04.29.08
22: Head For The Hills
Apart from all the bits that had come before and everything that would come after, landing the boat was the most dangerous part of the escape.
It came down to a choice between acting innocent and natural, or trying not to be seen. The simple fact was that there was no way to do the latter without being seen in a way that it wouldn’t be transparently obvious that this was what they were trying to do if somebody happened to see them anyway… but there was no real way they could accomplish the former when neither Jace nor Sheiral were all that proficient with the oars.
In the end, they blundered their way to a dock a good ways away from the harbor master’s office, scampered out of the boat without bothering to tie it up, and disappeared from the scene before they attracted any more attention.
“I can’t believe that nobody raised an alarm,” Sheiral said as they made their way quickly along the edge of town. They’d attracted curious and bemused stares from sailors on watch on the decks of many of the ships they’d passed on the way in.
“Sailors mind their own business,” Jace said. “Mostly. Kind of. They’re curious, and they’ll talk about anything when they’ve got an audience, but they won’t call attention to what somebody else is doing at the moment unless they’re sure they won’t get in trouble for it themselves.”
“But don’t they realize how important I am?” Sheiral asked. She sounded offended, or possibly disappointed.
“I really hope they don’t,” Jace said. “Come on! We’re a little exposed here.”
He led Sheiral up the sloping ground, towards the trees which would conceal their progress from any curious eyes which might have happened to be watching. He was making rough plans as they went. They were headed in a direction that was sort of parallel to the coast line, when what he really wanted to do was head inland. He figured changing directions a couple times beat moving in a straight line, though.
Anybody who’d marked their progress so far would probably assume they were a couple of seamen jumping ship. It happened often enough, even in a place like Keeper’s Cove where there were few prospects that didn’t involve taking ship again.
Once word got out about the escape, though, people would suddenly ascribe new importance to every little thing they’d observed in the night. Those who’d happened to see a pair of figures rowing ashore in the small boat, or running up the hills away from town,
“Come on,” Jace said again when they got to the tree line, taking Sheiral’s hand without thinking and pulling her along. “There’s an old goat path up this way…”
“I’m not using a path meant for goats,” Sheiral said, offended.
“Do you want to get caught?” Jace asked. “We’ll make better time than we would blundering through the forest. We can take it until we get to the stream, then follow that up into the mountains.”
“And then?”
“You’ll see,” Jace said, hoping that he saw it for himself before she asked again.
Barnowl said,
April 29, 2008 at 5:36 pm
Yeah - Tribe and 3 Seas are back! Now I’m just waiting for Void Dogs. (Not that I necessarily expect all of them at once, but I know AE can do it when she’s on top of her game
)
Master Story Feed on alexandraerin.com not working - good thing I read the Twitter on Tales of Mu.
danaeite said,
April 29, 2008 at 9:22 pm
Sheiral reminds me of Sooni
Winux said,
April 30, 2008 at 8:16 am
Haha!
Tribes, 3 Seas, and ToMU all at once! Thanks AE!
How does Sheiral remind you of Sooni? Other than the royalty aspect…
Sooni’s crazy. She’s trying to make her life fit into a comic plot.
Sheiral’s a stuck up noble who has some sense.
Donna said,
April 30, 2008 at 5:19 pm
If I were Jace, I would have had me a good dinner by now. But that’s just me. I hope her snobbery gets her up poop’s creek thus forcing Jace to really rescue her and show her that he’s really not useless. What can I say? I want to slap Big Bird.
Alderin said,
April 30, 2008 at 8:39 pm
Hehe, horray for 3 Seas updates.
Jace is still planless, but hopeful. I hope he gets better at planning things out. Sheiral is a stuck-up brat, but I have to agree with Winux, she isn’t near Sooni’s level of reality detachment.
Thanks Lexy!
*HUGS*
Old Softy said,
May 2, 2008 at 2:37 am
I too am very pleased to see this updating again.
I love ToMU, but it is a mind trip, with a different pace of reality. 3 Seas is a calmer experience (so far!), and although I love the fantasy setting, I also like that it has the same pace of reality as good old real life.
Sooni and Sheiral each fit their tale perfectly.
More kudos to AE for running two such different styles concurrently.
Jae said,
May 3, 2008 at 3:11 am
Those who’d happened to see a pair of figures rowing ashore in the small boat, or running up the hills away from town,
Is the end of the sentence missing, or is that comma meant to be a full stop?
Oradan said,
May 27, 2008 at 6:10 am
How big is the island anyway? Just curious. From what I took of it, I had just thought it was just big enough for the little pirate cove.
Courtney said,
June 10, 2008 at 4:23 pm
Why has it stopped updating?
AL13N said,
June 16, 2008 at 4:19 pm
Sooni is actually childish and even childlike…
WE NEED UPDATES! this is hardly started!!!
Werner said,
June 20, 2008 at 4:22 pm
Almost two months without an update ? It may not be dead yet, but it certainly
smells funny.
I liked the general setting, which promised a rich and complex world. I liked
the premise of Sheiral being a princess much less. That just gives away too
much way too early, and it’s also an almost excessively common plot element.
(Of course, if this was a story by GRRM or even Moorcock, she would just have
tragically died during the escape, and the story would have taken a very
different turn