp that I didn't pull away. She rinsed it all out carefully, then found an oil to put in it, let it sit while she washed her own hair, then went back to me, rinsed out the oil.

I didn't know how to thank her. Or even if I should. It felt wonderful. No wonder our masters forbid it.

She brought me into the steam room. Human, she sat on a towel to protect her skin. I sat directly on the hot bench and relished the heat, the steam rising in the room. I could have slept there happily for hours, and I was not the only tiefling there, when I could see well enough in the steam to see one sitting with a fire genasi toward the back of the room, where the heat was thickest. I stayed where I was.

Someone behind me asked about the tattoos. I didn't want to tell them the truth. I wanted to pretend I wasn't an oracle. I wasn't ashamed of the tattoos, or my past, even my master's name upon me. I was not ashamed of having it done to me. But I didn't want pity.

I said, "Just markings from different places I've been, letting tattooists add to the tapestry." My hair covered the Thayan sigil on my shoulder. Fortunately, the Thayan flag was red, and the white tattoos on my skin that was done to create the flag of my homeland could look just randomized enough to not be obvious.

But as I soaked in the steam the other tiefling at last climbed down, passed near enough to me to see my face. I tried to keep my face downturned, but they could read the name.

"What's Inax'vocasir?" she said, the name foreign on her tongue.

And it occurred to me—we were so far away that his name sounded like nothing so much as a series of letters pushed together. It meant nothing at all to her. I said, "A mistake."

She laughed, as if it were a fine joke, and went on her way. I could hide in their ignorance. I didn't want pity, and it made me grateful.

I spent longer than any human would want in the steam room, then came out. What you were supposed to do was plunge yourself into the cold water pool while steam still rose off of you. That sounded like a misery.

I did it anyway. It was exactly as awful as I imagined, and I all but clawed my way out, shivering, and hopped into the hot water bath. That was more what I wanted, and I would have stayed there quite happily for the duration. I enjoyed the hot water. It felt better than I could have imagined.

I left when my fingers and toes were all wrinkled and the time I had paid for was probably past. I dressed again, touched my clean hair and my scalp. How could I ever go back to Thay, having experienced that? I almost wished I hadn't, just so I had no point of comparison.

The others who were leaving wanted to go to a bar, eat a bit of food, have more than their fair share of drink. I wanted to sleep after something like that, and a few were of like mind. One suggested a bunkhouse, another an inn. Another said he'd rather spend the night at a whorehouse. I managed to slink off on my own when the group split. In truth, I would never be able to sleep in a bunkhouse, in dormitory style sleeping quarters where people were bound to ask why I would prefer to sleep on the floor. At an inn, I would need a private room, because it was just impossible for me to even try to sleep on a bed. I didn't want to try to explain it to someone else.

#

The hard pallet at a cheap bunkhouse was all I was as of yet willing to test. And it was inexpensive—I think. I had to compare prices to a cheap meal, since I had such a poor concept of money. The problem is that my naivete with money was going to get me scammed, and I knew it. I didn't know how to haggle, or what was a fair price; the one thing I could do was compare to other prices, and then just walk away if I was dissatisfied.

I had been hungry before and I could sleep just about anywhere. I wasn't concerned about much, save thieves. I needed supplies to get to Ten Towns, more supplies to live there. My life had not at all prepared me for this.

I was nearly paralyzed with indecision as I tried to figure out what cold weather gear to buy. I couldn't listen to the merchants, because they would tell me I needed all of it. Instead, I collected advice, talked to people who had been there, made myself a list of items the travelers had said I would find the most useful.

When I tallied the cost, and the generic cost of passage on a ship, I still came out needing more funding. Maybe I could take on another job. Unfortunately, I wasn't a sailor, so I couldn't work my way to Ten Towns.

I was, however, a swordsman. With minimal trouble, I joined a crew that were bounty hunting; there was a price on the heads of the goblins in the forest. I didn't like headhunting. I knew that they were vicious and cruel, but there had to be some somewhere that weren't. They had a language of their own; they weren't just mindless beasts.

Despite that, we killed them anyway and collected their right ears as proof of victory. I closed their bulging eyes as we went from body to body.

When the threads of tracking any that remained ran too thin to follow, we made our way back. One, who was the more religious sort, asked me, "Why'd you do that? Closing their eyes?"

I glanced at her. "I don't like killing things that can talk."

"The worst kinds of monsters in the world can talk, Valac," she said.

I thought of the liches and vampires in my country. "I know." I grimaced. "I only feel that, maybe they're wretched little creatures but maybe somewhere, they aren't."

She shook her head. "Ever the optimist, eh?"

"Sounds naive to me," one of the others called.

I shrugged. "Maybe."

"Awful blighters. Death is the only thing for 'em. They're a pest, and no mistake."

I nodded. "Aye. You're probably right."

They moved on to discuss goblin tactics and ways to counter them, but that only really proved my point; they were intelligent enough to use tactics, to communicate with each other.

The woman walking beside me said, "Cheer up, Valac. They're nasty creatures."

I forced a grin. "I know."

She looked on me sympathetically. "It's not just that they'll kill and eat people or torture the weak, or steal. They'll torment each other just as often. Sure, they have a culture, such as it is. But is it worth preserving?"

Finer philosophers than I could debate that point. I just nodded my agreement and tried to look cheerful, as if she really had buoyed my spirits.

I just didn't like it. I didn't have to like it.

I took my pay, and they discussed going out again. I resolved to find work that didn't wound me as deeply.

The result was predictable; pickiness did not beget what I needed, which was money. I either needed to compromise my morals, or end up stuck in Neverwinter. So I had to find a way to justify the killing, and I went out on other such raids. I preferred other types of bounties, or at least the knowledge that what I was hunting were openly terrorizing people, rather than just culling goblin populations before they got large enough to do any real damage.

Winter gear was possible to find in Neverwinter, but because of the warmth, generally not very expensive because it wasn't wanted. People coming in from Ten Towns sold that gear here if they had no intention of returning. My gain, I suppose.

Finding a ship was more difficult, and I had to resolve to stay in Neverwinter over the season, until ships were sailing north again. It allowed me to do odd jobs and work, and I had a bit more money than I would have otherwise. I wanted to donate it, or buy things for poor beggars or orphans, but I was practical too; I knew Ten Towns might be difficult for me, and I would need the funds, for at least a while. I had to think about my future too.

That was so strange, to me, to think about the future. My whole life, I'd never thought more than a day ahead at most. My master's whims and wants could change, and all of my priorities, at any point, was about trying to anticipate those and focus my life around them. I had never really thought very much about what I wanted.

I often struggled with it. I had trouble planning ahead and sometimes having to do so much for myself all the time made me want to scream.

It had to be the luck of dealing with more honest people—or that I looked intimidating enough not to cheat—but I did last through my first winter here, such as it was. In spring, I left on a northbound ship, heading off with supplies for Ten Towns. My bunk was a hammock and sleeping in it was a trial for me.

I had trouble being idle for so long, and made friends with the cook by asking if I could help. I wasn't good at cards, but was still willing to play when they weren't actually gambling. Dice I liked more because it was more a matter of luck than skill. I wasn't any good at dancing, but I could copy someone else and learn that way. Storytelling I was an absolute disaster at, but I liked listening to others.

They stopped over in Luskan, briefly, for some trading. I took a walk along the docks, not wanting to stray far lest I get lost. I walked with a hood over my head, as if to shadow my eyes against the sun. I just didn't want anyone asking about the tattoo on my face.

There weren't the same customs regarding hair on the Sword Coast. Nor the same rules about the color red. I had jumped nearly out of my skin the first time I had seen someone wearing a red dress. I was getting used to it, but it still alarmed me sometimes.

Plenty of people in Luskan had bounties. Plenty of them were criminals. They wouldn't look twice at me.

But because I knew they were criminals, I also imagined that the Red Wizards or someone wanting to impress them could have a presence here, so I did not want to stay.

I was on the deck of the ship when it started rounding the mountains. I had never seen something so impossibly big. I smiled, when I saw the enormous mountain range as we passed it, snow-capped and turning green with the snowmelt.

There was so much I had never seen. Forests. The ocean. It was so strange viewing places when I was free to go where I would, compared to when I just followed my master. I looked at the sea and knew I could find passage to an island if I dared. I'd never been on an island either.

I could see the peaks of the mountains, and knew that I could visit them. I had walked through a forest.