“It’s mine,” Ishta muttered. “I shouldn’t have shown it to you at all.”
Garander did not argue with that.
Ten minutes later they were done eating. While the women cleared the plates, Garander pulled on his good boots and slung his pack on his shoulder; then he gave both Shellas, mother and sister, hugs. A glance at Ishta made it clear that she would not welcome his embrace, so he merely waved to her, then marched out of the house and headed west.
Garander knew that a league was supposed to be an hour’s walk, which would make it a five-hour journey to Varag, but he was tall for his age and pushed hard, taking few rests, hoping to get there fast enough to have some hope of getting home that night.
He crossed his family’s farm quickly, and then dodged around the wheat fields that Felder the Ill-Tempered farmed-they had been harvested, but he did not want to be accused of trampling anything that might have been left lying out, so he followed the drainage ditch Felder had dug along one side. That took him to old Elkan’s place, and beyond that were the lands of three more neighbors whose names he was not quite sure of, though he had seen them often enough, in the village or at neighborhood gatherings; he hurried across them all, not wanting to stop and talk. Fortunately no one was close enough to his path for courtesy to require him to do more than wave in passing.
He reached the road in about an hour, and picked up the pace even more, trotting through the village of Ezval without stopping. He turned right at the fork, onto the smaller of the two roads leading west, trotting past more farms.
When he finally glimpsed the top of the Varag watchtower in the distance, he took a break. He sat down on a large rock by the roadside, took a long drink of water, and unwrapped the loaf of bread he had brought. He was not sure just what would happen when he tried to see the baron’s magicians, so he wanted to arrive reasonably rested, with a full belly.
The day was sunny and pleasantly cool, and Garander thought the gods of weather must be favorably disposed toward him-if they had noticed him at all, which they probably had not. A walk like this would have been far less pleasant in the rain, or in the sweltering heat that they had been through a month earlier. He tore off a chunk of bread and ate it, casually watching three men with scythes cutting hay a hundred yards away.
He had only been this far from home half a dozen times in his life, and this was the first time he had made the trip to Varag alone. No one had even mentioned that before he left, though; apparently his parents recognized that he was almost a grown man, and felt no need to remind him of his youth and inexperience. That gave him a warm feeling of pride. He knew he would be expected to take on more responsibility in coming seasons, perhaps clear some fields of his own to work. The woods where Ishta had found her mysterious toy might become his own farm.
He would inherit his parents’ land eventually, of course, but he was in no hurry to see that day. His sister Shella would most likely marry one of the neighbors’ sons-probably that annoying Karn Kolar’s son, down by the ford, though Garander had no idea what she saw in him-and move to her husband’s farm, and start a family there.
Ishta, though-Ishta said she didn’t want to be a farmer. She had been asking their parents about arranging an apprenticeship, though she kept changing her mind about what sort of apprenticeship. Garander looked down at his open pack, at the bag holding her magical find; was there some way to make a living out of being insatiably curious? If so, Ishta certainly qualified.
Well, she was not quite eleven, and apprenticeships had to begin between one’s twelfth and thirteenth birthdays, so she had some time yet to decide what she wanted. Perhaps she would settle down and decide that farming was a good life after all.
Garander wrapped up the rest of the bread, took a last drink of water, then got to his feet, hefted his pack, and marched on toward Varag. A glance at the sun told him it was not yet midday; he had made good time thus far.
Perhaps half an hour later he arrived at the town gate. More of the structure was stone now than he remembered, presumably a result of the baron’s efforts to replace the original wood with stronger materials; the right-hand tower was now stone for its entire height, though the roof was still thatch, and two of the left-hand tower’s three stories were stone. The open gate itself was still wood, of course, as was the lintel above it, but a new catwalk now connected the upper floors of the towers on either side, and Garander guessed that the baron someday hoped to have a stone arch and rampart there.
He wondered why the baron was putting so much effort and expense into defenses; who did he expect to fight? The Northern Empire was gone, utterly destroyed, and the World was at peace. Did Lord Dakkar think the overlords of Ethshar were going to invade, to reclaim the northern lands they had let slip from their grasp?
Garander knew that many people, including his own mother, did think exactly that, but he found it very hard to believe. They really didn’t have anything to fight about. If the overlords had wanted to rule Sardiron, why had they let the barons go in the first place? And if they did want to conquer the baronies, Garander suspected they would come with wizards and theurgists, not soldiers and siege machines. After all, it hadn’t been mortal men who destroyed the Northern Empire; it had been the gods themselves.
Besides, the Baron of Varag might be spending a fortune building walls and towers and arming his soldiers, but the guards at the gate stood by and watched as Garander strolled into the town without so much as asking his business. Those defenses weren’t keeping anyone out, and if the overlords of Ethshar really wanted to take the town, their soldiers could just walk in with swords under their coats.
On the other side of the gate Garander paused and looked around at the square. It wasn’t a market day, so there were no tents; the inn stood to one side, the smithy to the other, and half a dozen shops ahead. A plank-paved street led up the hill from the square to the baron’s house-not big enough to be called a palace, nor fortified enough to be called a castle, it was still the grandest building in town. Garander headed directly for it.
A bored-looking guardsman stood by the door, and Garander greeted him. “I am Garander Grondar’s son,” he said, “and I’ve come to see Lord Dakkar’s magicians, to see if they can identify a piece of magic.”
The guard perked up. “Magic?” he said. “What kind of magic?”
“I don’t know,” Garander said. “My sister found it on our farm, northeast of Ezval.”
“Well, what is it?”
“It’s…it’s an object, about this big.” He held out his hands to indicate the thing’s size. “It glows.”
The guard cocked his head, frowning. “What else does it do?”
Garander blinked. “Nothing, so far as we know. We were hoping the magicians could tell us.”
“You have it with you?” The soldier held out a hand.
Garander hesitated. “No offense, sir, but I came to find a magician, not a soldier.”
The guard lowered his hand. “Let me see it, and I’ll fetch Azlia, Lord Dakkar’s court wizard.”
“Why do you want to see it?”
“Because I need to make sure it’s not dangerous.”
“You can tell that from looking at it? Did the magicians train you?”
The guard glared at him. “Just let me see it, all right?”
Reluctantly, Garander unslung his pack. He pulled out the leather bag, unwrapped the box and opened it, lifted out the inner pouch, and opened it to show the guardsman the thing inside. The soldier peered into the pouch, eyes wide.
“It does glow,” he said. “Looks like sorcery.”
“Is it dangerous?”
“I don’t know; I just wanted to see it.” He turned his head for a better angle.