Heart of Dorkness

“There she is!” Pedro calls out from where he’s standing next to the driver of the wagon behind our own.

Felix and I have been cooped up in the back of this wagon for most of the day. The caravan stopped during noon, for food and to give everyone time to go visit the woods nearby, but other than that, it’s been in constant movement.

I guess it only makes sense. Monsters tend to roam in packs, but they stay within an area and most of them won’t bother chasing anything too far. They’re a bit lazy on the whole.

That means a caravan moving at a good speed should be able to slip through a lot of monster territories in quick succession.

I stand up, and with a hand wrapped around the pole at the rear of the wagon, lean out so that I can see ahead of the caravan. There’s only one cart in front, and it does nothing to block the view.

Montele looms large ahead of us.

A wall pushes out and around, the top of it uneven as it follows the dips and bumps in the terrain. That doesn’t change how impressive it is. The thing has to be at least twenty metres tall, with bigger towers every hundred metres or so. I can see yellow banners flapping in the wind with the kingdom’s crest on them. Ahead of us is another walled section, this one a good ten metres taller than the outer wall, with a large rounded tower that encompasses the entirety of the gatehouse.

The woods are cleared for quite a ways, leaving plenty of room for guards to see any monsters coming. A patrol of them is out by the walls, six men in armour, riding on horseback along a path made of beaten dirt.

There’s so much to look at. The guards atop the walls, the towers within the city that are big enough to be sticking out, the mountain range that juts out of the ground like a brown wall. The mountain is probably the most impressive thing. It’s right in the middle of the city with the tallest peaks just barely dusted with snow at their tops.

The gates swing open, and, to my surprise, we’re let in immediately, the shadow of the gatehouse passing over us and sending a chill down my spine.

“Is it nice?” Felix asks.

“It’s certainly big,” I reply. “Not sure about nice.”

My nose wrinkles as the wonderful scent of a city with thousands of people living in it hits me. “It smells worse than Santafaria,” Felix says as we pass under the gatehouse and into a large walled courtyard.

Drivers dismount from the wagons, and I see Pedro climbing off of his and extending a hand to what can only be a member of the city guard.

“I think this is our stop,” I say.

I really don’t feel like being inspected or taxed or anything, so slipping away now might be for the best. I hesitate over our bags. There’s... nothing important in them, I don’t think. Food that will spoil soon and not much else.

“Leave the bags here; we’ll be less suspicious without them, I think.”

“We don’t have much other stuff,” Felix says.

“That’s fine,” I reply.

I help her jump out of the wagon and then look around. There are plenty of guards, all of them in gambesons with yellow tabards over them. Their hats, equipped with long, dyed feathers, are similar to those the guards over in Santafaria had, though these look like they’re better maintained.

At the end of the courtyard is a second gate with a doorway next to it.

I take a deep breath. “If anyone talks to me, interrupt them and tell them that your miss is busy,” I say.

“Uh, alright?” Felix agrees, though she sounds confused about it.

I nod and start walking ahead the way Mom walks. My back is straight, my shoulders are set, and my nose is raised just a little. I can’t walk with my head entirely back, not with my hood on.

My steps are sure and fast, like someone that has somewhere to go.

There are two guards by the portcullis, and both of them snap-to when we come closer. “No passage until the inspections are over,” one of them says, the younger of the two.

“The Miss is busy,” Felix replies from over my shoulder.

“Uh, well, okay?” the guard replies.

I sigh. “Open the door, please,” I ask. It’s polite, but it’s also an order.

“Um, no?” the guard says. “We need to wait for the inspection to be over.”

“Fine then,” I say.

I stay where I am.

The guard stares. “Uh?”

“I’m waiting for the inspection to end,” I say.

“I... guess,” he says. “You’re just going to stand there?”

“Until the door opens, yes,” I say. “Do you need any kind of identification? Perhaps you want to search my person?”

“No, no, we don’t do that,” he says.

“Then we’ll all stand here and wait,” I say.

The other guard, older and looking tired, sighs and reaches back. He undoes a bar on the door and shoves it open. “Welcome to Montele,” he says.

“Thank you,” I reply before walking past, Felix on my heels.

I don’t pay attention to where we’re going, only noting that there’s a sort of open plaza on the other side of the gate down a long road. Instead I turn into the nearest alley and glance around for company.

“That was something,” Felix says.

“I didn’t want to wait around,” I say.

We’re in the capital, after... quite a bit of an adventure to get here. We don’t have much gold left: five or six coins and a bunch of change. I won’t be able to bribe my way past as many obstacles.

“Now what?” Felix asks.

I was afraid she'd ask that. “I have no idea,” I admit. “The books probably made it here safely, which means we... basically need to find and secure them, somehow. Then we need to figure out how to get the books back to Mom. That’s... well, I suppose the logical thing to do would be to break it all down into manageable parts and tackle each one in turn.”

“So, what’s the first part?” Felix asks.

I rub my chin. “I guess lodging? Then... then we find out where the books are being kept. We can hardly plan anything without knowing that much.”

“Oh, that shouldn’t be hard,” Felix says.

“It shouldn’t?”

Felix shakes her head. “Come,” she says, one hand extending to me.

I grab it, and she pulls me deeper into the alley.

“Do you have a copper?” she asks.

“I have some boille,” I reply as I start fishing in the pockets of my skirts. The same skirts I’ve been wearing for multiple days. I’ve done worse, of course. Sometimes a reading binge goes on for long enough that one must sacrifice some essentials like eating and sleeping and bathing, but it’s been three days and I’m afraid I might start to stink soon.

I shake those thoughts off as I fish out a copper coin and give it to Felix.

She pulls out of the alley and stares ahead for a moment. The homes here are nearly all built with two storeys and quaint little balconies on their topmost floors, often with flowers or nice vases as decor.

Felix probably doesn’t care for any of that. She pulls me along, only slowing down as we reach another, thinner alley. We pause by the entrance, and Felix lets go of my hand to move in with slow steps. She stops before a pile of cloth on the ground. “I’m looking for something,” she says.

The pile of cloth moves, revealing a crease-lined face covered in grime. “Yeah?” the man asks.

“Books,” Felix says. She raises the coin. “Where can we find books?”

The man’s eyes barely register the coin, and he doesn’t seem all that excited. “Can’t you spare a little more?”

“No,” Felix says.

The man grunts. “The Grand Library is past the yellow pavilion. It belongs to Semper.”

Felix tosses him the coin. “Which direction?”

“North, then east. It’s on the mains.”

Felix nods, then turns to me with a beaming smile.

“Well done,” I say. I didn’t know there was a big library here. Then again, that’s not too surprising in a city as big as this. “Alright, that gives us a first objective.”

Libraries are the best, so there’s no going wrong visiting one!

***