Unknown Bard's Letter to His Wife
The city of Radum has changed. I write these words after passing through an unrecognizable place and among unrecognizable people. The cold and wet stone seemed familiar to me initially, yet as I passed the narrow hillside roads—and as I visited the old tavern by the Fountain of Pale Grace—a sense of strange and tiny stillness met me.
The people have become small. They still walked their walks and talked their talks, but their gossip became tame, their palates avoided foreign spiciness, and their ideas and wishes were restricted to the mundane.
When I spoke of faraway places and wonders, I was met with old, weary eyes longing for the confines of home. I heard no new songs during my stay.
A fight broke out between two men at the old tavern; I believe a woman was their reason for dispute. As they fought and struck each other, even as they raged in their drunken stupor, a strange softness dampened the scene.
The city has become small. All things have become closer; here, ecstasy and love are not opposites to grief and hate.
I left feeling a deep unease and fear—not of the place or the people themselves, but of the way they have changed and how they may change still.
Radum—will it still be a city when I travel its roads next summer, or will I see a village instead? The city of Radum, with its sites of Pale Grace, has already become a town.
I am unsettled and afraid of the years to come, and of visiting my home again. I have witnessed the possibility of a deathless death. I have become old, yet I still long to dance with you, dear Agatha.
The caravan, if you could call it that, set off for the eastern route towards one of the many oases littering the water strip of the crescent desert. The five camels and three men held good pace until sunset, when the golden desert turned crimson and then black. With the receding light, the cold crept in. Carter and Jamie set up camp as Etylred watched them in silence. He could hear Jamie complain about his inaction, but he would have certainly complained had he taken initiative too.
After the two men had started the fire and laid the camels to rest next to three shoddily set up tents, Carter beckoned for Etylred to sit with them.
"So, you're looking to join the western guard. What gives? If you're a mercenary, why not seek employment within the central region? Crossing this godforsaken desert is an arduous ordeal after all. Especially now that the only viable route is the one towards Sura'Mun."
Etylred opened the lid of the wine flask and took a swig. The wine was spicy and quite harsh; the desert dwellers along the water strip preferred it that way.
"The central regions are too stable, not enough employment here. Well, at least not the kind I am interested in. The new trade route is still quite unstable, lots of different players wrestling for control. That in turn means the western guard needs plenty of men to maintain stability."
"A boy looking like a rich merchant's son actively looking for combat? I don't buy that for a second!" Jamie said, turning around and reluctantly handing Carter a bowl of stew.
Etylred, now visibly upset, with his nostrils flared, barked an answer.
"Fine! You wanna know where I came from? I'll tell ya!"
"You better do so—"
"Shut up, Jamie! You've done enough making our client uncomfortable. Please, ignore Jamie's rather inquisitive questioning." Carter raised his voice, looking sharply at Jamie.
But despite Carter's intervention, Etylred was adamant. He needed to mend this relationship somehow. He knew how men like Jamie would gossip once they arrived at the oasis.
"No, it's fine. I'll tell you my story. It's not an interesting one, but it'll explain some things nonetheless. I am a reject, a failed initiate if you will. My father used to be a mortal guard for the Vis family. He happened to gain the favor of one of the mistresses of the branch family, whom he assisted diligently. As a reward for my father's efforts, I was allowed to join their branch's training facilities as a youth. I was neither a good nor a bad one, but after my father passed away, the mistress's favor waned, and when I was found to be unapt in cultivation by the family's standards, I was given some coin, clothes, and a weapon and sent away. And that's about it. My father, having died years prior, and me not having any meaningful relations due to my strict training regimen, set me on the road. But he mentioned having done some work for the western guard in his earlier days, and that left me with only one adjacent path to go on."
Both men stepped away from Etylred, shocked by what he had said.
"You, you are a cultivator?" Carter stuttered, his eyes wide.
"Of course not! Why would I be here with you otherwise? I'm merely someone who stood at the gate once, but was denied entry. I'm no cultivator, sadly," Etylred spat in answer. Carter and Jamie were silent for a second; only when Etylred resumed drinking from the wine flask did the two men relax.
"Hope you'll excuse our reaction a bit, you know how it's dangerous for mortals to become involved with cultivators," Carter said, approaching the fire once more.
He took a seat next to Etylred and pulled out his own wine.
"We've gotten into a lot of trouble due to a cultivator before. In fact, it's the reason we're still forced to run errands for the oasis," Jamie said while preparing a bowl of the stew.
"Suppose there's no harm in telling you," Carter added after gulping down some wine.
"Back when we still had a real caravan, lots of camels, even some wagons, we took up a task of transporting some goods from Sura'Mun to the oasis. But we were delayed due to unforeseen circumstances. When we arrived, part of our load was already spoiled. The client was furious, bastard killed four of our camels and thrashed our wagons."
Jamie approached, handing Etylred and Carter a bowl each.
"We couldn't do nothing about it either. He was a cultivator with some status back in the oasis. If not for Rand, we would've been done for, then and there," Jamie said, taking a seat next to Carter.
"This Rand guy, was he a cultivator as well?" Etylred asked after having received the bowl from Jamie.
"That's right, he's the oasis overseer and an influential member of the tribe," Carter said, smiling self-deprecatingly.
For a while, only the sound of three men wolfing down their food was heard.
Carter emptied his flask of wine with a satisfied sigh.
"Ahh, I'm glad we got around each other amicably. We'll be setting off tomorrow before sunrise. In three days' time, we'll arrive at the oasis."
The men continued to chat for a while longer before lying down in their woolen sleeping bags.
The sun hung low above the crescent desert, its merciless heat slowly subsiding.
"We've arrived," Carter proclaimed with a wide smile on his face. The three men were approaching a large, circular wooden fortification around a spot of greenery in a desert valley.
The two old camels visibly struggled during these last few steps downwards towards their destination. The journey had been smooth, and the three men had grown accustomed to each other. Even Jamie, who initially was wary of Etylred, seemed to have warmed up to the man.
Two guards stood posted up before the open wooden gate, with two more bowmen on the outlooks on each side.
"Carter, who's the man Jamie and you have brought along?" the guard, gesturing towards Etylred, asked.
"He's a client of ours, his name is Ed. He's on his way to the western guard."
"Alright, but he'll have to pay a fee and is not to remain more than three days."
Etylred frowned; three days was not a lot of time, especially if he was to find a party going to Radum.
"Of course I know that, accommodations are quite limited here after all. I'll pay the fee," Carter said.
The three men made their way into the encampment, speeding up as the loose sand turned to dry, cracked ground. It was a strange sight, the oasis. Perhaps two dozen tents of varying sizes arranged sparingly around a puddle-like basin, lined by date palm trees.
Etylred trailed behind Carter, Jamie, and the load-bearing camels as they walked towards the only two wooden structures next to the wall. Weathered planks with plenty of gaps made up their exterior.
"Admission and accounting, next to it the underground storage. They've dug quite deep," Carter noted.
The men entered the larger of the two huts, tethering the camels in front. Except for the large table and solid chests in the back, the interior didn't betray the exterior's look. Two men sat at the table, taking notes, while another one was slumped on a lone chair in the corner by the chests.
"We're here for admission, got some of Rand's wares and a traveler with us," Carter announced.
The man sitting on the right of the table looked up at the group. He was old and wore a flat expression. His wrinkled face was fairer than most of the people Etylred had seen here so far. He was not a tribesman, and a certain amount of vitality coursed through his old body. A cultivator.
"You're late. Go check the goods."
Carter went still as the tribesman in the corner got up, unfurling his lanky build and his strangely bent neck. Sluggishly, he left the shed.
"We had expected you three days ago."
"Faced some trouble with the camels back on the other side," Carter replied stiffly.
The old man gave nothing but a grunt as acknowledgement, while the man to his left kept his head down, scribbling away on a piece of parchment.
"The traveler needs to pay a fee of three tales and is not to stay for more than three days."
Carter nudged Etylred to step before the desk.
"Name?"
"Ed."
"From to where?"
"Lumen to the Western Guard."
The man stared at Etylred for just a little longer than normal, mustering him. He seemed in thought for a short while.
"A long way from home. It ain't nicer on the other side. But you seem to know that already."
"Indeed, and I don't intend to make the way any longer than necessary."
Realization now flashed across the manager's face, while Jamie and especially Carter grew uneasy.
"Ahh, you wish to go the short route then, passing right through the old desert gate of Radum. It's shorter than passing around the mountains indeed, safer too. But you know what they say about that place," the manager said while straightening himself, his glassy blue eyes now intently focused on Etylred.
He is amused and somehow reminiscent; he knows Radum well.
"You're lucky, in four days an old acquaintance of mine will set off for his old hometown. If he'll take you along, I'll make an exception and let you stay a day more, only two tales extra."
Luck was on Etylred's side, it seemed. He had already made plans of taking the much longer route via Sura'Mun, that would've taken him weeks more.
"Where can I find that man?" Etylred asked after placing three tales on the table. The scribe on the old manager's right put them in a metal box on the right, not once looking up from his notes.
"Tent 14, one of the larger ones. His name is Kaleb. Yours will be tent 8. You may leave now."
He gestured for Etylred to leave the tent. Turning around, he could see Carter and Jamie's expressions, wide-eyed and worried.
"It's him, be careful," Carter whispered as Etylred exited the building. Outside, the lanky tribesman was still searching the camels.
Interesting, albeit mildly annoying. It seems this Kaleb is exactly the guy behind Carter's unfavorable work relationship.
If he turns out to be too powerful of a cultivator, I might still have to go the long way round. If only merchants would still frequent Radum.
Walking around the small puddle of a basin, Etylred quickly arrived by the tent. The two men, Carter and James, were still involved in their business and perhaps still held worry for him. But he had already paid them, given them enough attention.
"My name is Ed, I wish to go to Radum and the manager told me to look for your tent," Etylred announced himself before the tent's entrance, guarded by none.
"You may enter," replied a raspy voice from within.
Empty, that's the first thought that came to Etylred's mind when he entered the tent. It wasn't somewhere to stay for long, a large bed, small chest, and a set of table and chair that seemed amiss in the otherwise empty interior. Of course, the man did not escape Etylred's notice either. Young, at least much younger than the manager was, it seemed. But Etylred could tell, even without employing any investigative measures requiring vitality or will, that the man before him was a rather powerful cultivator. Far below an immortal, but also far above any presence he had so far felt within this small, shabby oasis. Instantly, questions plagued his mind. This man was certainly not just a cultivator overseeing a larger group of mortal merchants. Was he really set out on visiting Radum due to familiar connections or nostalgia? Typically, men such as him rather detached.
"So Rav told you to look for me. 'S rare nowadays for someone to look for Radum. Family perhaps? No, you're quite a bit too young for that, and you don't look like the merchant type either, going by your clothes. Ah, is it the Guard you're looking for? Must be. You're a fugitive then, got your family to renounce you, didn't you?"
He was a fast talker, plenty of assumptions made with little information given. Nonetheless, he had certainly been close. Must have been aware of when we entered the camp and what we talked about, at least to some degree. He's knowledgeable, probably a wisdom path expert.
"A fugitive? Hmm, quite appropriate yet not quite. I didn't flee, merely lost my reasons to stay. I'm looking to join the Western Guard," Etylred replied with pretend stiffness.
Kaleb stood up from the lone chair in the tent. He frowned, taking a long look at Etylred.
"Radum's the shorter way, that's for sure. But why would you want to go there? Certainly you've heard the common stories, and if you're interested in going through there, you most certainly have heard about the more, well, strange rumors."
He came closer until he directly faced Etylred. His green eyes, contrary to the old manager's eyes, were clear and evidently doubtful. Etylred could feel the man's will-infused vitality wash over him.
"You are no cultivator, are you, lad? So why then do you want to walk that forsaken route?"
Now is the time to act well.
"Ahh, no sir, I failed to become a cultivator back then, never really learned the arts. And yes, I've heard of the rumors, but it's not like I want to stay or interact much with the people there. I just wanna pass through, really."
"Not afraid of being tainted, are we? Youthful bravado or not, I don't particularly care. Three gold tales and I'll take you along."
Kaleb distanced himself from Etylred, turning his back to him.
"Gold tales? That's quite the fare for a rudimentary route, isn't it?"
"'T was back then, now? Not so much, and it's not because of the people there. The desert doesn't like the road no more. You're free to join a regular caravan to Sura'Mun, but I know you neither wish to nor do you lack coin."
"Alright, I'll pay up. When do we set off?"
"Tomorrow at dawn."