The Slime Farmer

This gentle landscape only emphasized the rough splendor of the World Gate.

Built in monolithic stone, carved with symbols and figures arcane, rising high above the tallest trees, the monstrosity of a Gate dominated the area for miles and miles around it.

Wars had been fought over it, the land around it drenched in the blood of battlefields.

What right did it have to rest so easily upon this plain of golden wheat that waved so purely in the innocent breeze?

Defi studied it from the top of a hill, lips pressed together and chin lifted.

"Young lord, is there something wrong?"

He shook his head. "Nothing important, Garun."

In truth, he was afraid.

n.o.bles do not go beyond the Gate. Every n.o.ble child desiring of adventure had this maxim well entrenched into them from a young age. The adults spoke little of why and like every child, he imagined many monstrous things about the Gate as a result.

He took a breath. By his father"s actions, he was n.o.ble no longer.

The Gate was not a monster set to devour him, but the path to his freedom.

"Are you sure I dressed properly?"

"You look enough like a merchant of Rimet, young lord." Samti a.s.sured him. "Do not worry."

"Call me lord no longer, both of you." It was not the first time he said it.

"Of course, young...one."

If there was one positive thing about not being presented to his father"s court, it would be that the retainers did not know his face.

The Gate-markets were large enough to be a town, street upon street piled high with the bounty of Rimet and the wonders of the otherworld – like the cloth and crystal apparatus that he used at the farm to clean his water, or the flameless stove, but the most celebrated were the textiles that had many protections imbued on them.

His father once sent his mother a durable waterproof cloak that never let the wearer get too cold or too hot. It was of the finest and softest weave. The colors did not run despite their vividness, unlike the fine cotton and woollen cloaks of Ontrea that faded with age. It was in one of his boxes, unused since his mother died.

Still, he heard the Rimet Gate-market paled in splendor to the Egrenua Gate district. Another reason for his father to grit his teeth.

The mule under him snorted, likely feeling his discomfort at the sight of the ma.s.sive doorway to another world, the unnatural feeling in the air. He patted its neck. "Do not worry. We"ll be there soon and you can rest."

He could not wait either. Riding a mule was very much different from the comfort of a riding ox. Garun said that there were oxen on the other side, but not ones with the magnificence of the Ontrea riding ox.

He had left Pale in the city, with the Church. The riding ox was too conspicuous to bring here. He"d bought mules and another donkey, to pa.s.s as a merchant to the other world.

n.o.bles often sent their retainers through the gate in the hope of trading at better prices than the Gate-market. With the Rimet family token, they would not be stopped unduly.

The market streets were lively, people haggling in low voices, in loud voices, in yelling even. This was truly a place of business. Coin from beyond the Gate could be exchanged here, but in limited amounts. Some of the otherworld coins were bought as collector"s items.

He would likely get a better exchange for Rimet gold on the other side.

Defi headed directly for the Gate, leading them away from the Rimet guards spread around the town like raisins dotted along a dessert cake.

This close, the thing hummed with energy, a low droning that resonated in the Current. He took deep breaths, feeling as if something were forcibly rooting around his guts with a stick.

If he could be so discomforted even with the sensitivity of a low adept, then could the masters who immersed themselves in the Current bear this?

No wonder no n.o.ble crossed the Gate. To be n.o.ble was to know the Current.

To go through this would be like being pummeled by a landslide, with devils screaming into your ears.

Defi wanted to get it over with as soon as possible.

It was noon, and the tongues of the capital should already be wagging. What scandal, what gossip, he thought bitterly, what entertainment for the ma.s.ses.

All for a man who would not acknowledge the son of a slave as his own?

Why then did he marry Defi"s mother?

"Are you crossing, merchant?"

Defi opened eyes he didn"t know he"d closed.

The guard grinned at him. "Not seen you before. Normally, people look up in awe."

The Gate was something to be awed by, certainly.

The construction was a simple post and lintel, but it held nothing up – a door that was built only for itself.

The posts were eight-sided, wider at one side than ten men set side by side with their arms stretched in the horizontal.

They rose regally straight from the earth, higher nearly than a small mountain, two giants bearing on their backs a single ma.s.sive slab of rock-material, carved with mystic animals and statues taller than three adults stacked standing on the shoulders of the person below.

"We are to cross, yes, guardsman."

"And the child?"

Defi was silent.

They had wrapped one of his cloaks around the baby girl, the fine material a contrast against Samti"s rougher clothing. There was no cause for bringing the child of a slave through the Gate. But with Samti acting as a wet nurse?

Defi felt that if he should speak, it would be known immediately as a lie.

"Ah," the guard went, knowingly. "If you show your authorization, then?"

Defi held it out. Even that was a gamble. What merchant of Rimet ventured to the Gate with this pitiful of a retinue?

"Ah," the guard said again, with an even more knowing air. "A personal visit then. Fair bets to you, merchant."

"Good day, guardsman." He forced a smile. Was it really so believable that he had a child? He was too young to be a father! He wasn"t sure he wanted to know what sort of conclusions the guard came up with.

Though...

He leaned toward Garun, whispered. "Personal visits?"

Garun cleared his throat and stayed silent.

He huffed, not understanding and suspicious because of it. He would need to see what was behind the Gate to know what Garun was keeping from him.

The guardsman waved at the others behind him, letting them know that Defi and his party could enter.

Going through the Gate was…he clung to the saddle and determinedly told himself not to vomit.

Garun walked close. "Young one."

Defi smiled at him briefly. It had taken some doing to get the couple to stop calling him "young lord". "It is merely the nervousness."

"Your first time, I imagine," said the guard on the other side.

Defi did not even notice they were through, but that surprise paled to his unadulterated shock at the guard"s words.

Defi stared at the guard, then at Garun.

The servant smirked lightly, knowingly, and said in Ontrean. "He says he imagines it is your first time."

That was not even the problem!

The language the guard used was not one to be spoken in Ontrea.

It was, however, the "secret language" his mother taught him, presumably learned from the d.a.m.nable servant now acting as if the world had told a great joke.

"Do not worry about the young master, good guardsman," Garun smiled beatifically at the one who greeted them. "It is only a faint nervous condition."

"Looks pale enough to be a ghost, for certain."

Defi smiled weakly at the guard, who waved them through after looking at the token the "merchant" held out.

The other side of the Gate was a similar marketplace, but the people were different.

He watched a woman laugh with a shopkeeper and twitched visibly as the length of fur down her back, something he thought part of the woman"s dress, swayed in her excitement.

A fur tail.

Her ears pointed straight up as the shopkeep said something that obviously surprised her.

Ears. Real, moving pointed ears on top of her head.

Garun cleared his throat discreetly, and Defi composed himself, recovering from the unsightly gawking.

"Garun," he said faintly. "There are some things, I believe, that I have not been told about this world."

The man stared. "I thought…I thought your hesitation near the Gate was because of the werefolk?"

He shook his head.

There were legends in Ontrea. Stories of old that told of people corrupted by devils, gaining the characteristics of animals. They were lower than the lowest caste, abominations; to see one was to be cursed.

If he had known of this....

Would he have entered the Gate?

Garun looked around, a bit of worry showing on his face. "There is an inn nearby."

"No. We shall go on to the town, then the village. This shock will pa.s.s. The stories are only legends."

Garun considered him, then lowered his voice. "Young lord, the land of Ontrea is large, and other nations beyond it are said to be beautiful. There are surely places there that would welcome you, should you want to go back."

Defi straightened on his seat, glaring forward. "I am not so weak. Let us continue. Address me properly, Garun. There are no slaves in this world."

Garun shook his head.

"Ascharon has fewer vices in that regard, but I"m afraid slavery comes with many names. In the allied kingdom of Camurlan, for instance, there are debt-workers, who are slaves to the government in all but name. In the Seven Isles, there are serfs, whose rights belong to their lord. Even in Ascharon, it is within the law to apprentice one"s own children for coin. There are many kind masters who teach their apprentices, but there are also those less kind who use their apprentices for labor. And in lands far beyond, there is still slavery. One of the charges of the Ascharon"s Imperial Navy is to free the slave galleys that move people by the hundred thousands from various lands each year."

Defi stared ahead as they pa.s.sed through the marketplace. "I see."

He had much to learn about this other world, it seemed.

"People are people everywhere, young one." Garun smiled wryly. "I have travelled many places both here and in Ontrea. I can a.s.sure you, there are kind people and ruthless people, compa.s.sionate people and cruel people, and in the end no matter the differing color of skin and hair, the differing race and differing creed, the lowest beggar and the highest emperor, people are still people."

There was a melancholy in Garun"s eyes that Defi didn"t understand, a deep emotion that was only slightly represented by the odd smile on his lips.

"I will consider your words," Defi could only promise.

It seemed this other world that was his freedom, this world that he chose, this new land that he hoped to be his home, was a lot more complicated than he thought.