The Power of One
Part 2 - "Transire Benefaciendo"

Chapter 1 - Oltre


You know well by now that a trip by cart to Verezzo takes three days - first by Paesa di Silo, then a stop at the Pigly, before reaching Verezzo on the end of the third day; and all along those days stopping at toll stations to be denuded of another handful of copper at a time. In the flying machine, that distance is conquered comfortably in a single day. You glide over the tops of the silos in Paesa di Silo, and they do not wave as much as watch in astonishment as your trio zooms overhead. And it might never get old seeing the toll operators staring up at the flying machine's wake, bewildered at the craft, sometimes shouting out what you assume is an insistence that you still ought to pay a toll. You do not, of course.

You touch down at the great intersection by the Pigly for a late lunch, and you meet Bolo Hempfire once more; the halfling proprietor amazed at the craft you've brought, which quickly draws a crowd of babbling onlookers from the bar; this early in the afternoon, they are not pickled completely, but enough to enhance their sense of wonderment and to allow Cestié an opportunity to puff out his chest and explain some concepts of aerodynamics that he knows no one will understand but you, and he. Bolo's boy, Rumpold, runs you out a tray of roast pork sandwiches and a pie for good measure, as you picnic on the hill across the road from the Pigly. However fantastic the flying machine is, Cestié is reluctant to leave it unattended. It's for that reason that, rather than stay in the city proper at the end of the day, the Signore picks a farm with a large barn on a good straight bit of road, lands there, and successful imposes upon the hospitality of the old widower who lives there to stash the machine in his barn and put you all up for the night. The fellow - a simple enough man named Rufio wiling away his remaining days in ease and comfort on a much smaller farm than the one he tended in his youth - is won over by the promise of Bella and yourself putting his kitchen to proper use, such as it hasn't had since his oldest daughter last visited six years ago.

The day after you are off again. The Signore elects not to fly directly over Verezzo - marvellous as it would be to peer down at all the streets and people from directly above the city, he does not wish to invite confused crossbow fire. And when you pass the city, and look back over your shoulder at Verezzo's Northgate, you are as far from Bella Collina as you have ever gone under your own power. Cestié points out to you when you pass a pair of hills below, with a toll booth on each side and a road between. This is where the Republic of Verezzo ends; one booth taxes people leaving it, and the other booth taxes those entering the Republic of Remas. Flying low over their mutually shocked toll attendants, you catch a glance of the flags on each; the familiar white field and four coloured rings of Verezzo, and the unfamiliar flag of Remas - a field of thick red and white chevrons, beneath the stern masculine countenance of a golden sun. You camp out one night in a field which Cestié tells you overlooks a historical battlefield - you see a memorial plinth in the moonlit plain beyond, and a small shrine.

"The Battle of Riffraffa. A awful day for Remans; the most shocking defeat to the Arabyans Tilea had seen since the old crusades. A raiding force of Al Muktar's Desert Dogs landed on the coast and ripped through the local villages, raiding and plundering, finally falling on and roundly routing the Reman defender host assembled on that plain. Supreme horsemen, you see; and it's no small feat for horsemen to master a host of pikemen. They have to be moving in many small units in coordination to sway the pikes to where they fear to receive a charge, only to receive it elsewhere. Terrible day for Reman mercenaries. Wonderful advertisement for Al Muktar, though; went on to fight for coin in much further fields!"

The day after that, Cestié once again manages to charm himself into the graces of a farming couple close enough to Remas to see its mighty walls, and towers. And just as well - in the barn of this charitable couple's home, the Signore shows you and Bella one of the wooden struts for the left anterior wing, and a fine crack along is length. "You see? Mm. The Stresses of such sustained flying. I wonder if we can add strength to these struts if we bind them up with twine, without adding much weight. Still, I'll have to ask you girls if you wouldn't mind terribly heading down to the city in the morning, and bringing back a replacement strut, and a big spool of bailing twine. It's nothing to worry about - this is the kind of thing we knew would develop, but we couldn't carry spares for without carrying a whole second flying machine in our back pocket. But there's nothing in the flying machine that can't be replaced in a moderately sized village, much less in great Remas, except the mithril gearbox. I'll stay here tomorrow and give the machine a full service - I trust you won't be too enraptured by Remas that you'll forget to come back with the parts?"


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