Dumery looked down; the barge was not hard up against the bank. A couple of feet of dark water, catching occasional flecks of light from the greater moon that rode high overhead, swirled along between the hull and the grass.
He reached out, but he couldn’t touch the bank.
It had looked vertical, but it wasn’t, really, it sloped away. Dumery glared at it.
He took three steps back, then ran and jumped.
His hands and knees hit the bank, and he discovered that it isn’t easy to grab hold of a steep, grassy, dew-covered slope; he slid down until his feet and legs were in the chill water of the river, almost up to his knees.
Naral, Dumery was sure, must have heard the noise. He lay there on the bank, his feet in the water, waiting to see what Naral would do, whether he would come to investigate.
No one came, and after what seemed like hours Dumery turned his attention to climbing.
It could be done, by digging his toes into the sod with each step, wrapping his fingers tightly around the strongest tufts of grass, sometimes inadvertantly pulling them out and jamming his fingers into the hole they left.
He began to worry about whether he would reach the top before dawn, but the night seemed to go on forever, and by the time he was finally able to stretch his arms out full-length onto nearly level ground and pull himself up onto his feet he was more concerned with whether the dawn would ever come at all. Had the sun burned out, was it gone forever? Surely it had taken himyears to climb that slope!
Everything looked normal enough, though. He was at the edge of a farmer’s field, and had to climb over a split-rail fence.
Once inside the field he looked up at the stars and moons, then back at the still-dark eastern horizon, and decided the sun was just late. The lesser moon had just risen in the east, almost full, while off to the west the greater moon was still in the sky, a broad crescent, horns upward, like the smile of a small god looking down at him.
Something looked odd about the east, though, and Dumery looked again.
The horizon was in the wrong place. It was too high. The lesser moon’s light gleamed pinkly on hilltops that seemed to be halfway up the sky.
The hilltops looked awfully steep and pointed, too.
Mountains, Dumery realized suddenly. Those were mountains. He was looking at mountains.
There were no mountains anywhere in the Hegemony of Ethshar, any more than there were castles. A shudder ran through Dumery at the thought that he had, beyond all doubt, left behind the only civilized land in the World.
He was truly in the Baronies of Sardiron, the cold, wild northern land, where the evil taint of the ancient Empire still lingered, where the people had deliberately turned their backs on Ethsharitic civilization, choosing chaos and brutality over order and sanity. Castles and sorcerers, stone and snow and fire-that’s what those mountains promised.
He shuddered.
Then he grimaced wryly. The mountains might be alien and frightening, but they weren’t the real problem. The real problem was mostly that his feet were wet.That, he told himself, was why he was shuddering. He needed to get warm and dry.
A glance at the dark farmhouse in the distance was not encouraging. Visitors arriving in the middle of the night were not likely to be made welcome there.
Walking would dry his feet and warm him. He stepped up onto the bottom rail of the fence and peered back over the bank he had just climbed, back down at the river.
The barge was still there, and Naral was still perched on his stool on the foredeck. He appeared to be asleep.
Sleeping on watch, if discovered-well, Dumery didn’t know just what that would entail, since he had never been trusted enough to be put on watch, but he was sure it wouldn’t be pleasant.
Maybe Naral would replace Dumery in wielding the shovel. Somebody would have to, certainly.
Well, whatever happened to him, it wasn’t Dumery’s problem. He hopped down, turned left, and began walking downstream, toward the dock where theSunlit Meadows had tied up.
Chapter Seventeen
Riverbanks, Dumery discovered, are not highways.
Riverbanks, he found, can be slippery, boggy, overgrown, leech-infested, mosquito-infested, strewn with sharp rocks and day-old manure, and generally hard to traverse. They can have fences blocking access to them. They can even have rabbit-snares on them that wrap around your ankle and feel like they’re going to rip your foot right off, which you have to remove slowly and carefully, in the dark, while sitting on cold, wet mud.
All the same, the sun still hadn’t cleared the mountaintops when Dumery, filthy and exhausted but still determined, finally reached the inn and dock where theSunlit Meadows had tied up for the night.
He identified it as the right dock by the simplest possible method: TheSunlit Meadows was still there, its distinctive outline recognizable even in the faint light of approaching dawn, augmented by the lesser moon, which had crossed the sky, set, and was now rising again, a thin bow this time.
In the dimness the upraised sweeps looked more like an insect’s legs than ever.
This stretch of waterfront was clear and level and easy to walk. A set of wooden steps led down to the dock; at the top of the steps a plank walk led to the verandah of a good-sized inn. Beyond the inn was a small village, a handful of houses and shops along either side of a single street leading up the slope, away from the water.
Dumery knew the big building by the river was an inn because a signboard hung over the verandah showing a brown pig on a black spit, with a jagged orange border below that was clearly intended to represent a cooking fire. He could see the colors because lanterns hung to either side of the sign, both of them burning.
He found himself faced with a difficult decision. Should he approach the inn, where the man in brown might be staying, or should he go down to the boat?
After some thought, he chose the boat.
He tripped and very nearly fell on the top step, which would have made for a noisy and painful tumble, but he caught himself at the last minute and made his way gingerly down to the dock.
When he stepped off the last step and could spare attention to look at something other than his own feet, he looked up and found he was being watched.
A guard had been posted on theSunlit Meadows, just as on the cattle barge-a man was sitting on a stool on the foredeck, a sword across his lap. He was staring at Dumery.
“Uh... hello,” Dumery said. He spoke loudly enough to be heard over the chirping crickets and the gentle splashing of the river going about its business, and was horrified at how loud his voice sounded. The crickets and water weren’t making anywhere near as much noise as he had thought; his normal tone sounded like shouting.
“Hello,” the watchman answered warily.
Dumery strolled down the dock, trying to look casual. “I was looking for someone,” he said. “I saw him on that boat of yours a few days ago.”
“Oh?” the watchman asked.
“Yes,” Dumery said. “Big man, dark brown hair, wore brown leather, came aboard at Azrad’s Bridge.”
“I might know who you mean.” For the first time, Dumery noticed that the guard spoke Ethsharitic with an accent.
“Yes, well,” Dumery said, “I’m looking for him. I need to talk to him.”
The watchman’s hand had crept to the hilt of the sword; now he lifted it and gestured at the eastern sky. “Odd hour to go visiting, isn’t it?” he asked.
“Oh, well,” Dumery said, “I didn’t want him to slip away before I had a chance to talk to him, you know.”
“Ah. In a hurry, were you?”