“You can ask me three yes or no questions, and I’ll answer truthfully. After that, you can keep asking, but I make no promises about the integrity of my replies.”
“Do I have to ask the questions now? All at once?”
He considered it. “No,” he said. “You may ask me the questions whenever you like. Just let me know before you ask that you’re using one of your questions.”
Rinka didn’t understand the reason for the gambit, but she did truly want to know who he was, and she couldn’t see the harm in enjoying his company during her long journey. “How long do I have? Are you going to Landsend or one of the stops along the way?”
“Landsend, but then on to Wilderise.”
Rinka could hardly believe her luck—it turned out he was going not only to Wilderise, but he was heading into the Hill Country too. A companion for her entire journey, and plenty of time to figure out who he was.
Unless…was that really the journey he had planned to take? Or did he change his plans once he heard hers?
“I have family there,” he said by way of explanation. Rinka could read no hint of a lie in it, but then she hadn’t picked up on any lies so far at all.
Rinka knew what her mother would say about Rinka making plans and deals with strange men. “Foolish, reckless, irresponsible. Dimwitted fool!”(Yes, “fool” would be in there twice. For emphasis.)
But meeting someone who not only wasn’t afraid of her but actually seemed to enjoy her company had been such a pleasant surprise, she didn’t care.
“You know what they say about journeys,” said Rinka. “‘Every journey begins with—’”
“A single step,” said Drystan.
“What? No,” said Rinka. “‘Every journey begins with three whiskies.’”
Drystan laughed. “Another one of your father’s sayings?”
“Well, yes,” said Rinka. “Maybe it’s an orc thing.”
The rail-wheeler’s dining cart did not have any whiskies, but it did have a cheap bottle of Loegrian white, which they shared with a small tin of crackers, a bunch of grapes, and a pleasantly sharp cheese. She spent the afternoon asking him a number of questions: where he had grown up (outside of Arcas Dyrne), how many siblings he had (one, a sister), what his favorite dessert was (a pie made with limes and a creamy frosting that sounded heavenly), what his greatest fear was (heights, the first answer Rinka doubted). By the time the rail-wheeler pulled into Landsend late that night, she had mended his trousers and learned much of Drystan, most of which she liked and hoped was true. But she still hadn’t worked out what to ask him as her first question that would receive a guaranteed true response.
“Still not ready to take a guess? Even to narrow things down a bit?” he asked her as he followed her to retrieve her trunk.
“I’ve been thinking of it all day, but I don’t want to waste it. Let me sleep on it. Do you have somewhere to stay tonight?”
He raised his eyebrows and glanced at her with a look that made her blush.
“Oh!” said Rinka, as she realized the implication. “I meant—”
“I do. Have somewhere to stay,” he stammered, recovering. “But I’ll see you on the ferry in the morning?” He picked up her trunk and helped her carry it from the rail-wheeler to a high-wheel carrier taxi just outside the station.
“First thing,” she said. “You better be there. I fully intend to use each of my questions.” She greeted the driver and gave him the name of her inn (she was grateful to Alison once again for her detailed instructions), and then she turned to bid Drystan farewell. She looked at her hands awkwardly, somehow not quite able to meet his eye despite the day spent learning about him. “Well, good night,” she said.
She climbed into the little carriage at the back behind the pedal-cycle before he could respond, her heart racing. Drystan backed out of the way as the high-wheel carrier driver began to pull out into the road.
“I’m going to figure it out!” she called after him, unable to resist seeing his face one more time that night.
“I hope you do,” he yelled back. He smiled and waved slowly, and the gesture was so familiar that for a moment Rinka could see him, the real him, standing somewhere grand. But as the taxi turned the corner down the steep slope of Landsend’s high street, he vanished from view, and as quickly as it had come, the image was gone.
Drystan had been honest about at least one thing: there was only one ferry a day from the bustling seaside town of Landsend to Sudport, the southernmost tip of Wilderise, and he was on it.The journey across the narrow Sallin Sea would take all of the day, and the carriage Alison’s beau had hired would take most of the next day to reach its final destination of Herot’s Hollow, the tiny town tucked in the mountains that Rinka would be making her home.
She could not wait, but not just because she’d be seeing Alison again at her destination. A certain mysterious someone had made the journey to get there far more enticing than she’d originally expected.
Rinka carried her great green trunk across the gangway, stopping to help an elderly Halfling gentleman with his cart full of luggage before it crushed him under its weight. Having recently experienced the perils of poor luggage cart handling, she was eager to spare him the experience.
“Oh, thank you, my dear,” he said to her. “I would have been squashed.”
“It’s no trouble at all, sir,” she replied. He gave her a smile with several missing teeth. It was one of the brightest smiles Rinka had ever seen.
