The town was much smaller than Pucklechurch, barely more than a collection of houses. From the records Alfric had looked at, it had barely more than a hundred people. There were only three stores, though a few of the houses had workshops attached that might serve as a place of business. There was farmland, but largely just for self-sufficiency. It was somewhat safe to say that without hexilization and the warp, there might not have been a town at all, and in the days before waterstones, they’d have built much closer to the local water source. It was the kind of thing that had fascinated him as a child, wondering how it was that people lived in rural places like this, so far from all the goods and services he was used to.
“Let’s keep going,” said Isra after she’d taken her own look around.
“Of course,” Alfric said, nodding.
They got a few looks as they went through the small town, but no one spoke to them. It was obvious they were just passing through, and Alfric supposed that this was at least a daily occurrence, especially because this was the easiest path between Tarchwood and Pucklechurch.
“I’ve only left the hex twice before,” said Isra. She was looking around more, now that they were somewhere new. The roads were in much worse condition, more trails than proper roads, the kind that a wagon could get through with some difficulty, risking getting stuck in the mud if it rained. From the town, Alfric hadn’t even been sure that there were roads in all six directions.
“I rarely left Dondrian,” said Alfric. “Why twice?”
“Both times by accident,” said Isra. “I crossed the border without knowing it.”
“And the warp sent you to the center of some other hex,” said Alfric. “That’s always a painful experience, especially if you don’t know quite where you’ve ended up. Adding an extra six miles, at least, when you’ve had a long day or thought you were getting an early start on things, can be awful.”
Isra nodded. “I used to go into Pucklechurch with my father. The first time, I hadn’t known that the spell could send you anywhere else.”
“Ouch,” said Alfric. “But you made your way back?”
Isra nodded. “Obviously.”
“But I mean,” said Alfric, “being in a strange place, not knowing what had happened, that must have been scary.”
“It was,” said Isra.
They said nothing more for the next two miles. At various points, Alfric thought of something to say, and then he would look at Isra, and the thought would die on his lips. He had, in his time in the Junior League, met a number of people who were tightly wound and cold as ice, but Isra seemed to be in a league of her own so far as that was concerned. He needed to talk to her, to convince her that being in the party was in her best interests, but he had no idea how to do that. She was an orphan. Shouldn’t she want friends? Wasn’t that, in part, what a party was? Alfric had heard of parties where everyone was only cordial with each other, and of course he’d had many stories about interpersonal drama within a party, but it seemed to him that your party would, inevitably, become your friends. Or at least, he’d thought that before he’d been abandoned and never really reflected on it afterward.
“Tarchwood is larger,” said Alfric. “I’ve never been, but it has a number of shops that we’ll want to bring what we have to. We’ll see if we can sell the books as they are, but if not, then they can be bleached or have the ink removed, and we can sell them blank. Aside from that, we’ll also need to find an entad shop, which there are two of. I don’t think we’ll get much from what we have, but it’s part of due diligence.”
“Okay,” said Isra.
They went another five minutes. The silence was agonizing. He was starting to think that perhaps Isra just didn’t know how conversations were supposed to go, or at least not the kind of frippery that you were meant to fill the air with when you were walking with someone.
“How do you know?” she asked.
“Know what?” asked Alfric.
“What’s in Tarchwood,” replied Isra.
“Oh,” replied Alfric. “Um, more civics stuff. A hex under the command of a hexmaster can pledge information to a province, which is a collection of hexes, and provinces have their own people and rules and stuff.” He hesitated, feeling foolish for what he felt compelled to say next. “There are also collections of provinces, which is a nation. We’re in the nation of Interim.”
“That, I knew,” replied Isra.
“All right,” said Alfric. “Sorry.” He cleared his throat. “Anyway, hexmasters can pledge information to a province, and the province pledges to the nation. The nation, through the mechanism of the prime minister, can appoint someone to administer, usually sent from the seat of power, in this case Dondrian, and then they send information back along the national backbone to be cataloged.”
“But how do
“There are detailed maps available for the public to view,” said Alfric.
“And you viewed them,” said Isra. “And you remembered everything about them.”
