The Unsuspecting Mage (47 page)

Before the road begins its ascent from the river, they come upon a fellow traveler driving a wagon loaded with goods. “Excuse me sir,” James says as he comes abreast of the wagon.

“No son, there isn’t,” he replies. “However, there is a way stop near the top where travelers are able to rest for the night before making the descent on the other side.”

Once the ascent begins, the road climbs at a steady, though at the moment, not an overly steep pace. It continues running along the right side of the river, following the water’s path as it flows through the gorge. At times the river roars to life when making its way through an area of rapids.

As they progress deeper and deeper into the Pass, the mountainside to the right of the road becomes increasingly vertical as its vertical slope increases. Waterfalls grow plentiful as the warm summer weather melts the snowpacks in the upper elevations. At one of the larger ones James notices that someone had built a culvert or drainage system beneath the road to allow water to flow under it to the river without eroding the surface.

Being a city boy, Miko had never seen waterfalls like these and is quite impressed by their beauty and power. He pauses by one as he dismounts to fill his depleted water bottle. When he places the bottle in the waterfall, he quickly snatches his hand back when the fall’s water hits his skin.

“Oh,” he replies, feeling slightly embarrassed at not having known that. He grits his teeth and places his bottle back into the falling water and fills it. Then he secures it back to his saddle and remounts. Looking at his hand, he finds that his fingers are a little red from the coldness of the water. He’s intrigued by the water cascading down the side of the mountain and watches it until they have traveled far enough that it disappears from view.

They continue along the road, passing the occasional wagon or traveler as they progress further up the mountain. It isn’t long until they begin to hear a steady, loud roar coming from up ahead.

The mountainside on their right abruptly falls away, revealing a tall narrow gorge with a majestic, powerful, three tiered waterfall. The water, after collecting in a pool at the base of the falls, crosses under a bridge and cascades down the mountainside to the river below.

The sound of the falls is deafening as they cross the bridge spanning its outflow. Its thundering reverberates through them as they pause a moment to marvel at this wonder of nature.

“Ain’t that something?” James hollers at Miko as he tries to be heard over the roar of the falls.

“Yeah!” he hollers back. While they sit there on the bridge marveling at one of nature’s wonders, the spray from the waterfall feels good as it helps to alleviate the heat of the day.

“James, look!” exclaims Miko as he points to the pool at the base of the waterfall.

Taking a closer look, James spies three deer drinking from the pool. He nods his head, acknowledging having seen them, then indicates they should continue down the road. As they leave, Miko turns his head several times trying to capture in his mind the marvel of the waterfall and the deer below until the scene finally disappears behind trees and rocks.

The travelers encountered are few and far between, all being either on individual wagons or part of small caravans. None are very talkative as they have far too much on their minds, what with worrying about conditions on the other side of the mountains, and whether or not they will find safety there.

The further into the Pass they go, the more the road climbs away from the river. Though still able to hear the rapids as water crashes over rocks below, it has been steadily growing fainter and fainter as they progress to the upper elevations.

Upon reaching where the road widens into a scenic overlook, they decide to stop for a short break to give the horses a chance to rest and have a quick bite to eat. After getting off his horse, Miko moves to the edge of the overlook and gazes down to the river below. Having never before looked down from such a height, he is almost overcome with a sudden fear of heights. Assailed by vertigo, he backs away quickly until there are several yards of road between him and the edge.

“You okay?” James asks as he hands him a portion of their rations.

Taking the food, Miko nods his head affirmatively, “It’s just that we are so high. I didn’t realize we had climbed so far.”

“It is deceiving,” James admits. “While you are climbing, it doesn’t seem like your ascent has been all that dramatic, until you look down. Then it sort of hits you all at once. I remember it happened to me once when my family took me to Yellowstone.”

“Your family took you to go see a yellow stone?” asks Miko confusedly.

“Not a yellow stone,” corrects James, “but a place called Yellowstone. It’s a place where people go to get away for awhile and have fun.”

“Oh,” replies Miko.

After the break, they remount and travel for another hour before coming to a section of the mountain that levels out for a ways into a plateau. The plateau extends for several miles from the gorge until it ends and the mountains resume their rise. About a quarter mile off the road further back on the plateau sits a large structure, looking in ill repair. It stands four stories high with windows only in the uppermost section of the walls. A large door looms open and is slightly ajar.

“I would love to see what is inside,” admits James, and then lets out a big sigh. “But we better make the best time we can, while we can. No telling how long we will have before we run the danger of encountering the Empire’s armies once we get through the mountains.”

“Good idea,” agrees Miko, slightly more enthusiastic than the occasion called for, “we better hurry along.” With that he kicks the flanks of his horse and quickly continues down the road, putting distance between himself and the old keep.

Grinning at his friend, James quickly hurries to catch him and then together they continue down the road. The plateau area with the abandoned keep is quickly left behind.

The rest of the afternoon passes fairly quickly with more waterfalls, though none as spectacular as the three tiered one earlier. About mid afternoon, the sun falls behind the high mountain peaks to the west and the air begins turning chilly. It’s not too terribly uncomfortable at first but over the next hour, the temperature drops rapidly. Soon they pull on the jackets bought earlier in Trademeet.

“My grandfather taught me to always be prepared,” says James. “He used to say ‘It’s better to bring a jacket you’ll never need than to need the one left at home’.”

“Wise man your grandfather,” comments Miko, now warm and comfortable.

“Yeah, he was. But you know, when they are giving you these little gems of wisdom, you seldom see the value of it at the time and often see it as being a big nuisance.” James sits in thought for a while before breaking out in laughter.

Miko looks at him and asks, “What’s so funny?”

“I was just remembering when I came to realize the value of that particular gem,” he says as he begins to explain, but then pauses for a moment.

“And what happened?” Miko prompts him.

Smiling at the memory, James says, “Well, it was summertime and we planned a trip out to the coast, San Francisco was the name of the city. Now, my grandfather was telling me that I should bring my jacket, that I may need it. But it was really hot where we were and I couldn’t see the need of it. We arrived at the city and decided to go see Alcatraz, that’s an old prison situated on an island in the middle of the bay. I got on the ferry that was going to take us over there, and froze.”

Smiling, Miko is enjoying hearing about James’ little goof up.

“I told my grandfather that I was cold,” he explains. “But he just smiled and called it a lesson learned. We stayed there on that island for what seemed like a long time and I froze the entire time. I was miserable, my nose was running and I was shaking. When we finally returned to the mainland, I made a beeline toward this guy who was selling hot clam chowder and grabbed me some.”

“I’ll never forget that experience and I will never be caught again without a coat, not if I can help it.” Finished with the story, James rides along in silence for a while, silently reminiscing about home.

Shortly, he begins noticing the smell of wood smoke. He looks around for a plume of smoke that could indicate a forest fire, but doesn’t see anything. The smell steadily increases as they continue, when he suddenly realizes that they must be approaching the top of the summit and what he has been smelling is the smoke from many campfires.

Cresting the top of the Pass, they come to the way stop and are surprised at how many people are camped there. A contingent of soldiers is also there, seeming to be keeping order.

As they approach, one of the soldiers breaks off from his fellows and approaches, holding up his hand to have them stop. “Sorry, but the way stop is bursting to capacity with more coming in all the time,” he explains. “You two will need to camp a little further back down the road.”

“Why?” James asks. “What’s going on?”

“Refugees from the fall of Saragon,” the soldier explains, indicating the people at the way stop. “They’ve been pouring through the Pass for the last day or so. We made a temporary camp here for them and will keep them here until we know what is to be done with them.”

Looking like he’s tired of explaining the same thing over and over, the soldier says, “Like I said before, that’s the Captains orders and he doesn’t explain them to me.” The soldier, having said all he intends to, turns around and heads back toward the camp that has been set up at the way stop.

Going back down the road, they find a widening of the road with enough room for them to make their camp and not be on the road. James sends Miko to gather firewood before it gets dark while he stakes out the horses and gets them ready for the night.

Miko makes three scavenging trips before collecting a sufficient store of firewood to last throughout the night. James gets the fire going and has dinner started before the light completely fades. While sitting around the fire eating dinner, two men appear from the direction of the way stop and approach their campfire.

“Hello,” one of the men says.

“Good evening gentlemen,” James replies, then waits to see what they will do.

They approach a little closer to the fire and James can see that they are eyeing their food hungrily. He says to them, “Would you two care to share our fire this evening? We have enough to share.”

“Yes, we’d like that,” the other man says. “But we actually came to see if you could spare some for our families. You see we fled Saragon when it fell with nothing but the clothes on our backs.”

“Certainly,” James says, “if you don’t have too many,”

The taller of the two men almost breaks down and cries while the other says, “Thank you very much.” Turning to the taller man he says, “Silas, go and bring ‘em over.”

Silas nods and heads back toward the refugee camp. The man says, “My name is Bellon, I was a farmer before the Empire’s army sacked our city.”

“How did you get out?” Miko asks.

“When the Empire overran the walls, it was total chaos,” Bellon explains. “People were running in every direction trying to get out. My grandfather used to be a smuggler way back when he was a younger man and once showed me an old smuggler route into the city that he said no one, not even the Governor knew about. Silas and I found it and used it to get our families out past the walls. The tunnel came out in a pile of old stones a dozen yards from the river, almost two miles north of the city.”