The Wondermark Gazette

“I’d like to rent a horse, please,” I told the stall-keeper at the “Site-Seeing Tour’s” booth, waving away buzzing flies and trying to look like I hadn’t just ridden a waggon full with corpses from the site of a dirigible explosion.

To his credit, the squat, hairy stall-keeper seemed not to notice my dreadful appearance — he simply began ticking off his rental options on squat, hairy fingers. “Half-crown for one hour with small dog. Full-crown for big dog, one hour. Three crowns for pygmy-goat. Six crowns for big goat, one hour.”

Six crowns for a goat! What madness! The shabby-looking animals tethered behind the stall looked barely worth pennies. The single pygmy-goat looked like a sad old man with a massive pot-belly and a tufted tail, like my great-uncle Yancy. The few larger goats looked more robust, but still possessed of a deep, intractable sadness. Clearly, this fellow was delusional to charge so much for an animal that would likely struggle to bear my weight up those treacherous mountain-paths; there was no way I could rent a dog, or a goat. I needed some sort of equine, if for no other reason than who in the world rode dogs?

“Where else can I rent a steed?” I asked the man. “Something bigger, perhaps? A donkey, or a horse, even? Something a normal person would ride?”

He scowled at me, then turned to yell at a young boy galloping by on what appeared to be a wheezing dachshund. So many different languages these pilgrims and immigrants spoke! I considered myself worldlier than most, and yet I couldn’t begin to place this squat fellow’s consonant-heavy intonation. “Half-crown, small dog, yes?” he said, holding out a grubby hand, palm up, as if I was just going to drop money into it, which I wasn’t. “One hour, small dog, very good for children.”

“No, I need a horse,” I said, “or a donkey? You know, donkey?” I made a gesture cleverly indicating a donkey, though if you asked me to repeat the motion I don’t know that I could tell you what I did. It was a purely instinctual act. My family line was heavy donkey-breeders, all the way back to Charlemagne, I’d been told, and before him, the famed Donkey-Hoti of the Nile, Chieftain of the Donkey-Tribe. They said I had his tenacity. “I need something bigger than a dog.”

“Ah, big dog! Yes, big dog, one crown, one hour,” he said, nodding. “For you, best price.” He barked something at the dog-riding boy, who disappeared behind the stall only to emerge towing a glumly skeletal Great Dane. “Look, teeth are excellent,” the man said, pulling back the dog’s lips to reveal black, glistening gums.

“No, no. I need something that can carry me up the mountain! Something bigger!” This was beginning to become a challenge, and not the fun kind, like Uncle’s collection of puzzles made from ribald daguerreotypes. At least those had been in the universal language: love.

“Mountain? No, no. Nothing goes up mountain. Only for beach, forest. No mountain.” The stall-keeper frowned at me, as if suspecting me of some illicit intent. I was getting nowhere, and to make things worse, a line had grown behind me. A red-faced man in a bowler cap tapped his foot impatiently. “Look, some of us are trying to rent goats,” he said. “You want a donkey, go to the stables. This is dog and goat rentals, can’t you read the sign?”

I stared at the man, and at the stall’s sign with its unfamiliar squiggles and curlicues, and at the dogs and goats roaming around the area. “Terribly sorry,” I murmured, and wandered back into the crowded square. This illiteracy thing was really putting me in a bind, I hated to admit.

I knew where the town’s stables were; I’d wandered this place when it was deserted, not two days ago, and knew all its crannies, save for the hasty structures erected by merchants, supplicants and Gypsies in the interim. Everywhere I went I heard the name “Grenadon” whispered in wheezy, dying voices; as busy villagers bustled past, I also caught scraps of conversation about the Mayor’s massive banquet planned to honor the healer, set for this very night, and rumours flew that Grenadon was expected to make his grand re-appearance there. By now, my salt-induced wrinkles had largely faded, and of course the signature bright-jade was gone from my neck, smashed to dust by Peapoddy; so I was in no danger of being mistaken for the old man any longer. I admitted a certain morbid curiosity: what would happen at the banquet, when Grenadon failed to appear? Would there be riots? Would the sicklies rise up in anger and take over the island? Stranger things had happened; after all, look at Ireland.

The stables were a series of long, low buildings set back from the main road. A few thin horses trotted about a pasture behind the structures. I made for the nearest door — then froze, my hand an inch from the knob. A voice echoed through the thin wooden walls, and my heart caught in my throat — for Rikah was inside.

“I absolutely did not leave the gate open! That’s something I’d expect from you — and besides, Oat-Princess is smart enough to stay inside the pasture!” A pause; a low voice replied in murmurs too faint to discern. Then Rikah rejoindered, much closer and louder: “I can’t! I don’t trust anybody anymore! Who are all these people?”

The murmuring voice spoke again, and then Rikah: “Well, when Grenadon shows up and starts healing people, then you can talk to me. But until then–” She shoved the door open wide, and the handle struck me in the fore-head. I staggered.

“Oh! I’m so sorry! I didn’t see you!” She rushed to my side, and then her eyes went wide — I can only imagine the sight I must have seemed: half-burnt-off beard, corpse-reek aplenty, all topped with a generally dazed expression that even on my best days hasn’t served me too well in the wooing department. But did she recognise me? Without the bright-jade? I couldn’t tell. There were so many shabby ne’er-do-wells around the village that I must have looked like just another of that low class.

“That’s quite all right,” I croaked, straightening and attempting to brush some dust from my filthy coat. “I was just looking for a horse to lease, or a donkey perhaps, for a sight-seeing journey up the mountain.”

She cocked her head and searched my face, but no spark of recognition set in behind her eyes. “We’ve had one horse disappear,” she said, “and until we track her down, we’re not letting any others out, sorry.” Behind her, a barrel-chested man folded his arms and leaned on a beam, facing back into the stable, showing the two of us his massive back. Rikah turned, then sighed. “There’s a dog-and-goat stall in the square. I’d check with them.”

Before I could reply, she stood, turned back into the stable, and in the split-second before the door slammed closed, I saw her slip her thin white fingers into the big man’s hand.

The slam of the shutting door might as well have been on my heart.

As I walked back towards the square, I caught my runaway thoughts with a butterfly-net and made myself think about what I was thinking about. Why was I so upset that Rikah had a man-friend? She was in no way “mine,” nor did she even know me; she only knew my impersonation of Grenadon, her ancestor, and even that, only barely. She had never expressed any romantic interest in me. And besides, I had Lara. My sweet Lara, waiting for me, back in Easthillshireborough-upon-Flats. Maybe dead.

No! Wait! Not “maybe dead”! That was no way to think! She was fine! Everything would be fine!

When I returned to the stall in the square, the dog-and-goat-monger stared at me accusingly. “No go up mountain,” he said, unprompted. “Not my animals.”

“I, uh, don’t want to go up the mountain,” I said. “I want to go sight-seeing on the beach.”

The stall-man narrowed his eyes and jabbed at me with a thick, hairy finger. “You think you can just take this dog up this mountain? This goat? This goat is not made for mountain. You don’t know anything about goat. This goat cannot take this mountain. You will be stuck on mountain with no goat. You will be in trouble.”

“I heard the beach was nice,” I persisted, forcing a smile, wondering if I even had any money. Had I stolen any crowns from unattended night-stands and jewelry-boxes, during my survey of the village’s many residences? Had I secreted them away deeply enough that they might potentially still be on my person? How would I get an animal out of this man?

“You want my dog, my goat, you must leave deposit,” the stall-man growled. “You must sign waiver. No mountain. Beach only. Dog is good for beach. Goat is so-so, but for you is okay. What you want? Dog or goat?”

I licked my lips, suddenly chapped from the heat of my lies. “Goat,” I said. “That dog didn’t really look strong enough to carry me — I thought I might snap its spine.”

“You snap spine, I keep deposit!” the man bellowed, pounding his thin wooden counter-top, and with the creak and snap of weak construction, his stall collapsed. Boards turned to splinters; dust billowed up in a cloud. Dirty children rushed to seize anything of value, snatching away paper, bent nails, dachshunds. A big brown goat bolted away from the debris, but its tether caught it short — I quickly worked the knot with fumbling fingers, and before the stall-man could shove his stubby arms out from under the fallen boards, I was galloping away on the goat, headed for the mountain.

NEXT: Ascent

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