Chapter 13: Happenstance and Harmony

I had help getting out of my dress and in removing the makeup that had been so judiciously applied. I had a final wash and scrub and then I was off to my room. The minute the door closed behind me I let the whirlwind of thoughts and emotions back from where I had managed to banish them.

Sid McKesson had almost kissed me at the door, and I was waiting for him to do it!

Sid McKesson had a skystone like mine, and we had felt each other through them in some way since we were young.

Sid McKesson was tall and, and beautiful, and I shouldn't be thinking that!!

I had to call up my tracker's discipline, or I would have never gotten to sleep, and if I ever needed to be fresh and alert, tomorrow was going to be it!

My dreams were filled with strange moments of double vision and hints of a man's smell that was new and familiar at the same time. Despite them, I woke feeling energized in the morning and rode Spark over to the seafoam cottage to gather my gear before morning meal. I was wearing my leathers as I ate, and Pleasant commented on it.

"You seem eager to go riding." She commented with a smile.

"I am." I answered. "I haven't had anyone to ride with in a long time, and I'm looking forward to it."

"I see." She said, managing to imply with those two words that indeed, she saw a lot more.

"I do have Sid McKesson issues." I said. "I understand that I have them without understanding them at all. There is something both mysterious and amazing between us, and who knows where its going. Don't start to tease me about it yet. Its too soon and too impenetrable a mystery for now."

"Of course, River." Pleasant said. "Its just a nice development to have something to tease you about at all."

"You mean someone, don't you dear?" Trip added.

"You're almost as bad." I said, poking my fork in the air at him and smiling.

I was wearing my summer weight leathers, the ones from Scallop Yrevesan's shop in Demethia, and I had all my throwing daggers, my best staff, my favorite bow and my hunting arrows. I was dressed to kill. But in a good way.

Hah! I was back to feeling like River in this outfit. The dresses and jewelry were nice, but they weren't really me, not the central me, the core person, daughter of Hobby and Bane Dambro. I took a little time getting Spark ready to go, refusing the Kilber's stable hand's offers. This morning it was all going to be about rider and horse, and nothing to do with living in a manor and having hired staff to do things for you.

The Seacroft Inn was a well-known landmark, and I had the pleasure of riding past the Seacroft Stables in order to reach it. I saw Trunk Gurmot and Sid immediately, both sitting comfortably on their horses, waiting for me.

"You weren't sitting here too long waiting were you?" I asked.

Neither said anything at first, until finally Sid spoke.

"Sorry, but I'm sure Trunk was doing the same thing I was – burning the image of you in those leathers into permanent memory."

"Are those throwing knives?" Trunk asked, quick to change the course of the conversation.

"Yes they are, and I've been told I'm pretty good with them too." I answered.

"I've never considered them as an option before. They look like a custom set. Did you have them made for you?"

"No, someone else did and didn't live to collect them from the smith who made them, so I got them on the cheap, sort of. Did you guys pack a midday meal?" I asked.

"Nope." Sid answered. "Fixings, bread and a bottle of our favorite wine, but we figured you'd be leading us to something we can cook up for our meal if we're gone that long."

"This is just a chance to get the horses some exercise, right?"

"That's it." I answered.

"Let's get moving then, shall we?"

"So this is the horse Trip Kilber gave you?" Sid asked.

"Yes, this is Spark." I replied.

"This is Grinder." He said, giving him a stroke on the neck.

"And this is Sheer over here." Trunk called. "These two have been right with us all the way during a pretty long haul."

We can go east towards the rising sun and hit the trail that goes out to the far tip of the peninsula, or we can go north and follow the old smuggler's trail, or we can go west with the sun at our backs and take the badlands trail towards Thasp.

"I'd like to ride with the sun at my back I think." Trunk said. "But the name smuggler's trail sounds intriguing."

"Well, I first heard the name from the fishermen who dropped me off at the beach where it starts on the north shore of the peninsula. They told me the trail had been used to smuggle contraband in and out of Seacroft for generations, but I didn't find out what that might be."

"Did they say if the trail was still being used?"

"Oh, I already knew it was, some smugglers had been spotted from the sea when part of the fishing fleet ran into some weather." I answered. "But I saw signs of it on the trail when I first followed it here, and I've seen sign of it again since then."

"That's very interesting." Sid said. "Do you know what they're smuggling?"

"No, and there's been something about it thats begun to bug me, too." I answered. "There are always lots of fresh shoe and foot prints, and some hoof prints from horses, but there are no signs of carts making ruts in the ground, no sign of anything heavy passing up or down the trail."

"Interesting indeed." Trunk said.

"Lets climb Chart Hill." I said suddenly.

"Chart Hill?" Trunk asked.

"Yes, its that high hill there, about ten miles away. The trail to Thasp runs right past the start of the climb, and its less formidable than it looks. The horses can make it the entire way."

"A good overlook?" Sid asked.

"Yes, and there's a nice place there to have a picnic. We can cook whatever you bring in." I said.

"I see. That's how its going to be is it?" Sid said with a wicked grin. "Shall we match for it?" Sid asked Trunk.

"Why bother? Trunk said. "You'll win anyway, because I can see you want to do this. You just go ahead, I'll stay here and sweet talk River."

Sid rode along with us for a short while, and we settled into a companionable silence, enjoying the feel of the sun on our backs. When the trail swerved to move around a small washout, Sid moved off the trail and left us.

"Want to bet?" Trunk asked.

"On what?" I asked.

"He'll be back in less than thirty minutes."

I considered that. This wasn't prime territory for much of anything, but there were things you could come across if you were careful, especially at the upper end of the wash where it hit a small creek that ran into a wooded ravine a few miles north.

"What's the bet?" I asked.

"You win, I'll cook our midday meal and do all the cleanup after."

"And if you win?" I asked.

"You give Sid a kiss."

"Trunk!" I said with some genuine indignation. Some.

"C'mon River, I've been watching the both of you since last night. You want to kiss him, he wants to kiss you – as far a I can tell you two have been dancing around each other's spirits since you were kids, and from clear across Arbor at that!"

"Are you so forward in your own relationships?" I asked.

"Yes I am." Trunk said.

"And Sid?"

"Well, no, Sid is definitely not." Trunk admitted.

"Well neither am I." I answered.

"We'll see. One of you is going to get unpredictable, I have a feeling."

We hadn't gone another mile when Sid came riding up out of the brush and low ground beside the trail with two rabbits tied to his saddle horn. He had a cloth in his hand, bulging with something as well.

"Looks like rabbits and blueberries for midday meal!" He said.

It had been less than thirty minutes, as Trunk had predicted, and that included stopping to pick blueberries? I blushed as I thought of loosing the bet Trunk had wanted to make.

"What?" Sid said, seeing it on my face.

"Trunk wanted to make a bet that you would be back in less than thirty minutes, but I wouldn't bet him." I answered.

"I would have cooked our meal if I lost, and she would have had to give you a kiss if she lost." Trunk said. He laughed a liquid, boyish laugh that was hard to keep from joining. Sid did join in the laugh. I managed to escape with just a smile.

"My loss I guess then." Sid said. "So I must be the one cooking the rabbit."

The trail to the top of Chart Hill slowly revealed more and more of the landscape, and the endless ruggedness of the peninsula. We gathered firewood as we went. There would be none at the top, I warned, and that did slow us down a bit.

The top of the hill was a grassy slanted meadow with a single thickly branched pine in the middle of it. The pine's root system seemed to bulge up out of the ground beneath it, and the limbs grew far to close to the ground to make it useful as a shade tree, but there was a nice flat rock to the northwest of it that gave a perfect view of what appeared to be the entire northern and western reaches of the peninsula. There was a fire ring there already, and not put there by me. People had been coming here to enjoy the view for a long, long time.

Sid took his declaration to be our cook seriously and began skinning and preparing the rabbits while Trunk and I built the fire. There really wasn't a lot of meat on the two rabbits, but with the blueberries and the bread and wine, it would be a decent picnic.

This did feel like a picnic I decided.

"This feels like a picnic." Sid said.

"I was just thinking that myself." I said. "I used to picnic with my parents all the time, before. We had our favorite spot, in a meadow with a solitary tree, beside a river."

"You just described my favorite picnic place perfectly." Sid said.

"Different tree, different river." I suggested.

"My mom gave me my skystone when we were picnicking at our spot." Sid said.

"My mom says that our picnic spot was where my skystone showed up around my neck, while we were picnicking." I answered.

"Spirits! Listening to you two is starting to creep me out." Trunk said.

"Sorry my friend." Sid said. "Last night while you were all discussing shipping in the parlor, River and I were finding out a few things. These skystones used to belong to my parents, and my Dad gave River hers and my mom gave me mine, all when we were very young."

"Why?" Trunk said. "That has to be the big question, doesn't it? Why would your dad cross almost the entirety of Arbor and pick out a seemingly random girl and giver her a skystone on a necklace?"

"Some of the things that make my father a wizard are gifts and talents that come with being who he is, of being a McKesson. Other aspects of his being a Wizard can definitely be called gifts from the Spirits." Sid said. "One of those Spirit-given gifts, though it has been more like a curse as far as my relationship with him has been ... One of those gifts lets him see the future, like little scenes. Often those scenes leave him 'knowing' exactly how to make those scenes come true. Every action he must take, or avoid taking is made evident to him. He says it is sometimes painful, the message and the need to act upon it."

"Then that could explain his avoiding you so much in recent years." I said. "There's something he could do now that would wind up affecting the scene he has seen, and the outcome of the scene is too important to him to risk that."

"That is my assumption." Sid said. "He has acted upon the scenes he has been shown in regards to me in the past, and to dramatic effect."

"The thing you mentioned on the trail?" Trunk asked.

"Yes. Dad put me in the place, and brought forth the conditions that triggered it." Sid said.

"Will I get to hear about that?" I asked.

"I'm sure you will eventually. But not today, okay?"

While I had been sitting on the rock having this conversation, Sid had been cooking and Trunk had been prepping. We had cooked rabbit and toasted bread slices to put them on and we each had a handful of blueberries. We had wine, in travel cups, but it was truly delicious. Had they said this was there favorite? I could see why.

We ate our meal and drank the delicious wine, and for a moment the conversation lapsed, except for a comment here and there about the food and drink and the sun shining on the hill.

With the fire dieing down and the food digesting, I stared west and sighed contentedly. Sid must have caught my sigh.

"This is a beautiful spot, and peaceful. It would be a good place to meditate."

"That it would." Trunks said agreeably.

"Do you two meditate?" I asked.

"Yes, it is yet another thing that Sid has taught me." Trunk answered. "Do you?"

"No, I never took the time to try it." I answered. "Sister Amble, my arms master with the Sisterhood was always trying to get me to meditate. She swore it would improve my stick work."

"You received instruction in the staff then?" Sid asked. "Are you any good at it?"

"Not as good as I am with the knives, but I was better than any of the men in the Dry Hills Clan."

"Alright!" Trunk said with enthusiasm. "I sense a little stick work coming on!"

"Not here." Sid said. "Maybe later, down in the dirt and off this hill. This hill is too peaceful."

I had to agree with that.

"What about meditation?" I asked. "I've never had a better reason to start than this."

So we sat in a circle, the three of us, close enough to reach out and touch each other, but not touching.

"You have to open yourself to everything that isn't you, but without reaching out to any of it. The world can reach in and touch you, but you do not reach out. Instead, you are fully within yourself." Sid said.

"For me, the key was to first find a place inside myself where nothing existed except my self." Trunk said. "Once I could find that place, I could begin to let my consciousness flow out to fill up the rest of me."

"That is one approach, a device. Closing your eyes is a device. Chanting a phrase repeatedly is a device." Sid said.

I already knew about that place inside myself where nothing existed except me. I went there a lot when I worked within a river. It was the rest of me that I was unsure of, but it was a start at least. I did close my eyes, but I resisted the urge to try one of the chants I remembered hearing the Sisters droning every morning from the Pontir Tower.

I must've lost myself in something, because Sid had to gently rouse my attention when it was time to go. We gave the horses a good rub down before we saddled them back up, double-checked to make sure our fire was out.

"This is a peaceful place, and the view is incredible, but at the same time it really gives you a good understanding of why Seacroft is so isolated out here on the peninsula." Trunk said as we stopped to take one more look from the top of the hill.

"That's really why I chose to bring you here first." I told them both. "You needed to see what the peninsula is really like. The people who live here are isolated from the land by this rough, broken terrain, and we are isolated from the sea by the miles and miles of unbroken sea cliffs that separate the small handful of suitable locations, and then most of those locations are isolated due to their exposure to the open sea. Sheltered anchorage is hard to come by."

"Can we ride out on the smuggler's trail tomorrow?" Trunk asked.