Destiny's Road

16 Twerdahl Town

He traveled at the frost line. At dusk he dipped into the snarl of plants below for fruits and any vegetables he could eat raw. A fool cage gave him a pigeon the second night: he risked a fire, and a gunshot for some spiny Destiny beast that thought he looked edible.

Two days, two nights, and at noon he'd reached the naked V of frozen lava above Twerdahl Town.

Two lines of houses ran for several klicks between the mudflat and the Road, with acres of cultivated land between. Twerdahl Town hadn't looked this big the first time he'd seen it, coming straight from Spiral Town.

Falls ran down the V, converged in streams, then ran across the flats into green and black swamp. Tim hadn't noticed, the first time he'd seen this place, how gradually the swamp formed. A wide band of dark, wet topsoil bloomed sparsely in a flood of sunlight, black touched with bronze and yellow-green.

Rice. Rice would grow well here. He'd tell them to plant rice, if he could find seed rice or buy it from the caravans. Pulling up Destiny weeds would be no trouble. They didn't like this much light.

He found a memorable place to hide a gun and bullets. He secreted his three speckles pouches in the hidden pockets a merchant favored. For the rest of the day he watched.

Surfers rode the waves. People worked the gardens, and fished. A man rode a bike along the Road. Three people came out of the swamp carrying a snake. Fires burned along the salt flats.

No sign of messengers from the distillery. Twerdahl Town might not be involved in that, but... wait for sunset.

After sunset Tim discovered that he wasn't willing to go down. Quicksilver gave no light; it was merely the brightest star. Climbing down slick lava in the dark could get a man killed, but wading through a snakeinfested swamp... insane.

He'd go down in the morning. He'd been hiding too long. It was becoming a reflex.

At dawn he started down. There was brush to cling to along the edge of the lava shield. He could see boards out on the water. He hadn't surfed in a long time.

By the time he got down, sunlight penetrated even into the swamp. He waded in.

Black Destiny vines were growing all over everything. High time for another weed cutting! Of course that only meant that the autumn caravan was coming soon. Meanwhile he must crawl through black vines and black water, slashing at snakes with his own weed cutter.

At the Road he washed as best he could. Then he climbed out and dripped.

The bicycle was coming back. Tim watched it come. Had it gone as far as Farther? He didn't recognize the man on the bike, but he would when the man got closer.

The biker saw him. Tim called, “Hello! I-”

The bike wheeled hard right and disappeared among the houses.

Tim strolled after it along a dirt path between houses. No chance of catching a man on a bike! He was yelling. Suddenly Tim knew the voice:

one of the Grant boys, the oldest, a skinny nineteen-year-old. Two rows of houses, and cultivated land between. Tim turned downRoad, He knew his own house, there at the end, and he started to trot.

Loria came out. Tim called, “Loria-”

She froze. Behind her came a man, a big man carrying a baby. Behind them, Tarzana Bednacourt, pregnant; and then Gerrel Farrow.

The man touched Loria's arm and spoke. The four moved briskly between houses and were gone.

Tim gaped.

Now what? Go into the house to wait? Whatever was going on, it would be over presently. Meanwhile Tim could clean himself up and get fresh clothes. He hadn't given much thought to what he must look like.

But he had to know. This all felt very wrong. He walked between rows of orange and grapefruit trees, between houses and onto the mudflat.

He was facing half of Twerdahl Town. Most of them were carrying farming or fishing implements, and that wasn't strange, but they carried them like weapons.

He thought again: what must he look like? He dropped his plumeless hat and combed his hair back with his hands. It might help.

“I'm Tim Bednacourt!” he shouted.

Men and women (no children, no elderly) moved to put Tim Bednacourt at the center of an arc. Loria and the man with the baby were standing way too close together, mutual protection in frieze. The man was Ander Cloochi, son of the town's master farmer.

Tim was moving from exasperation toward panic. “Berda Farrow, you taught me to cook! Tarzana, don't you know me? Loria!”

“We know you,” Susie Cloochi said. “Tim, what happened to you?”

“Long story. But I-look.” He dropped his pack and was about to open it when everyone took one step forward.

“It's a shell,” he babbled. “Scrimshaw.”

Ander motioned him to go ahead.

Tim untied the pack, one-handed, and dumped it. He didn't need to conceal anything in the pack. He fished out the shell and pointed Out the pictures. “Chug. Shark. This is done on a lungshark shell. That's an Otterfolk. I had an Otterfolk shell too, but I gave it away. What happened to me? Everything you can imagine, Susie, and then some. I've sailed a boat. I can cook in styles you never imagined. I've seen the blind side of the Crab.”

“You don't seem to be speckles-shy,” Susie Cloochi said.

And suddenly he knew what he looked like.

He was wearing a trader yutz's glare-bright clothing, though it hung in rags and dirt. He'd traveled on the far side of the ridge for a long, hungry time. He was gaunt. Worst of all, he was here, with the caravan twenty days away. A wanderer not following a caravan was a bandit.

And a thief; but they couldn't know about the stolen speckles can. In a way that made it worse. A speckles-shy bandit might do anything.

The corner of his eye caught motion, way upRoad around the toolhouse. He couldn't spare the attention. “Test my mind,” he said. “Test my memory. I gave you the bicycle Tedned Grant was riding. Ander,

Gerrel, you helped me build that oven. I taught you bread! I remember getting married, Loria. Ander Cloochi, is there something you'd like to tell me?”

“We're married.”

“Now, I'm still new among you,” Tim said, “so I have to ask-“ Loria burst out laughing. It didn't seem she could stop. Ander said, “No, Loria can't have two husbands.”

“But you both, you all knew I'd be back.”

“But not now, damn it, Tim! We'd-Loria would have had time to decide.”

“Is this what happened to Haron Welsh?”

Loria's laughter had trailed, off. She wouldn't meet his eyes, now, but she nodded.

“Went off with a caravan. Came back. Found out he wasn't married? And you thought he'd tell me?”

Nod.

Ander put the baby in her arms, and stepped in front of her. “So, you're here. What happened to you, Tim?”

“At the Neck they trade yutzes. The autumn caravan was every trader who ever-” He was so tired and so miserable. Tim felt he was about to faint. He didn't dare. “-ever watched me shoot a man. I had to run. I took enough speckles to get me here.”

At the corner of his eye, motion. Three or four older people at the door to the toolhouse. He recognized Julya Franken by her long white still-lovely hair, and remembered when he had last seen her.

She'd been handing out blades on the day of the weed cutting.

The four went into the toolhouse.

“You're not speckles-shy,” Susie Cloochi decided. “You took enough speckles-”

Tim stooped and picked up his open pack. And ran straight at Tedned Grant.

“-from who? Tedned!”

Tedned was a skinny boy/man who flinched from big waves, or wrestling, or quarrels or confrontations. Still he was no runt. With all eyes on him, he tried to get his fists up. Tim knocked him aside and dodged between houses.

He emerged between high rows of corn, with nobody in sight. Paths ran between the garden plots. He pelted upRoad, counting.

Tedned was behind him, not catching up.

Tedned had run his bike between houses rather than meet Tim in the Road. There ahead, those houses. When Tim had next seen him, the bike was gone. Tedned must have dropped his bike and kept running, yelling into every house he passed. And here were the houses, and one was the Younger Grants' house, and the bike was leaning against a wall.

Tim was too late to board the bicycle as Tedned came running up. It wasn't as if Tim had choices. He couldn't make for the water, not yet. He left the bike and ran at Tedned. Tedned got his arms up and Tim punched between his elbows, a quick one to the solar plexus, the heel of his hand to the nose.

Now the bike. They had let grit get into the gears. It started slow. He pedaled past Tedned, who was curled up and trying to find his breath.

Twerdahl Town's defenders were pouring between the houses now, and others would be running along the mud, but Tim was ahead and moving considerably faster than a running man. He could see the toolhouse, the last building upRoad.

Well short of the toolhouse, he turned again. Between the houses. Out onto the mud. Off the bicycle before it got mired, because Tim Bednacourt was no thief.

DownRoad, a horde was running toward him, though they seemed out of breath. UpRoad, only four, and they all looked as old as Julya Franken. But they bristled with weed cutters.

He might have escaped them, he thought, if he'd turned toward the Road. But then what? He'd stopped alongside the surfboards lined up along the wall of the Elder Bednacourts' house. Tim snatched up the biggest and held it over his head as he ran for the water.

They tried to follow him, of course. A few were better surfers than he was, and they were hot on his tail, but he wasn't surfing now. Once beyond the waves he need only paddle.

Paddle for his life, slipping over the water, on and on. The ache in his shoulders grew until it swallowed everything else, while the current carried him southeast.

Ultimately his pursuers were too far from Twerdahl Town for their comfort, too close to Spiral Town, and they turned back one by one.