Unguilded (12 page)

Finally it was time to leave. The days were getting shorter, and the sun was weak, even in the middle of the afternoon. Kara had picked and dried enough herbs to make potions and poultices to stock both the cabin and the leather pack Mika had given her. With her few bits of clothing, her knife, and a few other utensils that could be spared from the cabin, Kara had some traveling gear, at least.

And Mika needed to get to Rillidi and back before the fall rains made traveling the Mountain Road too dangerous.

“Are you sure you won’t stay?” Allon asked. He was struggling to harness a reluctant Zayeera to the cart. “At least over the winter?”

“Thank you, no. I need to find my own place in the world,” she said, repeating what her mother had told her, what felt like a lifetime ago. And it was true. Her mother may have had her own motives for setting her daughter on this path, but Kara had embraced it as her own. “I wish it could be here, but it’s not.”

“I understand,” Mika replied. “We all must find our own place, or person.” She glanced over at Allon, and the two shared a smile. “I’ll help you settle in Rillidi. Some unguilded on Old Rillidi Island owe me a favour.”

AFTER THE SERENE
days in the meadow, traveling was almost unbearably tedious. Mika kept them to a steady pace, and both women and burro settled into it, although none of them were in good spirits.

In the mornings, they rose with the sun. Mika would tend to the burro while Kara cleaned up the camp. The morning meal was water and a piece of hard, salty cheese. An unguilded man made the cheese from the milk of half-tamed mountain goats, Mika said. There was a partial round of it in the wagon, and Kara’s task was to slice off a chunk for each of them.

Lunch was a piece of journey bread that Kara had helped Allon bake before they’d left the cabin. And whenever Kara spied mountain berries lining the road, they paused while she stripped the fruit off the bushes, although there was never more than a handful for each of them.

Each evening Mika led them off the road to a campsite she knew. With access to a spring or stream, the camps weren’t evenly spaced, so they didn’t stop at the same time every day. On days when they set up camp early, Kara would continue with Mika’s lessons.

On the fourth day after leaving the clearing, they passed the road to Villa Grana. From here the Mountain Road was wider and more heavily rutted. Wagons loaded with ores from the Grana mines used this road, Mika told her.

Two days later, Mika led the burro and cart off the road and along a narrow path. The mountain pines arched over the rutted track, shielding them from the afternoon sun.

“A farmer lives down this way,” Mika said. “I trade with him.” She looked over at Kara. “I wasn’t going to stop, he won’t like me bringing you along, but he might have news of Rillidi.” Mika frowned. “The road’s quiet for this time of year. I don’t much like it.”

An hour later they rounded a bend in the path, and a meadow came into view. Much like where Mika and Allon lived, there was a small cabin and a couple of smaller out buildings. No smoke rose from the chimney, and two burros huddled miserably in a small fenced-in field. The animals raised their heads, and one brayed loudly.

“I don’t like this,” Mika said. She handed the lead to Kara. “You stay here.” She walked to the edge of the trees and paused to stare out. After a long look, she started to jog towards the cabin.

Now both burros were braying. Zayeera answered, and Kara had to tug hard on the lead to keep her from going to them.

Mika reached the small window on the side of the cabin and peeked in. Her shoulders slumped, and she turned and waved Kara forward.

Kara pulled Zayeera down the path, out of the trees and into the clearing.

By the time she’d crossed the meadow to the cabin, Mika was tending to the burros. She’d found a bucket somewhere and had dumped fresh water into a trough. As soon as the water hit the wooden trough, the burros had their heads in it. The burros were thin, their coats matted and dull, and any grass in the enclosure had long since been cropped to the roots.

“Your friend?” Kara asked. She tied Zayeera up and rummaged in the cart for the bag of feed.

“He’s inside,” Mika said. She took the bag from Kara. “He must have died in his sleep.” She shook her head and poured some grain into a second trough. One burro stopped drinking, sputtered a bit, and then shuffled over to the grain. “It looks like it was a while ago—a month, maybe more.” She ran a hand over the ribs of one burro. “It’s a good thing I decided to stop in now. These two wouldn’t have lasted until my return trip.”

“Are there any other animals?” Kara asked.

“Not really,” Mika replied. “There’s some wild goats around. Terach used to catch and milk them, but they’ll be fine without him.”

“Terach made the cheese.” She felt a little pang of loss, as though she’d known the man from eating the cheese he’d produced.

“Aye. I’ll clean out any cheese that’s left on my way home,” Mika said.

“And the burros? Are they coming with us?”

“No,” Mika replied, absently stroking one burro. “I’ll give them some more grain in the morning before we leave, then I’ll set them free. Burros around here are never far from being wild. These two will be fine.”

Mika unhitched Zayeera and left her in the enclosure with the other burros.

“We’ll want to sleep outside,” Mika said. She tossed Kara’s bedroll to her. “The cabin’s probably not fit for us what with Terach being there for so long. But we’ll look around for anything useful. Terach wouldn’t have minded, as long as his things go to help an unguilded.”

“He didn’t like guilds?” Kara asked. She wasn’t sure she wanted to enter the cabin, wasn’t sure she liked the idea of taking a dead man’s things, but she had so little of her own that she couldn’t afford to refuse anything.

“Terach,” Mika said and smiled. “He
hated
guilds. Especially Mage Guild. I never learned his story.” Mika glanced over at her. “But I suspect he was Mage Guild. Always kept to himself, did Terach. He told me once if I ever brought anyone else he’d be more likely to kill me than trade with me. I believed him. I only let you come because I had a feeling something was wrong.”

“And you were right,” Kara said. “Let’s get in the cabin before we lose the light.”

Mika opened the cabin door. A few flies buzzed out, along with stale air and a hint of rotting food.

They left the door open and started their search in the kitchen.

Kara found a knife and unsheathed it. The six inch blade looked sharp enough to strip willow twigs for teas and balms. A water skin was another prize, along with a cook pot small enough for one. She spied a shelf lined with books and thought that Mika was right—Terach had been Mage Guild.

She headed to the shelf, intent on seeing what treasures had been collected over the years. As she passed the open door to the bedroom, she caught a sense of movement. She stopped, unsure if she really wanted a closer look. Animals had not gotten into the cabin, but insects would have.

She peered into the room and frowned. Wisps of grey hair were visible on the man’s head, which thankfully faced away from the door. What skin she could see was dry and leathery, and the body was covered with a thin, green blanket. Terach had been an old man then, by the looks of his hair, and as Mika had said he’d died in his sleep. Except that a grey-black mist swirled around him. The grey-black of Mage Guild Secundus Valerio Valendi.

Kara bit her lip. The morning after she’d met Mika, the day Zayeera had woken them up so early—a grey-black mist had flowed over the burro, parted for Kara, and swept past Mika. Then it had gone up to the Mountain Road. Had it traveled all the way here, to this clearing? Had Terach been caught by it?

Because she knew that the mist—the
spell
—had killed this man. She shivered. If Zayeera hadn’t woken her up, would she still be alive, or would she have simply slept while the mage mist killed her, dying in her sleep just like poor Terach?

“Find anything, Kara?” Mika called from the kitchen.

“Uh, just checking his books.” She hurried past the bedroom door to the bookshelf. “There might be something you can surprise Allon with.”

IN THE END
they took very little. It had taken Terach a lifetime to accumulate everything in this cabin, but other than the books and the few items Kara claimed, Mika had only a small pile set aside to pick up on her way back from Rillidi.

“Not much of his food was still edible,” Mika said, setting the stew pot onto the hot coals of the fire.

They’d built their camp close to the burro enclosure, and Terach’s two huddled close to them, perhaps afraid to be forgotten again.

“The garden was picked pretty clean by animals,” Kara said. “Looked like rabbits mostly, and maybe a couple of wild burros.”

“That’s good. When I set Terach’s free, they may be able to find the wild ones.”

Kara dumped some potatoes into the stew pot and sat down, staring into the flames. She hadn’t told Mika about the mist—hadn’t told her that her friend’s death may not have been as peaceful and natural as she thought.

“Terach was a fine man, once you got to know him,” Mika said. “Never would have guessed he was such a reader, though. How many books did you count again?”

“Twenty-seven,” Kara replied.

“Twenty-seven,” Mika repeated and shook her head. “And not one of them from me. Someone else was his book trader. I’m not sure if I’m grateful or offended.”

“Be grateful,” Kara said. “Some of these books would be illegal for a Mage Apprentice to own, let alone an unguilded.”

One book in particular had caught her attention—a book by Santos Nimali, at one time the Mage Guild Primus. It was handwritten in a spidery script—a workbook, probably of spells—that one she was keeping. She wondered how much her mother might give to have such a book. Not that she would ever get it from Kara.

“You’re right,” Mika agreed. “Being caught with books only a Mage had a right to is a good way to get dead.” She poked at the coals under the pot. “But there’s some that will be safe enough for me to carry?”

“Oh yes. Allon will like the book on mountain plants,” Kara said. “It has drawings of them and describes how to use them for healing and food. You can read them on long winter nights.”

“Never thought I’d be able to read,” Mika said and turned to her.

“I think I got the better part of the bargain,” Kara said and smiled when Mika nodded.

“As do I,” Mika replied. “Which is the best kind of trade.”

THEY BROKE CAMP
early, eager to leave this place of death behind. Mika gave all three burros some grain, then she freed the two that had belonged to Terach. They cropped the grass in the meadow while Kara and Mika packed the cart and harnessed Zayeera.

The burros followed them from the meadow along the road through the trees, but when Kara turned to look for them half an hour later, they were gone.

Late that afternoon they reached the track that led to Villa Salva. A mining town like Grana, it was set so high in the mountains, Mika said, that newcomers were short of breath for days. And it was cold at night, even in the height of summer. But gold was mined there, so it was worth the extra hardship.

An hour later they had to pull off the road as four Merchants, each driving a wagon pulled by a team of burros, passed them.

There were Warriors—two in front and two behind—guarding whatever was in the wagons. Gold probably, although Kara wasn’t about to ask.

It was the first time she’d ever seen Warrior Guildsmen, and she tried not to stare as the hard-faced men strode past, their broadswords hanging down their backs and their leather armor creaking as they scanned the road ahead and behind.

The gaze of one Warrior flitted over her, and she had to fight the urge to run. Instead she stared at the ground and tried not to think about the book tucked away in her pack, the book that was likely full of secrets and powerful spells and incantations. Then the wagons were past them, and Mika steered Zayeera onto the road.

“We’ll camp early tonight,” Mika said. “There’s a place to stop not far from here.” Mika turned and spat into the dust. “Just as soon let them others get ahead.”

“Yes,” Kara agreed. She didn’t want to even think about sharing a camp site with them. Not that the Warriors would allow it—she doubted they’d be willing to share anything.

IT WAS AN
hour before dusk, and they’d already set up their camp. Onions and wild mushrooms simmered with dried goat meat in the stew pot.

Kara pulled a book out of the wagon and headed over to Mika, who sat with her back to a rock, staring out across the valley. The sunset had painted the tops of the mountains pink.

“We have some time to study,” Kara said. She sat cross-legged beside Mika. “Is there anything you want me to go over again?”

Mika blinked. “No. I think it’s best if we leave off my lessons and start in on yours.”

Kara looked at her, puzzled.

“I need to tell you about Rillidi,” Mika continued. “What to expect once we get to the city, who might not want us there, and about the unguilded I know. Those Merchants today reminded me that we might not always have campsites to ourselves. Can’t go around talking about unguilded when Guildsmen are around.”