The Walker

Walker left the bar and scowled. The bar flies had managed to trick him out of two books, not one; a cookbook he had used regularly in his travels, and an ancient story book about a version of Earth that was flat and magical. Disc something.

He rolled himself a cigarette and re-checked the straps on his satchel. He had left the tavern with nothing aside from a sour mood. He leaned under the shade of a stall, much to the merchant’s chagrin, and surveyed the town. He was annoyed, not just at the illiterate locals who would surely be abusing his gifts and using the pages to wipe their arses within a week, but at himself for not being able to talk his way out of it. He had been distracted; that teen in the corner, with the man... his thoughts trailed off, roiling darkly like autumn storm clouds.

He sighed and strode away from the bar and the stall, out into the afternoon sun and the concrete streets of the town. He kept his head down and tried to look unbothered, knowing that he was being followed. The teen and her male friend were on the rooftops to his left, trying unsuccessfully to shadow him, themselves casting long shadows on the street next to him.

Walker turned right and slipped nimbly down one of the many rubbish strewn alleys of the town.