Taking Flight

Kelder shrugged and smiled wryly. That much he could do; it was only things involving breathing or his throat that were painful.

“Anyway,” Valder went on, “Ezdral didn’t drown, but he came out of the river still screaming at Irith, and mad at you, and me, and Asha, and just about everybody else. Not that I blame him.” He sighed. “I had the soldiers keep him, and they took him back to Ethshar when their relief arrived-they’re well on the way by now; that was hours ago.”

Kelder blinked. “What…” he began, and found he didn’t have the breath to continue. He tried again. “What will happen to…” Again, his wind gave out.

“What will happen to him there?” Valder guessed, and Kelder nodded. “I don’t know,” Valder admitted. “I asked them to try to find him a job, maybe clerking for one of the guard captains, but I don’t know if that’ll work. If not, I suppose he’ll wind up in the Hundred-Foot Field-but that’s better than the back market in Shan, I’m sure.”

Kelder swallowed carefully, readying his throat, and asked, “What is the Hundred-Foot Field?” He had wondered that ever since Azraya had first mentioned it.

“Oh, don’t you know?” Valder smiled. “Well, Ethshar is a walled city,” he explained, “and it was built during the Great War, when the walls and defenses were serious business, so it has what is probably the biggest, fanciest city wall ever built. It goes around three sides of the city, and the fourth side is the waterfront. There’s an entire army camp built into it on the east side-they call the area near there Camptown, as a result. Even so, though, if there was a real war, and the city was under assault, or siege, the wall isn’t big enough to move all the troops and equipment you might need from one spot to another, and it’s too big to man and equip the whole thing constantly. So there’s a strip of land just inside the wall that Azrad the Great declared had to always be kept clear to allow troop movements, a strip extending one hundred feet in from the inner side of the wall. The inner edge is a street, naturally-Wall Street-but nobody needs a hundred-foot-wide street, especially when you can only build on one side of it, so the rest is an open field. That’s the Hundred-Foot Field. The penalty for building anything permanent there, even just a few bricks stacked up, is death.”

Kelder still looked puzzled, and Valder added, “And since it’s the only place inside the wall where nothing can be built, including fences, and since it goes all the way around the city, it’s where all the beggars and thieves live. It’s a sort of labor pool, too-anyone who hasn’t got a place will wind up there, and some of them aren’t thieves, just down on their luck, so when someone needs workers and isn’t too particular, he can just go to the Field and give a shout, and usually get half a dozen. I used men from the Hundred-Foot Field when I built this inn, two hundred years ago.” He smiled reassuringly. “Ezdral could do worse than winding up in the Field, believe me.”

Azraya had not been so sanguine about it, and she had actually lived there, while Valder presumably had not. “It doesn’t sound any better than Shan,” Kelder said bitterly.

Valder shrugged. “Well, you can’t save someone who doesn’t want to be saved,” he said, “and at least you got the spell off him, so he has a chance now, once he calms down. Besides, Shan on the Desert is dying, it’s been declining for a century-nobody wants to go all the way out to the end of the World, and now there are other places to get most of what Shan sells. The Great Highway isn’t all that great any more; it used to carry three times the traffic it does now. Most of my customers here are bound to Sardiron or one of the Ethshars; those are all healthy and growing.”

Kelder was mollified, but not entirely convinced. He had wanted to do better in his role as champion of the downtrodden. He had found Asha a place, here at the inn; he had wanted to do the same for everyone he had traveled with.

Of course, Azraya had gone on ahead, and he had no way of knowing what had become of her. And now Ezdral was gone, as well.

That left Irith-and himself, of course.

“Where’s Irith?” he asked.

“Downstairs,” Valder said. “Would you like to see her?”

Kelder nodded, and Valder left.

A moment later Irith peeked around the door, a worried expression on her face. “Kelder?” she asked. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” he said. His voice cracked.

The shapeshifter slipped into the room and took the chair Thetta had used. “You’re really all right?” she asked.

Kelder nodded.

“Oh, good!” Irith said, smiling. “You were so silly, jumping in after Ezdral, when you know you can’t swim! I mean, I didn’t realize it was that important, that you were going to try to save him yourself if I didn’t. I mean, really, Kelder, that was dumb!” She giggled nervously, a laugh like a bird’s song.

Kelder stared at her.

Not that important? A man’s life, not that important?