The Missing Traveller

Alister and Eugene practiced Elin-tor the next morning, and Alister managed to overpower Eugene in their sparring—for a split second. Delemor was one day away. It was a warm day for late autumn, and the leaves scattered across Silon’s Road captured Alister’s eye. They were a different sort to those in the lower meridians, but he still caught glimpses of monkeys swinging from branch to branch and sitting in clusters.

Ronan sometimes flexed his wings as if to test them, but for the most part, the maimed hawk sat on Alister’s shoulder or in front of him, resting against Fog’s neck. The small cuts and bruises on Ronan, only just beginning to heal, didn’t help Alister’s paranoia. Number eighty-three nagged Alister throughout the whole day, almost as much as the rising force of the wind as they ascended to Delemor.

Alister spent most of the day before they arrived in the city carving a couple of staves to use for Elin-tor practice. It was the closest he could get to two single-edged swords, the weapons he’d shown the most interest in when Eugene listed them. Eugene told him at lunch they would do, but Alister still whittled away at them throughout the afternoon.

The next morning, Alister drummed his hands in anticipation. Delemor was only hours away. It was difficult to concentrate on Eugene’s instruction of how to wield two staves as they practised Elin-tor before breakfast, and the most basic swirling motion was twice as difficult with two staves rather than one. He practiced from Fog’s back until midday.

“If I recall correctly, Delemor is right around this bend.” The bend Eugene spoke of was lined on either side by trees too straight and evenly spaced to be natural. Soon, the trees gave way to a huge stone arch which would’ve taken months to complete. Alister’s mouth hung upon as they passed through it and the city lay before him.

One long street disappeared into the distance. Alister had never seen such a flat, long path before. On either side of the endless path were dozens of buildings—Alister could count more buildings than Rindor had entirely—half built into the Mount, like in Wenmire and Materon, and all the same size and shape, packed into the cliff face.

A man in uniform approached them and asked to take their arglebon. Eugene complied and explained to Alister; arglebon and bharal stables were common throughout the districts of Delemor.

“I can take your…bird also,” the man said in a strained voice. A passer-by eyed the bird curiously. Ronan crooned and dug his talons into Alister’s arm.

Alister shook his head, and resisted a wince at Ronan’s claws. “He won’t cause any trouble with me.”

They entered one of the lifts, which was much more lavish than Rindor’s. Three rows of benches provided seats for the passengers, and the windowsills held ornate carvings in a rich wood. Eugene instructed the man to take Fog and Juggle to the Anison district.

“I always like to stay in Anison. It tends to be the district most travellers go through, so the people are used to ‘cliff-crawlers’.”

Alister nodded, and stared out the window in awe as the lift zoomed past a parade of buildings. They reached the end of the extensive street in only half a minute, before the lift rose and then flew back across in the opposite direction. He’d only travelled so fast on a kite before. Another street held just as many buildings as its predecessor.

The lift continued to zigzag through the myriad of streets, stopping every minute or so for a dozen passengers to depart and just as many to come aboard. Locals gave Alister and Eugene sideways glances, their eyes lingering on Ronan, and didn’t acknowledge the other passengers. In Rindor, everybody knew and recognised each other; if by some chance even half a dozen people filled the lift, it would be alive with chatter. The locals of Delemor didn’t seem to know one another, and they all stared into different directions as they waited for their stops. There must have been a thousand or more people in Delemor for them not to know each other.

Alister’s eyes widened. “How many people live here?”

Eugene chuckled. “More than all the places we’ve been put together. Can you believe it’s only a fifth of the size of Bastium?”

“Impossible.” Eugene had to be joking. He was even surer of this when the conductor announced they had arrived in Anison’s district centre.

The centre wasn’t a clearing with shops, inns and houses lining the sides, but instead, rows and rows of tall buildings surrounded a chaotic pathway. And the people! In front of Alister’s eyes must have been at least one hundred people, carrying bundles or rolling carts or pacing from one point to another in groups. They all walked purposefully and in different directions, some to the buildings, and others to the lift. It all looked like a disturbed anthill to Alister.

The women dressed in straight skirts and tight, laced bodices, and the men in fine suit jackets and breeches. It didn’t look suitable for climbing up and down the city, but then again, it seemed most people took the lift for all but short trips in Delemor. Alister glanced down at his torn-up coat and breeches, and his face heated. Music rose from several directions, making it impossible to focus on one tune. Burning jadar that wafted through the air indicated a busy working centre, and from the sheer amount of activity, it was no surprise. A man in a pristine suit stared at Ronan for a prolonged moment as he leaned against a nearby building, his eyebrows knitted together.

“A fifth of the size of Bastium?” Alister echoed. “I’ve never seen so many people in my life.”

“This is just one district, too. Romert is about the same size as Anison, but Ganlee is even larger, isn’t it?” He laughed at Alister’s expression. “It’s a city, Ali!”

Alister was caught up in the variety of activities and sights to do and see in Delemor. Eugene, and the conductor who had spoken on the lift, had outlined the city’s entertainment features. Plays, musical performances, art exhibits, archery ranges, restaurants, torenn temples, museums…

Eugene led Alister to one of the four inns in Anison, and he babbled on about Delemor.

“Eugene, we could go to a torenn temple and practice Elin-tor with masters. I bet they’d have every single weapon I could try. Or we could see a play, you said the ones in Materon were amazing…”

Ronan’s croon stopped him. He’d forgotten about looking for the number eighty-three for Lark. The travelling merchant could be in peril, and Alister fussed about what to do first. As much as he’d love to see some of the sights of Delemor, Lark’s message was his priority.

The library took a good part of an hour to find. Even with the extensive map Eugene gave him, Alister still managed to miss his stop on the lift and then walk down maze-like streets, which turned out to be dead ends. When he finally arrived, he all but collapsed into one of the chairs by the front. The attendant had given him a dirty look he was used to, and didn’t offer to help him find what he was looking for. Not that I’d have any clue what to ask.

He searched through a stack of books outlining historical events, and also collected some geography scrolls to check if anything was listed at elevation eighty-three. Most records were vague, and those which did hold accurate details were uneventful.

Alister’s eyes fell on Lark’s short message. Did the merchant have so little time he couldn’t have included one extra word? Unless it was such important information, he couldn’t risk it falling into the wrong hands.

How did Lark expect Alister to puzzle it out? Even with the library of Delemor, which was about four times the size of the biggest building in Rindor, he was more lost than ever.

His eyebrows furrowed. Lark didn’t even know Alister left Rindor. Then whatever eighty-three is, I would’ve been able to find out what it meant in Rindor.

Alister groaned and slumped in his chair. He was nearly forty elevations higher than his home town. He cast his eyes to the endless rows of bookshelves in the library. It was hard to believe the answer may not be hidden in the hundreds of thousands of pages.

Alister wouldn’t have expected anything different from Lark. The merchant told amazing stories, but when he was asked about himself, he dodged every question. Alister had learned to stop asking. Lark had never even told him where he was from, or what his name was before he changed it.

Eighty-three. He stared at the piece of paper; if he were a Conjurer, he’d have burned through the note from staring so hard. Alister inspected the dot of what could be blood, his lips a thin line.

He continued his staring match with the note, not a single reasonable idea of its meaning jumping to his mind.

The library was silent for the most part, but halfway through Alister’s perusal of The First Century, a commotion at the entrance distracted him. He stayed focused on his reading, but after a minute, he glanced over towards the noise.

A woman about Alister’s age argued with the attendant of the front desk, her accent strange and lilted. Her dress wasn’t unlike the others he’d seen in Delemor, fitted at the waist and flowing below, all underneath a smooth purple cape. What caught Alister’s attention was her thick, dark burgundy hair that fell over her caramel shoulders in tangled curls. He’d never seen hair such a colour.

With her hands on her hips and her lilted accent filled with indignation, she leaned closer to the desk. The attendant didn’t look away from his papers, except to glare at the woman and make a scathing remark, just out of earshot.

Alister stood and approached them to catch the end of the woman’s argument.

“…once I have finished my perusal? I don’t know how long it’s going to take, and so I’m not about to ask her to stop everything just to accompany me. Besides, I have to be back—”

The attendant leaned forward. “That’s the way it has to be. So if you want to go through with this trade then you’ll have to follow the proper procedure.”

“I would if I knew this was, in fact, proper procedure. But your refusal to show me the new regulation makes it even more obvious it isn’t!”

“What’s going on here?” Alister said before the attendant could respond. He turned to glare at Alister.

“Nothing that concerns you, traveller.” The way he said ‘traveller’ was so scathing, it wouldn’t have been ruder to call him a cliff-crawler.

“What’s going on,” the woman said as she turned to Alister with fierce indigo eyes. She had such a combination of soft and sharp features that, even in her irritation, Alister had to make an effort to focus on listening to her. “…is I am here as a trade correspondent from Zyrusdale, and I have a permit from the Anison Museum to peruse and select certain documents for trade in this library. This…attendant…is refusing to allow me to do so without my correspondent from the museum present to oversee the selection, even though she will arrive when I am finished to approve and seal the trade.”

She’s from outside of the Union! Did everyone from Zyrusdale have hair such a colour? Did their cheekbones always cast a lovely shadow on either side of their face, and were their unusually coloured eyes always the slightest bit slanted and round? Her nose curved downwards, and her chin held the shadow of a dimple. Did they forsake the use of jadar and use wind energy instead? The goggles Lark always wore around his neck, the ones with an amber tint and ornate carvings, were they owned by everyone in Zyrusdale? Did this woman know what was beyond the Eastern Falls? It only took a moment for these questions to flood his mind, before he remembered what she said. He furrowed his eyebrows and looked at the attendant, who sat up straighter in his chair.

“I have told you, it’s due to the new procedure, to make sure you get what you come for, and nothing more. It’s not only Zyrulians; the Defenders have to go through the same process, even though I certainly trust them to only take what was agreed upon.”

The woman folded her arms. “I am nothing like those meddlesome Deemstun men. We from Zyrusdale are here for fair trade among archaeologists, not to investigate every item you collect. I’d have been informed if there were a new procedure, and I haven’t been. What kind of procedure would make such redundant rules, anyway? I’m an archaeologist, not a thief. If you can show me the outline, then I’ll follow it.”

Yet another person who wasn’t so trusting of the Defenders, although she was from Zyrusdale. The city split off from the rest of the Union to get away from the war and monarchy in the first place.

Alister stared at her. She mustn’t have been older than him, and she was an archaeologist, sent alone to Delemor for trade?

The attendant looked as if he was suppressing the urge to roll his eyes. “You’ll have to take it up with the owner of the library. Now I’m going to have to ask you, once more, to leave.”

Alister spoke before the woman could. “If you can’t show her the procedure, then why do you expect her to follow it? And if she’s doing nothing but looking through the documents, then why does she need someone to accompany her?”

The woman’s lips twitched into a hint of a smile at Alister, before she turned on the attendant with raised eyebrows. He shifted in his chair, frowning.

Alister leaned forward on the desk. “You work at the library, so your job is to assist people in finding what they’re looking for, not to refuse service to people who aren’t from Delemor.” The attendant’s sour glare told Alister he was right in assuming the man was prejudiced against travellers.

“If you can’t help me, then I’ll take up your offer to see the owner of the library,” the woman added.

The attendant narrowed his eyes at both of them. “You’re just going to have to take my word for it. Need I remind you, this is my job?”

“If I may interrupt?”

The woman and Alister followed the attendant’s eyes to the man behind them, who donned a grey uniform with red trim.

The Defender’s eyebrows pulled together. “Neither have I heard of this new procedure. When was it passed?”

The attendant’s lips pressed into a thin line before he answered. “It has been a month or so.”

“How strange.” The Defender chuckled. Alister stared at him. Lark had assured him the Defenders’ friendliness was a mask to get the Union behind Baudouin, but if the travelling merchant hadn’t told him, Alister would never have suspected the man’s smile was an act. Knowing it was made it all the more troubling. The Defender went on. “I came in yesterday to pick up the supply of ephyron for trade, and your fellow librarian didn’t even mention, let alone enforce, this new rule.”

The woman turned back to the librarian with her arms crossed and her eyebrows raised. Her burgundy hair fell across her shoulder as she did. “Well?”

The attendant’s icy demeanour melted. “We’ve, er…you see—”

“It seems this library hasn’t been treating all travellers with the same respect,” the Defender said. “Either I should return the ephyron under supervision, or you can admit this procedure of yours is a lie, and let the Zyrulian go on through.”

“Fine.” The attendant scowled, and slid a piece of paper over the desk. “You have my permission to enter.”

“Excellent.” The woman’s grin was fiercer than it was kind. She glanced at the Defender. “Thank you for your help. I can manage from here.” Her tone was dismissive, and the Defender seemed to understand.

“I’m happy to help.”

Once he left, the woman turned to Alister, and her deep red lips formed a more genuine, dimpled smile, that somehow made her more beautiful. The curves of her eyes softened. “Thank you for helping me, village boy. I really didn’t need either of you, but it was kind of you to step in.”

Her treatment of him compared to the Defender raised Alister’s eyebrows as much as her term for him. “Village boy?”

She laughed once. “Anybody who’s been in Delemor more than two minutes can see you’re from out of town. Most of the men here wear the latest suits.” She rolled her eyes. “Those new collars look ridiculous, but they follow the herd like bharals.”

Alister nodded in agreement, but he couldn’t take his eyes off hers. They were pools of water, the colour between indigo and violet. Which were they?

“What is it?” Irritation from her argument showed in the small crease between her eyebrows.

Alister found it difficult to respond. “It’s just…your eyes are a weird colour.” His eyes widened. “Not—not weird in a bad way! I just meant, I mean, they’re almost purple. And I’ve never seen normal eyes that are purple. Not that—not that you’re abnormal! It’s just unusual. In a good way, I mean. They’re nice!” He pressed a hand to his reddened face. I should just never speak again.

She stared at him for a moment, and then let out a peal of laughter. Her eyes sparkled. “Thank you for the, hmm…compliment. Is that the only reason you’re staring at me?”

Alister hesitated. He didn’t want to talk himself into a corner like he did about her eyes, but he was curious. “You’re from Zyrusdale?”

Her smile dropped with a sigh and she brushed her dark red hair behind her shoulder. “Of course. Why else would that prejudiced gama behind the front desk make feeble excuses to make me leave? But I’m sure you understand, being a traveller yourself.”

All of the questions Alister suppressed thinking about when he first learned she was from Zyrusdale filled his mind again.

“Anyway, if you’ll excuse me, I have those documents to find.”

Alister’s eyebrows shot up. “I can help you, if you like.” His eyes widened, and at once he hoped she didn’t take his offer. I don’t know anything about this library.

The woman laughed. “I’ve been to this library many times before. I know my way around. If anything, it’s I who could help you.”

“Could you?” She said she was an archaeologist, after all. If anybody could help him puzzle out what eighty-three meant, it would be someone like her.

“You know, I wasn’t offering my help.” She arched an eyebrow. “But what are you looking for? If I find anything on my way I suppose I could pass it on.”

“Well, um…eighty-three.”

“Eighty-three what?” She stared at him.

His cheeks heated. “I don’t know. It was a message from a friend, and all it said was…eighty-three.”

“Hmm. Sounds cryptic. If you don’t even know what you’re looking for, then I don’t think I can help you find it.”

Alister sighed. She probably thought he was an even bigger fool than he felt. Village boy, indeed. “You’re right. I’m sorry to bother you.”

“That’s alright.” Her red lips pulled up into a small smile. “What’s your name? If I ever see you again, I’d like to call you something besides ‘village boy’.”

Alister couldn’t help but smile in return, despite his embarrassment. “I’m Alister.” It was the first time he’d introduced himself with his full name rather than ‘Ali’, and he hardly noticed.

“And instead of thinking of me as the Zyrulian, you can call me Tarael.” She smiled again. “You know, Alister, for a village boy, you’re quite handsome.”

Alister found his mouth was too full and choked. I’m quite what? Tarael grinned at his reaction, and turned to walk away. Before she did, the Defender approached them, and she stopped, her eyebrows raised.

“Sorry to disturb you again.”

Alister stared at Tarael, frozen. Who even says something so forward? Perhaps she said it to see his response. If Gale were the one talking to Tarael, he would’ve concocted some clever, charming response in a heartbeat. Gale certainly wouldn’t have choked on nothing. But Alister, not Gale, stood in front of Tarael, and he didn’t have the faintest idea of what to say.

“Neither of you would’ve happened to see a red-winged hawk, by any chance?”

Alister stare whipped around to the Defender, all thoughts of Tarael removed, and forced himself to blink before the Defender noticed. “A red-winged hawk?”

The Defender nodded. “That’s why I’m here. The owner of the hawk was a travelling merchant—perhaps you’ve seen him before? —and the bird may be carrying stolen property from the federation of the Union.”

The note which read ’Alister—83’ and Lark’s Seal Card couldn’t possibly be stolen federation property. The Defenders are halfway across the Union searching for Ronan? Lark had told him stories of the ruthlessness of the Order of Fallon, Baudouin’s personal team of minions. Was the Order in Delemor as well, under his command?

Tarael’s voice was terse. “I’ve not seen such a bird.”

“Neither have I.’ Alister’s heart hammered. If the Defenders were searching for Ronan, did that mean they had already captured Lark?

“Well, keep your eyes on the sky. It’s important to the federation leaders that we find the hawk. We’re doing a full search of Delemor.”

When he turned to walk away, Alister breathed a sigh of relief, but his mind raced. Ronan was perched on a hatstand back at the inn with Eugene.

“Those slab-faced Defenders are everywhere,” Tarael muttered next to him.

How long did it take to search a city the size of Delemor? I need to take Ronan and leave. And go where? If the Defenders were searching Delemor, they must be searching the rest of the Union.

Alister turned to Tarael, his blood pumping too fast to bother with being charming. “It was—what did you say?”

She laughed. “I know you Union folk idealise Baudouin’s minions, but I cannot stand them. They take every chance they get to butter up a Zyrulian.” So that was why she appreciated Alister’s help with the attendant, but not the Defender’s. It was comforting to know Lark and the judgemental Miles from Wenmire weren’t the only two people in the Union who disliked the manipulative group of people.

Alister’s brow furrowed. “I know their motives are more than meets the eye.”

“Oh?” Tarael’s smile grew. “Why is that?”

“I…” He stopped himself from telling her about Lark. She may not trust the Defenders, but that was no reason to go blurting out his knowledge of the travelling merchant whose hawk was wanted. “I need to leave.”

Tarael tilted her head, and her smile dropped a fraction. “Hmm. I thought I’d have some company. A shame we couldn’t spend more time together.”

Alister’s heart raced. How easy it would be to throw his hands up in the air and abandon Ronan to be found at the inn, so he could spend the day talking with Tarael, the beautiful Zyrulian.

“I’m sorry. It was a pleasure to meet you, Tarael.”

“And you, Alister.”

It took a great effort to keep himself from running out of the library, but he managed a quick pace to the lift station.

The lift was about to pass through, and once Alister was on board, he drummed his fingers on the windowsill the entire trip back to Anison. Every time the lift stopped, it seemed the passengers couldn’t move over half their usual speed to get on or off. How many Defenders searched Delemor? Had they reached the inns in Anison yet? How many other cities had Defenders swarming through them?

The moment the lift stopped in Anison, Alister was on his feet. He strode to the inn, and his eyes searched the crowds for grey suits. They didn’t find any.

When he finally reached his room at the inn, he packed his things in a frenzy. Ronan roosted on the hatstand. Alister’s head snapped up at the footsteps outside the door, but before he could rush over to the hawk, the door slammed open. Ronan awoke with a screech.