What Seems, And What Is
Sunday, December 2, 2007
9:18 AM
We had received word that there was a caravan with a shipment of salt enroute to Ar from Torcandino. Their travel wagons would carry the flags of Lysander Manus, a well known Merchant in many cities of this region. Lysander however, was not a friend, nor a business acquaintence. Though rumor had it, he was an arrogant fellow, exceedingly wealthy and wealth to some extents does purchase one significant power. It does not however bestow upon you the rights of the High Five, no doubt a thing that vexed Lysander as much as it did most of the merchanting caste that found their faces pressed to the proverbial glass ceiling.
I and a handful of my more woodsworthy comrades dispatched ourselves outside of Ar's gates, Pontius at the head of our pack. It was cold at night, our fires had to remain low, we ate sparingly, and we waited. We waited for what felt like hands, but was only perhaps a day and a half. Wagon after wagon traveled by, but not the wagons of Lysander Manus, not until the last evening. The sound of clanking and creaking wheels, the pitch and sway of wood against steel, awoke me out of a light doze. I pressed upward to my forearms, dragging myself up a bit further on the slope to look down. There, the white flags flickered in the frozen air like specters on a ghost ship, approaching the gates of Ar.
I kicked Pontius awake, hissing at him, "Look..look." He was cold. We all were. Inching upward, he looked over the ridge himself to watch the slow progression, his face contorted with sleep and confusion, "Where are they going?"
"It looks like the Sun Gate," I said. He rolled some forward again, and I grabbed him by the shirt, dragging down face first in the dirt with me as two men trudged too close by for comfort. The caravan was guarded, I suppose I would have predicted as much. They passed, as one might expect, bitching about the cold to one another as they did so.
"The Sun Gate has long been closed," Pontius whispered finally, his words making a visible cloud of condensation that hung in the air. "I know, let's go."
"Go? What about the others?" He forced stiff muscles to move, following after me as I scrambled to my feet once the vicinity was clear. "Leave them. We'll come back. If we all go, they'll find us."
Ar is beautiful in the day time, and within its walls, beautiful at night. Many a man that had been away from his Home Stone for any length of time, no doubt felt a sweet rush of emotion upon seeing his city before him. Tonight though, as Pontius and I crept closer, she seemed like a ghost ship in the frigid night air. Lanterns held high, and the murmur of voices, we watched as some of the wagons were unloaded. Barrels and sacks carried in every direction. In a matter of moments, like the scattering of beatles, they were gone. And then the caravan turned, one by one, away from the Sun Gate.
Ar has a number of secondary gates. Some, I am certain, unknown to the public. History dictates this is probably true, if common sense and a belief in human nature does not. Pontius and I did not follow them, the risk that we'd have been noticed was too great. I have spent some time in the Cylinder of Justice. I have looked an impaling spear in the eye more than once. We returned to the rest of the sleeping men, and in the morning, made our journey back to the Sun Gate. I needed a bath, and food, and..a bath.
Labels: Sun Gate Ar
