By midmorning, the streets of Varis were crowded. Mud covered the roads, and brown water overflowed the wagons’ ruts. The streets around the Pretty Beak tavern were narrow, the houses built close to the road, their roofs overhanging the horses and wagons, which progressed slowly through the streets. People—many carrying baskets on their way to the Central District—sidestepped the wagons, and fearlessly cut in front of the plodding horses. To anyone not local to the city, the streets of Varis were a confusing and forbidding mess. It took many weeks for newcomers to the city to learn how to get from one neighboring section to the next.

Part of the problem was that depending on the section of town you started in, there might be only one connection to a neighboring section—the more expensive the section, it turned out, the less passages connected it to other sections. The only exception was the Central District. Traders, vendors, and buyers sold their goods and haggled in storefronts and across wide stretches of fenced-in areas in this district. Smoothed stones covered its grounds, making it next to impossible for anything larger than a wheelbarrow to maneuver its streets. Even with this limitation, by midmorning, the Central District had fulfilled most of the city’s trade.

The Pretty Beak tavern was built in the Builders District, which opened broadly on one end to the Central District. The Builders District was named because during the construction of the walls of Varis, it housed the builder’s guild. The builders lived in small tents in the area while they worked on extending the walls by a few feet each day. While the builders were satisfied enough to live in tents during the building, they built the stonewalls of the Pretty Beak tavern, deciding that while it was acceptable to sleep in tents, it was not acceptable to drink in those same tents, especially during the rainy season. As the wall grew at its slow pace, many of the builders replaced their tents with small lean-tos and huts in the Builders District. Even before the wall was finished, it was apparent that another section of town was near complete.

When the wall was completed, the guild and its builders moved on to other towns and other jobs. With the builders’ housing available for cheap, the servants working in other districts moved into the mostly temporary structures the builders left behind. A small industry rose up around these people, and as the Central District grew, the trading expanded into the more open and accessible Builders District.

Varis was an important trade route for boats transporting goods along the Hermanie River. The river widened out to two miles as it bent around the city, and no boat could pass through that part of the city without paying its tax to the people of Varis. During the years before the Empress conquered the nations, Varis had the reputation for overcharging the boats for over-land and over-river passage. Smugglers began a midnight industry to move goods off the boats and around the river’s way stations using small paths cut through the surrounding forests. When the Empress’s taxmen moved into Varis, he lowered the tax rate, which put the smugglers out of business, and increased the overall revenues of the city.

Shel had rolled up his trousers to his knees and left his shoes at home. During the rainy season, it was impossible to stay dry or clean. Every night, Shel would wash in the evening rain before toweling dry and changing into his shift for bed in the entrance to the hut. Shel enjoyed the feel of mud between his toes. Many of the people traveling through the streets wore wooden shoes that elevated them above the mud. Shel was still too young and uncoordinated, at least in Audrel’s mind, to wear such shoes.

He waited for Neal outside the Pretty Beak tavern. Neal lived over the Pretty Beak tavern, which his grandmother owned and ran. Audrel had made it clear to Shel that he was not allowed in the tavern unless she was working. Since it was early and Audrel didn’t work until evenings, he waited on the covered wooden porch for Neal. Neal poked his head outside the window and smiled when he saw Shel. He held up one finger and went inside where Shel heard him yell something. When he came out, he wore a thick oversized cloak with a large hood bouncing off his back. His neck was thin, as were his legs and arms, each looking like the sticks the farmers used to hold up their scarecrows.

“Did you hear the news?” Neal asked after closing the tavern door. He continued without waiting for an answer. “The Empress’s soldier arrived yesterday. He’s in the Central District holding court. I told you she would send someone.”

“You’ve been saying that for the last year, Neal. I can’t believe he’s finally here. Have you seen him yet? Do you know what he’s doing here?”

Neal smiled. “My grandma told me to stay away from him. She said he was no good, trouble for Varis, is what she said.” Neal’s smile became broader, stretching his cheeks until they looked vaguely skeletal in the overcast light. “I think he’s what we’ve been waiting for. I know you don’t like me telling you these things, but I know in that special way that he’s what we’ve been waiting for.”

Neal was convinced he knew things nobody else could know. He was very proud of this ability and bragged about it to everyone he met. His predictions were usually small, things like when the rains would stop or how many people would visit the tavern in an evening. His grandmother had taken his ability very seriously, carefully testing each prediction against what happened. It became apparent early on that his predictions were wrong more often than write, and she had since forbidden him to talk about his supposed abilities in the tavern or to her.

Shel played along with Neal, figuring that if Shel himself was to be a great hero, he would need a wise advisor to guide him, and only a wise person could possibly know the future. There was another reason Shel decided to believe in Neal’s ability: Neal shared the deep belief with Shel that they were destined for better things than the other children in town were. Shel and Neal had been planning their escape from the town and its dangers for many years, sure that given the right opportunity, they could find work with one of the many armies of the Empress, Church, or nations, a first step toward their greater destiny. The armies, their reasoning went, would see the boys for what they were: men, and give them the opportunity to do great things, something they their mother and grandmother would never allow if they remained in Varis.

“Audrel wouldn’t be happy about me looking to the Empress’s soldier,” Shel said. He used his mother’s first name when she wasn’t around. Because of the wars, few children in town had parents, and because of that to call ones mother “Ma” or father “Pa” in range of another child without a parent was to risk a beating. “But what she doesn’t know can’t hurt me,” Shel finished.

Neal jumped off the porch into the mud, catching himself on the porch banister before falling. His grandmother had recently bought him wooden clogs to wear in the streets, but he was still having trouble finding the proper balance while walking. He slid his feet forward, trying to keep the clog on his feet while he moved forward.

Shel and Neal walked through the Builders District and crossed into the Central District. They walked along the edges of the road, avoiding the bustle of traders and wagons. There were small alleys between most houses along the road, and whenever Shel or Neal saw an older child, they would duck into the alley until they decided the coast was clear.

“I heard Tommy’s been looking for you,” Neal said while they waited for a group of three boys to turn at the next curve. “What did you do now?” At times when Neal spoke, his eyes wandered in sickening circles around their sockets. Like the scar, Shel treasured this characteristic of Neal. The wandering eyes freaked out most of the other children, particularly the younger ones. The older ones would refuse to talk to him unless he turned his head away from them when speaking. His eyes became more aggravated when he he spoke of contentious items.

“I didn’t do nothing,” Shel said, peeking behind the corner to check if the three boys had turned out of view. “Tommy has nothing on me, and, besides, we’re not going to run into them today. I doubt they’ll want to see the Empress’s man, anyways. There’s too many guards in that area.”

They passed the house of old lady Puela. She sat on the porch in a crudely fashioned rocking chair, her head slowly turning to follow the movements of people or wagons along the road. A long scroll was unrolled on her lap and she held a wet pen over the parchment, stopping to scribble a note before returning to her watching.

“Ah, young man Shel and his friend Neal,” Puela said. She was one of the oldest ladies living in the Builders District. Her skin sagged so far off the bones on her face that her cheeks looked like small jowls. Her white wispy hair was almost completely gone, and a yellow film covered her river-blue eyes. Her vision remained good, however, and she took great pleasure in recording everything she saw, especially when it came to the boys. “Tell me again, Shel, what year were you born?”

“We’re on our way to see the Empress’s soldier,” Neal said. Shel gave him a little shove and what he hoped was a meaningful look. To tell Puela was as good as telling all the adults what their plans were. Puela took great pleasure in sharing the goings about of the boys with their families. “What I meant to say,” Neal said, his eyes beginning to wander dangerously, “is that we’re going to buy some fish near the Central Square, where we heard the Empress’s soldier happened to be, but, I’m not saying that we were going to go there to visit him or anything, or even to see him. It was the fish, the fish was what we were looking for, and you know they have the best fish at the market stalls at the center.”

Puela nodded dumbly as Neal rambled, and scribbled something on the parchment. Shel leaned over to try to read what she wrote and Puela quickly covered the writing with her other arm. “So you can read, eh, Shel?” she asked, cutting off Neal.

Audrel had been teaching Shel to read in the evenings before she went to work at the tavern. Not many people in the Builders District could read, and Audrel had made a point of telling Shel not to let on that he was learning the art. Audrel had one large book of writing, which she used to teach Shel. She never brought home additional works, or parchments to practice writing. Instead, she would drill Shel in the disciplines of words by having him draw the letters on the muddy wooden floor of the hut. Shel knew that scribes made much better livings in town than serving drinks at taverns, but Audrel refused to answer why she worked at the tavern and did not scribe for a better living.

The problem with Audrel’s disciplines was that they sometimes conflicted. Another discipline she had taught was never to lie, since lies had a way of becoming undone, something he had learned by watching Neal spin lies only to be caught in their web. Deception, however, Audrel had told him, was not the same as outright lying. Instead of the lies, it was best to change the subject or answer an unasked question. “What are you writing?” Shel asked, trying to peak around her arm.

Puela laughed. “Wouldn’t you like to know, dear Shel,” she said and removed her arm from the parchment. Shel continued to look, squinting his eyes and moving his head from right to left, in the opposite direction of the forming of words. Shel seemed satisfied by this and said, “it is a shopping list, if you must know.” Shel had deciphered a few of the words, including his own name, and he knew that it could not be a shopping list.

“Just let us know if you ever need shopping done,” Neal started in. Neal was always looking to make extra money. He knew and explained to Shel that they could never leave town unless they had a small stash of money for the road.

Puela waved them away and they continued toward the Central Square.

“That was no shopping list,” Shel said when they had passed out of earshot.

“Oh, what, now you can read too?” Neal asked, before chuckling and beginning to talk about starting a shopping service for the elderly scattered throughout the town.

Word count: 2,208

Words remaining: 45,785

Caffeination: Americano earlier in the day.

Feeling: Another difficult day. I came home with little written, but enough ideas to fill the page, and a bit of a headache. I struggled through the next thousand words (you can see the extreme pain by reading through the first few paragraphs), before falling into the ending. I have a bit more written, but I’ll save it for tomorrow to keep this section moving forward.