The King Of Birds

voice, and the robber hastened to get away from her as fast as he could run.

  She bent down to scoop up the knife and turned to Cassian, who was staring at her with wide eyes over the top of his stack of baskets.

  "Poorly made," Sera said, shaking the knife and listening to the blade rattle loosely in its hilt. "Doubt this mud iron will hold much of an edge, either."

  She dropped the knife into her basket, lifted the stack, and began walking towards the stables again.

  Cassian was beginning to recover from his shock, both of the initial robbery attempt and of Sera's abruptly ending it.

  "How did you do that? Magic, yes, but..."

  "How did I learn?" She smiled at him, this time her smile seemed to have more of an edge. "You are not the only one who studies."

  "You have trained with a Master? Who?" Cassian knew all the Masters in the city, of course, and all required commitment from their apprentices. None would share the secrets of their studies with a casual student. And if Sera was a harvester, she could not commit to being apprenticed. Was she a failed apprentice? It happened, and all but the most overconfident apprentices feared failure at least now and then, but she did not carry the shame of those who tried and failed.

  "My uncle has taught me his secrets since I was old enough to ask. I don't have the mastery of a formal student such as yourself, but I do know many small tricks."

  He laughed, "I have no mastery of anything, and I have no knowledge of how to burn flesh with nothing more than the skin of my own hand!"

  "The tricks I have learned have leaned toward the practical," she acknowledged. "My uncle said that if I insisted on travelling alone in the forest at night, he could at least help me protect myself. From the elements, from animals, and from other predators."

  He saw her watching his face carefully. As the excitement of the moment wore off, she was worried how he would react to her revelation. Travelling with a harvester was one thing. Travelling with a sorcerer trained outside the normal rules was another thing again.

  Cassian considered this for a moment. He would be alone with her, far away from any city guards. It was good that she was able to defend herself. More than he could defend his own self, in all truth. She would likely end up defending him!

  They reached the stables and tied the baskets to her mule. She readied her horse for her ride home. Her harvesting business must be doing well to support both a horse and a pack mule.

  "How shall I find you tomorrow?" he asked.

  "I will meet you outside the Vale Gate by the second bell. Be prepared to ride, I will have a horse for you."

  How many animals did this harvester keep?

  "`Until the morn, then."

  "I shall count the hours." Her brown eyes twinkled.

  He walked back to the laboratory, his eyes now darting from side to side watching for hidden assailants. But of course he was a less worthy target when he was not in the company of a merchant leaving the square at the end of market day.

  Cassian had trouble sleeping that night. His mind wandered restlessly, flitting between excitement and worry over the next day's adventure. He imagined all the things that could go wrong and tried to decide what he would do when they happened. It was well past midnight by the time fatigue caught up with him and he drifted into sleep.

 

 

  Cassian arrived at the Vale Gate the next morning at the first bell after sunrise. He was early, but he was too anxious to wait in the laboratory. So he waited outside the walls of the city instead. He perched on a small rock and watched as merchants and farmers filed in through the gates.

  The guards mostly ignored the incoming flow, stopping only the larger carts to inspect their contents. It had been a long time since there had been trouble in the kingdom, and most enjoyed the freedom to come and go as they pleased. Though he did notice one guard was keeping a tally of everyone that went in and out, and he witnessed one oddly clad outlander be questioned briefly by the guards.

  A trio of men in Rhymish attire rode up to the gate, two lightly armored men flanking the more richly dressed third. The sergeant at the gate talked with them personally, inspecting the paper they offered him and conferring with the man keeping tally. After a short conversation the Rhymish riders were allowed to enter, keeping their weapons with them. Cassian was intrigued, he hadn't seen anyone from Rhym in the city in an official capacity since he was a small child.

  Rhymish soldiers had been as thick as flies then, with their armies passing through the kingdom to flank the Grand Admiralty Of Posen which stretched along the sea to the north. Posen was only a dozen leagues wide, but the Grand Admiral controlled the coast for hundreds of miles. Correndrum was landlocked, surrounded on two sides by mountain ranges, and by vast expanses of desert and steppes on the other sides. But to the north, across the Rocktide Mountains, lay Posen. The Rhymish had attempted to cross that range by following the river through Shimmergate Pass, hoping to steal the port of Baleen. But the Grand Admiral's hired legions trapped them and literally drove them into the sea. Posen's relations with Correndrum had been chilly since then, but the relations with Rhym had been nearly non-existent. Seeing an envoy from their lands was a notable event.

  Cassian wondered too why Master Linus was sending him on this journey. No doubt he really did want Cassian to see a little of the wider world. But Cassian couldn't escape the feeling that Linus had other motives as well. Perhaps he was performing a part of his grand experiment that he wanted to keep secret. Alchemists could be like that, even with their own apprentices.

  While Cassian pondered this, Sera came across the bridge to the north, from across the river. She rode the same chestnut mare she had departed on yesterday, but she also led a large white horse behind her.

  As she came up to the rock where he was still sitting, she said, "Good morning! I hope you're ready to ride hard. I brought my strongest horse for you, and we have many miles to cover today."

  "Strongest horse?" he asked. "How many do you have to choose from?"

  She laughed. "My father raises horses. Have I never told you? We have three dozen during any given season."

  He really didn't know anything about her. If her father had so many horses, even if he raised them to sell, her family would be considered wealthy in the villages surrounding the city. Perhaps not as rich as the nobles in town, but still...

  "So you harvest to escape your dreary life at home? Not content with the needle and thread?" This was a story Cassian had heard before, women who would never be happy with safe and protected lives as the idle wives of the wealthy.

  "I have been harvesting since I was a wee girl, my dear apprentice. I have never sewn even one frame. But I do enjoy the harvest for giving me an excuse to travel afield. Now, mount your horse and let's do our own traveling."

  The horse was tall, its flanks reaching above Cassian's shoulders. He tied his pack across its back, behind his saddle. He was happy for the rock he had waited on, he stood on it to get a leg up on the animal.

  "We're away!" Sera exclaimed, and guided her horse into a fast trot back on to the main road and to the west.

  Cassian had not ridden in several years, but it slowly came back to him. He got the rhythm down and soon was enjoying the countryside, though he knew he would be sore when he bedded down for the night.

  They slowed their pace for the long ride, Cassian riding a few yards behind Sera. She led them on a somewhat confusing maze of trails and roads heading away from the city, darting down small sidepaths and passing through small groupings of houses and farms only to rejoin the main road a short while later.

  "The road goes its way and we go ours," she said when he asked her about it.

  Cassian had rarely ventured into the countryside, and he had never traveled off the main roads. His father served King Viron, and he had gone with his father to the King's Summer Court when he was 16. But though that palace was remote, the entire journey was along the
well-worn and patrolled highways the kingdom maintained as its primary thoroughfares. And he had been in the middle of a large retinue of courtiers, nobles, guards, and assorted hangers-on as well. The experience of riding with Sera, passing through places that could not even be called villages, and with no one other than his one companion, was quite different.

  He found himself feeling surprisingly free. Without a city of people surrounding him, he felt he was seeing the world in a new way. Yes, he felt a little afraid when he realized there were no guards to run to if there was trouble, but even this gave him a small thrill. He was energized and took in each new farm and every small mill as if he had never seen anything like them. And in truth, he had not!

  The sun climbed high in the sky and the day was quite warm for this late in the season. Cassian listened to the birdsong coming from the trees lining the small path they traveled on, and his eyes scanned the underbrush, looking for traces of common herbs. He was brought out of his pastoral reverie quite abruptly when his horse rounded a curve and came to a sudden halt behind a large vardo, a cottage-wagon used by the perpetually nomadic folk known as Ramblers. The wagon was big, even for a vardo, and its eaves hung over the sides of the trail. Several birds hopped along its roof, twittering and singing.

  Where was Sera? How had she gotten her horse around this thing?

  Cassian became a little uneasy as he began