A Road That Pays

By the time Maeril won the argument with her pack, breakfast had cooled.

They ate quietly while bowls vanished, benches scraped, and a merchant argued over a bill near the hearth.

Beregost sounded like a town deciding whether the day would pay.

Maeril glanced toward the packs, her smile thinning.

“Coin,” she said.

Rishi followed her gaze and set down his cup. “Yes.”

“We will need work.”

Maeril sighed as if he had named a contagious disease.

“Yes. Paid work. Not ‘here is a bowl of soup because you mended my cousin.’ Not ‘thank you, Green Witch, the children have stopped stealing turnips for three hours.’ Coin.”

Rishi’s brow furrowed. “I can still offer healing.”

“And you will, because your hands start helping before your head has been consulted.” She pointed a crust of bread at him. “But we cannot build a road on gratitude and bandages.”

“Indeed.”

“Copying spellwork could pay, if anyone here has anything worth copying and if I trust them not to hand me a cursed laundry list and call it a scroll.”

“Warding?”

“For shops, maybe. Doors. Lockboxes. But that keeps us here.”

Rishi looked toward the window.

“Guard work.”

“Still ties us here.”

“Escort work.”

“That pays if the merchant is frightened enough to be honest.”

“Caravans,” Rishi said.

Maeril stopped with the crust raised.

Outside, wagon wheels clattered over stone.

Beregost answered him before she did.

A drover shouted down the street. Harness bells rang. A mule brayed with the particular despair of a creature who had met humans and found them disappointing.

Maeril slowly lowered the bread.

“Well,” she said. “That was offensively obvious.”

“This is a caravan town.”

“Yes, thank you, Sage Warrior of Noticing the Large Wagons.”

He accepted the title with a small inclination of his head.

She leaned back, thinking despite herself.

“A caravan going south would need guards. Maybe a healer. Someone who can make bandits regret their scheduling choices. A wizard who can read weather, mend small magical idiocies, and tell merchants when a rock is about to fall on them.”

“That sounds useful.”

“It sounds underpaid.”

“We can ask.”

“We can ask with leverage.”

Rishi reached for his small bundle.

Maeril looked at the motion, then at him.

“Already?”

“The wagons may leave soon.”

She stood, sat again to tighten one more strap, then hauled the pack upright.

For one alarming breath, it looked as if she might disappear backward under the weight.

Rishi stepped forward.

“I have it.”

“I’m fine,” she said.

The pack shifted.

He waited.

She held his gaze.

The pack shifted again.

“Fine,” she said. “You may rescue the arcane profession from gravity.”

He took the heaviest side-bundle and slung it over his own shoulder before she could reconsider.

They stepped into Beregost’s morning.

The town had changed from evening’s softened edges into trade-day motion: carts crowding corners, mules stamping, merchants counting crates, and guards hoping the road would stay dull.

A voice rose over the street. “South road! Last checks before we roll!”

Maeril shifted the pack on her shoulders and lifted her chin toward the sound.

“Come on, monk,” she said. “Let’s go sell our alarming competence.”

Rishi took up his staff.

Together, they walked toward the wagons.