I waited until the barges were past, just out of habitual sneakiness, then walked down to the edge.
There were tall weeds growing almost up to the water, but right on the bank was sand. It was soft, but not wet. As I said, it was slower than the Adrilankha River, and that meant quieter. I studied it as it went by. The day was still bright enough that I was able to locate the Furnace, and I concluded that, as before, it was late afternoon, which was what it had been when I left the cave, and made sense for when I’d last been outside of the castle. That meant I might still be where I had been, in what was the past, walking around merrily a few hundred years before I was born. What could possibly go wrong? I watched the river, speculating. I kept wanting to make a connection between the river and the fountain, but the source of the fountain was Dark Water, water that had never seen the light of day, and this river was exposed to the daylight.
I knelt down, scooped up some water, let it dribble through my fingers. Another barge came around the bend upriver. I thought about hiding, decided I didn’t care. I watched it as it went by. They came close enough so I could see the features of the bargemen, and they stared at me as they passed; one of them almost went into the water from staring so hard, and the others laughed at him. The barge was full of casks; I had no idea what was in them, but that was okay because I had no idea where they were going, either.
There were a few trees of a kind I didn’t recognize—short and spindly, with few branches—amid clumps of reeds. The water was a dirty brown. I turned back, but I couldn’t see the castle, although my guess was that I’d only walked around fifty rods. I turned back to the river as if it could explain what was going on, make sense of the whole thing. I walked with the water, caught a hint of motion from ahead of me, and stopped. The motion continued, too small or too far away from me to see anything but a sort of darting movement on the other side of the river, near the bank. I got closer, and it didn’t stop. Still closer, and about the time I was directly across the river it stopped. I froze and waited, and in a minute or so it started again.
As I watched I picked up more detail, until I was able to make sense of what I was seeing. It was a vallista, of course, because how could it not be? On a riverbank, just where it belonged. As I watched, it would tear off the top of one of the reeds with a quick motion, then chew it for a while, and set it down. At some point it stopped, fiddled around with something—presumably the chewed reeds—then went down to the water holding something in its mouth. It transferred what looked like a box of some kind into its paws, set it carefully in the water, then returned and began chewing more reeds.
I watched, fascinated, for at least a quarter of an hour until the fading light made it impossible. I looked around, and there was a glow coming from behind me. It took a while to realize that it had to be coming from the castle. They must have lit the place up for the night. The light dispersed well enough that I was able to pick out general features of the area, though I couldn’t make out details. Loiosh and Rocza had better night vision than me, so presumably they could keep an eye out for anything that needed eyes out. What now? Find a place to sleep, try to make it back to my own time, or wander around aimlessly until something ate me?
All right. Wander aimlessly it is, then.
I continued farther downstream since I’d been going that way to begin with.
“Do you know what it was doing, Loiosh?”
“The vallista? Fishing.”
“Fishing.”
“Building a fish trap.”
“Oh. Hmmm. I’ll bet that’s significant or something.”
“What?”
“I don’t know. The whole manor is a trap? There’s a trap in it? I’ve fallen into a trap?”
“You think?”
“I don’t know. Devera’s trapped, anyway. I don’t think anything. I’m guessing, trying to plug meaning into things to see if an answer pops out.”
Loiosh shut up. I continued downriver, thinking. There was a lot of truth to what I’d told him: there was something about this whole mess, the manor, the movement through time, that felt like there was a clue I wasn’t seeing, some key that would explain everything. But while you’re waiting for that flash of inspiration, keep picking up pieces. T-A-L … never mind, that one wasn’t that good. My point is, keep learning what bits of information you can while you wait for it all to make sense. Or, in this case, keep walking down the river.
“Okay, fly around, keep an eye out for anything unfriendly or interesting.”
They took off, I kept walking, taking it slow, looking around as well as I went. It was becoming dark, though the process seemed slower than it did in Adrilankha. Probably my imagination.
“Nothing so far, Boss. Think we should go back to where we arrived here and see if we can get back?”
“Think you can find it?”
“Not sure.”
“Let’s stay with this for a while longer.”
My mind kept coming back to Dark Water, and trying to make sense of the river having something to do with it—the cave emerging right on its bank had to mean something. Well, probably meant something. Might mean something.
One of the dangers in trying to solve riddles is a temptation to force answers where they don’t belong because things would look neat and pretty that way. I’d been aware of this since I started exploring the manor, but I kept falling into it, or nearly falling into it, anyway.
I made a point to note the softness of the ground, the sounds (more varied than near the ocean-sea, with the lapping of the water only the smallest part), and the complex mix of scents, with the smell of fish predominating.
I hadn’t walked that far from the cave—half a mile at the most, perhaps less—when I came to a curving bridge made of stone and wood. I crossed it, and continued in the same direction I’d been going. A few minutes later, Loiosh said, “Boss? There are buildings, people.”
“Where?”
“Just ahead of you. You’ll reach them in a few minutes.”
“Anything obviously threatening?”
“You mean, are there a bunch of Dragonlords hiding behind a wall looking like they want to jump out and cut you to pieces? No. I’d have mentioned that.”
“Sorry.”
A few steps later, following the river around a bend, I saw lights. There was a road not far from the river, so I followed it into the village. For reasons that I’m sure would make perfect sense if I knew more, the village was built on one of the steeper hillsides, rather than the relatively flat areas nearby. There were a couple of dark structures right on the bank, and a small pier, although no boat, extending out into the river itself.