Chapter 42: Thinking Too Much

"Defi, my friend!" Marmocha was grinning wide on the pier, as exuberant as ever, as the dinghy limped toward him. "Visiting me? I am touched; you have caught me at the opportune time! I was about to leave when I saw your dancing style of sailing and just had to know who in the world let you at a tiller?"

Defi stoically raised the sails and pitched the line hard at Marmocha, who only laughed and good-naturedly secured the line.

Who had a 'dancing style' of sailing?

Defi had not realized how difficult it was to sail a boat. Sarel had made it seem too easy. He only needed to move the lever here and there, or so he thought. Keeping the boat level on the water was an epic story he did not wish to recount.

He sighed inwardly, a trifle depressed, wet all over, and nauseated.

Marmocha slapped him on the back as he debarked. "I'm sure you'll get better. Why, it took Sarel nearly three years to properly set a sail!"

Defi pressed a hand to his temple. "That's not comforting."

Three years? Creator, preserve him. He'd learned four spear-based fighting styles to near-mastery in three years. How did it take that long just to learn how to move a peculiarly-shaped bowl across a tub of water.

He looked at Marmocha. "You said you were leaving? Do you mind keeping an eye out for information on a certain person?"

Marmocha raised brows at him. "Not at all! I hear you added more land to your farm again?"

"I could not refuse." Defi's lips twisted, something not quite humor. The retired merchant couple who lived on his southern boundary had come to him directly. Apparently they were tired of retirement and wanted to move to a location closer to their grandchildren because the Lowpool was just too far to travel.

He really could not refuse, even if it was a plot. The old couple's retirement home bordered the river road; buying it would gain him a wider watch on the river, the road, and the land the herbalist on the southern border owned. At the very least, it prevented the complete encirclement of the homestead.

Unfortunately, it was not town land. Even if it belonged to the Garge homestead before, there were no discounts for him except what the older couple gave in concern.

Marmocha hummed, studying him. "You do not seem too troubled."

"I cannot know their reasoning if I do not know them. Right now, it's a stalemate. The only thing I can do right now is look for information and polish the battlements." And keep up the deliveries for Sarel, the visits to the orphanage, the care of his three houseguests, the long walks around the markets and shops.

The large man nodded. "I'll see what I can find. What's the name?"

"Calor Ducan." It was the name the old couple gave him. He did not miss Marmocha's reaction. "You know the name?"

"We went to the same scholarium." Marmocha tilted his head. "Odd person, liked to dress with feminine flair – a consequence of too many aunts I think he said. He was not too popular but he had a way of gathering followers and an obsession with a life of privilege. I've not seen him for many years."

"He?" Defi thought back to the encounter at the town hall, over a week ago now. "Do you mean, the lady in the company of Leraine's cousin Agreine, it's a man?"

Marmocha looked at him, looked away.

"Don't laugh. Men and women dress the same way in Ascharon!"

"Tell me you called him a lady to his face!" Marmocha wheezed.

Defi did, in fact.

Marmocha laughed harder when he saw Defi's blank expression. "Don't fret. I'll find out what he's been doing."

"Thank you. I'll owe you in return."

Marmocha winked, business done, and steered the conversation in a different direction. "What are these children that Sarel says you've adopted?"

"There was no adoption."

"Come now, do you think they can come over? My niece gets lonely when she visits from her scholarium you see."

He turned a bland face to Marmocha's wheedling. "I have to go back."

There were other things to do.

For one, his study of emblems had abruptly shifted from preservation of foods and raw ingredients to security and traps.

He wanted something similar to the sense the Current gave him when he was immersed in it. In Ontrea, alarm and security systems based on the Current were common, but he knew no alchemy or enchantment.

Here in Ascharon, the glyph system gave him a variety of options. He was surprised that Ascharon security systems were mostly in the theme of concealment or encasement. He had many ideas, even if he only had access to the common glyphs and emblems published for the use of the masses.

The couple had vacated their house yesterday and his back was aching from carrying all the furniture to their wagons. He'd already received the keys. He still needed to check what emblems were on the house and what additions can be made.

"On that boat? Young Defi, I cannot watch that again." Marmocha slung a heavy arm around his shoulders that could not be dislodged and dragged him toward the house. "Have you ever flown?"

Defi stopped struggling. "We're taking your winged carriage?"

Marmocha looked knowingly at him.

Defi boosted Marmocha's arm off his shoulders. He straightened his clothes calmly. "What are we waiting for then?"

"It's fine to show enthusiastic passion when you're young, you know!"

"I think this is a regular amount of enthusiastic passion for any age. If such passion is indicative, you'd be younger than me, you know."

"Who'd want to act like an old man?" He turned to grasp Defi's shoulders suddenly, seriousness on his face. "My young friend. You are too old for your age. Think of when you're older, wouldn't you be closer to death then? We die when our soul gets old."

"I thought it was the soul that was immortal?"

"Bah." Marmocha let him go and waved the thought away with an expansive gesture. "An excuse not to live while actually alive."

"I assure you," Defi smiled at no-one in particular, baring his teeth in the delight of a stalking predator. "I am very much alive."

Marmocha saw that peculiar smile and paused in his re-checking of the carriage harnesses. "Well, you do look a bit more animated than usual. Do you only do that when you're in conflict with others?"

"Oh no," Defi said, his smile not changing. "I prefer the quiet life."

Marmocha shook briefly in silent laughter. "Yes. There are indeed many people who prefer the quiet life in the Lowpool."

Defi could only quirk his lips at that muttered observation.

The carriage lifted them up slowly.

Below them, the lake stretched further than Defi had seen yet.

The Lowpool was deceptive in name.

It was a lake, high in the central mountain range of the Ascharon mainland. The lake itself was of no significant size, just sixty kilomar at its widest, and approaching a hundred kilomar in length. It grew from the turbulent Little Treachery in the shape of a jagged teardrop. The Overpool, at the other end of the Treachery, was a quarter the size of it.

The majority of the Lowpool was bound in high cliffs, with only small pockets of actual shoreline. The town officially named Sottolac, containing some two thousand souls, was packed into the largest bit of shore. Another thousand or so were scattered around the central town.

It was a town of fishers and farmers.

At first glance.

The population of the town had a peculiar cohesion, and a strange draw to the Lowpool. Those children that left, unlike other similar towns, returned to live and work and have children. People left all the time, but they returned all the time as well. The town had many craftsmen compared to other towns of similar size because the sons and daughters of the Lowpool returned to stay, full of new skills and knowledge. It had an oddly relaxed diversity because ideas from outside flowed into the town and remained, allowed to grow in the next generation.

It was why Defi's first impression of the town had been 'larger than expected' – perhaps subconsciously drawing on the Current. In fact, for a town of two thousand, it was packed into a space smaller than most other communities of similar population.

Defi's thoughts, flying high above the lake, were not on the Lowpool however.

He leaned out the window, to see the team of winged goats soaring in formation above them, harnesses dangling the carriage box under their broad wings.

A peculiar carriage.

He retracted his head, and closed the window, upon being buffeted by high winds.

"Where are we going?" Defi thought to ask, suddenly, now that his enthusiastic sightseeing had calmed somewhat.

Marmocha smirked. "Sarel's. Those kids of yours would like a ride in a winged carriage, wouldn't they? Just far enough to see my lovely niece. Don't worry about transportation. I'll be back by nightfall. Or they might even stay the night. That would be a nice treat, wouldn't it? Much better than that austerely old-mannish house of yours."

Defi struggled not to groan. "Why would you think they'd be with Sarel?"

"Where else would they be? You bring them everywhere unless you enter the town. You don't know the workers on your farm enough to leave them there."

"It's not that I bring them. They just follow me everywhere. I've left them alone before."

Marmocha snorted. "Tell me, where is Turq?"

"That's different. That's just making sure they don't get eaten."

It took mere minutes to arrive at Sarel's homestead and Defi's head was full of plans to acquire his own winged steeds. Perhaps there was a flying ox?

"You're not even thinking of how someone's trying to force you off that place of yours, are you." Sarel eyed him with some annoyance and amusement.

To the side, Marmocha pitched his case to three skeptical children who had neared his carriage to pet the winged goats.

Before he could answer, Markar sidled up to him.

"He's mostly harmless," Defi answered the silent question.

Markar frowned.

"He really has a niece. Whether you stay the night is your choice. If you do, come straight here in the morning." He thought for a moment, then reluctantly said. "You can take Turq with you."

Markar's frown eased, and he returned to his siblings' side.

Defi ignored the knowing look and large grin Marmocha was sending in his direction, turned back to answer Sarel.

"Thinking too much on a problem creates shadows where there are none. In any case, whatever they want the land for, it does not involve me at the moment." He had seen people move beyond the western boundary in the dark, when he had been positioning alarm emblems that would inform him if people crossed into the homestead.

She snorted.

A person Defi did not see earlier leaned out of Sarel's window.

"They seem to be settling in," yawned Lemat. "They'll likely be in town for some time, so you're fine going about business as usual."

Defi watched as Sarel's brows thundered toward each other, digging deep trenches as they met. Her jaw stiffened and her eyes sparked.

She said, from behind gritted teeth, "This idiot decided to involve himself on his own."

Lemat did not appear to notice her fury, only smiled cheerily at Defi.

Defi returned his smile quizzically, but the man did not elaborate the reasons he did what he did. They had met during the smuggler incident, and the man who was ostensibly just another farmer in the Lowpool did seem to be going through life from whim to whim.

As long as Sarel did not warn him away, Defi decided to only keep watch. "By the way, Sarel. You didn't have anything to do with the couple on my southern border, right?"

"Why would I have?"

He smiled. "Nothing. As I said, shadows where there are none."

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