Goodie Filster leaves town, that’s how long. Maybe it would
be even better if you were gone for good. Permanently.
Forever.”
We climbed down from the roof of the Cats & Kitties, and
he took me by the arm and ran me back to his office. I could
hear people fighting in town all the way there, and I
wondered how they could keep it up for so long and
wouldn’t they be tired of it all by now, but obviously they
weren’t yet.
Jarvis kept me inside his office long enough to give me
a blanket, a bag of bread rolls with no sugar, some cheese,
and a skin he said was full of water but which was really
only half full of ale, which I hate and have already poured
out. Then he said, “Just get out of here. It’s for your own
good as well as everyone else’s. You can’t stay here any
longer until Goodie Filster’s out of here.”
And I said, “Where can I go?” And he said, “Gods, you
idiot, anywhere! Just get out of this town. She’ll kill you if
she sees you here!” And I said, “But what about Ark? Can’t
I go see Ark?” Then Jarvis called me a name that means my
head looks like my backside and told me to leave, so I left.
I walked and walked until I was past the Dormens’
farm, which was as far as I’d ever gone away from town in
my whole life, and then I went around a hill I always used
to look at when I was small but had never visited, and I
looked back one last time at the town and felt like part of
my insides had fallen out and been left behind, and I missed
Ark terribly but didn’t know if I could ever go back, because
things were in such a mess.
There was smoke drifting over the town near the water-
front, but I couldn’t see if it was from Goodwife Filster’s
bakery or someone else’s place that was burning up. I turned
around and walked on down the road, scuffing my feet in
the dust and kicking rocks and holding my blanket and
wishing I was dead.
I thought of you, Astinus, and Ark, and I was ashamed
because I had promised to do my best to find out if anyone
understood the Cataclysm, but I had done it all wrong and
now I would never get to be a real scribe, much less an
amanuensis. Even worse, I was afraid that because I
couldn’t find out the answer to the question, then something
would go wrong someday and no one would know what to
do about it and it would be all my fault.
But even this was not as bad as missing Ark, because Ark
is my father, even if he isn’t my real father, because he took
care of me when no one else would, and I knew he would
be upset with me, and I missed him so much that I just
couldn’t feel anything at all. I was empty inside and knew I
would be empty forever. I wasn’t even hungry anymore.
I walked a long time, but I didn’t walk very fast. Part of
me wanted to keep on walking forever, but I got so numb
and tired that I found a rock under an oak tree by the road
and dropped my blanket and satchel and just sat down and
didn’t move at all. I must have sat there a long time before I
noticed that a donkey cart had stopped in front of me and
the driver had come over and was asking me something.
The driver was shorter than I am and had wrinkled leathery
skin and a snow-white beard and eyes like the deep sky. He
wore a red and brown outfit covered with belts and pockets
and tools. It was Cotterpin, the tinker gnome.
Cotterpin has been visiting all the villages in a huge
circle around the coast of northern Ergoth for years, and
everyone knows him. When I was small, he let me play with
some of the toys he had in his cart, and he was always