2: Views

“You’ve never been in a big city have you boy?” All Tad could do was shake his head while his eyes struggled to take in the enormity of Corak. “It just looks like a hill from here, but it’s really more like a finger sticking up out of the ground. They call it the Sauvine, because on the other side is a sheer drop-off. Good for defense.” Mr. Brightstar pointed to the massive dome at the top of the city, overlooking everything like a full moon rising. “That grand edifice there is the Duke’s palace. Don’t let the pretty outside fool you, it’s a fortress as much as a palace. Never been taken by arms. And those mountains you see beyond are the Silver Hills. Most of the king’s coinage is dug out of there.”

Even from miles away the city looked impossibly huge to Tad. He tried hard to imagine the tens upon tens of thousands of people who supposedly lived there, moving and working and sleeping all in a few square miles of land, but he just couldn’t see it. What did they all eat? What did they all do for work? Did they spend hours each day learning each others’ names so they could say a proper hello in the streets? How many names could one person reasonably learn? He pondered these and many similar mysteries all through the noon break, when he was supposed to be studying his numbers.

He was thinking up questions all through the afternoon while Anamogea was trying to teach him the Legends of Sammit. Tad was so wrapped up in thinking about the people’s waste ( How much did a city this size produce? Where did it all go?) that he nearly fell off his pony whenever the old bard gave him a swat to regain his attention. “Your master is paying good money for this history lesson, you should be more grateful!” But the distant sight of Corak didn’t leave enough room in Tad’s brain for anything else to take root.

The next night the caravan made camp almost within the glow of Corak’s lights, crowned by the massive palace dome that shone so brightly it rivaled the moon. They had passed a great number of farms and inns along the road, but the late summer nights were friendly enough to sleep out-of-doors. Villheim, the heavily armed caravan master, had pulled the wagons onto one of the wide byways that the Throne maintained along the River Road.

Within a stone’s throw of the caravan was an elven encampment. The elves had set poles around their camp and strung sheets of striped cloth between them to shield their tents from outsiders. Tad had heard people call elves “points”, “ears”, “greenies”, “vagabonds”, and all kinds of less-savory names. But the only elves he had ever seen worked and dressed as laborers and, apart from their slim stature and odd features, they didn’t seem so different from humans. Tad knew they traveled in groups throughout Aspera to work the harvests, pick herbs from the forests, and trade in exotic goods. During the winters they went west over the Great Stair and into their desert homelands. But these elves weren’t in the usual menial working garb. Instead they wore loose robe-like clothes, mostly in deep green, embroidered with silvery thread and decorated with reddish stones. The men and women alike had silk cloth wrapped around their heads, with a loose end draped across their faces like veils.

Tad had thought the elves would be unfriendly, but the horses were barely unharnessed when two of them, a man and a woman, emerged from behind the barrier and crossed the space between the two camps. They walked sedately, close enough together for their shoulders to occasionally touch, in a straight line for caravan master Vallheim. As they neared the dwarf they removed the cloth from their faces. Vallheim, in turn, held up his hands at chest level, palms out. Since the balding Vallheim habitually wore a short sword, a brace of throwing knives, and kept a crossbow nearby, Tad supposed the gesture was meant to assure the elves that he wasn’t hostile. The boy watched from behind a draft horse while the elves and the caravan master exchanged gifts and spoke together in what must have been the elven language.

“At least pretend to brush the horse while you stare, boy!” Mr. Brightstar had, once again, snuck up on Tad and surprised him while he wasn’t working. “And a word to the wise: if you want to hear any music tonight then you had best get your chores done quickly. And clean yourself up. And put on your good clothes.” The little man walked into the grasses around the camp and simply disappeared, but his voice still floated back to Tad. “And don’t strain your neck staring at them. I’m not fighting any duels over you.”

The horses groomed, the food served, the dishes cleaned, and himself washed and dressed in a clean white shirt and breeches, Tad was admitted to the festivities. He couldn’t say why he wanted to go so badly; maybe it was just because Mr. Brightstar had hinted it was a treat. Over a dozen elves were camping behind the screen, and they all came out to share drink and news with the twenty caravan travelers, but what the elves seemed to enjoy the most was trading songs with Anamogea.

A thin sliver of moon was just appearing over the horizon when someone poured something fiery and fruity into Tad’s cup. Singing was giving way to wild strings and drums and a guitar that made him imagine horses running through the long summer grass, chasing the clouds or racing the waters of the Great Yeron. In the midst of a reeling elf tune, an elven girl grabbed Tad's hand and he was suddenly dancing. He just tried to do what the elven men did, turning and spinning and sometimes jumping. It was free and wildly exciting and he wasn’t afraid.

Tad kept dancing until he couldn’t tell if he was the one doing the spinning, or if he was standing still and the rest of the world was turning around him. Every time the fire pit swooped past him, he would dance along it’s edge even as the flame grew huge. His partner was a pretty girl who could have been his own age (but who could tell with elves?) and whose eyes had turned into pools of silver like little twin moons. She was laughing at him he laughed back at her.

Exactly when his hair caught on fire, Tad couldn’t say.