The Water Road

by JD Byrne

  Rurek was where she had last seen him, sitting on the deck, legs straight out in front of him, back resting against the pilothouse. The sun was strong and warm, even though the breeze caused by the boat’s movement up the river still carried a chill. Rurek’s short coat that marked him as a Sentinel was folded across his lap, his arms bare in the sun. His pikti stood up beside him, leaning against his shoulder. He was looking out at the passing north bank of the Water Road, as if he had been hypnotized. If Strefer didn’t know any better, she thought she could see tears welling in his eyes.

  “Everything all right?” Strefer asked, sliding down onto the deck beside him.

  “Hmm?” he said, as if she roused him from some deep trance. “What did you say?”

  “I said, is everything all right?”

  “Sure,” he said, not altogether convincingly. “Why do you ask?”

  She shrugged. “Just looked like you were zoned out a bit, like you weren’t really here. I’ve never seen you like that before.”

  “Just tired,” he said.

  “It’s more than that,” Strefer said. “Here, give me your coat,” she said, reaching for it before he moved to hand it over.

  “What for?” he asked.

  “You’ll see,” Strefer said. She took the coat, took another needle and some thread from her satchel, and got to work. “But you’ll have to tell me what’s going on.”

  They sat in silence for a few moments, Rurek apparently unwilling to unburden himself. He watched her work for a while, then said, “You’re pretty good at that. Who taught you to do that? Your mother, I guess?”

  “How would she have done that?” Strefer said, without looking up from her task.

  “Right,” Rurek said, nodding. “I keep forgetting you’re from the Guildlands, Strefer. But surely you don’t learn how to sew in the Guild of Writers, do you?”

  Strefer chuckled. “Of course not. Why?”

  He shrugged. “I guess I never thought about what your childhood was like. Things like that—sewing, cleaning, mending things—are what I learned from my mother and father as a child. It was just, I don’t know, expected. Where did you pick those sorts of things up?”

  Strefer paused from her work and looked at him. “It’s kind of complicated, if you didn’t grow up with it. Are you really that interested?”

  “Sure,” he said unenthusiastically.

  “I’m not convinced,” Strefer said, returning to the needle and thread.

  “All right, if you must know,” he said. “It came to me this morning that the longer we’re on this boat and the further up the Water Road we go, the further away I get from home. I mean home as in where I come from home, not Tolenor.”

  Strefer gave him a puzzled look.

  “I know it’s silly because once we get off the boat we’ll be heading back that direction. Closer to Kerkondala than I’ve been in a long time. Made me think about my family. My parents. My sisters—I’ve got one who is just a bit younger than you, you know.”

  “I didn’t know that,” she said.

  He nodded. “I’ve just been sitting here thinking about them, whether I’ll ever get to see them again. It’s one thing to be away from home for years knowing you can go back any time you want. Once you think you might not be able to do it, it starts to gnaw at you. Or at me, anyway.”

  “See, that seems odd to me,” Strefer said, returning to her work. “I have friends that I left behind in the Guildlands when I came to Tolenor, not to mention professional colleagues, but no real family, as you think of it. Would I like to make it back home someday to see those people and show them what I’ve done? Sure. But I’m not compelled to do it because of any kind of blood ties.”

  “All right, then, explain it to me,” Rurek said, shifting so that he was looking at her while she worked. “Tell me how children are raised in the Guildlands,” he said, pausing. “Is that paper you’ve got? What is that?”

  “Later,” she said, stuffing the pages into the flap she had begun to sew inside of his coat. “While I finish, I’ll tell you about how I grew up. You talk about your mother and father, your siblings? We don’t really have concepts like that in the Guildlands. Sure, some woman gave birth to me and some man did his part so that I was conceived, but neither one of them raised me.”

  Rurek shook his head. “You don’t even know who your parents are?”

  “I told you, the concept of ‘parents’ really doesn’t exist where I come from. But to answer your question, yes, I do know who the two people who produced me were. I’ve met who you would call my mother once or twice. She is in the Guild of Musicians. I met her after seeing her sing at a concert once. She has a beautiful voice. Shame I didn’t inherit it,” Strefer said with a laugh. “The one you would call my father was from the Guild of Soldiers. He was killed fighting the Azkiri, from what I learned, before I could meet him.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Rurek said with genuine compassion.

  Strefer shook her head. “You still don’t get it. I’m not talking about someone like your father, who helped raise you, taught you things, protected you. To me he was never more than a name, and may have always been that way. I’m just answering your question about whether I knew who my biological ancestors were.”

  “All right, then. No more sympathy from me,” Rurek said jokingly.

  “I’ll take sympathy, thank you, but at the appropriate time and place.”

  “Duly noted,” he said. “So, with that bridge crossed, who did raise you, then?”

  “Not surprisingly,” Strefer said, starting on the final side of the pocket in which the pages had been hidden, “there’s a Guild for that. It’s called the Guild of Midwives, but it really includes a lot more people than that. Men and women, both, you know. Midwives, wet nurses, caregivers, you name it. They’re the ones that do the hard work of actually raising children.”

  “But there’s more to it than that, surely,” Rurek said. “Parenting is more than just making sure your daughter gets fed and has a roof over her head at night.”

  “It does in Kerkondala, because your society is structured around individual family units. Families just don’t exist like that in the Guildlands. Have you ever wondered about my last name?” she asked.

  “Not really,” he said. “I know it sounds a lot like the city where you’re from, but that’s not uncommon in the Arbor or Telebria.”

  “Except that, in the Arbor or Telebria, a similarity between a name and place is probably due to that person’s ancestors naming the town. Quants isn’t a family name, Rurek. It’s a short way of telling people I was born in Quantstown. My actual full, official name, as it appears on the rolls now, is Strefer of Quantstown of the Guild of Writers. Quite a mouthful, huh?”

  He nodded. “I guess it is.”

  “That Alban who got his head bashed in? His last name was Ventris, because that’s where he was from. Nothing more. My point is there is nothing about me that reaches back to some long line of ancestors, like you have.”

  “Who named you, then?” Rurek asked.

  Strefer stopped sewing for a moment, looked out over the water, and said, “You know, I’m not sure. Never occurred to me to ask. From as young as I can remember, I was Strefer. I could change it if I wanted to, but it works just as well as any other name, doesn’t it?”

  “No argument here,” he said. “Rurek is an old family name, goes back generations. I hate it.”

  “Why don’t you change it, then?” Strefer asked, returning to her task.

  “Because,” Rurek said, stopping for a second to think about it, “it’s just not done where I come from. Like it or not, I do have some connection to my distant ancestors to worry about. Besides, we were talking about you and your childhood. So the Guild of Midwives did the care and feeding part, right? Then who taught you to read and write and how the world works and all that?”

  “The Guild of Teachers,” she said. “I don’t know about Arborians, but I’ve heard Telebrians talk about the limi
ted role teachers play in the education of their children. Makes no sense to me. The Guild of Teachers is where the experts are, in everything from how to cook a meal to how to mend your clothes to how to read and write.”

  “So you went to school, then?”

  “Of course,” she said. “But that’s not the only place you learn things. You know that. The members of the Guild of Teachers work in schools, but also in the dormitories where children live and all over. They teach adults, too, if they want or need to learn about something new.”

  Rurek did not ask any more questions and they sat in silence for a few minutes. Finally, he said, “It just all seems so strange.”

  “That’s because it’s not what you grew up with,” Strefer said, finishing her sewing and handing the coat back to Rurek. “We are most comfortable with what we know. That’s doubly true when you talk about things like how we grew up. To me, it sounds strange to hear people talking about their families and how much they despise a brother or cousin or whatnot, but will then turn around and defend them from attack by outsiders. It makes no sense to me.” She stood up and slung her satchel over her shoulder.

  “So what is all this, then?” Rurek asked, holding up his coat.

  “Insurance,” Strefer said, before walking away and back to her cell.

  Chapter 17

  After telling her that they had much to discuss, Goshen inexplicably had walked away, leaving her alone in the tent. The time gave her a better chance to become familiar with the periphery of the common hall. Skins, presumably of beasts killed by Hirrek and his comrades, were hung at irregular intervals, providing the room with a bit of color, in addition to further insulation against the cold outside. There were no trophies of war, at least not that Antrey could tell from a casual examination. It gave the room a permanence that it did not deserve. She admired the design.

  To one side of the room, almost exactly at a 90-degree angle from where Ushan’s throne sat, there was a small table with a short stool at one side. Antrey crossed the room and saw that it was covered with some papers and some other familiar objects—her notebook, the bottle she had used for carrying water, and the elaborate dagger that had been Alban’s. She concluded that this must be where Goshen normally sat when business was conducted here, when he was not in front of Ushan translating.

  She was just about to reach out and grab her things when Goshen came back into the tent, carrying another stool similar to the one at the table. He sat the stool down across the table from the one already there and motioned for Antrey to sit. As she did, he scampered away again, but only after he had taken her notebook with him, stashed under the layers of his clothing. Curiously, he left the other things, including the dagger, in plain view. Before Antrey could ask a question, he was gone. She sat and sighed. She had nowhere else to be, but she hated being out of whatever loop Goshen was operating in.

  When Goshen slipped into the tent again, who knows how many minutes later, he had a wooden bowl in each hand, out of which steam was rising. He placed them on the table, one in front of Antrey and another in front of his stool, before he sat down. In the bowl was a combination of large chunks of meat—from the elk, Antrey assumed—and vegetables, all clinging together in a dark thick stew. It didn’t smell good, but after weeks of dining sporadically on whatever she could find in the wild, Antrey was not going to complain.

  Goshen pulled what looked like a small loaf of bread from somewhere unseen, tore it in half, and handed one half to Antrey. “Now,” he said as he sat down, “we may talk.”

  “Is that how it works?” Antrey asked. “You quiz me for all the information you can get before I get thrown out of camp in the morning?” She tried to slurp some stew out of the bowl but it was so hot that it nearly burned her. She reached for the dagger, unsheathed it, and used it to spear a chunk of meat, letting it hang in the chill air until it cooled enough to be eaten.

  Goshen chuckled while he swallowed. “That is dependent on many things. I will be questioning you, trust me,” he said, scooping out some hunk of vegetable from the bowl in front of him with his fingers. “But I do not think you will be leaving the camp so soon,” he said, downing the bite. “Not if I can help it.”

  “Is that so?” Antrey asked. He nodded, but did not answer otherwise. “Don’t take this the wrong way, Goshen, and believe me, I’m thankful for all the help you’ve given me, but you don’t look like you have a lot of authority around here. Ushan was pretty specific that this clan doesn’t want anything to do with me.”

  “That is what seems to be true, from your view, I am certain,” he said, scooping another bite. “Great Mother is many things. However, stubborn and unchanging she is not. She is receptive to the counsel of others, which is one of the things that makes her such an effective thek.”

  “I’ll take your word on that. But why should I think that you’re one of the people she listens to? You don’t even have Dost colors,” she said, pointing to Goshen’s long black braid. “You look as much the outsider as I do.”

  Goshen thought for a moment while he fished another piece of something out of his stew. “Outsider, insider,” he said, before slurping it down. “Sometimes those who appear to others as outsiders are actually the furthest inside. I would think that you, of all people, would know that.”

  Antrey stared at him blankly, chewing on a tough piece of elk.

  “Look at yourself,” he said. “A halfbreed girl, clearly neither Neldathi nor Altrerian. Yet you journeyed to Tolenor and became the assistant to the clerk of the Grand Council of the Triumvirate. You worked and lived with the keeper of their secrets. It was your position as an outsider that allowed you to get so close. Is that not correct?”

  “I suppose so,” Antrey said, nodding in agreement. “You picked that up from reading my journal, I assume?” She punctuated the question by stabbing another piece of meat with the dagger.

  Goshen nodded, then picked up his bowl and drank down a long swallow of stew.

  “No offense,” Antrey continued, “but I thought Neldathi weren’t able to read. I’ve heard so much about the oral traditions of the clans, after all.”

  “Typical Altrerian nonsense,” Goshen said spitefully. “They have the facts right, but draw the wrong conclusions. Neldathi can obviously learn to read. I have done it. You have done it, too. There is nothing in our nature that makes it impossible. But ask yourself this question, Antrey: Is it practical?”

  “How couldn’t it be?” Antrey said.

  “Look around you,” Goshen said, gesturing around the great circular tent. “This meeting lodge is the height of Neldathi architecture. Not just for the Dost, but for all clans. Neldathi society is one that is ever moving. We constantly roam from place to place to place, living off the land. We have no libraries. No homes with rooms solely dedicated to the storage of objects. We have no means to transport books, so we have no need for reading. Our libraries walk on two legs or ride. They carry the history of our people, our laws and customs, all in their heads. And they pass them down from generation to generation. All that, with no wasted space. Does that make sense?”

  “The Speakers of Time,” Antrey said, in answer to his question. She had read about the Speakers, but only a little bit, and had only vague memories of them from her youth.

  “That is the name they are given, yes,” Goshen said.

  “I can understand that,” Antrey said, “but then why did you learn to read, at least? I assume you can write, too.”

  “In due time,” Goshen said, sopping up what was left of the stew in his bowl with the hunk of bread.

  Antrey was tempted to press him on this, but decided to let it go for now. “If you say so. Explain this to me, then. How does this insider and outsider business apply to you?”

  Goshen sat up and ensured that his braid was on display. “As you have observed, I do not display the colors of this clan. I do not display the colors of any clan. The clan colors are not just a mark of identification, Antrey, they are a visual promi
se. A pledge of loyalty to the clan, a promise to sacrifice my life for it, if need be. Did you know that people may move from one clan to another if they choose?”

  “No,” Antrey admitted. “I always thought that the clans were blood relations. If you are born in Dost clan you remain Dost until you die.”

  Goshen narrowed his eyes and scoffed. “More Altrerian nonsense.”

  “Whatever,” Antrey said, sliding past his condescension. “So people can move from one clan to another, but what does that tell me about you? I’ve never read about Neldathi without any clan before. Are you some kind of rogue?”

  “I am no rogue,” Goshen said, astonished by the allegation. “I have chosen to belong to no clan because, in a way, I want to belong to all of them. My destiny is to serve something greater than the individual clans, Antrey. As is yours.”

  Antrey let that equivalency bounce off her for now. She had to assume that Goshen had read all of her journal and interpreted it correctly. “So what is this destiny you’re serving?”

  “I serve the one true god, the Maker of Worlds, she who created all that you see and set it in motion,” he said, as if repeating a mantra of some kind.

  Antrey said nothing, but her face must have given her away.

  “You do not approve?” Goshen asked with a warm smile. “Has that godless Altrerian society infected you so, Antrey?”

  Antrey sighed. “So you’re some kind of priest or something?”