Free Wardragon by Paul Collins Page B

your mark.’
    Jelindel signed her new name. Soon she and Taggar, who had also claimed a sought-after skill, were bundled onto a small river trader, and before the hour was up, the sails had unfurled and the inland ship was nosing out of the dock and heading east, a direction it would hold for several days before the river turned north for the Algon Mountains.
    Jelindel gazed back at the dock, feeling sick in her stomach. Just before they lost sight of the river port, she saw two figures race onto the wharf, arms waving furiously. She gulped, and thought she might actually be sick.
    What was she doing? Why did she have this terrible feeling that every day counted?
    Your fate is to save magic, or destroy it. The future lies on a knife’s edge …
    Again, she remembered her vision of the future, a chaotic glimpse of things to come. She saw a thousand years of darkness, a tyranny of almost unimaginable barbarism and inhumanity. She also saw that her own actions, here and now, were pivotal: her smallest choices might avoid this darkness altogether, or extend it many times over.
    The knowledge was almost paralysing.
    Company men, stationed all around the ship, directed them to their berth, one of three large but cramped cabins. Three hundred men and women were crammed in like sardines. If it hadn’t been for the air bellows, the atmosphere would have become unbearable.
    ‘A week or more of this and we’ll be glad to face whatever is in Argentia,’ said Jelindel.
    ‘Somehow I doubt it,’ Taggar said. ‘Unless I am much mistaken, we will soon look back on this journey with nostalgia. Besides, this river trader doesn’t go all the way. They drop us at Black Tree Canyon and we walk the rest of the way. Trust me, you’ll wish you were back on board.’
    Jelindel sighed. ‘And all I wanted was a holiday.’ There was little to do on board except talk and play card games. The living areas were partitioned into smaller groups by blankets on poles, usually by people who had known each other before. Sometimes entire families, minus the younger children, had embarked, and they stayed together. Jelindel felt it was good policy not to mix, so she caught up on her sleep. She also found herself wondering about Taggar. He was an odd one. A deadly fighter, she had no doubt, and a man of honour, like Daretor, yet his honour was different, as the arcane morality of adults seems different to children. He could be as charming and sociable as any man she had ever met, yet, in the blink of an eye, could withdraw into himself so completely and suddenly that talking to him was like addressing a favourite sword. Jelindel wondered where he went at these times but she never asked.
    She could not tell if she found him attractive or not; nor did he ever seem to react to her as a woman, which in a way, she conceded, was good, in view of their predicament. But all men reacted, one way or another, and a woman sensed such things, if her orientation was towards men. But Taggar did not react. He seemed oddly oblivious to her sex, and above her likes and desires. Of course, she was now hiding behind a male’s facade! All of which made him the mystery man, par excellence, and Jelindel passed many enjoyable hours pondering the enigma that was Taggar.
    They journeyed thus for a week. Life on board the river trader was dull, though it was punctuated by the usual fights, arguments, and occasional knifing (which resulted in the perpetrator being thrown overboard). In the midst of such tedium, meals were anticipated with excitement, and whatever else one might have said about those who had hired them, they did not stint on the food. Roasted chunks of wild boar and beef on skewers, tureens of hot thick soup, fresh bread, concoctions of vegetables, and wine and beer were available in copious quantities at supper time, while throughout the day lackeys dished out bread and cheese, bowls of fruit and weak ale, to anyone who wanted it. If the abundance of food was