Gone Fishing

As the sole occupant of the Wokehaad train station in the early morning, Taylor had nothing to do and nobody to talk to. Finally! He had spent more time around more people in the last several days than at any other time in his life. Sharing a room with Alexis for days on end was unintentional. At first, he had to keep an eye on her while she slept off the potion the wardens gave her. Later, it was the easiest way to direct her studies. He knew her family lived in a tiny house, so maybe she was used to close quarters, but he wasn't. After days spent in constant company, dealing with the apprentice girls, fighting Prater, questing for Alexis's new master, and attending events, it was a relief to be on his own again.

Someone had dropped off a bundle of Blaxton Bugles tied with a string. Normally, the station manager would handle newspaper sales, but they were running late to work. Taylor took one and dropped the requisite coins on top of the pile, intending to kill a few minutes. An article on page two got his attention.

Colony In Collapse

Riots broke out last night north of Grisham's Wall when the IEF restricted travel through all three gates. Heavily armed Expeditionary soldiers forced travelers to unpack bags and wagons, and strip-searched selected people. It was unclear what the guards were looking for, and they declined to answer questions.

"It's like they don't trust us," complained one traveler who made it through the gate. "We're first-wave colonists. The IEF begged us to come, but now that we have monsters at our backs, they think we're suspicious? What are they even looking for?"

A woman stood nearby with two children in her arms, both born in Restoration. "I heard there's a disease, and monsters disguised as beastkin. They should at least let the humans through first. Why are they holding everyone back for some demis?"

The article made Taylor think of Bilius's father. He'd never met the man, and he was sure the colonel wanted nothing to do with him, but there was something he had to get off his chest. He perched an ink pot and a sheet of paper on the narrow shelf of the empty ticket booth and wrote a quick note.

Father,

I was in Bostkirk for a wedding (the governor's niece) and had the pleasure of meeting Madam Keeva Augberg herself. She still hasn't forgiven you for "stealing" her favorite. More concerning, she was far too nice to me and even offered me a position in her family. I turned her down, but the episode was suspicious. Nobody has interfered with the township since the bandits, but I don't believe for a moment she has given up. Watch your back, Father. The Augbergs have changed their tactics, and we don't know what they're up to.

Say hello to Sister for me, and tell her I look forward to meeting her someday.

It had been a while since he'd last written to Father, but his heart wasn't in it. The colonel never wrote back or offered any sign he read them. For all Taylor knew, every letter went straight into the fire. It was pathetic to hope for anything more than indifference at this point.

Still, there was a family obligation here. The old man could have ordered his son to be disposed of. Instead, his despised offspring was clothed, fed, and educated. While "not killing on purpose" was a tragically low bar for fatherhood, even the wretched nursemaid hadn't worked for free. And Ophelia must have been an expensive choice for a tutor, even if it was only for a few months. Then again, it was possible that Colonel d'Mourne let his curator handle everything and never looked at the bills.

Taylor only knew his so-called family as images in a portrait he stored in the mansion's attic. Theoretically, it would be a shame if he never met any of them before they all died. Mother died in childbirth, and his brother Simon died in Garem-Da. Father must be in the thick of the fighting now, defending Restoration. If he died, that would only leave Cecilia. She should be sixteen now, and was probably in school somewhere. If not at the Imperial Academy, then maybe a school in one of the provincial capitals. Curator Jane would be able to tell Taylor about her if he cared enough to ask.

He carefully folded and stamped the letter and dropped it into the northbound mail slot. Then he sat on one of the benches to enjoy the morning. A constellation of small birds filled the air, undulated through the area, and settled into trees across the tracks to chatter noisily for a while before doing it all over again.

As minutes ticked by, the empty ticket booth began to taunt him. The train was supposed to arrive soon, but there was no sign of the manager. The window remained stubbornly empty, no matter how many minutes passed. Taylor looked north, which was remarkably similar to looking south. That way lay Charlotteville, the capital of Blaxland. From there, he could turn west and, given enough days, disembark at Grisham's Wall and surprise Father.

No. Assuming the colonel wasn't hip-deep in monsters, he wouldn't welcome the sudden arrival of a child he'd tried so hard to forget. And, if Taylor was honest about it, he didn't care enough to try. It was too long a journey without the expectation of reward.

There were plenty of people who did want him. Keeva Augberg, Governor Syndony, and the Giving Church all wanted to stake their claims on him, to own his loyalty and his power. He would rather remain Legate of Mourne, but even that didn't feel like a permanent home to him. He didn't exactly have many friends in town, but it was familiar, and people accepted him well enough. In spite of that, he wasn't ready to go home. He was free of other people and their needs for the first time in months.

He could do anything. And after Prater and everything else that followed, he could use a day off. Taylor paced the length of the platform again, ending at the abandoned ticket counter. From there, he looked along the road leading downhill to a bridge across the Sunglaze River. Wokehaad lay on the other side, its residents trickling into the early morning streets. Behind him, he could hear the giant horses of the Black Blaze Express in the distance. Wokehaad was an optional stop. If nobody on the platform had a ticket, and nobody on the train needed to stop in Wokehaad, then it would pass without stopping. As the train closed in, a lone figure ambled across the bridge toting a lunchbox in one hand. The wide river glided gently beneath him, as he abled across like he had the entire day ahead of him.

Black Blaze whooshed behind Taylor's back with a clatter of twenty-four oversized hooves and several wagons sliding smoothly on rails. By the time the ticket agent reached the station, huffing and puffing, the train had been gone for several minutes.

"Ya missed the train, sir!" Up close, the agent was an elf of indeterminate age (as so many of them were), but with a weight problem and bad knees. Despite his atypical build, his uniform was clean and fit him well. Usually, that was the sign of someone proud of their work. This fellow must be a rare slacker elf.

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"Hard to catch the train without a ticket."

"Got that right. You should have bought one last night." The agent obstinately refused to make the connection between himself and Taylor's missed train.

"Your sign," growled Taylor, tapping the wooden board, "clearly says you were supposed to open thirty minutes ago. If you had been here like you were supposed to, I would have had my ticket."

"Where're you headed?"

"Bostkirk."

"Not today you're not. That was the only trip going south. Gotta bunch going north and west, though. Especially west. Got extra trains going that way."

"I don't want to go west. I want to go south."

"Can't help you. That ship has sailed, so to speak."

"How are you still employed if you're not here when people need you?"

"People around here know to buy the night before. Now now," he said soothingly, as Taylor clenched his fists in frustration, "violence isn't going to solve your problem, is it? Taking your anger out on an imperial servant is a bad look, especially for a stranger in a mask. That could get you arrested."

Frustrated and unable to tolerate another minute in the station manager's presence, he started marching downhill. The river, with its cool waters and shaded banks, beckoned to him. Maybe he'd take the day off after all.

"Hey! What about the ticket?" Shouted the useless elf.

"Hang the ticket!" Taylor shouted back, "Where can I get a boat?"

She was eight feet long, light as a feather, with a single triangular sail and a daggerboard for a keel. Even a normal child could handle her. He had only meant to rent a boat, but the useless station manager directed him to the local shipwright instead of a pier. One thing led to another, and the owner gave his visitor a tour of the yard, talking up the houseboats and pleasure craft his business made. He even showed off a boat he'd made for his daughter. It turned out the girl hated sailing, and it had been on a rack for over a year.

He barely had to think about it. Taylor bought the boat and was happily skimming the water at magically enhanced speed. Near town, Sunglaze ran in a deep, bricked-in channel with a system of locks and side canals to carry cargo. Whenever houseboats lined one side of the river, he slowed to gawk at them. Most were painted in bright colors, had fanciful figureheads, and elaborate superstructures. A minority had colorful sails, but most used magic devices for motors. As a group, houseboat dwellers seemed like a showy lot.

Even against the current, it didn't take him long to leave Wokehaad and its neighboring hamlets behind and enter a wilder kind of river, one that meandered around hills and then broadened to include extensive marshland along both shores, then narrowed again as it dug deep channels around geological obstacles. He rarely saw other people. Barge traffic used canals dug parallel to the river, far straighter than the natural waterway. Even though the rail system had taken much of the high-value freight business away from the canals, they were still the best way to move timber and stone. Once in a while, the river would bend close enough to the canals to give him a view of the long, low boats piled high with goods and pulled by beasts. When that happened, Taylor waved jauntily at the bargemen.

In the sunlight with his mask off, shoes off, and a magical wind in his hair, he steered his little craft through the day as it skimmed the water. It felt like months since he had sunlight on his naked face. He was probably going to burn, but he didn't care. It was delicious, like he'd been starved for something essential. He said a prayer to Lanulculte and sailed upriver for most of the day.

The change came in the late afternoon. He was entering one of those miles-long turns where the river nearly doubled back on itself to wind around a thickly forested hill. As he went from sunlight into shadow, the water seemed to disappear. His prow bit into darkness, and his tiny craft bounced lively on the water as it picked up speed through the narrow course.

The river moved in standing waves, and Taylor took them upriver and head-on, more afraid of tilting his shallow craft too far than he was of splitting waves. He tied down the mainsheet so he could hold on to the tiller with both hands and controlled the wind to keep it broad against his port quarter. It was backwards from how he was supposed to sail, but such was a magician's prerogative. He rushed into the little troughs and shouted joyfully as he shot up the other side and cut through the crests, throwing white sheets of spray from his bow.

The Sunglaze came out of shadow just as suddenly as it had entered, bathing him in the day's waning light. He sailed on easy waters under a blushing sky until the next turn, where a point bar of white sand invited him to rest. He aimed his craft at the shore, pulled up his dagger board just before it scraped the river's bottom, and came to a soft, satisfying halt.

When Taylor left Wokehaad Farms that morning, Nelis and his people had showered him with edible gifts. They gave him every fruit, nut, vegetable, cheese, and cider he could wish for, but little in the way of protein. As soon as he stowed his boat, Taylor took his rod downriver to a tangle of fallen trees he'd noticed, where he caught a large crappie to add to his dinner.

He made camp uphill from the beach, in a small area surrounded by trees that he smoothed and flattened using magic. He set out his bedroll, portable stove, and other camping necessities, and set to making dinner. By the time it was ready, sunset was in full bloom over a darkling forest. Sunglaze spoke softly to the forest crowding its banks, while the sky turned deeper shades of blue. It made his heart ache to look at so much unspoiled beauty.

From the corner of his eye, Taylor saw something small creep into his camp from the nearby underbrush. It moved a few inches at a time, as if he wouldn't notice it. He looked without turning his head and saw it was a white fox-like creature, with a tip of tomato red on its tail like a paintbrush. Every time he took a bite of food, the visitor scooted on its belly to get a little closer. Soon, a fluffy white face was watching every morsel travel from his plate to his mouth.

There were several things odd about it. It had a fair amount of mana, and its fur shone softly in the twilight. A red collar graced the animal's neck. Still pretending not to see it, Taylor took a small plate and broke apart a bun, crumbled some cheese around it, and added pieces of fruit. A generous chunk of fish went in the center.

He put the proposed dinner on the ground next to him, but the fox had come as close as it dared. Slowly, and with the most relaxed posture he could manage under the circumstances, he used his fork with the telescoping handle to push the plate forward until it was as far away as he could reach. Then, he collapsed the utensil and waited. The fox sniffed at the offering and found it acceptable.

It stood on its hind legs, picked up the plate with its front paws, and said, "Thanks, mister!" in passable Arcaic. It ran downhill with its prize while being chased by a crowd of tiny people made of twigs, no bigger than Taylor's index finger. They clamored for a share of the fox's bounty, cheeping and tweeting and bobbing up and down like miniature birds as they chased her onto the sand.

"Where the heck am I?" Had he taken a wrong turn somewhere and not known it? The river had a lot of tributaries, so it wasn't impossible that he ventured up a seldom-explored fork without knowing.

People the size of his pinky nail buzzed his camp on bright blue and green wings, making him duck. An unruly mob of the flighty things alighted on his bedroll and started to bounce up and down on it. They didn't have gendered anatomy or very individual faces, but they were very naked. It was entertaining to watch them at play, until a stealthy motion to one side caught his eye: a line of beetles as big as his palm were making off with his food! A hundred of them stood upright and formed a bucket brigade while he was distracted by the winged people. Grapes, slices of plum, hunks of cheese, roasted nuts, and pieces of fish were handed from one beetle to the next. His dinner was marching away in a bobbing line leading to the trees.

He had nearly had his fill, so he wasn't angry about them stealing the last measure of his dinner. It was more funny than outrageous. But then they started probing the boxes he'd left out, and one enterprising fellow tried to roll away a nearly full jar of excellent preserves.

"Enough!" Taylor stood up suddenly, and the entire menagerie of creatures halted in their tracks and stayed there, as if he would forget about them if they just stood still long enough. "I'd like some privacy."

Taylor laid a minor banishment over his campsite. Gentle but insistent waves of force swept away the invaders. Twig-people, naked winged people, beetles, bits of fluff with eyes, three heads of baby lettuce with legs, and a vole in a tophat tumbled away into the forest, taking with them whatever morsels of food they happened to be holding.

"Unbelievable," he chuckled to himself. "Feed a fox, and the whole forest tries to rob you blind." Taylor finished his dinner and put his food securely away. Then he pulled a few choice books from his bag, along with a reading light.

Somehow, he had fallen into the spirit realm. Hopefully, one of his many books could tell him how to get out.

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