The Path to Burmal

As identities go, they're nothing. Just a futzing of the first four letters of their names. Scant as it is, the cover safely delivers them to the nearby town without anybody particularly questioning them. Well, everyone's too busy mourning.

Processions in the streets and radios prattling with news. Tears and public speeches. Black in overwhelming vogue. Being that they haven't changed clothes since the funeral, Raum and Reyl fit in.

A woman belts a eulogy from a podium in the town square. She looks a commoner, not someone who would've personally known the aristocratic Whitewoods. But she weeps with the passion usually kept for family.

Everyone in the country is invested. Scenes like this are unfolding in towns like this all across the land. It’s camaraderie you’d never see in Ordanz.

Though not bold enough to publicly speak, Raum does quietly mourn. Reyl, though she allows the break, just seems impatient to get moving.

Days pass and inn fares accumulate with still no contact from Aquila. The public sadness shifts to fear, fear to suspicion, and suspicion to anger. Raum mingles in the tavern with freshly-formed bands of local vigilantes, trawling for information. Apparently, a cultist hideout has been found outside the city of Indris. After proving himself useful as a cook, one group invites himself and Reyl aboard for a two-week wagon ride to Indris.

Still keen to wait for Aquila, Raum is conflicted about going. Reyl is not. For one, they’re running out of money. For two, even if the rumour’s already old, it’s still their best lead. And for three, there is no contact. It is inconceivable for this much time to pass without a Crown envoy contacting them. Trivia, for whatever reason, simply lied and skipped town without telling Aquila their whereabouts.

Raum dislikes her theory, but can't justify staying. They load their scant supplies onto one of the group’s wagons and disembark for Indris.

A few days into the journey, their navigator diverts off the main road. Their two weeks of travel, it turns out, is only two weeks with a shortcut.

Their proposed path cuts across a large salt flat, then over a short mountain pass, which will deposit them in a valley near the town of Burmal. There they'll rest, rejoin the main road, and cruise the last half-day to Indris.

It's not an untested route, but neither is it popular. The salt flat retains wagon tracks poorly and floods itself clean after heavy rains, so all navigation relies on a handful of natural landmarks — which the flat's mirages easily confuse. But to reach Indris quickly, and with the most people, this is the route to take. Apparently.

Raum realises, rather belatedly, how disorganised the venture is. Between the party's enthusiasm, the navigator's confidence, and the absence of a ride back, he swallows his misgivings. When Reyl flashes her knife and advises that they'll at least be fine – it's not exactly heartening.

They have two wagons, four horses, ten people. Most are vigilantes, and most of those are veterans from the Tyrant's Reign. Their navigator is one of good renown, adept in reading the stars. They reach the salt flat without complications.

A sheen of rainwater still covers the ground. It perfectly reflects the blue sky and rolling clouds above, a mirror from horizon to horizon. About a week's distance away, a faded ridge of mountains rims the panorama.

It's beautiful. But dangerous. Everyone withdraws securely into the wagons to avoid splashes. But as the wheels draw only light trails in the water, Raum lets himself admire the view lazily, even as the days turn, and blue sky disappears under a blanket of thick, pale clouds.

They stop for a lunch break one day, as usual. Not as usual, everyone's busy – engrossed in a card game, feeding the horses, maintaining the wagon, or in the navigator's case, inspecting their route. Raum shrugs, grabs Reyl for moral support, and enters the navigator's wagon to pass him his lunch.

He has his maps out, transfixed. Raum conversationally asks how the work's going, which startles him out of the zone. Going well, he replies, and gestures the twins over to recount their position, the time left to travel, and the nearby landmarks. He points out a dip in between the mountains nearby and notes it as the mountain pass joyfully.

Raum is horrified. The positions are wrong.

The navigator's route shows them going north-west to this point. Raum and Reyl know they've been going north-east since the clouds came in. He's led them several days off course and is only veering further astray into wilderness. Raum tries to explain, but his interjection only confuses and offends the navigator.

For one, he says, the pass is right there. For two, what makes them so confident he's wrong and they're right. Have they been paying attention to the landmarks? Do they even know what to look for?

As Raum scrambles for a plausible lie, Reyl concedes the navigator is right. It’s come: she's thinking to ditch them. Raum blurts out, he's Ordish.

The confession shakes the navigator, but not because it convinces him. Many of Phoenix Valens' wickedest slaves were Ordish and relations between the countries have always been bad. Their involvement in something so patriotic, and tied to the cult, is not just strange, it’s suspicious. The navigator alerts the group to the twins’ nationality, and after some brief discussion and questioning, they decide to install a guard on them during travel then leave them to Burmal’s authorities. But even recognising they are Ordish, the navigator refuses to adjust the group’s course — his mistrust has only strengthened his conviction.

That air of unease persists into the night. As people sleep, Reyl whispers to Raum that they hijack the wagon and split. Raum agrees they can't follow the navigator, but won't abandon the group to wander into fuck-knows-where mountains. Frustrated, he tries his radio, but as he knows, there’s no reception. Their guard cuts in. He agrees with Reyl.

Nobody would confess they were Ordish unless dire circumstances forced them. Whether they’re cultists or not doesn’t matter, paranoia has eroded the group’s sense. Raum pleads for him to warn the others, but he refuses — he’s not losing this opportunity to run. While he readies the horses, Reyl sneaks into the navigator's wagon and (by Raum's insistence) quickly traces, not steals, a copy of the map. Dawn approaches.

The twins hide in the wagon while the guard wakes everyone up. They've run off! He announces. Go, search, search!

Once everyone alights, the guard grabs the reins and cracks the horses to motion. Reyl joins the guard on the driver's platform, map in hand. This way, she instructs.

Behind them, their camp, the group, and the remaining wagon shrink into the distance. Raum, once again, achieved nothing.