A Leaf and Pebble

by Andrew Monroe

  Six

  I woke up in a nest of pillows and blankets the Soft Steppers used as beds. Volant still snored heavily on the other side of the room, spread eagle and perfectly centered on his own pile. Our jerky diet had left me with a much smaller stomach, and I was certainly feeling less than great after last night’s excessive amount of food. As soon as I’d sleepily staggered out of the room, I found Qaewin waiting with that soft smile. Said smile took up all the space in my head that had been keeping my feet going and I tripped, landing in a heap at her feet. Embarrassment washed away all the lingering drowsiness instantly.

  “Good afternoon.” Her voice was whisper of warmth on a cold morning. A strand of hair fell out of the neat pile of braids when she leaned over me to offer a hand up. Her simple warrior braid she’d had yesterday was replaced with a complex and mesmerizing set that must have taken ages.

  “And a good afternoon to you as well. You’re looking quite radiant.” I grinned, taking her hand to get back up. My eyes lingered on the braid that framed her face. It was a testament to nimble fingers and a dedicated attention.

  She caught me looking at her hair and blushed slightly. Well, at least we were even now. It was going to be an excellent day I decided. I held out my arm in a dramatically gentleman like way. “Let’s go for a walk and see Slandash. Volant can sleep for quite a while longer if we don’t interrupt, and I’d feel terrible for doing so.”

  She laughed quietly, and stepped in closer, taking my arm. “Let’s let him sleep then, and see what is in store for you both from my semi-insane father,” she replied.

  Strolling about the tents, she pointed out the various factions of families and friends that created the portable city. We meandered down long and winding route around the encampment, taking an age to reach Slandash’s tent, with neither of us minding a bit. When we arrived, I was in such a good mood I doubted even Slandash could out enthuse me.

  “Greetings, my sleepy headed friend!” shouted Slandash the moment we entered the hall. The tables had been cleaned and the floors swept, leaving no sign of last night’s celebration. A group of older men were gathered around arguing with each other in angry whispers.

  With a shooing motion that seemed straight out of a school teachers handbook, Slandash emptied the hall leaving just the three of us again. Gesturing us to sit, he looked about conspiratorially. “You will be glad to know, we finally moved on the spy. I sent a group of personal friends to stalk him, while he followed you last night. They took him without anyone noticing. He didn’t have much of a chance against these types anyways,” he said with a sly grin.

  “What did you do with him?” I asked

  Slandash waggled his eyebrows with the same grin still plastered on his face. “We’re holding him in the very same room we spoke in last night,” he crowed with delight. “Not sure what we’ll do with him, he hasn’t proved terribly adept at his craft. Nonetheless, we will have to break camp and get on the move.”

  Qaewin nodded in agreement. “Can’t make it too easy for whoever is pulling the strings,” she said. A small fire burned in her eyes with startling contrast to her softness.

  “Is he actually connected to my…” I paused, searching for the word, “incident?”

  “Sadly, we’ve not gotten much out of him. Sleep and all that.” Slandash said, shaking his head in disappointment. “So far, only that his hawk was the method of correspondence with a man he only met once, about a year ago. He sounds like a low-level middleman, passing on messages and coin when the bird arrives.”

  I nodded in understanding. If this group had as much influence as the Learner that warned us seemed to think, there would be little hope he dealt with such incompetent spies. Most likely, this was just some gang keeping tabs on a potential target, and that was about it.

  “We did send a message out with the bird first thing this morning, by the way” Slandash continued. “A little misinformation to throw off whoever was on the other end of our trail.”

  Turning to Qaewin, a thought came to mind. “How did you figure out he was a spy, besides him being generally creepy?” I asked.

  “Excellent question!” Qaewin said with what appeared to be uncharacteristic excitement. She looked at Slandash and he nodded in agreement, or permission.

  When she hesitated, Slandash smiled encouragingly. “It’s your story to tell. Don’t be shy.”

  A deep breath and Qaewin returned the smile. “OK, it starts with the jewelry. Jess has never been motivated, or friendly. So, he’s not had much success as a trader. Mostly he just scraped by. Suddenly though, he’d have a gold bracelet or necklace. Then, he’d begun buying better clothing, and spending money had some rather gaudy decorations whenever we passed major cities. It was quite noticeable. One day, a few of us decided we would follow him for a week to see what was going on and took turns watching him. Sure enough, he’d meet with some stranger anytime we set up near one of the cities. They never seem to do anything but talk, but it was always late at night in a remote place” She nearly glowed with pride at this.

  “This suspicion was brought to me,” Slandash interjected, “and so I reached out to a few contacts that operate on the other side of the law. There was rumor in these circles of a Soft Stepper getting into the business. Apparently, some of these fellows were not happy with how rude our Jess had treated them. We’ve only known for sure for a month or so, and had no reason to remove him or let on about us knowing.”

  It made sense that someone would want to keep an eye on the nomadic tribes, but it was odd that anyone would be willing to pay for such constant updates. Before I could follow up with questions on the who and why, Slandash continued.

  “I’ll sound the call that we break camp tomorrow and move on. That oversized horn is so obnoxious, I love it.” Slandash did a little jig, full of excitement. “We’ll see what else we can get out of our miscreant. Rest easy though, he couldn’t have known you were here in connection with anything beyond wandering lost in Tryst’s plains.”

  Qaewin nodded in agreement. “Really, this is just a precaution. Don’t want Jess to be blabbing in his little report about you guys and bringing this murderous toron stone thieving group down on us.

  “Until then, how about Qaewin and you lay low with your friend at her tent. Maybe we can see how well you stack up in Kingdoms against our best player,” Slandash said slyly, nodding towards Qaewin.

  An exasperated sigh escaped her mouth. “I am not that good. I just seem to have more patience than others.” She turned a smile towards me. “I would still be happy to play you, if you would like.”

  “That’d be excellent. But first, and sorry to bring this up, you said you’d tell me more about said group…” As I finished, Slandash’s smile slipped into a less than happy expression.

  With a heavy sigh, Slandash nodded in agreement. “It was a very long time ago, or so it feels. But it also feels like yesterday. We had been in Kalaran at the school, my wife and I teaching, while our two sons were studying there. Qaewin was a slip of a girl left with a variety of nannies while everyone else was in class.” A look of pain crossed his face before he continued. “My wife had an heirloom, a toron stone necklace. Quite the Learner, she was. It was a work of art, and it was her single vanity after she left her family to marry me. I’d gone to pick up Qaewin while the rest of the family went home. We stopped to get a treat on the way back. By the time we arrived, my wife and sons were dead. Our home ransacked. After the grief washed away, the only thing I realized that was missing was her necklace.”

  There was no noise except the breeze rustling against the tent. Silence stretched on for an eternity while the two both seemed to fight an internal battle against their emotions. When the silence stretched on longer than I could bear, I spoke up. “What did you do?”

  “Nothing useful,” Slandash replied. “There’d been a spate of toron stone thefts, and I latched onto that briefly, believing in conspiracy. I found some criminal types, did some things I’m not proud of be
fore dealing with my grief properly. After a lot of dead ends, I dropped the conspiracy and moved back to my tribe.” He paused. “And now, here you guys are, and another of my colleagues has died from what appears to be the same group of lowlifes from before.

  “I’m sorry,” was all I could say.

  Slandash just shrugged. “There’s not much you can do about the past, Nil. I’ve had my time to mourn, but thank you. Besides, maybe I’ll get a shot at getting even after all.” He patted me on the shoulder. “Now you two get a move on. Go worry about enjoying the day before things get interesting again.”

  We left Slandash, but not before grabbing some leftover food to take back with us. As we walked, we took turns passing it between us, talking of the differences in our homes. Qaewin attempted to explain the life of a nomad, and how freeing it was to always be seeing new places, meeting new people, and how comfortable hammocks were.

  In turn, I told her about the beauty of the forests of my home. The tree houses and the wind creating music with the leaves. The hate for Learners and my parent’s shame that I left to study at the school. I tried to explain the appeal of having one place as an anchor like my childhood home in Erset. Somewhere I could always call home, and always know where it was. I also agreed with how comfortable hammocks were.

  By the time we arrived at the tent, we’d moved from our homes to talking about Volant’s. We both agreed that those in Wydvis sleeping in their airships leagues above the ground were insane. Our noisy laughter, having grown only louder the longer we walked, was what finally roused Volant from his deep sleep.

  When he pulled back the flap, I was reminded there’s nothing fair in this world. Blinking against the sun, he came out looking like a hero from a story. His long hair gently drifted in the wind, and an easy smile joined in with our laughter. Guess his beauty sleep had been found. My short, nearly scalped brown hair would never be as majestic.

  “Good afternoon, my rowdy friends!” Volant looked quizzically at the now empty plate. “Save any for me?”

  I laughed and shrugged. “Early bird and worms, cloudling.”

  “You’re the worst,” he replied with a smile.

  “Well, the lady has challenged me to a game of Kingdoms, I’m hoping that plying her with food will give me a better chance at winning!” I turned and winked at Qaewin, enjoying a twinkle of amusement in return.

  “That will not save you, leafer,” she said as if commenting that the sky was blue. “You don’t stand a chance against me.”

  Shaking his head in amusement, Volant started towards a small water barrel on the side of the tent. “She’s right, but mostly because you’re terrible at that game, Nil.”

  Qaewin disappeared into her tent and materialized a board. She went about setting it up and gestured towards a group of hammocks hanging off a wooden post in the corner. I pulled three down, and went about stringing them up in a triangle around the circular board she’d placed on a little fold out table that was just the right height for hammock play. Volant came back in as Qaewin finished placing the small stones in a traditional starting pattern.

  A quick glance told me she’d set the board for all three of us to play, and my curiosity was piqued. We had three hammocks hanging around the board with a cup of swok in hand. Qaewin had folded back various flaps around the tent, and a soft breeze with plenty of sunlight now filled the main room. We made ourselves comfortable and settled into the hammocks to whittle down the rest of the day with some competition.

  Kingdoms is a simple game, and relatively new at that. I’d played a few times at the school but no one was really that good considering how fresh the game was compared to more time-honored games. We all mostly stumbled about beating each other without any rhyme or reason to it.

  Most boards and pieces were made of wood, but I’d played on an intricate stone board before. Volant claimed a friend of his back in Wydvis had a metal one. The name came from its mirror to Balteris’ politics.

  Each player took a turn moving stones from one triangle to another, attempting to maintain control over larger areas, or to trap others pieces from connecting. Kingdom carving, essentially. Simple rules, but the strategies people were developing were sometimes mind blowing.

  “What style do you like?” I aimed my question at Qaewin, setting a new piece on the board.

  “I’m more of a water player,” she replied. “But, people basing their play off the four types of Talents seems odd to me. I don’t know why you’d do anything besides this way.”

  Having spent little time learning to play, I was only vaguely aware of which style was my strong suit, or really the differences. As the opening pieces were moved, I went over the philosophies in my head. Realizing it didn’t help, I just moved pieces about randomly and hoped to get lucky.

  As we played, Qaewin and I took turns filling in Volant with the morning conversation with Slandash. He took everything we said in stride. By the time we finished the story, it was apparent that Qaewin was going to destroy us if we didn’t do something. In silent agreement, Volant and I began working together to bring her down.

  Volant paused mid play with a deep frown on his face. “If this group is as clever and well connected as it seems, I find it hard to believe this spy of yours would be one of his, no matter how insignificant he felt the Soft Steppers might be,” he said with a nod toward Qaewin.

  “That’s a good point,” Qaewin replied, moving another piece into the middle of the board. A sturdy formation of her pieces was providing impossible to handle in the middle. “Since we haven’t been able to find out anything else, it’s our only assumption. It could be just an oversight and they don’t realize how bad Jess is at subtlety.”

  Volant’s thought hadn’t occurred to me. Strategy was definitely not my strong point, judging by this game. To drive the point home, it was suddenly over with Qaewin having created a beautiful pattern which connected into one large formation, enveloping most of the center of the board and neutralizing our pieces.

  I let out a sigh of disappointment, and Volant groaned with the defeat. She smiled wickedly at us both, delighted. With that, we set up another round and continued playing well into the evening. We traded stories, ate, and continued to lose game after game.

  “Water, right?” I asked after yet another puzzling and slippery few turns brought her victory.

  She shrugged while setting up the board again. “I guess so. It’s not like I set out to play water. Just kind of fits how I’ve been playing more than anything.”

  “Who taught you?” Volant asked around a mouthful of boar.

  Again, she shrugged. “No one in particular. I’ve just been playing against everyone that wants to, as much as they want to.”

  Seemed reasonable to me. As anything went, the only people who were any good at Kingdoms were those who’d put in a serious amount of time into it. All the prodigies and geniuses that one could expect were off doing serious things with their lives like chess or trading on the market.

  When the sun began setting, Qaewin decided to get an early start on packing in preparation for tomorrow’s travels. We helped, and it was amazing how compact most of the tent’s contents folded down and could be stowed. The outer part of the tent stayed up, leaving one large room for the three of us to spread out in. Sleep came easily, and my dreams were filled with Qaewin’s soft smile as she gently laughed at each defeat she handed out.

  The sound of a deep, long blast on a horn woke me. It was as obnoxious as anything I’d ever heard. Consciousness wiggled its way into my brain, and I realized Qaewin was curled up next to me, resting her head on my shoulder. She smiled guiltily when she saw I was awake.

  “The horn means we move out this afternoon, and travel to another location.” A tinge of excitement mixed in with her too quiet voice.

  Rolling off the nest onto the grassy floor, I marveled at the lack of soreness in my muscles. Maybe it was Qaewin sneaking a cuddle in the middle of the night, but whatever it was, the tight knots of worry
I’d been collecting since our friend’s deaths seemed to have faded a notch.

  With a look bordering on lecherous, she took in my shirtless body. Then, seeing my blush, that wicked smile blossomed across Qaewin’s face. “Let’s not tell Slandash about this, deal?” Despite the suggestion, and unlike me, she seemed wholly comfortable with the situation, and even seemed to find some enjoyment in my discomfort.

  “Deal,” I said with a smile.

  As if someone might be listening she leaned in closer. “Really, you’re getting the better side of this deal.” She raised a single finger. “First, you get to continue enjoying my incredible company.” She raised another finger. “And second, I don’t kill you for embarrassing me in front of my father,” she said, deadly serious. Seeing my face contort into something that felt like fear, she laughed happily. “I’m kidding! I’d only set you on fire,” she said with a wink.

  “So, Slandash wouldn’t approve of you snuggling his guests, aye?” I grinned.

  She nodded her head, a giggle bubbling up. “It’s not even guests, necessarily. He’s never liked the idea of boys around his little girl.”

  I nodded my head in agreement, realizing it was about time I put a shirt on. “Shirts are the worst,” I said as I shrugged mine on.

  Volant was lounging in a hammock outside, and to my surprise, practicing our finger talk we’d made back at the school. We had first practiced it during lectures we shared, but it tended to attract attention more than having a quiet conversation.

  “Morning, lizard breath!” I called to him, unable to subdue my huge smile.

  He turned slowly, giving his best impression of heartbreak. “You know I’m sensitive about my breath around you leafers,” he responded with mock hurt. A graceful slip from the hammock, and Volant joined us in the middle of the room. “It would appear you two have become better friends since yesterday.” The wink was the only thing that gave away his completely deadpan statement.