What River Can Compare to My Desert

"Buy?" The burly farmer who had introduced himself as Gelim snorted. "What talk! Come, come, there is plenty for everyone."

The farmer warehouses that Kern mentioned were exactly at the end of the path. It looked like a village made of large single-level buildings.

Samr, a grizzled man who held himself like a soldier, nodded as he grilled fish and snakes. "It was a village before, but the ferryboat made sure the travel to the town was only one hour. It used to be three hours by sail, see?" He smiled wryly. "Of course, the children preferred to live in town."

In the hottest part of the day, the farmers took an hour or two to eat and rest, gathering at the small village to cook communally. Everyone brought something from their farm, a bag of small crabs or frogs or snakes from the irrigation channels, a basket of wild herbs and flowers gathered from beside the road, sparrow birds and insects caught in net traps, edible lichen, and so on.

Defi, who had offered to help with the preparations since he was not allowed to pay, learned more about foraging in the wild than he ever hand in years of attending the hunt. The four slimes with him appeared to be content with scraps and the parts that were discarded like fishbones, snake skin, and crab shells.

He was a little reluctant to feed them haphazardly. Thinking about it, the both times his slimes had split, they were given vitality-rich food. But Jar was the green of the suirberries he had fed Turq, not the blue-green of its parent. Jar was also raised on suirberries and its splitting was a similar green. Turq's second splitting was in the blue shades of a seakrait.

Didn't it follow then, that the child splittings were influenced by the diet of the parent in some manner. He should be more careful what he fed them.

Unfortunately, there wouldn't be any more suirberries until the fall harvest. He had already secured a supply of zaziphos as long as he helped Sarel with the picking and delivery. What would a child splitting from a parent fed on zaziphos look like? He should source other things to feed them, he decided, that do not depend on harvest seasons or monster attacks.

"Are those slimes related to the ones at the docks?" A farmer questioned.

Defi looked up from feeding crab shells to the four. Was there a reason to hide? People who saw him and the slimes would ask anyway. He'd rather not lie. He lifted his first slime to show the farmer. "They are. They're not that large normally. Only, Turq ate a seakrait some days before the attack so he was that big."

Two seakraits, in fact. But Sarel told him to bury the second skeleton and 'not be so conspicuous, you brat!' He took it as good advice.

"Oh! I though it looked familiar! I saw you bring in that krait skeleton." The farmer grinned. Very good advice, it appeared. She patted Defi on the shoulder. "Thanks to your slimes, my brother and his wife are still alive."

"What?" called another farmer. "The slime thing was true?!"

"Why would anyone lie and say it was a slime, of all things?" retorted another.

"They could be hiding some secret weapon, you know? It's the mayor after all."

Some others nodded at that.

Defi's brows rose. What kind of mayor did the town have, that a secret weapon powerful enough to decimate three seakraits wasn't surprising?

The farmer who had patted his shoulder saw the look on his face. "The mayor's an incredible person. She knows a lot of important people, and the town council she's put together are all scary. Thanks to her, these last decades of the Lowpool have been prosperous."

She was interrupted by a clamor for the others to tell the story of the attack on the docks.

The woman gave a briefly amused smile. "You'll hear some rumors about her. Don't mind them. Some people don't understand; she's blood of the Lowpool and so are most people in town." She tapped his shoulder again. "My name's Hanna. If you need anything, find me or my brother Bron."

It was a warning, as kind as any warning could be. Defi nodded, made a note to ask Sarel what 'blood of the Lowpool' meant.

"I am Defi, and these are Turquoise, Jasper, Larimar, and Malachite. Turq, Jar, Lar, Mal." He had only just decided the names after some thought. Malachite for Jasper's splitting, and Larimar for Turq's.

Hanna grinned at them all, then went to tell her own version of the story.

"How about the part where the orphanage kids buried a score of smugglers alive? Is that part true as well?!" cried one of the farmers.

Samr sat down beside him, a plate of grilled fish in his hands. He slid a whole fish into Defi's bowl before starting to eat himself. "Don't mind them. When the attack happened, the ferryboat was sent away by the warning alarms, and most of the farmers spent the night here, without news and worrying. This is the first day we came back to work, so we're still uneasy. What if something happens while we're gone again? You were in town when it happened?"

Defi nodded, silently reached for the bottle of farm ale left near him and poured a cup for Samr.

"No, no!" a voice rose. Was that Gelim? "After the sleep smoke, Kaska confronted the smuggler lord. But the thugs that were looting came back and that was when Lergen led the rest of the fighters against them!"

"What? Are you sure? It wasn't the mayor's secret army?!"

"Lergen? Isn't he the orphanage owner? What is he teaching those children, to bury people alive!"

Defi stifled a laugh and settled down to listen, contentedly slurping down an intensely flavorful porridge further made delicious by smoky grilled fish. He would be here for hours still. He'd been told the ferryboat didn't stop by until a little after sundown.

*

*

Kern and his wife Leraine had a farm on the river, though closer to town than Hames and Falie's place and on the opposite bank. Lergen told him the three-hour walk from the town to their farm was beautiful, especially in the fall.

Defi thought he should deliver the letter as soon as he could, before visiting the people Reon said would be amenable to rent out rooms, so he hired a scow from the one-eyed old woman that always loitered around the docks. He found that she made most of the scows in town herself.

He'd been met at the docks yesterday by a limping Lergen and a scowling Sarel, then scolded thoroughly for going missing so soon after waking up from two days of unconsciousness. Sarel had threatened to cut off his zaziphos supply if he went to her homestead to work before a full week had passed, saying Falie expected the same.

The witches, what did they think he was going to feed his pets?

He could not deny the warmth that grew in him at the concern they showed, despite his faint irritation. He was of age, didn't they know? Still, he felt guilty making Lergen walk around in search of him when his leg was still healing, so he asked for directions – indirectly telling the man where he was going. He also left three of the slimes with the convalescing hero, whose recovery appeared more like hiding from the public than anything else.

The view on the southern banks of the river was certainly pleasing. Defi pushed a pole into the water, practiced and smooth after a month of experience. Would he still be here in the fall, when the river was at its most beautiful?

Fall was three months away, according to the calendar in the library. Surely he would not be here so long? He felt an ache at the thought.

He knocked on the door of the cottage.

It opened nearly immediately.

The woman who stood in the doorway frowned. There was a flicker of expectation in her eyes that faded at the sight of him. "Yes?"

"I have a letter," he brought out the folded piece of paper. "from—"

She snatched it to her face before he could finish. Her face descended into grimness as her eyes flew down the page. "You saw him."

"I did."

"That idiot!" she nearly screamed.

Defi startled, leaned away with eyes wide. There were tears in her eyes, of rage.

"Does he think he can just leave me with this? After all that happened?!"

Defi had hoped it wasn't something like that. But Kern had seemed likable, and there was a wretchedness about him that Defi resonated with. He bowed, apologetically. "I'm sorry to have conveyed a thing so upsetting."

"You're sorry?" she laughed, little humor in the sound. "He didn't even tell you what he was doing?"

"He said he wished to travel to the coast."

"The capital? I knew it. He's hiding something from me, writing letters to Carmedel all the time! Does he have another family there? Does he?" Her eyes bored into him.

Carmedel was the capital of the empire, and sat at the junction of two rivers in the south.

Defi could only clarify, showing his distress at having gotten caught up in this. "The eastern coast. I do not know why, nor did he tell me his business. We only met and parted by chance."

She clamped her lips shut and stared at Defi for so long that he wondered if he should be impolite and just leave.

"How much money do you have on you?" she asked suddenly.

Ah?

Before he knew what was happening, Defi was dragged back to town.

*

"You want to transfer your property to this person," the clerk repeated slowly, staring at the scowling Leraine. "For whatever rond and klaud coins he has on himself right now?"

Her gaze turned to Defi, who was still trapped by an unyielding grip.

"Please say it's not possible." He kept his face and voice neutral. How could this be a proper transaction?

The clerk inclined her head. "I am afraid to say it is. The farm is in Madam Leraine's name. It is hers to do with as she sees fit."

Leraine glared at Defi, still magnificently furious. "I am leaving. You will not stop me."

"Then at least let me put together fair price." The words just flowed out of his mouth, as if he were not the one speaking. He forcibly swallowed the hard lump forming in his throat, the sudden fear clogging his chest. His jaw clenched after saying the words.

The clerk looked taken aback by the sudden blankness of his eyes.

The other scoffed. "The land is poor, the planting has not started. The soil is weak. What is fair price for that?"

She was honest.

Defi studied her, silent. Her features were not fine, the skin of her hands leathered by sun. And yet, she stood tall. A woman steeling her spine with determination, refusing to break. What endurance, what beauty. He could not recommend the course of action she was taking, but could not condemn it either.

And yet, why should he help her? What right did she have to force him to do what she wanted? He was--

No.

He was lashing out because he was afraid. The fear in him was no fault of hers. He was no longer what he was born to be, but he was still of Ontrea. And Ontrea was a land of warriors.

Something in him calmed. But other things rose to clamor in its place. He stifled them forcibly. His fear was only one part of the problem. But the whole could be dealt with later. This part, he could deal with now.

He met her gaze, pitiless, fathomless. "I will pay the survey price. If it is less than what iron and bronze coins I have on me, I will pay your original demand. Do we have a deal?"

The clerk's brows shot up.

Defi ignored her, keeping his attention on the woman whose grip on his arm was still bruising. Leraine opened her mouth, then firmly closed it without a word. She nodded, a quick decisive action.

He looked at the clerk. "I will need it in writing."

"The transfer documents are templated," she said, not hiding her bemusement. "Both parties only need fill in the information and sign. The surveys were conducted only three years ago, and all land transactions are recorded. It will be less than half an hour to get the documents together. Madam, I assume you have your copies?"

She did.

"The land in Madam's keeping comes to a little over three hecte. If by 'survey price', you mean the cost of the land based on the size of the property, then all in all, one hundred and seventy-five klauds. The price of development would increase--"

"No." Leraine interrupted with a slash of her hand. "This is the agreement. Even then, the price is too much."

One hundred and seventy-five klauds? That came to eight silver crescents and fifteen bronze klauds. An acre in Ontrea would cost at least three silver fingers. Eight crescents was too low a price, wasn't it? And she said it was too much? How cheap was land in Ascharon?

Defi had sold the seakrait skeleton to the fishers guild for a hundred and twenty-five klauds. It now hung above the guild hall. Adding the coins he found around the river and his wages, he had enough. He nodded and started counting out the coins.

It was a good thing he put off buying writing materials or he would have had to exchange Rimet currency somehow. Scholarly materials were expensive in the Lowpool. Twenty klauds for a ream of white paper, a shock. It was only 200 pages too. Paper was cheaper in Ontrea. Perhaps the requisite materials were rarer in Ascharon.

Why was he thinking of paper? A reflexive self-distraction. But he should not take his focus away from an official contract signing. He wrenched his attention to the papers the clerk was taking out, her explanations.

Half an hour later, he was leaving the town hall, newly confirmed owner of a diminished farm.

What was he doing?

The question washed through his whole being, a flood battering at the barriers he had erected around his roiling emotions.

"I will be leaving today," said the former owner of the land deed in his hand. "You may take possession of the house and land tomorrow."

He slipped a single gold Rimet coin into her bag and hoped she didn't discover it until she was long away.

What was he doing?

He walked to Merel's house in a daze.

"Defi?"

He ignored the alarmed call, the bumps against his legs that were the slimes calling for his attention, went up to the room he slept in.

What was he doing?!

The barriers in his mind flooded.

In a single motion, he hurled the deed against the wall. The wooden cover that protected it cracked. Bile rose to claw at his throat. He vomited into the room's washbasin. Turq bounced onto his shoulder, twice, then thrice. A comforting gesture? Defi could not smile.

He was once again tied to a piece of land by name.

Were things really so easy to replace?

**

Chapter End

**

*

Notes:

Rimet coin – this story has using this seemingly interchangeably with Ontrean coin. It is and it isn't. Unlike in Ascharon, where the same styles of coin are minted all through the empire, Ontrea has several sets of coin minted by different powerful territories. The territories containing a World Gate, of course, have distinct designs for their coins.

One Rimet gold finger was exchanged by Marmon Chacort to five Ascharon gold solstices. There are ten silver fingers in a gold. There are twenty silver crescents in a gold solstice. Judging by the Chacort exchange rate, then 1 Rimet silver finger = 10 Ascharon silver crescent. Not to mention there are 2.5 Ontrean acres in one Ascharon hecte. So yes, land in Ascharon is seriously cheaper than Defi is used to, mostly because a large part of Ontrea is desert, really.

You can't even call 8 crescents cheap, considering a single person can eat off it for three years.

According to Marmon Chacort's exchange rate:

1 Rimetian gold finger = 10 Rimetian silver fingers = 5 Ascharonian gold solstice = 100 Ascharonian silver crescents

Disclaimer: Other people might buy for different rates.