Book by: Tim D. Sherer

Chapter 38: Rather Eat than Rest

Reads: 85

“The sky is rich, still,” I say to Jimbe as we pull the cart.

“Yes,” he says. “We’ll dine on fish for a while. Good thing, too.”

“What’s a what’s it?” I ask.

“A what?” Jimbe asks.

We’re keeping a restful pace, since we’ve had little good food since Trinket’s cottage. Neither is Lianth keen to rush.

“It’s what we say,” I say. “I mean, why is it good to dine on fish?”

“There’s hardly - wait, wait. What’s a what’s it?” Jimbe repeats after me.

“Well, um, I don’t know. I mean, it’s what we say when we don’t know what it means.”

“Well and good,” Jimbe says. “What's a what’s it,” he repeats. “What were you asking? Oh, the fish. It’s a hard cold we come through. Hard. Lots of crops die in the fields. It’s good there’s fish. I miss the good bread. You eat the peasant bread before?”

“Yes, I’ve had it a lot.”

Jimbe makes a dismissive sound. “I’ve seen how the peasants eat it. Throw it - well, first they poke it with a sharp knife, open up holes in the crust. Then they toss it in clay bowls in the fire in oil. Don’t know what kind of oil or where they get it. Must be a proper meal. Better than dipping it in ale. Or water.”

We walk along in silence for a while, pulling the cart, until we see a young fellow, jogging along next to the Path of the World toward us.

He pauses as we approach and - around gulps of air - calls out, “Lianth, the Bone Merchant?”

“Yes, here,” Lianth calls from behind us. “Come along here. Jimbe, Bessil, take rest.”

The boy looks to be about my circle. He’s not wearing sandals, so he must keep to the grass to the side of the Path.

The grass to the side of the path is no easy place to walk now. Only a bit of time passes between the lifting of the dark and our passing below Eldmere, but every bit of grass and every weed and thistle turns green and pushes up.

Some even start to flower.

As the boy hurries by, Jimbe and I pull the cart off the Path into that rough grass and set the tongue down. Jimbe plants his ass on the ground, but I look around for Sabill. She’s walking with Lianth, but, since she must take no part in his business, she walks toward us.

“Sabill,” I say. “Is there time for a lesson?”

She looks at me and I wonder, looking at her, if she’s always looked this way. A green cap covers the top of her head and the bulk of her dark hair is gathered into a bun at the back of her head and covered by lace. Only little locks of hair drip out from under the cap, decorating her forehead and framing her round, healthy face.

I’d been looking so closely that I barely register her response.

“Not now, Bessil,” she says. “I don’t want to dig the bones out and we won’t be stopped long.”

“But-” I say.

“Not now, Bessil,” she says and walks by me, up the path a little.

I go and sit with Jimbe.

“She’s not for you, friend,” he says.

“I know,” I say, ashamed for reasons I can’t put into words. “But she promised.”

I think Jimbe means to say something else, but he doesn’t. Instead, he lays back in the grass.

I look up at the pillar of the world - the rocky mountain that thrusts up in the center of every skerry. It’s white, still, from all the snow. Some places in the cuts have snow for a long time after a cold dark, but here the snow still shines even in the light.

“It’s Eldmere up there,” I say. “Is it true you can tell the cuts apart by looking at them? It all looks like stone and snow to me.”

“You’ll learn,” he says. “Walk around a few more times and you’ll recognize the faces of the mountain and remember which overseer’s cottage is which.”

“Faces of the mountain,” I say. “This is my only time around,” I say. I’m to be apprenticed, I think, lying to myself.

“I can see that,” he says. “I’ve lots of friends who find a town. Be an overseer. Have a wife. Have a child.”

“They take babes from the peasants,” I say.

“Not when they have their own,” Jimbe says. “Anyway, it’s for the best for the child. It’s a shame we can’t all live right.”

“Sky have mercy,” I say.

“Sky have mercy,” he says, a little puzzled.

We rest quietly for a while until Lianth scrunches along the Path behind us.

“Well, that’s the message I expected,” Lianth says.

“More bones, sir?” I ask. Those that passed in the cold are eager for rest - but it’s really the folk who survive who are eager for the shells Lianth would promise.

“Not this time, my boy. Not this time,” he says. “There’s a cottage just a bit farther. Come along when you’re ready. There’s to be food, good victuals, I promise.”

With that, he walks on by us.

I look to Jimbe and ask, “What goes on?”

“I don’t know. I’d rather eat than rest. Let’s go.”

Submitted: October 28, 2023

Fantasy sprite goblins bones