Assassin's Quest

Blue Lake town seems a larger city than it is because it sprawls so. I saw few dwellings of more than one story. Most were low, long houses, with more wings added to the building as sons and daughters married and brought spouses home. Timber was plentiful on the other side of Blue Lake, so the poorer houses were of mud brick while those of veteran traders and fishers were of cedar plank roofed with wide shingles. Most of the houses were painted white or gray or a light blue, which made the structures seem even larger. Many had windows with thick, whorled panes of glass in them. But I walked past them and went to where I always felt more at home.

The waterfront was both like and unlike a seaport town's. There were no high and low tides to contend with, only storm driven waves, so many more houses and businesses were built out on pilings quite a way into the lake itself. Some fisherfolk were able to tie up literally at their own doorsteps, and others delivered their catch to a back door so that the fish merchant might sell it out the front. It seemed strange to smell water without salt or iodine riding the wind; to me the lake air smelled greenish and mossy. The gulls were different, with black-tipped wings, but in all other ways as greedy and thieving as any gulls I'd ever known. There were also entirely too many guardsmen for my liking. They prowled about like trapped cats in Farrow's gold-and-brown livery. I did not look in their faces, nor give them reason to notice me.

I had a total of fifteen silvers and twelve coppers, the sum of my funds and what Bolt had been carrying in his own purse. Some of the coins were a style I did not recognize, but their weight felt good in my hand. I assumed they'd be accepted. They were all I had to get me as far as the Mountains, and all I had that I might ever take home to Molly. So they were doubly valuable to me and I did not intend to part with any more than I must. But neither was I so foolish as to even consider heading into the Mountains without some provisions and some heavier clothes. So spend some I must, but I also hoped to find a way to work my passage across Blue Lake, and perhaps beyond.

In every town, there are always poorer parts, and shops or carts where folk deal in the cast-off goods of others. I wandered Blue Lake for a bit, staying always to the waterfront where trade seemed the liveliest, and eventually I came to streets where most of the shops were of mud brick even if they were roofed with shingles. Here I found weary tinkers selling mended pots and rag pickers with their carts of well-worn wares and shops where one might buy odd crockery and the like.

From now on, I knew, my pack would be heavier, but it could not be helped. One of the first things I bought was a sturdy basket plaited from lake reeds with carry-straps to go over my shoulders. I placed my present bundle inside it. Before the day was out, I had added padded trousers, a quilted jacket such as the Mountain folk wore, and a pair of loose boots, like soft leather socks. This last item had leather lacing to secure them tightly to my calves. I bought also some thick woolen stockings, mismatched in color but very thick, to wear beneath the boots. From another cart I purchased a snug woolen cap and a scarf. I bought a pair of mittens that were too large for me, obviously made by some Mountain wife to fit her husband's hands.

At a tiny herb stall, I was able to find elfbark, and so secured a small store of that for myself. In a nearby market, I bought strips of dried smoked fish, dried apples, and flat cakes of very hard bread that the vendor assured me would keep well no matter how far I might travel.