A Dream of the Heaven

Chapter 19 (Part 1 of 2)

PART 3

Chapter 19

Imlon

*

North of Tentruar, the Birchwood began to fade.  Vivid red gave way to calmer yellow, rigid branches to drooping ones, and the straight road to a winding track that wandered around streams and pools.  The Willowwood felt damp in a wholesome, life-giving way, but with each day Imlon could smell the marshes drawing closer.

At night, whilst Isendrin and Temith slept, he stepped out of the lonely wayside inns in which they stayed and looked up.  The new star was always in the Viper and always brighter than all others, but he watched for an hour or so regardless, with a cup of hot Haryuese uisce and a slice of bread to hand.  The mist that rose from the woodland lakes and ponds eventually pushed him back inside.

“I cannot abide damp clothes,” said Temith, shaking his cloak by the fire one night.

“You’re going to enjoy the marsh,” said Isendrin.  Imlon tried to keep reading his book.

“As long as we have a fire each night, I shall be fine.”

“Can you make one?  We aren’t going to be inside.  We’ll be out in the wild some nights.”

“That is why one hires a pathfinder.”

“‘One’ hires a pathfinder so you don’t drown.  Try not to get your boots wet.”

Imlon risked a glance up, but Temith didn’t respond.

*

Five days out from Tentruar, with a weary sun tumbling through the willows in the west, the three travellers arrived in the border town of Geslic.  The wooden houses stood on stilts, reeds growing around their edges and along the sides of the churned-up streets.  Pigs and chickens in the yards contended with the noise of sawing and hammering coming from sheds and barns.  A few miles further north, Haruyen ended and the marsh began.

After asking around, Imlon gained directions to the house of the pathfinder they had come looking for, one recommended to him in Tentruar.  On the edge of the town, a small path between two large vegetable patches led up to a stout house surrounded by outbuildings, and once they had tied their horses to the fence Imlon, Isendrin and Temith approached.  A man in one of the sheds saw them, put down his tools, and came to meet them.

“Sibye?”

“Sido, caevad,” said Imlon. “Avo Menentor ec Geslic?”

The pathfinder smiled.  He was a broad, heavy-set man, entirely bald but thickly bearded from ear to ear.  “We can speak in your tongue, if you wish,” he said, with only a slight Haruyese accent.

“Vaet ac soli,” said Imlon.  It was only courtesy to try.

“I congratulate you,” said the pathfinder.  “You Haruyese is excellent.”

“Thank you,” said Imlon, unable to repress a smile.  “Are you Menentor of Geslic?”

“I am.  And do you need a pathfinder?”

“Yes, out northeast over the marsh.”

“You are bound for the Aspolis?”

“Yes.”

The pathfinder Menentor’s smile broadened.  “Wonderful.  Please, come inside.”

He led them through a workshop with a half-built canoe in the centre, into the back of the house itself.  A healthy fire crackled in the grate, but it was the pile of maps on the table that drew Imlon’s attention, as well as the vast numbers of further papers rolled up on a shelf.  Broad surveys of the kingdoms and the high roads of the continent were readily available somewhere like Monruath, but these looked wilder, more detailed, chronicling the secret ways through the Willowwood, the marsh, and further afield.  They were hand-drawn, not printed.