"A pleasant respite it is to renew our long acquaintance, Walnut Arskin," he said in his same old deep but nasal voice, "though I suffer some concern about the circumstances. Perhaps you would care to elaborate on your condition."
I thought about it and finally said, "No."
"Mmm." Cotterpin took a sip of his tea, then held the mug in his short, thick fingers and swirled the contents. "I am not unaccustomed to seeing wayfarers as youthful as yourself fall victim to any number of unfortunate mishaps in the undisciplined confines of the wilderness. Being moderately fond of our visits together in the recent past, I was hoping to hear some motive or rationale for your presence here before you, too, encounter any of the aforementioned mishaps. Are you perhaps running away from home?"
"No," I said, and then I said, "Yes," and then I said, "No. Maybe. I don't know."
"Mmm." Cotterpin took another sip of his tea and looked off at the sun, which was just above the hill that hides New-shore from view. He didn't say anything more for a long time, and before I knew it I had told him everything, even the part about the question that you wanted Ark to answer (but I didn't tell him about the facts machine).
"Mmm," he said when I was done. "I see." Cotterpin was quiet for a while, and we looked at the open fields around us and watched deer graze and a hawk hunt for rabbits. The wind was getting a little cooler, but it was still okay to be out.
"It seems like an eon ago that I dwelled in Istar," said Cotterpin at last, watching the hawk with a peaceful face. "Yet even now I remember it far better than I would like. In the twilight years of that sea-buried land, I labored as a menial slave, the chattel of a priest. I had arrived there but scant decades before as a fully accredited diplomat from my homeland — the extinct geothermal vent called Mount Nevermind by the knights. Unfettered I was at first, able to commune with priest and commoner alike in that proud city, until the Istarians manifested great annoyance with my fellow diplomats and me over the failure of one of our gifts of technology. We had directed the construction of a new mode of urban transport, a steam-powered cart that traveled over fixed rails, but on its trial run it caused considerable damage to some important buildings in the capital. I was put on trial and sentenced to enforced servitude for the remainder of my life, as were my fellow diplomats, whom I never saw again.
"My overseer, whose glacial visage I shall bear with me to my grave, brought me along on an inspection tour of a distant military encampment just before catastrophe overtook Istar. In the anarchy and discord that followed, I was able to effect my escape and leave my overseer and his retainers to their own fate, which could not have been pleasant given the multitude of ills that plagued the region at that time. I journeyed westward on foot, feasting on the meager bounty of nature like an untamed beast, until I found a bare remnant of civilization in old Solamnia. There, among bitter-eyed men who cursed the gods and slew one another over trifles, I labored until I had saved enough steel to cross the new sea to Hylo, on this island's eastern shore. I then purchased a cart and a donkey — dear old Axle, whom you see now — and took up my most recent and probably final vocation as a tinker. As such, I am now content with my lot and desire nothing more."
"Did you ever want to go home to Mount Nevermind?" I asked. I had forgotten all about my problems and was trying to imagine what it would be like to walk across the whole continent, from Istar to northern Ergoth. I couldn't imagine it. I was also thinking about Ark and wishing that I could go home myself.
"Mmm," Cotterpin mumbled. "The thought has made its disquieting presence known to me on occasion, but I take thorough comfort in the realization that Mount Nevermind will continue to exist regardless of my actual physical location. I have determined that my best course is to find my own footway in the world and meanwhile examine the long-range consequences of the catastrophe that the gods visited upon Istar. I have been content with my work since then and have not regretted a moment of it. My original life quest was to have something to do with mass transit, but given the results of my development of the prototypical urban travel system in Istar, for which I was enslaved, I decided that another form of life-quest expression was called for. I also fear that I've been much contaminated socially by my contact with humans, and I am concerned that my brethren at Mount Nevermind might find my speech and mannerisms peculiar and would perhaps ask me to volunteer for psychiatric research, which at this time I am minded to avoid. No, I'd rather not voyage to fair Mount Nevermind again. I am an itinerant vagabond, happy at last, and wish to remain so to the end of my vagabond days."
We sat there for a while longer, and Cotterpin sighed. "Would that I could render some comfort to you, Walnut," he said, "but I wonder if perhaps your father, Jeraim, might give you more comfort than I, and if perhaps a visit with him might not reassure him that you have not fallen victim to tragedy. You have taken up a dreadful and thankless assignment. It might be time to recuperate from your excursion and renew your personal energies."
Cotterpin yawned and set aside his mug. "Tea always has a soporific effect on my psychomotor system," he said, his words slurring a bit. "The local angle of solar radiation is also inducing drowsiness, and if you would be so generous as to excuse my lapse, I would like to take a brief moment to relax my… to relax my eyelids." He closed his eyes, and, only two heartbeats later, he began to snore.
I looked at the countryside for a while more, then took out my paper and pen and wrote all of this down. The sun is about to sink behind the hill, and I can hear crickets chirp ing and birds singing, and I can still see a deer across the field, near some trees.
I stopped after I wrote the last paragraph above and thought for a while like Ark told me to do. I don't feel as upset as I did when I started to write down this report. I've just put my blanket over Cotterpin and left my bag of food with him after I ate some of it, and I've made sure that Axle has enough grass where she is standing, off to the side of the road. I am taking my papers and pen and facts machine, and I am going back to see Ark. I might have something to write to you about later, but if not, then it won't matter.
Report Number Five
Same day, after midnight, I think
Hi, Astinus! Its really late, I know, but I had to get one last report to you about how everything went. Ark doesn't know that I'm up or that I found out where he hid the facts machine after I gave it back to him and he ordered me never to touch it again or else I'd go to jail for a year, so don't tell him, please. He and Widow Muffin are asleep right now, and I don't think they could wake up for anything, and I'd rather not wake them up anyway. It's been a busy evening.
I went back into town right at sundown and went home to the shop, though part way there I slowed down a lot and was worried about what Ark would do when he found that I had his facts machine and had burned down the town and all, even if the last part was an accident. I felt bad, too, because I had failed to find out everything I think you wanted and Ark would be angry and disappointed in me, and I was also rather mortified that Ark might find out that I read Widow Muffin's letters, but I didn't read them all, just the first twelve.
The town was quiet again, though I could smell some smoke, and I saw candles burning in the window at the back of the shop where I usually go in. As I got closer, I saw that the back door was open, and I could hear voices inside the shop. The light inside was flickering, and at first I thought it was the stove. As I got even closer, I could tell that one of the voices was Ark's and one was Widow Muffin's, and I almost stopped, but I kept going anyway, even if my face was red.