The Indigo King - James A. Owen [22]
“I think I need some sustenance,” said John, “if you have anything you can spare, Chaz.”
“My stores is scanty, save for roots and a bone or two,” said Chaz, eyeing the badgers while trying to look as if he wasn’t, “but it may be enough for a thin soup, since we have nothing else t’ put in the pot.”
“Soup—thin or not—sounds fine to me,” Jack said, folding his arms and standing protectively in front of the badgers. “I just wish we had Bert’s magic stone to help it along.”
“Ah yes,” said John. “His Stone Soup. Meal fit for, well, a king. Or a group of lost scholars.”
“Who’s Bert?” Chaz said without looking up from his dinner preparations. “Not that I really care, but talking passes the time.”
“Are you sure he’s not Charles?” Jack whispered to John.
“Heh,” said John. “Bert’s our mentor, Chaz. A great man. And I really wish he were here.”
“Maybe he is,” offered Fred. “If Scowler Char—uh, I mean, if Mister Chaz is here, and he’s almost like Scowler Charles, than perhaps others we know are here too.”
“Everything here is upside down and sideways anyway,” Jack said, indicating their reluctant host. “Perhaps Bert goes by Herb or Herbert or George or some such.”
Uncas nodded sagely. “Th’ Far Traveler can be knowed by many names.”
For the first time it seemed as if the conversation had engaged Chaz’s full attention. He stood abruptly, ladle in hand. “Far Traveler? This Bert fellow is also called the Far Traveler?”
“Does that make a difference?” asked John.
“It does if I knows a ‘Far Traveler’ and not a ‘Bert,’” Chaz replied, suddenly animated. “Is he really a friend of yours?”
“Friend and teacher,” said John. “I think what we need is to get some food and rest, then get our bearings in the morning and see if Bert really is somewhere hereabouts.”
Chaz dropped the bowl of roots he’d been pulling out of a cupboard and turned to them, incredulous. “Are you mad?” he exclaimed. “Why would you possibly go about during the day?”
“Why would that be a worse plan than traipsing about at night?” asked Jack. “What with giants and Sweeps and Wicker Men roaming around.”
“There are worse things than them what serves the king,” Chaz said slowly, “an’ they go about when the sun is high.”
The fear in his voice was enough to convince them. The companions ate the meal he prepared, then stretched out on the dirt floor as the sun began to rise, to sleep until dusk. And so none of them saw the raven Chaz kept in the cage in the rear of the house, or the name he wrote on the note he tied to its leg before he turned it loose into the harsh Albion daylight, closing the door behind it.
When the sun had finally dropped to just a sliver of blood-tinted light on the horizon, Chaz finally opened the door again, and they began the journey to find the Far Traveler.
Chaz led them south and west, to the channel that was the nearest access to open waters in that part of Albion. As they journeyed they could see more towers in the distance. None were close enough for the companions to worry about being sighted, but they kept watchful eyes all around, just to be safe.
It was still fully night when they reached their destination, a small hamlet Chaz called Trevena. It consisted of fewer structures than the village that had been the Kilns, but all here were on the strange stilts. The largest of them, made of stone, was at the edge of the beach, surrounded by a courtyard. A wooden bridge ran up at a slope to the front door, which was open.
The courtyard was bare rather than clean; and the shack simple rather than orderly. Spareness might resemble cleanliness, but it cannot disguise the bleak dreariness underneath.
Chaz passed over the bridge and through the shack with a proprietor’s ease and opened the door at the rear of the building. “He’ll be out this way, on the pier,” he said, gesturing. “Follow me close-like.”
The pier, which was itself a generous description, was high off the ground, but short. The beach dropped away sharply, since there was no longer any water flowing underneath, and the sand stretched out into the darkness.
“Must be