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A steady breeze blew in off the North Sea, and we inched along the beach more by smell, sound, and feel than sight.įinding our way kept me too busy to notice the wind picking up until it started punching holes in the fog. Even with the light growing, everything past Charcoal’s nose was lost in the murk. Unwilling to risk a fall on stone, I led Charcoal on foot until the road curved to run along the shore, where I climbed on and rode out on the sand below the high tide line. The fog soon swallowed the noise he made laughing. Gave you? That lot never parts with anything for free. Not anymore, since an air witch gave me a charm for protection.

I fingered the folded paper in my pocket, and grinned. Don’t you ever worry about robbers ganging up on you? The ostler walked across the yard with me. I figure they want to brag that they’ve seen it and lived to tell. But even they don’t go to Quays unless they’ve been summoned, or got kinsfolk on trial. What’d you expect? They ain’t got as much sense as a donkey. We’ve had aristos complain that they’ve been to Quays and back, and never saw the damned thing. He said, With the fog, you should be safe enough going through Quayside. I could be in Crossroads with hours to spare. Capped with paving stones all the way from London, it was a fast, easy ride. It’s either the track over the hills-slow going and dangerous in the fog-or the road to Quayside.Įarth wizards kept up the Quayside Road, along the shore, as a favour to the Water Guild. But if you’re that hot to get there… He shrugged. To get to Crossroads, the ostler said, I’d go west, around the hills. The next morning, standing in the inn’s stable door with a grey wall of fog outside, I couldn’t avoid it.

When the news he was dead reached me, a day and a half down the coast, I left my gear in the smithy, promised the master to be back inside a week, and rode north through low clouds and drizzle, too wrapped up in memories and worries to think much about the road. We buried my uncle the last week of August, the year after the Fire Warlock retired.