Chapter two

Orlinir Flow

The Numen sits quietly by her fireplace, in an old rocking chair. Hieronymus stays with her, as he always does.

As he makes a little sound, she looks towards the door. Someone coming eh, Hieronymus? Who might it be?

Hieronymus blinks his golden eyes at the Numen.

* * * *

Arkady Svalbarad rode south, down a rutted and little used track. He urged his horse forward at the best speed the tired beast could manage. Ajax lifted her proud head and neighed, her chestnut flanks glossy with sweat in the late afternoon sun. The sand dunes on either side of the track sent up wobbling waves of heated air and blocked the cooling breeze from the ocean. Arkady retrieved a water skin from his saddle and took a long drink, and poured a little of the water over his head in a vain effort to keep cool. The heat of the southern summer bothered him now, though as a boy he had labored outside for hours on hotter days than this. But it was many years since his wanderings had taken him this close to the land of his birth.

Arkady had been traveling for many months — still he rode easily in the saddle. Once he had learned everything he could at the university in St. Ekaterina, he had taken the road as his companion and teacher. For four years he had been an itinerant scholar, and had seen much. Now, he felt called by his homeland, Beaumarais, and the desire to see his family again. He had written, ages ago, to say he was coming, but spring storms in the Gulf of Angar’et made it impossible to get passage down the coast on a trading vessel. But Arkady was nothing if not patient, and he bided his time on the coast working as a fisherman’s jack, hauling in nets and checking lobster pots. Such hard physical labor contented him, for his mind could roam freely where it desired, while at the end of the day his body was pleasantly ready for food and sleep.

Ajax stopped, having spied a patch of tempting looking grass off to the side of the track. “All right, girl,” he said, lightheartedly. “I am ready for a break too. How about if we set up camp, here, in this shady spot?” He dismounted in the lee of a high dune and stroked Ajax’s ears fondly. “Tomorrow we will rise before the sun, and make up the lost time in the cool hours of the early morning.”

In the distance he heard the whistling cries of sea birds, a familiar sound after so many days aboard ship. Arkady smiled ruefully, remembering how long it had taken him to get his sea legs. The blond sailors of the Dalvolk had laughed at him as he spent unhappy hours those first few days at sea with his head over the side of their wooden, two-mastedKnar[iv] ship, his face pale and sweaty. Nevertheless, they quickly befriended him once they found he could speak their tongue. Arkady helped them make trades as they made their way down the coast, for