Chapter 31

Gryppen stays the night in the stables. In the morning, the pair of half elves depart. Kvelti gruffly but willingly provides rusacks with provisions to the travellers.

The journey south is fairly uneventful. Morgan happily plays the tour guide when they pass through towns she's familiar with, pointing out temples and palaces with her right hand. She also leads Gryppen around more than one city, explaining that there were some people within who had less than fond memories of her.

Forests give way to warm, grassy plains after three weeks travel. Another week or so south on the trade route brings them to Sommayid, the great Ehosian marketplace. Here, outlanders and Ehosians can mingle more or less freely and exchange goods and information. The core city is built of local red stone, and is not overly large. Outside of its walls, however, a sprawl of tents, shanties, and other temporary structures spreads far and wide. This is the height of the caravan season, and everyone with business to do here has arrived. Even the native nomadic horse tribes have moved to the edges of Sommayid, trading horses and bows for fine fabrics and golden jewelry.

"If I read your map right," Morgan says, scrutinizing her copy, "we can use the ley gate here to jump deeper into Ehosia. It looks like there's... four or five cities we'll have to pass through before we get to a gate that will take us to the capital."

Gryppen slides his floppy hat up on his head, and scratches his brow. Weeks of travel have told Morgan that he is in far better condition than he appears, able to keep up... or, at least, he doesn't complain.

Gryppen peers over the shoulder of the woman he still calls 'lady'. "Ley gates, Lady Morgan? Explain."

She purses her lips a moment before replying. Should she ask him to drop that honorific? She didn't want to find out the hard way that there was some Ehosian law against impersonating foreign nobility. But she also doubted that the average Ehosian knew at most a handful of Northern words, and they were probably, "Halt," and "Get out of my way, unbeliever."

She gives Gryppen an incredulous look. "Surely you used the gates when you came through here? Ah... hm. Well." Even if Gryppen was really tough enough to wander the Ehosian deserts, Morgan didn't think little Templeton could have taken it. Maybe he used the travel-magic he had mentioned teaching her. "The ley gates are how people get around in Ehosia. I don't know how they work, except that they're magic. You step through one in, say, Sommayid, and then step out of one in Jaffa. They really keep the place together. Most of Ehosia's cities are built around oasises... oasii? with lots of desert in between."

She taps a tooth with her fingernail. "I guess they're constructs, or else the Ehosians were really lucky to settle in a place with a magical gate in every oasis. I've heard they're run by imprisoned djinni or by the power of the sun, so you can only use them during the day." She shrugs. "Honestly, a lot of what I know of Ehosia... and it's not much... comes from random rumors like that. I've avoided visiting the place in person."

"Working in a drinking establishment like you do leaves you eminently qualified to know things," Gryppen smiles. "At least, more qualified then I. Consider yourself the resident expert in our tiny band -- if we discover you to be in error later, I'll not cast any blame." He looks about. "At least you're from this plane," he sighs. "I'm not even sure where mine is."

"Work at the Rabid Wombat?" Morgan laughs. "Not regularly. I had just stopped by to visit Kvelti, actually. Then she talked me into going on this 'supply run' to pick up some of this liquor... Sun's Tears, I think they call it."

She frowns a little at his second comment. "This plain? No, actually, I was born in a forest west of... Oh!" she exclaims in sudden understanding, remembering the strange outland maps in his case. "This plane!" Grey had often spoken of the different worlds, or planes. He knew just enough about them to sound erudite, but hadn't the power to actually magick himself to any of them. Which was, in Morgan's opinion, just as well. Grey got himself into enough trouble in just one world.

She resists the urge to "ah" and "hm" and maintains a quiet moment as she marshals her thoughts. "I don't think I've ever met anyone from another world... that I knew about," she amends. "How did you lose track of yours? Is it hard to keep oriented when you travel that way?"

"It's impossible," Gryppen intones to Morgan. "I may never find it again." He sits his creaky bones down on a rotted stump, letting out air.

"It's not another world, actually," he explains. "It's this one. They are all this one. You see, you and I both come from what many call the Prime Material Plane. My... home simply overlaps on top of yours." He makes a folding motion with his gloved hands to illustrate. "As do a thousand thousand other lands, on top of mine.

"I cannot travel to the Astral Plane, nor the Ethereal Planes, nor the Nine Hells nor the Selardine. These places exist elsewhere. I am from here -- just a different here than here." He laughs at the ludicrousness of that as he tugs his right boot out, shaking out a small stone or two. "That sounds ridiculous, doesn't it?" Gryppen produces some small hard cheese and feeds it to his salivating dog before pulling the boot on again. "Where I am from, I am very old," he says to Morgan. "Two-hundred and ninety. My people live usually no longer than three hundred. Still, I have learned little of the way these things work -- gates and the like. 'Tis why I ask you of them. Perhaps, before I pass into the Shroud Beyond, I might still find the Gypsy, and will need to return back to Hadria."

"A different here than here," Morgan muses. "A friend of mine who dabbles in magic once tried to explain the things as pages in a book, one on top of the other. This sounds more like the Otherworld... only more of them." She purses her lips, trying to think of a way to find... Hadria.

She almost misses what Gryppen says next, but catches it on the edge of her hearing and returns her full attention to him. "Two hund- ! Oh my. I should have guessed ninety, perhaps. The human blood here seems to pull more strongly than in your lands." She shakes her head. "I'm somewhere between fifty and sixty, and might live that span over again... if I don't do something foolish first." She grins. Like stealing rare Ehosian liquors from the Patriarch's personal stores.

Her grin fades as her mind returns to the problem. "So the gypsy can help you find your way home? Hmm..." She felt suddenly guilty. The man expected perhaps another ten years of life, and rather than spend them looking for the mysterious Gypsy, he was risking his pointed ears escorting her on a larcenous trip into the heart of elf-hating Ehosia.

It was his decision to make, she thought. But he should have all of the information to make it.

"Gryppen," she finally ventures slowly, "I should probably tell you more about what we're going to do once we get to Shariz before we go any further."

Gryppen proceeds to pull off his other boot boot, watching the dog, and empties it of stones as well. His finger protrudes out a small hole in the side, which he frowns at. He does not look up.

"After three weeks of travel," he says lightly, in a quiet tone of his gravelly voice, "you think there is something you should tell me now?"

Morgan sighs miserably. "I'm sorry. I didn't know you had anything... well, important to do. Thought you just liked traveling for the fun of it. I do, so..."

She cuts off the incipient ramble. "Sun's Tears - the liqueur we're going to procure - is very rare. Also restricted, if Kvelti's sources are right, to the Patriarch's household. So we can't just buy it, we - or I - are going to have to take it.

She decides looking at Templeton is easiest. "I was hoping to have your company and magical assistance to Shariz, the captial, and then part ways. I was not going to involve you in unknowingly risking your life for a bottle of booze. Getting back out of the palace and out of Ehosia would be my own problem.

"So... that much we agreed on, more or less, at the Wombat. But if you have another quest..." And are running out of time, she thinks but has the wit not to speak. "..." She shrugs lopsidedly. "While you might not object to escorting a legitimate trader, I thought you should know you were aiding and abetting. You might have priorities higher than that, after all."

Gryppen falls quiet for a moment as he puts the boot back on. Finally, as he stands up and reclaims his staff, he speaks.

"I see," he says, looking at her again. "Might I ask, Lady Morgan, why you chose to not tell me this from the outset?"

Morgan looks at Gryppen, opens her mouth and takes a breath, then stops, frowning slightly. She hadn't consciously really decided to do one thing or another. She figured 'reflex' wasn't the answer Gryppen was looking for, so she tried to track down the reasons that created the reflex.

She takes another breath and starts again. "Safety, for one. If we parted ways before I did anything stupid, I'd wait til I had thought you'd left the area. No risk for you, and no risk for me that you could tell anyone anything.

"For another... well, you didn't ask." Her tone isn't flippant at all. It was a simple truth and she states it as such. Reflecting on it, she thought that if Gryppen had asked her exactly what they were up to, she'd have told him truthfully. But he hadn't, so she didn't.

"Though I hardly see how leaving me in this theocratic place you keep claiming is so very terrible constitutes no risk on my part," Gryppen says quietly and carefully, brushing his sleeves free of imaginary dirt, "I suppose the damage is done, isn't it?" He coughs politiely and soulders his pack. "I suppose we'd best get going."

Morgan starts to protest, "B-," and shuts her mouth. Remember now why you work alone, stupid? she asks herself. Other people always complicated things.

Speaking of complications... so Gryppen was mad, but still wanted to go along? But they were about to enter Sommayid and he hadn't offered to...

Fine. Whatever. What happens, happens, and maybe she'd end up working alone after all.

"Fine," she said aloud, softly and with much less truculence than she'd thought to herself. Shouldering her satchel, she turns her steps towards the tent city, eyes on the ground.

You're being juevenille, her conscience lectured. Well, she had apologized, right?

An image of her friend Grey floated up. No, stupid. About the job. He's gonna laugh his ass off if you screw this up because your dumb self felt too... what, guilty and self-conscious? to get it done right. You gonna be professional about this or what?

Professional. Right.

Ten steps towards Sommayid, she stops and brings her head up. "Gryppen, if I just walk in there like this," she indicates her pointed ears with her stubby left hand, "this is over before it starts. Can... will you cover me with an illusion?"

"Of course, Lady Morgan," Gryppen says with a tight smile. "My pleasure." He pulls the sleeves of his cloak up and rolls his shoulders, as if preparing to engage in some form of unseen labour. His boots plant slighty apart in the mud.

"What do recommend? Or, is simple invisibility our best bet?"

"Gah..." She hadn't thought of that. What passed as nondescript in Ehosia? She looks down on the tent city. "It's a bit crowded for invisibility. Someone bumps into you, the alarm goes up... and merchants are very jumpy about having unseen people near their wares. Bad scene. Um... merchant strikes me as the obvious choice. Human, Northerner, female... young side, plain-faced. I'd suggest something similar for you, if you think you need it. You did get through here on your own once already, so maybe you don't," she shrugs.

"Ah... left arm. The illusion would be longer, right? If I try to use it for anything, will that hurt the illusion?" She had no idea what would happen if she picked something up... would the metal hand just suddenly stick out of the magical arm?

"This place does seem rather dangerous, by your accounts," Gryppen says to Morgan."I think I was lucky in my earlier travels." His hands move oddly, and he makes an icantation, speaking in a strange Hadrian tongue. The task, while short, seems difficult, and his chest seems to droop slightly when he's finished.

"Well, as for the arm, Lady Mor -- my daughter," he says, wagging a knowing finger at her, "why not test it out?" His left hand reaches to hers, and he holds it up to her, looking -- and feeling -- somewhat new. Her clothing, as well, seems to have become more drab and patchworked. "Will this do?"

Morgan flexes her hand, and is delighted to see five functional fingers bend in response. "It looks... it feels... is it... is it really real?" she asks, a note of hope in her voice.

The internal annoyance Gryppen was feeling at Morgan vanished at the sound of hope in her voice. He placed a gloved hand on her shoulder. "Ahh, no, Lady," he said to her with tight lips. "It is but an illusion, designed to fool the senses. It will pass in less than a day, or if I remove it before then; also, if I sleep, or fall unconcious or dead." He pats her shoulder and removes his hand.

"There are those who work an applied art called 'Vicissitude' in Hadria -- most of them Reyd' Hijan Healers -- who can regrow limbs, or reshape them to perfection. Perhaps, someday, should you travel, you might encounter one..?" He smiled his crinkly, old man smile at her.

"Maybe... maybe I should," Morgan manages, mentally berating herself. You knew it was going to be an illusion, stupid. Il-lus-sion. Not real. Get a grip. She stares at the hand a few minutes more, turning it over and figeting with anything nearby, mostly the hems of her garments. "That's... amazing. Thank you," she says softly. Taking a deep breath, she tries to consciously shift gears back into work mode. "I'm thinking that we should spend a few days here and see what passes for normal in these parts. Then we can work out good disguises for getting further into Ehosia. I understand that, with all the big cities connected by these gates, they're very, very strict about allowing foreigners past Sommayid."

"As you wish," Gryppen says, looking about. "I'll let you choose the campsite, if you will." He shrugs his pack on, and holds his walking stick as he follows her. "Were you born with your disfigurement, Lady?"

She laughs mirthlessly. "No. Just young and dumb once. But just once.

"Kvelti and I used to run around together in our younger days, along with one or two other miscreants. Did odd jobs, a rescue or two, scouting, and the occassional attempt at finding lost ruins and making our respective fortunes. Well, we came across a rumor about an abandoned wizard's tower." She shakes her head and sighs. "Just stay out of wizard towers, abandoned or otherwise, unless you've got some potent magus in your pocket."

She shivers despite the heat, remembering the ill-fated excursion. "It didn't hurt at all," she continues in a softer voice. "It just... crumbled. Into something like sand, from where my fingers touched the door clear to my shoulder..." She snaps her mouth closed, not wanting to get even more maudlin. Her voice changes back to its harder, more everyday tone. "A few months later, Kvelti managed to out-drink a dwarven captain and got us another job. I managed to wrangle the arm as payment. It's a dwarven arm, but it's been a sure sight better than nothing."

The old half-elf nodded, saying nothing for a time as they walked. After a few moments, he cleared his throat. "Did you keep the sand?" he asked, a little off-handedly.

Morgan pauses before answering. "Yes. I... well, it's in a safe place now."

"Ahh, well, good!", Gryppen exclaims, patting her back lightly. "That was most astute of you." He doesn't say anything further on the subject, but his voice seems to suggest her worries are over.

"Where shall we camp, La -- Morgan?"

Morgan raises one dark eyebrow and looks sidelong at Gryppen, but also drops the subject.

"Somewhere in there, I think, Father." She waves at the mass of tents and booths squatting outside of the red walls of Sommayid. "Let us see if we can find a place to spread out our blankets."