Read Online Star's Reach by John Michael Greer - Free Book Online Page B

it was prentice
duty to go fetch food for me. So I sat down at an empty table and
watched the mists burn off the river for a bit, until he came back
with bread and chicory-brew and two big bowls of soup. I don’t
think either of us said a word until most of that was gone.
    “Have you been to Melumi before?” Berry asked
then.
    “Not me.” I considered him. “You?”
    He grinned. “No, but I always wanted to. You
think they can figure out the letter?”
    It’s a funny thing, how once you make a
decision, it’s easy to think up reasons for it. I nodded, as though
the trip to Melumi had been my idea all along. “They ought to be
able to tell us what a potus is, and the rest of those words. I
figure it’s the best first step.”
    And of course it was, and I’d agreed to do
courier duty for Garman as well, but right then the thought of
going to Melumi didn’t need anything practical to recommend it to
me. That’s common enough; I’ve met farmer folk who couldn’t read
their own names if you helped spell it out for them, who daydreamed
about going to Melumi just to look through glass at the books and
the scholars, and ask some question that didn’t matter to anyone so
that a scholar in a gray robe could look up the answer and tell
them.
    Ask most people and they’ll tell you that the
scholars know everything. Ask people who read and write, and know a
little bit about the world, and they’ll tell you that the scholars
know most everything that matters. They’re as wrong as the first
bunch, but compared to what most of us know nowadays, they might as
well be right. Meriga’s come down a long ways since the days when
Deesee was above water, and there are countries in the world that
are bigger and richer, but the Versty at Melumi, with its shelves
and shelves and shelves of books from the old world, is one thing
we can still be proud of.
    Berry was still grinning. “I’m ready.”
    “I bet.” We finished up the food, and then he
ran to get his things and I went to my tent and started packing.
Not that I had that much to pack; prentices don’t have much chance
to load themselves down, and the only thing I’d had time to collect
in the day I’d been a mister was a hangover. So one leather pack
was enough for clothes and tools and all, with a little bag of
keepsakes down in the bottom of the pack: a ring that had been my
mother’s; a bit of wood carved to look like a horse’s head that I
got from Toby, who was my best friend among the prentices for most
of four years and got reborn when a building fell on him; the
little star of yellow metal the government gave my mother after my
father died in the war; and a butterfly of the same yellow metal
that was a parting gift from Tam—and I’m going to have to write
about her one of these days, since she’s part of my story and part
of what got me to this bare concrete room here under the desert at
Star’s Reach.
    By the time I’d gotten everything packed,
Berry showed up with his pack over one shoulder. He was just about
hopping, he was so excited, and I couldn’t fault him for that. Me,
I was stuck halfway between being just as excited, and worried that
I’d just pitched myself into something way too deep and dangerous
for me. Gray Garman’s words about people who might kill to get the
letter I carried were on my mind; so was the fact that I had no
notion what I might do if we got to Melumi and the scholars
couldn’t tell me what the letter meant.
    Still, I swung my pack up onto my back, got
it settled, and tried to chase the worries out of my head. I tied
the tent door open to let Garman’s prentices know I was gone, and
Berry and I turned our backs on the ruins and started walking. The
day was turning clear and, thank the four winds, not too hot for a
change; a couple of buzzards circled way up in the sky, which is
supposed to be a good sign for travelers, though nobody’s ever told
me why.
    Just north of camp we went over to the
riverbank and walked