Chapter 25
Chapter
Twenty-Five
The days blend into one another as we travel, heading steadily west towards the sunset.
And it’s…really nice.
Kalos stays out of his fugue state. He’s alert and his normal caustic self.
We trade jokes and talk as we walk, avoiding most villages if we can help it.
We pass a farmer picking fruit from his orchard and offer to work for a few coins.
The job ends up taking three days, and by the end of it, Dingle’s eaten so many rotten apples that he’s breaking wind constantly and I never want to touch another apple for as long as I live.
But we get coin and the farmer offers us some old clothing.
I guess we must look pitiful, and it doesn’t help when I cry over the boots he gives me.
Real shoes. Real honest-to-goodness shoes. Not flimsy sandals. Shoes that can stand a hike. I want to kiss them.
After that, we fare better in the next few towns. People are willing to have us help with tasks, and we’re not chased out of shops when we enter. We look less “vagrant” in the farmer’s cast-offs, I suppose, or it could be that there’s a lot more people on the roads here.
Because the farther west we go, the more travelers we see.
There are people fleeing the western coast, as Aventine has been attacking its neighboring kingdoms and seizing land.
Some place called Parness was burned to the ground, and we see people fleeing.
There are pilgrims searching for Aspects, leading trains of worshipers along the cobbled roads towards the nearest city.
There are a lot of merchant wagons, too, which confuses me.
Everyone seems to be fleeing east and yet the wagons are heading west.
I comment on this to one elderly farmer as we muck his stable, wielding pitchforks and tossing filthy hay and animal dung.
(Well, I say “we.” It’s mostly me with Kalos making disgusted commentary and just stirring the hay with his pitchfork.) “Is there a big market in Aventine?” I ask, since I know it’s the biggest city west and along the coast. “Is that where all the merchants are heading with their wagons?”
“More likely crystal hunters,” the old farmer says, voice cracking with age. He points a gnarled finger at the horizon, as if he can see it through the weathered barn walls. “They’re heading to the Dirtlands to see what they can scavenge. They go crazy for the crystals over in Sunswallow I hear.”
I think about Margo’s necklace, dripping with crystals. They’d come from a floating palace that crashed to the ground, killing everyone inside. Horrible to think that people are collecting them as tokens now.
I’m still thinking about the crystals days later, as the roads flatten out and the world around us becomes more desolate. Here I thought we might be in danger of missing the Dirtlands. That we might not see the strange, so-called dead lands if we stayed to the main paths.
Ha.
Ha ha.
It’s impossible to miss the landscape that everyone refers to as the Dirtlands.
It’s a dead place. Not like a desert, where there are cacti and lizards and things surviving despite the harsh environment.
This place is actually dead. No grass grows.
No trees. No birds, no wildlife, no nothing.
The land is just gentle hills of dirt and more dirt, and when the sun hits the south just right, it glitters and gleams as if even from here we can see the remnants of the palace.
The only moving shapes are the merchant wagons, who veer off the road, heading deeper into the southern portion of the Dirtlands so they can go and collect crystals.
It’s unsettling here, too. There’s a feeling in the air, a bit like a shadow walking on your grave. It feels very “not right” in the Dirtlands, and the more we approach, the less I like it.
“I’ve changed my mind,” I tell Kalos as we watch another wagon pull off the broken cobbles of the road and head south. “I don’t think I want us to stay here after all. It feels…weird.”
“It’s because the land is dead,” he says, bending down to fish a scrap of something out of Dingle’s mouth.
He gives the goat’s head an affectionate rub and snorts with wry amusement when Dingle prances away, clearly interpreting this to be a game.
“Tadekha drained all the magic from the land for her Citadel. Now her crystal palace is gone but the deadness remains. You sure you don’t want to stay here?
We can make a tent. I won’t plague anyone here for certain. ”
No, he wouldn’t, because there’s no one around.
I put my hand to my brow, shielding it as I stare at the retreating wagon, its wheels sticking in the loose dirt.
I’d swear even the clouds have disappeared over that part of the land, as if they’ve been sucked away, too.
I can’t imagine staying here. Yes, Kalos wouldn’t harm anyone, but we wouldn’t last. There’s nothing to eat or drink, no shade, no shelter, no nothing.
“I think we need a new plan,” I tell him weakly.
“You’re the plan maker,” he says. “You tell me where to go and that’s where we’ll go.”
I think about Margo and her necklace again. She didn’t get the crystals herself. Said there was a… monastery? A library? Something? And that a lot of the crystal hunters stopped there. I eye Kalos. “Do you feel any settlements around here?”
“Nothing that way for certain,” he says, gesturing at the south side of the road, where the Dirtlands begin.
“What about the other way?”
He pauses, considering. “Maybe a little something.”
It’s a start. “Let’s go find that little something, then.”
When we find the cute little square building with the thatched roof, I know we’ve found the place.
The walls are stone and rectangular, and the building stands alone, on the side of the road that has grass.
Something about the set-up feels homey, even if the world around it is bleak and the land stark.
There are a few goats bleating in a nearby pen, one wandering the gardens with a bell on his neck.
He cries at Dingle, who dances with excitement, and I snatch his leash before he can race off.
Of course, Kalos wasn’t holding his lead.
It’s not worth fussing over, though. I stride off the road and toward what must be the monastery Margo had mentioned.
The rock walls do remind me of an old-timey church, but it looks strangely naked without a wooden cross or two.
There’s a battered wooden door that looks as if it’s been touched by a hundred hands, and I glance over at Kalos, hesitating. “Should we knock?”
He gestures at the nearby road. “Unless you’d rather keep going all the way to Aventine.”
The war city? The one all the hollow-eyed people keep fleeing? No thank you. “I want to stop here. I think this might be the place Margo mentioned to me.”
He shrugs. It’s not an Apathy shrug or an annoyed one.
It’s a “you’re in charge, I follow your lead” sort of shrug, which pleases me.
How strange is it that I’m learning to interpret shrugs to decipher the mood of a god?
I beam at him, fighting the urge to just reach over and impulsively kiss him.
Kisses between us aren’t a thing. We can’t be together.
There’s no point in even flirting with romance.
No point, I repeat silently to myself, even as disappointment floods my veins.
Dingle bolts, ripping the leash out of my grip in his efforts to reach the other goats. Kalos scoops him up, carrying him as we approach the building. Then the moment with Kalos is gone, and I lick my lips, trying not to think about kisses or anything of that nature.
I head to the monastery doors and knock on the thick, heavy wood.
I knock twice before someone answers. The door cracks open and a little man peers out at us.
He holds a candle in one hand, his other clutching a cane.
He looks feeble and pathetic, his shoulders hunched.
His skin is dark and weathered, his stark white hair parted down the center and tied into two long, thin braids near each ear.
He peers up at me, looking ancient and frail and on his last legs, and the sight of him is so depressing that I think we’ve come to the wrong place.
“I’m sorry,” he says in a papery voice. “I can’t take boarders right now.
There’s a plague in the next village. You understand, yes? ”
“Oh,” I say, and turn to Kalos, hesitant.
Do I say who we are? Do I turn away and leave?
I’m flummoxed. When I’d pictured help, I’d pictured someone strong and hearty.
Someone that would have answers. Not a frail husk of a grandpa who might topple in a strong wind.
“Um, okay. Are we at the wrong place? I’m looking for the guy that trades crystals.
A gal named Margo said he was living near the Dirtlands. ”
“Margo, you say?” His voice crackles and he peers at me.
I nod absently, wondering what we do now. “Seth’s, ah, companion. We must be at the wrong place. I’m so sorry to bother you.”
“Don’t say that name around here,” the old man says suddenly. He reaches into a pocket and throws what looks like a pinch of salt over his shoulder. “You never know when he’s going to be fully into his powers. He could be listening even now.”
I stop. “Wait, you know, uh…that guy?”
He glances behind me, his gaze landing on Kalos as he holds a squirming goat in his arms. The old man’s eyes widen. “Oh. Oh.” He drops to one knee, bowing his head. “My lord.”
Eek. I wince, imagining the crackle of his old knees. “There’s no need for that, sir—”
“It’s not every day one has a god on his doorstep,” the old man continues. He gets to his feet, leaning heavily on his cane, and blows out his candle. “Especially one with good taste in his company.”
“Thank you?”
He pats my hand. “I meant the goat. I am very fond of goats. Come in, both of you.”