Destiny's Road

"What are they like?"

"We're not supposed to talk to them, but you can sneak away. They draw pictures in the sand. You try to tell them things that way, but it's-" Haron frowned. "It's not enough."

"For what?"

Haron shook his head. He picked up his board and ran into the water.

Merchants and Twerdahls mingled on the sand. Tim Bednacourt worked anonymous in their midst.

For a long moment Quicksilver burned at the edge of the sea, just below the cloud deck. Then it winked out. An hour of sunlight left.

Merchants watched Tim Bednacourt cutting onions, carrots, bell peppers, mushrooms picked in the cypress swamp. "That looks good," the older woman said. Tim smiled.

Four merchants came, all a few inches shorter than Tim, all exotic and elegant, dressed in many colors, many layers. I noticed the younger man first. Dark, with a thin mustache: Tim had seen him before. An older man with brown hair and a forked beard turning gray. A blackhaired woman his own age; another very like her but no older than Tim. Skins browner than Tim's, all four. Their eyes were dark and a bit tilted. Parents, son, daughter?

He could be wrong about that, or their ages, or almost anything. Any fool might pretend to know all about merchants. Nobody really knew.

The young man said, "I remember you. We were talking about Otterfolk. I noticed you trying to listen and cook-"

"I remember. You're Joker?"

He nodded. The older woman asked, "Would you like to see them for yourself?"

Caught by surprise, Tim laughed. "Sure. It's not likely, is it?"

"I'm Senka," she said. "These are Damon and Rian, my husband and daughter."

"I'm Tim Bednacourt."

She was examining him. It made him uncomfortable. "How long have you lived in this place?"

"Twenty years. Born here," making himself a year older than Jemmy Bloocher.

The man asked, "Do you ever wonder what the rest of the world looks like?"

"Well, sure, sometimes I look off down the Road and-"

"Tim."

He jumped. Loria! She said, "You can't cook in the dark. You need help?"

It wasn't dark yet, but... "Yes, love, I got a little behind. You cut, I'll start these." An hour of light left. Tim added oil to the wok-already hot-then vegetables. The action became brisk. The merchant trio watched, then wandered off.

Loria asked, "What did they want?"

"They didn't say."

"But something?"

"Oh, yeah. Sounds like they need a labor yutz or two."

The big vegetable omelets had become almost reflex. Tim finished one and shouted for the nearest older child whose name he could remember.

"Did you talk to Haron?"

"Tried. What happened to him?"

"This batch is finished," Loria said, and went briskly away.

Food wandered toward him from other cookfires. Tim ate as he cooked: sausage, roasted ear of corn, half of a passerby's chunk of bread, a slice of his own omelet. When it was too dark to see he settled himself on the sand.

Heaven's fire still burned where sky met sea.

His arms and shoulders hurt. He didn't usually push himself this hard. Where was Loria? Why?

Hadn't she expected him to talk to Haron? It was her own suggestion! Someone was at his side. He turned hoping to see Loria, or any Bednacourt who could explain what Loria was angry about.

It was a young merchant woman, her clothes still a patchwork of color in the dying light. She handed him the edge of a half melon. They broke it together; he kept half, the juice ru

"Rian," she said. "You're Tim?"

"Hello, Rian."

Senka's daughter. She sat beside him. In the dark her face was all planes and angles, a lovely but abstracted shape. Eyes a bit tilted, like almonds. "This is my first trip," she said.

"From where?" he asked.

"We don't talk about that. We don't take labor yutzes past the Neck." Too bad, he thought. Then he stared. Past the Neck? She'd been born on the mainland!

Rian leaned close enough that he could feel her breath on his cheek. "One of our cooks has died," she said. "We need another."

"Uh-huh?"

"Want to come with us?"

"As a labor yutz?"

"Yes."

Tim smiled politely. "Rian, why don't you tell me how your cook died?"

She hesitated. "Well. We were too far from the other wagons. Petey was a cowboy-"

"Say?"

"Cowboy. He liked to be right there on the sand shooting when the sharks came at us. Made us shoot around him. Few days ago the sharks got ahead of us a bit. They got Petey."

Tim said what he should have said first. "I've only been married two months."

"Yes, to Loria Bed... Bednacourt. She carrying a guest yet?"

This question seemed excessively personal, but Tim supposed it might matter to merchants interested in hiring a woman's husband. He said, "Not yet."

"So come."

Tim shook his head.

She was trying to study his face in the dark. "Nobody has to be down there on the sand with the sharks, Tim. Not a labor yutz, anyway. They never reach the wagon roofs."

She thought he was afraid?

"You know," she said, "the Otterfolk must have been the first unhuman tool users anyone ever saw. Cavorite wouldn't have just sailed past."

She was right, he thought. And- "They can draw pictures of Cavorite," he said.

He couldn't say, Loria doesn't even want me talking to you, let alone- Rian would wonder why, and Tim didn't know, but that left only a killing in Spiral Town as his excuse, and what would he tell her instead? He said, "I wasn't the only cook-"

"You have four. Van Barstowe limps. A caravan yutz has to walk, you know. Drew Bednacourt drops things, and he's surly. You and Van, you're the best. Do you like my company, Tim?"

At di

He stopped talking, because the merchant woman was up and moving away.

He wondered if he'd jumped to conclusions. "Company," she'd said. Only that. He'd made an embarrassing mistake.

The house was empty.

Long after he was in bed, Loria slid in and tickled him awake. There was a ferocity to her lovemaking, and she wouldn't let him talk. She didn't want to talk afterward either. They made love again... unless he fell asleep first... but sunlight blazed through the bedroom window and someone was pounding on the door.

Tim pulled himself out of bed, squinting. Why didn't Loria answer? "Come," he called. He pulled on some pants and went into the common room.

Sharlot Clellan, Drew Bednacourt, Harl Cloochi, and Berda Farrow, all elders of Twerdahl Town, came in from the glare of sunlight. They ushered in three merchants wearing wild colors. Two men, one woman. Tim recognized the dark man named Damon.

"What's it all about?" he asked.

Harl said, "Tim, these are Damon and Milo and Halida, elders of the caravan. They came to us last night, not just to us, you understand, but to all of Twerdahl Town. Tim, this may sound odd-"

The door opened again. Loria and Tarzana.

Tim repeated, "What is this?"

"Loria, dear, we've had an offer," Harl said.

"Right. Did you know they came to Tim last night? Tim, what did they offer you?"

She could have learned that last night. "Job as a labor yutz. Cooking."

The elder Twerdahls stared at the merchants. "You went to him first?"

Damon smiled and shrugged. "We looked for a better bargain. He was reluctant."

Tim couldn't read Loria's expression.

The merchant woman, Halida, said to Tim, "Your elders and mine, they've been talking. We offer a long knife for every twenty days you're gone."

"Loria, is that a good price?"

"Dammit, Tim!"

"Tarzana?"

Tarzana said, "Yes."

"Sounded like it. Haron got less, his first time."