We all spent a moment looking over the map, taking in the place, estimating the distance. It was a whole day's ride, at least. Probably a day and a half. There was no way we could continue with the pace we had been going yesterday. It wasn't good for us, and even worse for the horses. We would have to take it slow and easy today. I gritted my teeth at the thought. Meera was right. It was possible those guys after us were now after this man. But there was no other way. It would take us a lot longer to get to him if we wore out the horses completely and would have to walk.
"Okay. Let's go," I said. Then I turned to look at Custos, "I'm sorry we're only stopping by, keeping you up in the middle of the night and eating all your food, but we need to..."
Custos lifted up his hand to make me stop. I fell silent. He smiled a little.
"I know. Trust me, I understand," he said, regret in his voice, "I am curious now. I would want to come with you, to help the best I can and see what you'll find, but it's too far away. I have been given this place to guard, and I can't be gone from here for that long. It's too risky. But let me see if I can help you before you go."
He stood up. I was going to object, to say it wasn't necessary, that he had already done more than enough for a couple of strangers, but something in me told me it would be pointless. Custos seemed like the kind of person to help out anyway, no matte now much I told him it wasn't necessary. Instead I decided to take his help and be grateful for meeting him. And Rosa. Custos disappeared into the other room again and I guessed was going through the same what ever it was he had had the flute in.
"So how did you find him?" I asked Meera as we waited for Custos to return.
"Luck, mostly," she said, "I had a vague memory of what he looked like, so I immediately drew him, to not forget again, and started asking around. It took a long time, but eventually some travelling salesman said he thought he'd seen him a few weeks back in some town around those parts. He didn't remember exactly which one, but I was able to narrow it down eventually. It wasn't easy. I don't want to bore you with the details."
"But the man was sure it was him?" Rosa asked, looking a little confused. Maybe it was because Meera had apparently not told her any of this, even though she would've expected her to.
"Well, not completely, but apparently the guy had made himself remembered. Somehow," Meera said, uncertain, "He didn't tell me what it was he did, but he did say he was pretty sure that was the same guy, though he apparently looked a little younger in my picture."
"And you didn't go look for him?" I asked, also confused. I would have been off the moment I had any kind of possible general area where a guy like that could be found.
"Well, there were other things going on, and I didn't know exactly where he was anyway, and was just able to narrow down his possible location a few days back, so I didn't have the time to go look for him before the men attacked me."
"Here you go," Custos appeared from the other room carrying a small package wrapped neatly in brown paper. I raised an eyebrow at it. Custos put it down on the table. "It's a spell."
"Ah, of course, how didn't I see it before," I said.
"No, it really is. Some spells take a lot of time and rare ingredients to prepare and cast. They're powerful spells. And some of them are the kind of spells that you need in a moment or with a short notice, which of course makes it impossible to use them, because you never have all the ingredients or the time to make the spell with a short notice. So someone very smart, a long time ago, figured how to store the spell. You technically cast the spell when ever you had the time and ingredients, but instead of letting it run its course you store it in a box you seal very carefully, so the spell doesn't accidentally escape. It could be disastrous to let out a spell unintended in a situation when you very much don't want that to happen.
"Anyway, this is one of those spells. I hope it will help you if you get into a tight spot or big trouble. Of course I hope you won't, but it's just in case. And, uh, if it happens that you don't run into trouble, and that everything figures itself out smoothly, once this is all over, I'd like to ask you to bring it back to me. I know it's kind of weird to ask for a gift back if you don't need it, but it's a really hard spell to come by, and while you guys are totally worth using it for, I'd like to be able to have it in store just in case if you don't need it after all."
"Of course," I promised, "We'll bring it back to you once all this is over. You have already helped us so much. It's the least we can do."
Custos nodded, clearly relieved.
"Ok, let's get going," Rosa said. We turned to look at her.
"Rose, you can't come with us," Meera said, clearly not having realised she would want to come. I wasn't so surprised. She had come with me to look for Meera, too. "It can be dangerous, if the men find us again, and this has nothing to do with you. It's all about us I wouldn't want you to get hurt because of me."
Rosa snorted.
"Please," she said, "Of course I know it's dangerous. That's why you need a which with you. And besides, I'm already involved. It's not like I'm going to be left behind now and not find out what happens!"
"We'll come back, and we'll tell you everything that happened," Meera tried, but her voice was already resigned. She knew Rosa was going to come with us, no matter how she tried to reason with her.
"Let's go," Rosa said.
It took us a while to prepare. Not long, since we didn't have much to pack. Custos gave us all the little food he had left, telling us with a wink he had a way of getting more food more easily than we did. I wasn't sure what he meant, but I believed him. He also gave us the wooden flute. He said he didn't use it much himself anyway, and I could clearly have more use for it. Not that it was a good flute, he reminded me, it was a crappy old thing, but somehow I was able to get a much more than a decent sound out of it. It would be in better hands. I took it and thanked him for a hundredth time.
"And don't forget: do not open the package I gave you until you're in real trouble. And don't let it accidentally get torn, or anything else that would make it open without you meaning to," he told us again as we mounted the horses. The girls were riding the bigger one together again. We didn't have much of a choice. I wondered when Luna would be wanting her horses back. I wondered if she would be getting them back. We nodded, and waved goodbye.
~x~
"You know what I've been wondering," Meera said after long hours of riding silently. We'd been riding with a slow pace. The horses seemed grateful. By now it was clear we wouldn't get to our destination yet today. We would have to stop somewhere for the night. Luckily there were some small towns on the way.
"The men knew you were a piper," she continued, "When the only thing they knew about you was you didn't remember anything, and you had line tattoos on your face. So they knew you're like me, in some ways. Does that mean I'm a piper too? It seems like a relevant thing, if that's their definition for us. So why is that important? Did we lose our memories because of that?"
"I don't know," I said after a moment, "But I think it's time to have a break and eat something. And while we're doing that, you can have a go with the flute, to see if you can play it too."
It turned out she did. Almost as well as I did. Better than anyone ever, according to Rosa.
That night we stayed at a roadside inn. Not a particularly nice place, or clean, but the food they had was warm and good enough, and so were the beds. At least it was better than staying out in the cold for the night. The horses got a proper rest too. I woke up in the middle of the night again. I still still felt empty and shattered, but it wasn't as bad as it had been before.
The were on our way again at sunrise. Which came late this time of year. An hour after noon we arrived to where we were going, a small town named Cresentvalley.
___________________________________________________
Your topic for tomorrow is Ice.
~matu
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