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Start with the long view.
A blade of rock cuts across the ocean, a mountain range so high that it’s white for more than half it’s height with snow slowly compacting into ice. There’s the slightest hint of more mountains behind it, but that’s hard to tell from here.
Look closer.
Down at the base, it’s not just rock and pounding waves. The terrain flattens, forming a plain which gently slopes up towards the foothills of the peaks & down towards the water.
In one direction, a massive glacier has slowly carved a path, first a valley in the mountainside, then a sprawling river delta. The other way, the coastal plain widens and slowly descends below the waves.
Closer again. Look at the centre.
The giant glacier isn’t the only source of water, and wasn’t the only thing carving this landscape. Waves have eroded the edge of the plain, creating a meandering cliff stretching out beyond the horizon. Streams from the distant mountains have carved deep gullys down to the ocean, so the coast forms a seemingly endless series of somewhat sheltered coves separated by wave-pounded rock.
Closer still. That one there.
Buildings cling to the sides of the valley, stone where they’re exposed to the ocean spray, wood further in and further up. Anything flat enough to hold some soil has been turned into a garden, anything that could be terraced or have a planting box put on it has one, and with winter receding, there’s green all around.
Boats have been pulled up the stone & sand beach, well above the thin line of debris left by the waves. Beside them are frames with great clumps of nets, drying in the breeze. Just uphill sits a ramshackle building, stone on the seaward side, wood elsewhere, sporting a row of chimneys from which faint whisps of smoke drift.
A stream still trickles down the valley, a fraction of the torrent it must have been to create the place, pushed off to one side by a smoothly curving stone path which winds down the centre and out into the waves. Mostly constructed from a rough grey rock, the blocks fitted so closely that you can barely see the seam, with a glass-smooth ridge on either side, just tall enough to trip over if you’re not paying attention.
More gardens are clinging on at the top of the slopes, trying to grow despite the lack of shelter on the plain, surrounding a squat wooden tower with flags hanging off it. A man with a watering can works his way along the rows of plants, walking back to a barrel at the base of the tower to re-fill between rows. Below him, trudging down the stone path between the ridges, a much younger man carries two buckets using a pole over his shoulder, heading towards a small pool & wier in the stream partway down the valley.
1
Dann held the second bucket at an awkward angle, trying to get as much of it into the little pool as possible without overbalancing & falling in. He carefully pulled it out, setting it down beside it’s counterpart & watching with satisfaction as the water lapped at, but didn’t quite overflow, the downhill edge.
“Nicely done!” came a call from above.
He leaned back & squinted at Miller, who leaned against a railing at the edge of the valley wall & grinned down, waving his watering can.
“I’m almost done up here, but the barrels could do with a few more loads to top them off.”
Dann carefully positioned the buckets, delicately stepped into the middle of the path, and started the trudge back up to the top.
“Why’d you put the pond down far down?” He grumbled. “It comes right to the top of the valley.”
“Wasn’t me.” Came the reply from Miller, who was walking slowly along the top to keep pace. “I deepened it a bit with the weir, but the pond was already there when I got here. I did try putting one in up the top, like you say, but it kept spreading out and making a marsh, even when I dug a hole.”
Dann reached the top & slowly turned, looking down into the village.
“There’s not a lot of people down there who use that particular stream for water,” He started, thoughtfully. “But I can’t imagine anyone being keen on marsh water.”
Miller shook his head & lead the way back towards the tower.
“No, they were not. Filled it in pretty quickly after figuring that it wasn’t going to work.”
He looked over the edge again.
“I tried lowering a bucket on a rope, but the angle doesn’t work. Even if you throw it far enough out to hit the pond, you’re pulling up against the slope, so it catches & spills.”
After emptying his buckets, Dann joined Miller at the edge, peering down accusingly at the pond below.
“There should be an easier way than walking up and down, but I can’t think of what it is.” He thoughtfully mimed a fishing pole. “Couldn’t lift enough with fishing gear to be worth it, and it’s not that big a problem to be worth building something special to get right above the water.”
“True.” Miller nodded. “One time I saw a sort of wheel thing that lifted water, in a town down the coast, but it was huge, taller than a house; Had people walking inside it to make it turn.”
Dann raised his hands at Miller’s speculative look. “Oh no you don’t! Don’t even think it.” He picked up the pole & buckets. “I’m already doing half the jobs nobody else wants in this village, I’m not adding a walk to nowhere to the list.”
“You got the rough end of that one,” Miller conceded. “No boat work means you’re first in line for everything else.”
Dann glanced up at the tower. “Don’t suppose you’ve heard …” He began.
“Not even a whisper.” Miller shook his head. “There’s enough boats for almost everyone, enough smokehouse space for almost all the current catch, so …”
“… Not a lot of drive to add to the fleet.” Dann glumly finished the thought, turning to go. Miller grabbed a bucket of his own and followed in Dann’s wake.
—–
A half-dozen trips later, Miller & Dann sat against the full to the brim water barrels in the shade of the tower, watching the sun setting behind the distant mountains, passing a bottle back & forth.
“Wonder if anyone’s ever climbed those.” Miller mused. “The view must be amazing.”
“I’ve been told it’s a view to die for.” Dann offered with a grin, which faded at a confused look from Miller. “Remember that merchant from last year who’d come from Landfall? Sold you that looking box thing?”
At Miller’s nod, Dann continued.
“He said there’s a stone path winding up the mountains out towards the Great Rivers that gets so steep it cuts back and forth across the slope, and you can look straight down onto the path you walked up. People have tried climbing it, but most don’t come back; He said it steals the breath from your lungs the higher you get.”
They both stared at the last rays of sunset for a while.
“View’s probably not all that good.”
“No, odds are it’s not worth it.”
“Tavern this evening?”
“Absolutely.”
2
Miller gradually surfaced into consciousness, fighting the soothing sounds of rain against canvas trying to lull him back to sleep. Gradually he started to wonder why he could hear rain on canvas, and not against a roof or shutters, and why his bed felt so hard.
Opening his eyes didn’t help; Everything was dark.
Experiments with moving his limbs revealed that he was wrapped in a blanket & covered with heavy canvas, and after finding an edge to stick his head out of, lying on the weatherbeaten wooden boardwalk outside the tavern, mostly sheltered from the rain by the buildings eves.
Dim memories of the previous night filtered back, along with the beginnings of a headache.
A lot of drinking, obviously.
A sudden rainstorm that turned the valley stream into a torrent.
Dann & a few others persuading him that walking back up the valley was a bad idea, and him deciding that he’d wait it out on the tavern porch.
Miller draped the canvas over a hook and concentrated on neatly folding the blanket without getting it wet, then re-draped the canvas over himself and ventured out into the rainy morning.
First stop was Dann’s family home, where his attempt to stealthily return the blanket was ruined by Dann’s grandfather, who was sitting on the porch watching the sunrise, watching Miller’s splashing approach with a broad grin.
“I owe Dann one now; I thought you’d wake up at some point & go home.” He reached out & accepted the blanket. “How’d you know it was one of mine?”
“Who else would weave the stone paths AND waves as a border?” Miller grinned, then pointed into the house. “Dann still asleep? I might need to borrow him later.”
“Nope.” A shake of the head. “He’s on the smokehouse again, so he sleept there; Easier than going back & forth in the rain to keep those bloody fires going.”
Miller grimaced.
“I hated that job when it was my turn. Boring, time consuming, AND unpleasant.”
“Don’t forget thankless.”
“Good point; Nobody cares how good a job you do, but everyone has something to say if you make a mistake.” Miller complained. “More smoke leaks out the walls than the chimneys, but I’ll bet anything that’s wrong is still on Dann?”
A nod.
“I’ll go see him before I head back up. Want me to take him anything?”
The older man rummaged around under his chair & came up with a cloth-wrapped bundle.
“Breakfast sandwich; Sorry, I don’t have one for you though.”
“Thanks for the thought.” Miller nodded. “I’ve got plenty up at the tower, and it’s not looking like I’ll have much boat-spotting to do; Not in this weather.” He leaned out from under cover and squinted accusingly at the rain, then pulled the canvas over himself, nodded a farewell, and started picking his way back towards the village centre.
—–
Encased in a nest of blankets, Dann peacefully dozed.
—–
Miller painstakingly inched the smokehouse door open & slipped inside, peering around in the gloom. Spotting a shape slumping in one corner, as far from the coals as it was possible to be, he crept closer, a sly grin on his face, then pulled up short when an object in the shape’s lap made a sleepy ‘prttt?’ noise and opened one yellow eye.
Leaning carefully over, watched suspiciously by the cat, he angled his rain-cloak & directed a stream of water down the back of Dann’s neck.
Absolutely nothing happened.
Miller reached out & lifted Dann’s hat, revealing a short stack of barrels wrapped in a blanket.
“Sneaky little bastard.” He muttered, petting the cat & replacing the hat. “Wonder why I never thought of that when I had this shit duty?”
Walking back to the door, watched by the cat, Miller slipped back outside, softly closing the door behind him, then stifling a scream as a cold hand grabbed his ankle.
3
Miller stared in horror at the ice-cold hand gripping his ankle, trying to pull free of it’s grip. With a mighty heave he wrenched free, then overbalanced and tumbled back through the door, sprawling on the floor.
The pale hand groped at the doorframe, was joined by another, and as Miller watched, a shrouded figure pulled itself into view. It slowly raised a hand and pushed back it’s hood.
“Miller?” Dann asked sleepily. “What’re you doing here? You hate smoked fish.”
Miller threw the sandwich at him.
—–
A few minutes later, Miller & Dann sat on the steps of the smokehouse, sheltering from the rain under Miller’s canvas.
“Thanks for this.” Said Dann indistinctly through a mouthful of bread & cheese, and holding out the rest of the bundle. “You want some?”
Miller shook his head.
“I got stuff up at the tower, and with this weather, I figure I can take the time to cook myself something.”
“And you weren’t suddenly struck by a hankering for preserved fish?” Dann shot him a look. “Even though it’s awful?”
“Yeah, what’s that about?” Asked Miller. “Why were you hiding outside, and what’s with the fake Dann in the corner?”
Dann smirked.
“Someone keeps taking stock, and of course I get blamed for miscounting or taking a snack or something.” He grumbled. “Usually only one or two a night, and not every night, so I’ve been waiting by the door to catch them. Fake Dann is there so they think I’m asleep.”
“That’s a good scheme.” Miller said, thoughtfully. “But why the hell would anyone steal a fish in a fishing village? And why from here, when there’s an entire storehouse full of the stuff just sitting there?”
“No idea, but I’m getting sick of them knocking down the frames or throwing off the count, and I’m getting really sick of cheap shots from Kerman about it.”
“Yeah, Kerman’s an asshole.” Miller sighed. “Good fisher, bad person.”
They stared at the rain for a while, then Miller slowly got to his feet.
“I could use some help with something later today, if you need an excuse to escape for a while?” He offered. “Saw some lights out on the plain a few nights back, so I’d like to go see what’s out there. Not important enough on a boat day, but there’ll be no boats out in this, and … I’d rather not go alone?”
Dann looked up in surprise.
“It’s probably nothing, but just in case it’s not, it’d be nice to have some company.”
Dann nodded and finished his sandwich.
“I’ll come up a bit after sunrise, shall I?”
“Thanks.” Miller adjusted his rain cover. “Good luck with your fish thief.”
He splashed off up the stone path.
On the other side of the smokehouse, unobserved by Miller or Dann, the cat dragged a fish through a gap in the wall & scampered off to a nearby cottage.
4
Dann and Miller trudged along the stone path, hunching over to let their rain-cloaks take the worst of the weather.
“The big sticks I understand,” Dann remarked. “But I don’t understand the little skinny ones. Why do we need little skinny sticks?”
“For poking things, of course.”
Dann risked the rain to make a rude gesture at Miller’s back.
“You know that I could have stayed in the fishy smokey place, right?” He asked. “Or gone to bed, or any number of other things that aren’t this?”
“That’s true,” Conceded Miller. “And a fair point.”
He turned and gestured back towards the distant tower.
“This is further from town than you’ve been before, right?”
“I think so, yes.”
“The land slopes down a bit up ahead.” Miller pointed & started walking again. “So all the rain that’s falling on the path runs down towards the low point. It should drain out these little holes that someone bored under the ridges, but they get blocked by dust and dirt.”
“So unless we want wet feet, we need to clear those out as we go?”
“Yep. It doesn’t get very deep, but it’s deep enough to be annoying, and I don’t want to be walking back in wet shoes.” Miller thought for a moment. “Wetter than necessary shoes.”
—–
They walked carefully along the ridges, keeping each other balanced by hanging onto either end of a staff carried between them. Periodically Dann would poke at the ridge under Miller’s feet, or Miller at the ridge under Dann’s, and they’d walk cautiously on.
“It never gets too badly flooded around here,” Miller explained. “But in the rain it’s muddy off the path and wet on it.”
“Do you know what we’re looking for exactly?” Dann asked, poking the accumulated muck out of a hole under Miller’s feet & watching the water on the path flow out. “Aside from lights that aren’t there anymore?”
“Not exactly, no. They looked to be right around this area, but moving sideways, towards the mountains. There’s a joining of paths up ahead a bit, and one of them cuts through this one and the two that run parallel, so I figured the lights were probably on that path.”
Dann gave him a confused look.
“OK, but … Why does that matter?
“Because there’s nothing out here.” Miller explained. “That path runs to the cliff edge and breaks off at a collapsed part of the cliff edge; No village, just a bunch of fallen stone and some weird looking islands in a line further out. The other direction heads towards the mountains, but there’s nothing up that way either.”
“So if there’s nothing in either direction,” Dann thought aloud. “And they didn’t come past us before or after you saw the lights, … “
“Then what the hell is someone doing out here in the middle of nowhere?” Said Miller. “And is it something we need to be worried about?”
—–
They stood, watching the last of the water drain away, and carefully stepped down onto the thin film of mud covering the stone path.
They walked up the gentle slope towards the junction.
“And this is definitely where the lights were?”
“Not definitely, but it’s the only point of interest out here, so as good a place to start as any.”
They reached the junction and stopped. Another stone path intersected this one at a shallow angle, then curved off gently towards the coast.
Miller leaned out & started drawing in the wet earth with his poking stick.
“There’s two more paths parallel to this, maybe 40 and 80 paces towards the mountains. The other one heads for the coast and off a cliff.”
Dann looked around, first towards the coast, then towards the mountains. He put his head on one side, then stepped onto the ridge & peered out at the paths in the distance.
“What do you see?” Asked Miller.
“Something’s missing.” Dann declared, then marched forward, reached out, and poked his stick into a gap in the stone path, feeling out the extent of the hole. “There should be a block here with a little piece of ridge on it; One that twists so that the ridges run down towards the coast, not along it.”
Miller walked up and joined him, poking at the ridge on the other side.
“This one’s gone too.” He looked around, gripping his big stick. “Those things are heavy, and they drop straight down. There’s no way they slipped out or floated away.”
Dann mirrored his stance.
“So those lights you saw were someone messing with the path, you think?”
“Had to be; I can’t see anything else out here being of interest.” Miller shrugged. “Not clear on why though.”
“Merchant wagons.” Dann replied. “Not the little ones that people pull by themselves, but the big ones with the animals pulling them.”
Miller made a ‘go on’ gesture.
“Small wagons are light, so they can just carry it over the gap, or bump over it if they don’t see it in time.” Dann explained. “But you can’t do that with the bigger ones; They’re too heavy. So you’d have to find the missing pieces, or build something up in the hole, and maybe repair the wheel, and all that time you’re stopped in the middle of nowhere, right on a path that nobody uses.”
“And everyone uses the path closest to the coast.” Miller muttered, looking up and down the path, then starting to go through his pockets. “Dann, what do you have that’s brightly coloured?”
—–
As they walked back, Dann kept looking over his shoulder.
“Will it work?”
“Should do.” Miller replied, turned to look at the bright blue banner tied to one of the poking sticks, limply waving over the junction. “The stones & mud in the missing-piece hole should stop it from falling over, and it’ll be visible for miles even without the looking box or the tower, so if a merchant comes along, they’ll at least see it and hopefully stop in time.”
“And if whoever put it there comes back & takes it down?” Asked Dann. ” They’d have no warning then.”
Miller grinned a nasty grin.
“True, but I’d see that it was gone, know they were there, and round up a bunch of folks from town. And then we’d all go down there and beat the shit out of them.”
They resumed the walk back to town.
“The extra flag was a good idea though.” Miller commented. “That far out it’s hard to spot from the junction, and tying it flat to the path means it’s hard to miss.”
“Those damn holes may as well make themselves useful.” Dann grumbled. “And maybe it’ll make someone wonder why it’s there, tied to the ridges & under their feet, and go a bit carefully.”
Miller paused again & looked back.
“Best we can do under the circumstances. No point in rounding up people to fix it if whoever did it can just disable it again.” He said. “If there were more towns around here with towers we could pass a warning message back using the flags, but …”
“There’s shit-all out here.” Dann finished the thought.
They set off again.