EXCOLO

[Near noon on Monday, September 14th (day 106), Main Street]

Normally, I like the rain.

Normally, of course, I'm watching it from indoors; a nice hot fire, a cup of tea - or a cold beer, when I can get it - the sound of rain on a corrugated tin roof and the sight of it slapping at the windowpanes. That's how I like my rain, comfortably on the outside. Instead I'm driving this wagon, like I have for weeks, and I thank the stars for about the hundredth time that I got a good thick oilskin coat and a good set of gloves in Ladon. I'd be soaked to the skin if it weren't for them.

Weather like this I'd usually stop, camp, wait it out. Something told me I was close, though, and I'm rewarded by the sight of the water tower rearing up towards the clouds. It's almost noon, but you wouldn't know it to look, and I hear thunder rolling off in the distance as I lead the horses past what looks like a post office, and then left down what's got to be the town's main street.

I stop the wagon between a butcher's shop and what's got to be either a bar or a tea house, pausing to take stock - not just looking around but /feeling/ around. What I feel doesn't surprise me: there's power here, powerful things, powerful people, trails crisscrossing so much I couldn't even begin to make heads or tails out of 'em.

The itch I've had to travel - that almost physical need to be on the road, and no explanation for that, either - is gone. Apparently I've come to where I'm supposed to be.

I just wish I could tell if that was a blessing or a curse.

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