The Definitive Guide

He saw a girl, perhaps in her late teens or early 20s (it was so hard to tell with these weather-worn peasants) dressed in worn, drab clothing, and not all that well groomed. “Are you speaking to me, peasant?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said abruptly.

“Who are you to question me?” he asked trying to get the right tone of haughtiness into his tone. While he claimed to be part of an ancient Enzar bloodline, he faced the problem that the Enzar weren’t really about bloodlines, and nobody really remembered what an Enzar was in these parts. As for the great University of Arkanal, it was but a shadow of its former glory, or at least of the glory its faculty and students imagined it had.

“I’m someone who has traveled through the mountains many times. I rode through the mountains on my mother’s back before I could walk. I know the mountains.”

“These are the Zalenthan Mountains, are they not?” asked Liranac. He clearly expected a “yes.”

“We call them the Salens, if we need a name. Most of the time they are just the mountains.”

“You don’t even know their name, and you’re trying to tell me how to pass through them?”

“What good does knowing their name do? I’ve experienced their trails, their landslides, their avalanches. I’ve crossed their streams and climbed cliffs.”

“Why don’t you use the royal road?” asked Liranac.

“Royal road? There are a few ancient road markers, but no road that you can actually trave.”

“No road? You have to be lying.”

“It’s also very cold,” added the girl. “You don’t appear to have adequate cold weather gear.”

“The land north of the Zalenthan mountains is warm and borders the sea. In summer, passage on the royal road is easy. I will stay at inns at the various stops along the road.”

“There are no inns. There is no road. There are trails, rocks, occasional rope bridges, but often they are in such bad repair you can’t use them. You need warm clothing, camping gear, hunting gear, weapons to defend yourself from bandits.”

Liranac reached into his pack and withdrew a carefully hand copied volume titled, “Southeast Enzar Geography.” The original of the book, back in the university library, was at least a millenium old.

“This,” said Liranac, “is the definitive geography of this area. It shows a road through the mountains. It says there are civilized people to the north, though this area to the south is filled with ignorant peasants such as yourself. Now leave me. I am one who knows.”

The girl, Arinithar, descendant of mountain rangers and expert hunter and climber, shrugged and walked out.

Days later she recovered Liranac’s body from the bottom of a cliff. Well preserved in his backback was the definitive geography of the region. She could read it quite well. It showed a well-kept road running about where the cliff was. She remembered the earthquake that had rearranged the area.

“Definitive,” she said to herself, “is an interesting word.”