Aron walked steadily up the rough stone of the mountain wideway, feet under shoulders, as his father had taught him. Children of Odel were taught to walk twice. Once as toddlers, and again when they passed ten summers. They were taught the porter’s walk, a slow, deliberate tread that helped the villagers conserve their energy trekking across the steep roads and paths surrounding their high alpine valley.
Aron had hated learning it. He remembered leaping from cobblestone to boulder to grass, light as a goat, recklessly climbing a hill, and looking back to his father, far behind, a small dark dot against the broad meadow, taking each step deliberately and decisively. He had waited patiently for his father to trundle up the dirt narroway to reach him, and wondered if he would earn a dark look or disapproving speech for his lightfooting. But there was nothing of the sort. His father had only smiled, wrinkling the corners of his eyes. He had reached back into a small fold of his oiled leather pack and brought out a small piece of herbed cheese and offered it to Aron, then continued on up the hill, stopping regularly to pick wildflowers along the packed dirt trail winding its way up and losing itself in bends among the high rocks and cliffs that ringed the sky.
That was seven summers ago. Aron knew that pack well, for its weight was upon his back now. The village saddler had not yet made a pack fitted to him, so he still wore his father’s. He was taller than his father now, and leaner, so the pack did not hug him as closely as one that had been made for him, bouncing slightly from side to side, stealing precious energy from each step. He reached back, and as his father had once done, pulled a hunk of cheese from the top pocket to give him some energy as he ascended the bends of the wideway. There would be frost tonight in Odel, he knew, but for now the midday sun bore down on his curled black hair and brown skin with harsh warmth, throwing each plant and flower into relief. His father had often told him and his brothers that heat could be just as dangerous as the cold, and that in faraway lands filled with oceans of sand, men could go mad from just the sun.
He knew the path well. He was about halfway up, a few thousand hands above the bottom of the steep path, and still another few thousand hands below the valley of Odel. A cool wind brought the summery smell of birch pollen to his nose, and he stopped at the elbow of a switchback to finish his cheese and take a swig of water. Odel lay up the path, to the north. To the south and below him was the small trade town of Chana, surrounded by farmland, and then by forest. The river, which arose in the lake near Odel and was named for the village (or was the village named for the river?), was now below him and to his left, falling in cascades and rushing foam over the great blocks and boulders strewn throughout its gorge. It ran through Chana, and lost itself in ever wider curves among forested and wild hills to the south. He could see bright flashes of its sinuous length between the trees, almost to the horizon, where it descended, he knew, into dropping over a series of great flooding rapids, and eventually ran to the sea. To his east and west, the great mountains flanked the riverlands, culminating in the great heights ringing his village on three sides.
He finished his cheese, reshouldered his pack, and continued up. He was returning home from Chana on market day. The older youths of Odel, especially those like him who had not yet been chosen for a trade, were often tasked with trading goods on market day. Early in the morning, he had loaded up the pack with goods from Odel, namely, several large wheels of ripe, sweet, herbed cheese that the village was known for, and bundles of wildflowers and herbs assembled by the allopaths. Each bundle of plants was bound with strong twine, and sorted according to purpose and order. Solindra, a deep purple flower, was used to stop bleeding quickly, he knew, and he could recognize a few others, but the dozens of varieties made his head spin. Better to leave that to those who were trained. He had traded those for other goods the village needed, like refined metal for tools, glassware, clothing, and fruit from the warmer valley below. He had had to pack very carefully in order to keep the fragile goods away from the heavier ones, and he knew a misstep could get him an earful from the village elders if anything arrived broken. He especially feared the sharp tongue of the armskeeper Ghalin, a fierce old woman who trained the youths in defense and hunting, and was known to treat irresponsible villagers and anyone she could rope into listening to loud lectures about accountability and village safety.
So he was stepping carefully, looking down at the uneven stones, when a cheerful voice broke the still mountain air.
“Ho, there!”
Aron jumped, nearly losing his balance, and looked up to see a man with a crooked walking stick striding down the path towards him. Aron had not expected to see anyone else from the village walking down from Odel today, and a stranger to boot. He had not seen anyone new in the village this morning or the previous night. Before he could gather his thoughts further, the stranger reached him and stopped, and he could see the man more clearly.
The man was neither particularly young or old to Aron’s eyes. He wore white and brown linen, undyed, which loosely hung about his form, concealing his form, and carried several bags and satchels buckled to his waist and shoulders. His staff, which he leaned upon as he stopped in the hot sun, was a twisted, strong branch of black ashwood, smoothed and worn like the small pieces of seawood he had seen travelling monks carry. He had dark but lively eyes, peering intensely at Aron, above a smile with straight, brilliantly white teeth that reflected the sun. Carelines were worn into his face and forehead, and the sun had darkened his skin as it had the elders of Odel.
Aron knew of no other road into Odel other than the Chana wideway, so this man had to have come down out of the slopes of the high mountains themselves. Aron said, cautiously:
“Good afternoon. How do you do?”
The man continued to smile as he said, “I do better than most and worse than some, I suspect. I haven’t had much company to measure against lately. And how are you, my friend? Carrying yourself back to Odel in time for supper?”
Aron was intensely curious where this man had come from, but he remembered his manners. His father had told him manners could be the difference between life and death. Just in case, his hand surreptitiously slipped slowly down to within reach of the small dagger at his belt. Couldn’t be too careful. He said, “I hope to make it home before sunfall. My name is Aron.” And he bowed, for extra effect, he hoped.
The stranger responded, “And I am Vado, at your service.” and he bowed as well, a graceful, sweeping bow that put Aron in mind of a court, out of place far from any keep or castle. “Tell me, Aron, have you seen anyone else along the road today? Are you perhaps travelling with any companions?”
Aron did not know how to respond, but did not want to give up that he was alone, so he said, nonchalantly, “Oh, I think there are some others behind me. I left them at the market and headed home early.”
“It is already late for you to be headed home, is it not? Did these companions plan to stay below in Chana?” Vado’s eyes glittered with laughter, leaving Aron at a loss for words.
Vado said quickly, “Pay me no mind. I have not traded words with anyone for some time, and my manners are somewhat…rusty. What I mean to say is, I am looking for someone that may have passed you, going down to Chana. They would have been in a rush.”
“I have seen no one but yourself, sir.”
Vado’s smile lost a bit of its brightness. “And were there no strangers in Odel, these past nights?”
“No, not that I saw.”
Vado paused for thought, turning slightly away from Aron, leaning more heavily on his stick. Aron shifted uneasily from one foot to another. He wondered if he should say farewell and continue on but didn’t want to seem rude. Vado looked at him again, and seemed to consider Aron fully for the first time.
“I may have to intrude on your company for some time more, my young friend. The one I am looking for can be quite dangerous, and I would not want you to encounter him alone. If he did not pass you already, he may still be in the vale of Odel, so I fear I must turn around and accompany you back up to Odel to search for him.”
Aron was still not sure what to say. Strangers rarely made the steep trek to Odel, and those that did were usually on official kingdom business, census takers and taxmen. Vado was clearly neither, and he spoke Imperial with a strange accent that Aron had not heard from anyone, local or not. And where had he come from, if not Odel? Nevertheless, it did not seem wise to refuse the man, and he had not given him any reason to suspect his motives. It appeared he had no choice.
“It would be my pleasure to accompany you.” He said, feigning some confidence amidst his uncertainty.
“Lead the way!” Vado said, smile returning.