The Magic of Recluce Read Online Free PDF Page B

assuming I lasted that long, was folded and rolled inside.
    As early as I had left, there was no one else on the High Road, although in the orchards to the south of Wandernaught the growers were already among their trees, going about their business.
    The High Road is just that-a solid, stone road, wide enough for four wagons abreast. It provides the central thoroughfare for Recluce, the one to which all major local roads can link, and all communities are responsible for its upkeep. When I was with Uncle Sardit, I spent a few days helping to replace and reposition several of the granite blocks, but the stones are so solid and massive that they don't need to be replaced often. The biggest problem is keeping the drains clear so that the rains don't erode the roadway on which the capstones are placed. Even that would be hard, because the entire roadbed is solidly constructed and faced with heavy riprap.
    The next town toward Nylan from Wandernaught is Enstronn, more of a crossroads than a town, where the East-West Highway, almost as grand as the High Road itself, crosses the High Road.
    Outside Enstronn, on the west side, I caught up with a low wagon carrying a load of early melons. The driver was walking beside her horse, singing softly.
    ". . . as if I cared, as if I dared,
    And the stars are ice, while the High
    Road's run, and the winter reigns for
    the summer's sun."
     
    The song was unfamiliar, and I dragged my feet a bit as I neared her. For some reason, I wished I could put away the staff, but it was too long to carry easily while bound to my pack.
    Her voice was pleasant enough, although from behind she seemed older than me. But she heard me and stopped singing, looking back at me from under a broad-brimmed hat trimmed with a wide band of blue-and-white fabric.
    I slowed my pace to match her steps.
    Dark hair, narrow face, and she looked about the age of Corso, mid-twenties.
    "Up early. Must be important." Her smile was nice, too.
    "Dangergeld," I admitted.
    "You're a bit young for that."
    "Not totally my idea." I swallowed as I answered. What right did she have to judge me?
    Her eyes widened as they focused on the staff I still held loosely in my left hand. "And the staff, that is yours?"
    "Yes." I wondered why it mattered at all whether a black lorken staff was mine. A staff was a staff. Right now it was a bother, though I knew I would need it once I actually left Recluce.
    Her smile turned sad, somehow. "You'd best be going, then . . . and ... if I could ask a favor . . . ?"
    That stopped me. Ask me, not much more than a youngster, for a favor?
    "If it's something I can do . . ."
    "So cautious . . . yes . . . it's not much . . . I'm sure you can. Should you ever run across a red-haired man from Enstronn-he went by the name of Leith-just tell him that Shrezsan wishes him well."
    "Shrezsan . . . ?"
    "That's all. Perhaps too much." Her voice was businesslike. "Now, best be on your way to Nylan."
    "You sing nicely."
    "Perhaps another time . . ." She turned to look at the horse, flicking the reins.
    Clearly dismissed, I shrugged.
    "Perhaps another time, Shrezsan . . ."
    She avoided meeting my eyes. So I picked up my stride to a traveling pace and passed through Enstronn without saying a word. That was easy enough, because no buildings may be closer to the highways or the high roads than six hundred cubits.
    I spoke to no one else on the High Road for some time, instead turning over thoughts in my mind and finding no answers. No one seemed to like the dangergeld. But everyone accepted it as necessary. And no one could or would explain why-just great windy platitudes about the necessity of order in the continuing fight against chaos. So who was against order? Who in his right mind wanted total chaos? And what did the dangergeld have to do with any of it?
    I walked and asked questions that had no answers. Finally, I just walked.
     
     
    V
     
    JUST BEFORE MID-MORNING, when it became clear that I was going to be arriving in