43. On the Trade Road

Riding atop the first wagon with the stranger, Initarin thought they might make the Windcliffs before nightfall and said so. The stranger said, absently, "That would be best."

"Best?" Initarin thought it might be the beginning of a joke. It was a good day for travel, the sky clear of all but a few white clouds, a cool breeze stirring the tree fronds, the sun bright but not too hot. "I thought you said you liked our company."

The stranger smiled. "I do. But my bones are old for sleeping on the ground."

"As are mine," Initarin agreed. Except he thought the stranger was being self-deprecating out of politeness. When he had first walked out of the dark jungle at the side of the raised trade road, Initarin had thought him young. He moved like a young creature, light and limber. It wasn't until he had climbed the stairs to the road to ask to accompany them that Initarin had seen the gray hair and the gray skin that looked like the result of aging. Sericans tended to go gray as well, the strands blending with their dark hair, but though the blue of their skin grew weathered, it didn't change. "The caravansarai at Windcliffs is comfortable, as such things go." 

The stranger said, "So you've traveled this route before?"

"Yes, at this part of the season for oh, six turns."

"And never any trouble?"

"Trouble?" Initarin frowned. "What do you mean?" But the youths riding on the back of the wagon started to argue and throw fruit rinds at each other and by the time Initarin and the other drivers had shouted at them and settled the argument, he had forgotten the question.

***

In the late afternoon, they rounded the trade road's Long Bend and found the way blocked by a fallen tree. One of the big spirals that overhung the road had been struck by lightning and collapsed. There was only room to unharness the first two wagonbeasts to haul the broken chunks away. The stranger helped the others carry the smaller debris aside, and when that was done, he paced up and down the road while Initarin's sister's sons and the wagonbeasts dragged away the last portion of the trunk. By that time night was falling.

"We'll have to make camp," Initarin said to Veilinan, the other chief driver. 

She nodded, her gaze on the road ahead. "We've been in worse spots."

"You can push on to the towns?" the stranger asked. "I thought it wasn't much further."

"The wagonbeasts can't see in the dark." Veilinan gestured up. "It's the dark of the moon."

"Hmm," the stranger said, and looked at the nearest wagonbeast, which huffed and lifted its head challengingly. 

"We'll take precautions. We'll post watchers," Initarin assured him. The stranger had never seemed fearful before, and certainly seemed accustomed to traveling the jungle alone, a much more dangerous path, so he wasn't sure what the objection was. 

"It's never been bad through here, with predators," Veilinan added. "We know to take care."

"Hmm," the stranger said again.

***

All was fine until late in the night, when Initarin woke with one of the daughters shaking him, saying, "We can't find Tmerick!"

"What--" Initarin sat up and flailed for his jacket. "What do you mean you can't find--"

"He was at the edge of the road and then he just wasn't anymore!" Her voice was harsh with fear.

His heart pounding, Initarin followed her out from under the tentcloth pitched against the wagon. They were always careful of predators, but sometimes all the care was just not enough.

The area around the caravan was lit with lamps that seemed to make the night even darker. Initarin reached the others gathered near the spot where Tmerick's lamp lay smashed on the paving. Veilinan reported, "They heard the lamp fall, that was all."

Initarin swallowed back fear and looked into the impenetrable dark at the edge of the road, as if the stone causeway was all that existed in a cavern of night. He faced the choice between sending the others into that dark to search for one who might already be dead. It was an impossible choice and he couldn't make it. "Bring me the weapons," he said. "I'll look for him. The rest of you stay--"

A sudden thrashing in the undergrowth and Initarin and the others flinched back. Initarin thought something dark flashed overhead, but then it must be a trick of the eye, for an instant later the lamplight fell on the stranger, walking down the road, Tmerick slung over his shoulder.

The others surrounded him with happy cries. "I think he turned ill and fell off the road," the stranger explained, surrendering Tmerick to the relieved grasp of his friends and siblings. Tmerick was confused, half-conscious, but there was no sign of injury. "I saw him go over and had to go down to the next set of stairs to get him."

The others carried Tmerick back to the lights of the caravan. Initarin stood facing the stranger. The stranger said, "I'll take his place at guard. And he might have hit his head on the way down, so probably don't pay too much attention to what he thinks happened."

Initarin nodded. "There is blood on your shirt."

"Is there?" the stranger looked and brushed at the stain. It shone with a green tinge in the lamplight, clearly neither Serican nor the stranger's.

Initarin shrugged off his jacket. "Cover it with this." Perhaps something had knocked down the tree to stop them here. If so, it seemed unlikely it would come back now. And he was not one to refuse an offer of help, wherever it came from. "Thank you. For standing watch." And he went back to the lights of the others.