Chapter 4
A Journey of a Thousand Li
Near Aïn Hassan, Kingdom of Murabit
09 Lesh BE 001
Rio looked at her wrist Navi for what had to have been the twentieth time today. She told the boss that she would aim for 35 kilometers a day, but their pace was already starting to lag and the week was not even out. She wanted to cross the border by the end of the month, but would they be able to make it? Not if their pace went down anymore, that was for certain.
She look at Ellis, who was already dragging his feet like he was on the verge of collapse and they were only at 25 kilometers so far. Could they make ten kilometers more before sunset? Maybe if she let him rest for about half an hour, he would recover enough to make the last spurt of the day, but then again, if they stopped, she might have trouble getting him going again.
He would of course say she was being too hard on him, but she thought her problem was the opposite. She was too indulgent. Even when she was little, if she had whined about her training being too difficult, she would have been beaten within a sench of her life for it. Of course, Ellis was not a Protector nor even a Protector Candidate. He was the Child of Promise and Rio had to be careful with how she handled him.
Then again, what if she and everyone else was being too careful with him? He was not some glass figurine but flesh and blood. Yes, the flesh could be weak, but trained properly, it could be harder than steel. What a different it would be if they had raised a man of iron for this occasion instead of this boy of konjac.
"Rio," Ellis whined, "let's take a break."
"Konjac," Rio muttered under her breath.
"What?"
"Nothing. It's only been a couple hours since the last break."
"Yeah, a couple hours. My legs feel like rubber and my feet are killing me. How much father are you expecting us to go?"
"At least ten more klicks."
"Ten klicks? I'm not gonna make ten klicks like this!"
Rio sighed in frustration.
"Fine. You get thirty minutes, but after that, we're making those ten klicks."
"Thank God..."
Ellis did not directly acknowledge Rio's conditions as he staggered like some drunk over to the side of the road and flopped down. Rio gave him a disapproving look and sighed again.
"Alright, drink some water," she said. "Then take your shoes and socks off."
"Do we really hafta do this every time?"
"Every time," Rio insisted. "Now come on."
Ellis went ahead and took his shoes and socks off first so that Rio could examine his feet. There was a fresh blister around the ball of his left foot.
"No wonder you were complaining," she said. She took a pin from her kit, sterilized it with an alcohol wipe and popped the blister, letting it drain into a tissue.
"I thought you weren't supposed to pop blisters," Ellis said.
"You say that every time," Rio said, "and you haven't died yet. There wasn't any blood in it, so that's good."
She then applied some moleskin to the blister site.
"There, that should hold you. Be sure to put on some fresh socks before we head out."
"How many pairs of socks do I have to go through in a day?"
"You say that every time, too, and I'll tell you the same thing. As often as it's needed. A blister or two is one thing, but we won't be getting too far if those soft baby feet of yours start rotting off because you're not taking good care of yourself."
"Sorry for having soft baby feet," Ellis grumbled.
"There's not much we can do about it now," Rio replied. "Now hold still."
She started to massage his foot. She started with the left one because she had to be careful around the blisters. It was important to keep the muscles as loose and relaxed as possible. If she could relieve some of the fatigue, he would complain less.
"Do you have to do this every time, too?" Ellis asked.
"Yes," Rio said curtly.
"You're doing it too hard."
"I'm doing it as hard as I need to."
She would only do his feet and calves while they were on the move and a more thorough massage once they had stopped for the day. Ellis complained--of course he complained--, but Rio was not so dense that she did not notice the flush in his cheeks when she massaged him. It was little surprise he was embarrassed. He was a teenage boy and she was a girl with little respect for personal distance.
There might have been a time when she would have been embarrassed as well, but she had to get used to it rather quickly during her training. They only kept the boys and the girls separate in the first couple years of Candidate training. After that, they were expected to live and work in close proximity to the opposite sex without getting embarrassed by the sight of some skin or a random touch. They had to learn early how to be professionals without getting flustered, no matter the circumstances.
Ellis did not have the same conditioning and it was easy for Rio to forget at times, though she did not let it change how she acted around him. Any resistance he could build up by being around her would only help him in the long run, but after all these years, how much progress had he actually made? If anything, adolescence had only made it worse for him.
"Who does this for you?" he asked, and not for the first time.
"I take care of myself," Rio replied.
"You know, I, ah, I could do you."
Rio gave him an annoyed look.
"Phrasing."
"Wha? No! I, ah, I mean, I could massage your feet. You know, a you scratch my back, I scratch yours kinda deal."
"You're not touching my feet," Rio said. "Or my back. Or any other part of me."
"What, you embarrassed?"
It would figure that the only time he could overcome his pubescent embarrassment would be for for the sake of being cheeky. Rio refused to examine herself closely enough to confirm if there was any truth to the accusation and instead redirected the conversation.
"It's servile work and we can't have you doing it," she said. "You have to think about your station."
"My station? What even is my station?"
"Do you not pay attention to anything? How does the Child of Promise bring about the Age of Promise?"
"How the hell am I supposed to know?"
"It's right there in the damn Prophecy. How many times do you have to hear it?"
"Something about joining with the blood of Kings, but what does that mean?"
This had of course been explained to him many times, but he never did seem particularly interested in the very Prophecy that was his very reason for being.
"You really don't pay attention to anything, do you?" Rio said. "Who rules the world?"
"They say the Padishah," Ellis replied, "but that's all BS though, isn't it? What does he rule outside of Zand?"
"Even if it's just in name, the form is enough. You're a boy. The Shahzadi's a girl. You figure it out."
"Is she cute?"
"How am I supposed to know? She could be the most hideous creature on the planet and it wouldn't change your duty."
"How is me getting with the Shahzadi going to save the world?"
"Magic, near as I can tell. You're going to be the next Padishah, one who really does rule the whole world, and you're going to lead us out of the Age of Penance into the Age of Promise. You've been taught this."
Ellis gestured to himself, an otherwise ordinary boy sitting in the dirt on the side of the road getting a foot massage.
"Look at me, Rio. Do you really think I've got what it takes to be the Padishah?"
"That's what the Warrior's Road is for. We've tried to prepare you, but this is the real testing fire that'll refine the gold and burn off the dross."
"You think me walking for nine months is going to magically turn me into the leader of the world?"
"It's a start. They say the Buddha's life changed when he saw a sick man, an old man, a dead man, and a monk on the road. I figure it'll be something like that for you. You see a decent chunk of the world and something changes inside of you and you become who you're meant to be."
Ellis scoffed at this.
"Do I have to sit under a tree and only eat one grain of rice a day too?"
"The fasting came before the tree and it didn't work," Rio said. "That's why he stopped doing it."
"Does it really matter?" Ellis asked, apparently annoyed that she gave a serious answer to what was meant to be a joke. "It's all made up anyway."
"It doesn't matter if it's made up," Rio said. "There's a lesson to be had and that's what matters."
"You feel the same way about the Prophecy?"
Rio was silent.
"Come on, Rio," Ellis said. "You're smart. You don't really believe all this crap, do you? Why are we even doing this?"
"Don't let anyone else hear you talking like this," Rio warned. "I can take it, but a lot of people can't. You've got the hopes of the whole world riding on this, on you. If they lose faith, everything will fall apart."
"If that's the case, why don't we get it over with? Which is worse, them finding out now or waiting until I'm in Ahorazed to find out that I'm not what they're expecting me to be?"
"You may not be it now, but you don't know what you'll be when this journey's done."
"So we've got to go through all this on blind faith that maybe, maybe I'll just magically transform into this great leader between here and there?"
"That's about the size of it."
"God..." Ellis groaned.
Rio was done massaging Ellis' legs, so she gave his calf a swat and said, "Alright, I'm done here. Get to changing those socks and take a leak if you need to. I'd like to get those ten klicks in before sundown."
"I can't go ten more klicks, Rio," Ellis whined. "Let's just set up camp here."
"We're never going to get Ahorazed in time at this rate. We have to keep moving."
"Rio, we're on what, Day Five now? There's no way I can keep doing this."
If Rio could have just slung him over her shoulder like a sack of potatoes and carried him, she would have, but Ellis had to walk the Warrior's Road on his own two feet or there was no point. How on earth was she going to motivate him to keep going?
Tempting as it was just to throttle the life out of him, she had to come up with something that would actually get her what she wanted.
"How about I cut a deal with you?" she suggested. "You dig down deep and we make those ten klicks into, what is it, Aïn Hassan? We make it that far today and we'll take tomorrow off."
This got Ellis' attention.
"Really?"
"Yeah," Rio said grudgingly. "We can't do this sort of thing every week, though, not unless we're averaging 36 klicks a day like the Boss said, but maybe we can do a half day once a week after this. If you can manage to hit 216 Monday to Saturday, then we could take the whole day off. Basically, Sunday will just cover our underage for the week. How's that sound?"
Ellis frowned.
"It's the best I can do," Rio said.
Ellis sighed at this and replied, "Well, I'd really like that day off, so how about I shoot for that now and worry about the rest later?"
"I'm game if you're game," Rio said, happy to get the concession from him.
"I guess I'm game then," Ellis said. He sighed again as he dug in his pack for a change of socks. "A~ah, this is gonna suck... I hope they've got some decent food this Een Hassan."
"Aïn Hassan," Rio corrected.
"Whatever."
As Ellis was putting on the fresh pair of socks, he apparently got it back in his head to get fresh with her.
"You know, if you really want to motivate me, you could let me give you a massage when we get there."
"I could also break your hands," Rio replied. "You don't need your hands to walk."
Ellis looked at his hands and flexed his fingers.
"What?" Rio asked.
"I'm wondering if it'd be worth it."
Rio had to suppress the impulse to grin at this. Come-ons from someone like Kirik were annoying, but if she had to pick between the weak, whiny Ellis and the Ellis who was confident enough to go for it no matter how stupid an idea it was, she would go for stupid confidence. Maybe it was the first sign of him starting grow into the person the Prophecy spoke of.
"Come on," she said. "If you've got the energy to work that smart mouth, you can make the next ten klicks."
