Chapter 8: Friends and Enemies

We found Porin, as we had Lamin, all hills and valleys. There was something more welcoming about Porin though, it was gentler and greener than Lamin had been. Certainly it was more forgiving than the Zadrain had been.

We went back to sleeping during the night, but we posted watches, and we resumed our drills along with our meditation. Alianna was soaking up the staff and the bow with a sponge. Strangely, Master Jo refused to teach her. He insisted we do it, having Sid teach her the staff and me teach her the bow. He 'oversaw' my instruction, and only when I got stuck, or lost did he step in to speak of the philosophy of the bow. I passed on every bit of what I understood of it, as I had learned it form Sid and Master Jo, but when he stepped in to speak, I learned as much as Alianna during those moments. I had listened carefully to the philosophical side of Sid's lessons, but all other things being what they were, Master Jo's soft words seemed to strike deeper and etch themselves more boldly on my mind.

But he would not pick up a bow, and he would not spar.

"I have put those things aside now, in favor of a new path." He said when Trunk asked him why he wouldn't spar one night.

"What path is that?" Sid asked.

"The path that you are bringing me along." Master Jo said. "We are traveling together for now, but ultimately, we will not all arrive at the same destinations."

Master Jo had always been a bit close-mouthed and mysterious, but this was a new aspect of him. Our trip to see the Dragons had affected him perhaps more than we knew.

Porin is a small kingdom, but the trade road cut more or less north to south through the widest part of her, and we traveled through a series of three long river valleys. The first had been the one we had dropped into out of the hills below the Zadrain. The second put us back on the Trade Road, and on the main route. Why Sid's parents had chosen the Zadrain leg was another mystery. Perhaps it was to touch the Zadrain, and rescue the Shavroms. Weaver's gift for foreseeing may have been active by then. Considering how much a part the Zadrain has played in their lives, and now in Sid's and mine, it almost made sense.

Traffic picked up as we finally came to the border between Porin and Westhal. We had traveled with a series of large caravans since rejoining the trade road, and that was probably why we saw no highwaymen or bandits.

We stopped in the border town of Muse's Break, taking rooms at the Grass Plume. It was far away from the drovers and caravan riders that we had rode into town with. Sid and Trunk insisted.

Alianna's horse had come up lame, and we would either have to spend a tenday here waiting for her to heal up, or we would have to sell her and buy another horse for Alianna to ride. To be honest, she was too comfortable in the saddle and on the trail now for the gentle mare she had been riding. We asked our host at the Grass Plume where we might find the best horse's in town, and he sent us to Ruby's.

Ruby's it was called, but there was no Ruby there. The founder, who the stables were named after had died peacefully of old age several generations back. We were greeted by his great, great granddaughter Loyal. She gave the injured horse a good gong over, and agreed with our estimation.

"A nice horse, and you're right. This cut will heal in a tenday and it will be like it never happened. Keep riding it and you might kill or cripple her." Loyal said, patting Dew's leg around the hock as she let the leg drop back to the ground.

"Unfortunately, we can't afford to sit in Muse's Break for a tenday waiting for Dew to heal." I said.

"Well, not much call for gentle rides like her in these parts, so I can't offer much, a couple crowns or so." Loyal offered.

"Will you take five for her, if we buy a better horse from you?" I asked.

"Well, I might take four if you were to buy a really good horse."

"We'd better go take a look at them then." I said.

Ruby's had some fine horses, even by Arborian standards, and had several who, in their way were the equal to Sheer, Grinder and Spark. One in particular drew Alianna's eye, a Curilan Gray.

The Grays were beautiful horses in their way, with a white coat that seemed spattered with a fine, misting of gray and black spots. The breast and shoulders were pure white, and the spotting began somewhere after that point, growing heavier and darker the farther back you went, so that by the time you got to the hindquarters, it was almost reversed, seemingly a black coat with white spots. It made for a dramatic looking horse, when it wasn't 'mudded' with splotches of solid color.

They Gray Alianna spotted was named Fleck, and She cost us eighteen crowns, but she was the kind of horse you didn't mind paying that much for. Sid and Trunk had paid as much for Grinder and Sheer.

Loyal wasn't old, but she proved to be as adept as any old horse trader you'd meet. She had a matched set of saddle, bags and gear for Fleck, and we got them for the theoretical four crowns Dew was worth in the deal.

Alianna knew the trick of meeting a horse's mind that Sid had shown me, and she was soon in silent agreement and happily joined with Fleck. We rode back to the Grass Plume. We had the horses settled in the inn's stables in time for evening meal, and for the first time in a long time, we had entertainment with our meal.

The meal itself was a roast goat and lamb stew with a heavy corn bread and a cold potato salad. The salad had been heavily seasoned with caper weed, and dill, and it made my mouth water almost as much as the stew. My mother made something very similar, and the smell brought back flashes of home. The wine was a local favorite, Bright Lake Gold, a nice white with a touch of green that had a pleasant aroma, a pleasant taste and a clean finish. Perfect accompaniment to the mix of strong flavors the stew and the salad presented.

The entertainment was a couple, Mark and Toy. Mark played the Cuesta and Toy the Guitar. They were proficient, and both had pleasant, if unremarkable voices, and the songs they did had been arranged to suit their particular strengths. There were several songs that were obvious local favorites, and evoked a bit of participation from the diners, but like us, most of the folks eating at the inn that night were travelers, not locals, so it was not quite the same level of committed performance as we'd witnessed in Pipertown.

We weren't going to spend a tenday, but we did decide to spend a second night in Muse's Break. We had been hunting and fishing as we went, but our other consumables were dwindling, and we wanted to stock up on things like seasonings, gumweed, and other 'necessaries', the ones that don't get mentioned when you're talking about your trip afterwards. There was a market square a block away from the inn, and after a morning's mediation and drill work, followed by a nice morning meal, we set out for it.

The market was busy, as they tend to be, bright, noisy and crowded. The things we needed were all found within a couple of stops, and the rest of our time was spent just looking at the various offerings. We might plan a special meal our first night back on the trail if something caught our eye, and who knows when you might spot something that would come in handy that you just had to have. Sid snickered over that comment, but I insisted this was not some 'woman thing', as he seemed to want to imply. He'd get his later.

With our pouches full of the supplies we needed, I thought to suggest to Alianna that she finally go ahead and look into getting a set of riding leathers. She had been riding with some cobbled together leather leggings over her denim pants. The denim was a sturdy material, but it was already starting to show signs of wear. There had been several shops along the street between the inn and the market that had looked promising.

As we walked up the lane towards one of those shops, laughing and joking about the reaction we'd gotten to the announcement that there was more shopping, I felt a sudden tingle on the back of my neck and shoulders.

"Sid!" I yelled, starting to turn back towards him. A blast of Bright light and heat caught him, but with a wash of... something, energy, willpower, reality, I don't know what, but it left Sid standing there, his staff held out. His Dragonstone staff, and Sid himself was slowly changing as well. Not into the Dragonstone form we knew. Nothing so simple as that. We were cursed it seemed by surprises. One we'd have to make time for later. I noted the change in the back of my brain, but I was reacting before what I saw could bounce back up to the front of my brain.

I rolled left and threw a dagger at the dark spot where the light and heat had come from.

I stood then, drawing my bow and let an arrow fly following it. I heard a sizzle from the darkness, and that was it.

Sid's staff rose in the air and a blast of thunder washed across us. Then the earth shook. The heat stopped, and the blackness where the light had been coming from began to fade back into normalcy. My eyes were mostly registering afterimages from the brightness, but I ran forward, dagger drawn.

Trunk was already there, empty handed.

I felt Sid behind me.

"Whoever or whatever it was, he managed to get away." Trunk said.

I looked around for my dagger and my arrow, but couldn't find either. I did see a small spot of blood on the ground just past where I had met Trunk.

"Gotten away perhaps, but not unscathed." I said. Sid and trunk both examined the blood, but finally Sid turned and headed back to the inn and we all followed.

Following Sid my brain finally had time to process the change it had seen when the attack came.

Sid's staff was now a wizard's staff, and he was wearing a wizard's robe. The staff was Dragonstone, no doubt about it, and the robe was white, with a fine red tracery that made it, too, look like Dragonstone.

"Are you going to have to change your name again, Sid?" I asked from behind him.

"What?" He said, surprised.

"Better take a look at yourself." I said.

"Bear crap! Now what?" He muttered. I let him borrow my eyes for a moment, to see himself, and he took a quick look, spinning in front of me. "Spirits, this is getting ridiculous! He said as he finished his look.

"Kinda dashing looking, if you ask me." Alianna said.

"Everybody loves a man in uniform." Came trunk from ahead of us.

"Its okay sweetie." Alianna said. "Maybe we can get you a shoulder patch, or some epaulets if it'll make you feel better."

"Did I mention that I'm a Count?" Trunk replied.

Okay, the two of them seemed fine. Nobody died this time. As soon as I thought that, I realized I didn't know where Master Jo was.

"Where's Master Jo?" I asked, panicking.

"He was right in front of me when the attack came." Alianna said.

I looked around and couldn't find him. Master Jo was gone.

By the time we were back to the inn, Sid was fuming. Mostly over Master Jo having gone missing, but almost as much over the new look, and the changes to his staff.

"Sid my sweet, you need to get calmed down." I said when we were alone in our room. "I want you to take a nap. When you wake up and are calmer, we can meditate a little, okay?"

"And spar some." He said. "I have some energy to burn off, and a new staff to get used to."

That was true. His new staff, or old staff twice transformed, was now a foot and a half longer than it had been, with a large, heavy knob on one end that had a glassy look compared to the white stone that made up the rest of it.

"What is that at the top?" I asked as we looked at it.

"I think its called Dragon's Eye." Sid said. "Yet another substance that doesn't seem to exist on Arbor that I am intimately familiar with."

Let's do the meditation now, and then go spar." Sid said. "I'll be able to nap then.

So we did. The meditation seemed hollow without Master Jo's presence, but eventually we got Sid back to his center, and he was able to tap into his own reserves of strength and calm. The sparring that followed was not the fierce clash I had thought it would be, but it was all I could do, pulling as much power as I could, to keep up.

While Sid napped, I borrowed Alianna from Trunk and took her back to the street of shops to find a leather shop. I wished I could jump from place to place like Sid did. If I could, I would take Alianna to Tiger's Leather Goods in Demethia, and introduce her to Scallop Yrevesan. Maybe I could, and just hadn't had time to explore those possibilities. Sid had certainly hinted that teleportation of myself was just as easy as teleporting objects, and I could do that now.

Spirits! Now was no time to be experimenting with that sort of thing, and certainly not with Alianna along for the ride!

The leather shop we did find, Haurog's, was a fine place, and their leather smith admired my leathers, and Scallop's mastery, and said he had several sets of leathers that came close to matching mine.

"Which do you prefer?" I asked. "The red or the green?"

"Tough question." Alianna said. "I think the green would be more suitable, but I think Trunk would really like me in the red leathers."

I pictured it myself, and had to agree. She would be a vision in the red, with her hair and eyes set off by the color she would be a vision of erotic deadliness.

"Are you planning on staying on Arbor?" I asked suddenly.

"Living here permanently?" Alianna asked. I nodded. "Wow. I hadn't been thinking beyond being with Trunk and being in love. I am in love, River, really for the first time compared with anything I'd experienced before this."

"If you are going to, or are even considering it, you need to open yourself up to Arbor, and to the life you will be leading." I said. "Where would a life on Arbor, with Trunk lead you, and would the red leathers match that life, or would it be the green ones?"

The red leathers it was, and I have to confess, Alianna Parkin, in the dark red leathers looked like a vision.

With the leathers picked, Alianna endured an old woman's ministrations in taking her measurements.

"Come back in two hours." The craftsman told us.

With an image of how she would look in her new leathers, we went looking for weapons. Alianna had something specific in mind — twin blades, each longer than a dagger, but shorter than a sword, thin blades and with guards intended to catch a foe's blade.

"I saw an Earth movie once, based on a character in some book or story, she had weapons like these, and red leathers, though hers were a lot skimpier than these will be." Alianna said.

It took far longer to explain the concept of a movie to me than it did to explain the weapons. There was so much about the worlds and life off Arbor that seemed so strange and exotic.

The first weapons shop we found, called the Dancing Dagger, had no resident weapon smith, and while their items were all very well crafted and designed to appeal to people with fat purses, we didn't see exactly what Alianna was looking for, so we left, headed in closer to the market. I hoped Sid wouldn't get upset with me later if we ran into more trouble.

The third shop we tried was called Chill's. Nothing else, just Chill's. Chill Arodice was the proprietor, the clerk and the weapon smith, all in one, and he had exactly what Alianna wanted, or close enough to it to satisfy her.

"The guards aren't as ornate as the ones I remember." Alianna said. "But these will be a lot easier to clean, I think."

"Have you ever used weapons like these?" I asked.

"I have spent a quite a few years in what we referred to as 'martial arts' classes back on Meadow. I started because I was interested in the practice I saw my Grandparents doing. The classes were mostly empty-hand, self defense training, but there was some weapons training as well.

"I spent some time with a weapon called tambo, a pair of sticks that we used for something called Sinawali. It was nothing serious, just a way to get familiar with holding weapons I think, but it was captivating in its own way, to weave the weapons in their patterns."

"So you're not starting from scratch, that's a good thing." I said.

"But who's going to be my teacher?"

"We'll let Trunk worry about that for now. He's got the most sword skills, and this is not some overnight thing that you have to do perfectly or not at all."

We stopped for midday meal at a shop across the street from the weapon's shop, and shared a nice plate of grilled seasoned vegetables and a glass of wine. By the time we had finished our meal, we were due back at the leather shop, and we made our way there. There was a little extra time taken to decide how and were to add holders for the two weapons we'd come back with, but in the end we added a pair of thigh scabbards. For some reason this really gave Alianna the giggles, but I assumed it was some other memory triggered from her life off Arbor and didn't ask.