Silas expected to have to work hard at keeping his identity hidden so that he could sneak away. He’d had a brief flash of confidence that he could ask his friends the imps to help, only to belatedly realize that they could not go where they had not been previously, and he’d never traveled with them to any spot north of the Avaleen city walls.
He’d simply have to disguise himself well and make the journey on his own. He looked out the window of his room idly, not really looking at the scene before him as he considered his best option for disguise, then happened to see the stables that were facing the graveled yard below him. He gave a grin, and knew he’d found his option for a disguise.
He walked around his room and gathered his few possessions, before belting his sword around his hips, then he opened the window, and stepped out into the air beyond. He exercised his powers and lowered himself to the ground.
A stable boy watched his arrival in stupefied amazement, then grinned in return when Silas grinned at him.
“I want to use a smock,” Silas told the boy. “Is there an extra one here at the stables?”
“Of course, my lord,” the boy said hastily. When he entered the stables, he was surprised to find that Silas followed him in.
“Bring the smock to me up there,” Silas told the boy, then left him scratching his head when Silas climbed up into the hayloft overhead.
The boy grabbed a pair of smocks, one tattered and one crisply brand new, then climbed up into the loft, but stopped and stared when his eye rose above the level of the loft floor. Silas was stooped under the sharply inclined roofline, grabbing large fistfuls of hay and stuffing them into his pants legs.
“Bring it on up,” Silas directed. “I’ll take the scruffy one; you keep the nice one for yourself,” he said as he accepted the wad of cloth from the boy. He pulled it over his head and began to stuff more straw into his arms and his chest, so that ten minutes later, when he descended the ladder from the loft, he appeared to be twice as wide as he had looked when he climbed up.
“Will this do the trick?” he asked the stable boy with a wink and a grin, then pulled his hood up over his face.
“You won’t get a second look from anyone, my lord,” the boy understood the subterfuge. “Whoever she is that you’re going to visit is going to find all that straw pretty itchy when you return to normal.”
“Leave that up to me,” Silas patted the boy’s shoulder, then walked out and moved on down the drive away from the stables.
His disguise was successful for a while. Silas left the palace grounds without anyone offering a second glance, and he walked through the streets confidently, sure that he was not going to be recognized.
His confidence was shaken when he was just two hundred yards from the city’s north gate though, and traffic was piled up, waiting to get through. Silas looked ahead to study the gate, wanting to make sure the guards weren’t examining the departing pedestrians too closely.
He felt a sudden sense of awareness, something that was familiar, but unusual, something that he couldn’t identify.
“Silas, why are you walking when there’s a wagon here waiting to give you a ride?” a familiar voice asked.
Silas pulled his sword free and twisted around in a half circle, startled by the use of his name, but saw nothing. He turned again to face back forward, and still saw no one familiar or threatening.
“Silas, put that blade down and climb up here,” a feminine voice spoke from a spot immediately adjacent to him.
He looked off to his right at the side of a brightly-painted wagon, then looked up, and forward, and saw a woman’s face, a face that was a stranger for a moment, before his mind snapped back through his memories, and recognized Minneota, the partner of Prima, the master of the trading caravan that Silas had once been a member of.
“Minnie?” he exclaimed in astonishment as he looked up.
“Oh, so you do remember me? It appeared you’d already forgotten who I was. That roguish young smile of yours has probably charmed so many young girls’ hearts you’ve forgotten all about me, haven’t you?” she teased him.
“If you want a ride out of the city, climb on board – come on up here with me on the buckboard and we can get all caught up on gossip while the gate guards pay no attention to those pretty eyes of yours. Will that offer entice you?” she asked. “Because apparently the pleasure of my company isn’t enough to get you up here.”
Silas looked up the road and realized that all the wagons between Minnie’s and the gate were part of Prima’s caravan.
“Still not interested in joining me, I see,” Minnie pouted.
Silas laughed, a heart-felt, genuine laugh. He could have imagined nothing in the world better than to have run into his friends in Prima’s caravan. Only Ivaric’s own self-destruction, if it could have happened, would have made him happier. He was among friends, the best and truest group of friends he could have hoped to run into. It was a welcome respite from the worries and decisions he had faced in recent days.
He lifted his small pack and slung it up over the side of the wagon bed, then climbed up onto the driving bench, as Minnie slid to the side to make way for him.
“I would have given you a kiss and a hug, but since you’ve so little desire to climb up here and ride with me,” she pretended to attempt to invoke a sense of guilt in him, just as he leaned in against her and embraced her in a heartfelt hug, his arms wrapped tightly around her.
“I couldn’t have asked for a better gift in the world than to see you,” he whispered as his mouth rested against the side of her head. “Is Prima up front? Where’s Ruten?” he asked.
“Prima is always up front – you know how he is,” Minnie replied with a laugh, as their wagon inched forward. “He always wants to be the first one to get somewhere. And Ruten is in the back to make sure there’s no trouble back there, since we don’t have you bringing up the rear anymore.”
The first wagons in the caravan were already passing through the gates, until the relaxed watch of the guards.
“We could use you to help us keep a watch on the caravan for us as we travel. Would you like to rejoin us?” she asked.
“Oh Minnie,” Silas sighed mournfully. “I can’t imagine anything that would give me more pleasure right now than to be back among such good friends, but I can’t. I have a dangerous journey I have to go on.
“Minnie?” he gasped, as the woman suddenly reached down to the hem of her shirt and lifted it over her head.
“You get in the back of the wagon now. They aren’t going to pay any attention to you,” Minnie urged. She extended her arm in front of Silas and suddenly swept it backwards energetically, so that she struck his chest hard and made him tumble backwards into the bed of the wagon.
The had reached the guard gate, Silas realized. He looked straight up as he lay prone on his back and saw the ceiling of the gate passage appear overhead.
“Your city’s a little warm for me,” he heard Minnie gaily tell the guards. “I won’t wear such thick sweaters next time I come visit.”
Silas shut his eyes as the wagon passed the guards.
“You don’t have to wear anything at all,” one of the guards offered advice. “But come back soon!”
“You did it again!” Silas exclaimed. He opened his eyes and saw the blue sky overhead once again. “Just like when we escaped from Ivaric!”
“Which is where the caravan happens to be headed right now,” Minnie told him. “Are you going to sit up or not? And why don’t you pull all that ridiculous straw out of your clothes? You’ve got enough there to feed our team for a week.”
Silas scrambled back up onto the bench, as Minnie casually pulled her shirt back over her head.
“You’re going to Ivaric?” Silas asked in astonishment. “So am I!”
“Well then it’s practically settled that you’ll be riding with us, isn’t it?” Minnie asked. “We’ll stop at midday to refresh and check the animals. We can check with Prima then to make sure it suit
s him.”
Silas grinned as he pulled handfuls of itchy straw out of his clothing, then exclaimed.
“Minnie! There’s my friend – can she climb on?” he asked as he spotted Riesta standing at the side of the road.
Riesta stepped up to the moving wagon and easily swung herself up onto the bench next to Silas, pressing him over as she took a seat.
“Riesta, good to see you,” Minnie welcomed the Mover.
“You know her?” Silas gasped.
“As many times as Prima’s taken this caravan down to Faralag to trade?” Minnie asked with scorn in her voice. “I’ve practically watched the girl grow up.”
Silas’s head swiveled from Minnie on his left to Riesta on his right, and he took in the knowing grin on the face of the powerful woman next to him.
“You never told me you knew Prima!” he accused Riesta.
“There are many things I haven’t told you about my life,” she answered primly. “And it’s not a gentleman’s place to ask. I’ll tell you what you need to know.”
Silas sat up straight, confused by the unexpected situation. He looked back over at Minnie, who had a barely serious face as she stared straight ahead at the road in front, then he looked back at Riesta.
“Minnie! What is going on?” Silas asked. The horses continued to pull the wagon out into the less densely built portions of Avaleen outside the city walls.
“Prima works for the Faralag palace,” Minnie admitted in a low voice. “He’s one of the ways Faralag keeps tabs on what’s happening in the world outside its domain. It’s obvious that when the palace sent Riesta up north to help you, they’d tell Prima about her assignment as well.”
Silas closed his eyes and rubbed his face as he tried to comprehend what he was being told.
“Prima is a spy?” he asked incredulously.
“No, of course not!” Minnie answered. “He just collects news and arranges for it to be transmitted back to Faralag. That’s part of what the trading agents were supposed to help him do – Hamilton, Adams, Burr, and the rest. They take the information Prima collects, and they have a Speaker in their cities send the messages to the Speaker in Faralag.”
“There’s no Speaker in Faralag!” Silas objected. “Is there?” he asked. He felt uncertain about the world suddenly, as so many new facts were revealed.
“Yes, of course there’s a Speaker,” Riesta answered. “How else do you think the Queen would know so much about what’s going on, and what Faralag needs to do.
“He’s not very observant. Is he?” she turned and asked Forna.
“In some ways he’s not, but he has his moments. And he makes up for it in other ways,” the Tracker smiled mischievously as she answered.
The banter at least was reassuring, Silas silently decided, as the wagon rolled on. The revelations were stunning, far beyond anything he would have guessed.
“So,” he asked after several minutes of silence, “I guess this means you know why I’m going to Ivaric?” he asked Minnie. “It will be dangerous. I don’t want anyone in the caravan to be hurt because of me.”
“We’re on the same mission Silas,” Minnie spoke earnestly. “Faralag knows that Ivaric and L’Anvien have to be stopped. We’re all on this trip together. You’ve got friends who will help you, and you can count on us – you know that, of course.”
Silas smiled at the woman, then heard the sound of a new set of hooves drawing closer, coming up from the rear. He turned and saw Ruten riding forward.
“So, I’ll finally have someone to practice fencing with each morning again?” the caravan guard smiled when he rode up alongside Riesta. “I hope you’re still respectable with a blade and haven’t gotten too comfortable relying on all these tricks and powers of yours. I’d hate to see such a promising young talent go to waste,” he addressed Silas.
“Ruten!” Silas exclaimed. “This is amazing!” he laughed.
Ruten gave a significant glance at Riesta, who stared back.
“I’ll ride up and tell Prima he’s got two new members of the caravan,” Ruten told Minnie. “I’ll see you all at the midday break,” and then he lifted his reins, and his horse picked up its pace.
Silas sat in silence, pondering the existence of the network of intelligence that Faralag used. He’d had glimpses of its existence, but nowhere near a true understanding of the depth of the connections among all the parts of the web, a web he’d unknowingly been dependent on and entangled in for the past several months.
If he could count of Prima’s caravan to smuggle him into Ivaric, his efforts to overthrow the dictatorship and the evil theocracy that was taking root there would be just a little easier to manage.
The wagons pulled to the side of the road when the sun stood high overhead, and Silas automatically hopped down off the bench to help unhitch the mules. There was a sudden loud braying from a wagon in the front of the caravan, and Silas realized what the sensation was that he had experienced just before Minnie had first called his name in Avaleen.
“Hron!” he exclaimed. “Can I go see him?” he looked up at Minnie excitedly.
“Oh, I should have known,” she complained. “Of course, I’m going to have to treat our mules myself. Riesta, hop down and let me show you what we’re going to be doing every day for the next few days, while Silas goes off and tends to his lovesick mule.”
“What’s that about?” Silas heard Riesta asked Minnie, as he left the wagon and trotted forward.
He was going to see his mule. He was going to see his friend. He was going to see the other survivor of the long, strange trip through the hidden cave in the mountains north of Heathrin. Together, Silas and Hron the mule had fallen through the deep, deep sink hole into the divine cave where they’d been exposed to the gasses that had changed them both.
Silas recognized many of the crew members of the caravan as he passed the wagons along the way, and his progress was slowed by the handshakes and backslaps from the various encounters. But he made it at last to the second wagon in the caravan and finally stopped as he found his four-legged companion lifting his head joyfully and raising a ruckus in delight at Silas’s arrival.
“I can’t believe you’d spend all that time making mooneyes at a mule without at least giving me the time of day,” he recognized Prima’s voice. Silas lifted his head from where it had comfortably laid on the shoulder of Hron, and he saw the caravan master standing at the back of the leading wagon, the one that had a small, cozy room built in place for Prima and Minnie to reside in. Prima was grinning, and Silas grinned back.
Prima looked the same as before, clear-eyed, honest, intelligent. He looked like someone else too, though Silas couldn’t say who. Someone, somewhere in Silas’s long journey around the continent had some features that resembled Prima; Silas squinted as he desperately tried to figure out who the double was for the leader.
“Well, come and see me boy,” Prima directed. Silas snapped out of his study, and he stepped forward eagerly. He grabbed Prima’s outstretched hand and shook it vigorously.
“I’m glad to see you well, sir,” he exclaimed.
“I’m glad to see you alive, with all the hijinks you’ve been carrying out this past few months. You’re rearranging the fabric of the continent, aren’t you?” Prima asked affectionately. “And doing a pretty good job of it, it seems.”
“I’m told there might be an opening for me to have my old job back, at least for a while,” Silas grinned.
“Well, there might be that,” Prima conceded. “But you’ll have to pay passenger fares for the woman you’re bringing along with you, so you’re going to have to pay me if you plan to work for me,” he added.
Silas laughed, and Prima did too.
“We need to get moving. Now come up front and ride with me this afternoon and tell all that’s happened, and what your plans are,” Prima spoke, then placed a pair of fingers in his mouth and whistled a three-note signal to tell the rest of the caravan it was time to resume moving.
The
y talked for a long time that afternoon. Ruten joined them for an hour or two as they discussed the battles and maneuvers Silas had used in Amenozume.
“There’s never been so much amazement across the continent as there was when word went out that the entire invasion fleet of Ivaric had been destroyed,” Ruten opined. “They’ll still be talking about that a hundred years from now! One man against eight thousand!”
“Do you have a plan of attack for your arrival in Ivaric?” Prima asked later in the afternoon.
Silas shook his head.
“I need to see what the city is like, and how to best attack them,” Silas answered weakly. “But I didn’t have a plan of how to fight Maze in Avaleen when I arrived there either,” he said defensively.
Ruten shook his head.
“I cannot believe the freedom of the continent is going to depend on a total lack of planning,” he muttered.
“Do you have a plan?” Silas asked, hopeful that there might be something the guard knew that would make it victory sure and easy.
“Well, no,” Ruten admitted.
“I don’t have a plan either,” Prima said. “But I can tell you that Derith speaks to the city once a week from his palace balcony. He’ll be in plain sight for an hour or so, regular as clockwork.
“You’ll be able to see him from the street, not to mention from several building windows and roofs,” the wagon driver offered.
“That’s good to know,” Silas agreed. He could do something with an opportunity like that, he silently told himself. And he could do it right in front of a great crowd, publicly destroying the image of inevitable victory if he could vanquish the rulers of Ivaric in their own palace.
Chapter 24
The next day Silas drove his own wagon in the back of the caravan, Hron pulling the vehicle, and Riesta sitting beside him.
“I suppose you don’t get invited up front because he already knows about Movers and Faralag,” Silas speculated to Riesta.
“Maybe,” she shrugged nonchalantly. “But it doesn’t matter because I wouldn’t go. My assignment is to guard you, not entertain him. I’m going to be your shadow for the rest of the trip – the closer we get to Ivaric, the closer I’ll be to you.”
Foundations Broken and Built Page 20
