Above Wetledale
The Transporter halted his cart where the track began its steep descent into Wetledale. The mist still sat in wisps over fields that edged the river as it flowed along the valley floor. Even though the mist had nearly lifted, everything the Transporter could see beneath him remained grey, white, brown, or occasionally, the blood red of rust.
Wetledale was the most northerly of the seven valleys that made up the Seven Valleys Region. The Transporter was one of the few who could cross the mountains into Wetledale in the winter. He had crossed the Last Mountains that morning in the dark, with the wind sweeping in from the sea beyond the end of the valley. Even at this advanced autumn time of year, a heavy cloak could not keep the cold out of his limbs.
From the Transporter's vantage point, it was clear that Wetledale had undergone a significant transformation. While this change may have been good for a resident of the valley, it certainly was not good for a Transporter.
With its unsurpassed ability to grow trees, and with its streams and rivers driving the watermills and joineries, Wetledale had evolved into the valley of the Cabinet Makers. The exquisite cabinets made here were highly priced and highly prized. Crucially, the Fraternity of Cabinet Makers had realised they could ship their durable products by sea, bypassing the treacherous mountain roads.
The upshot of this was that work for any Transporter crossing the Last Mountains had fallen by three-quarters. Only occasionally would a bespoke cabinet need transporting overland to a customer unable or unwilling to wait for the quieter spring seas.
The Transporter stood a while, his gaze sweeping the valley floor for any signs of change that might prove useful. A sudden gust of wind disturbed his cloak, and his thoughts shifted.
Transportation is about cargo, he thought, and cargo is about the future.
By observing a valley for long enough, one could discern its future. A Transporter who could glimpse that future understood precisely what cargo to transport to ensure profitable winter journeys across the Last Mountains.
He remembered looking into Greydale from the edge of the fells some years ago. He had seen two carts hurrying down different streets towards each other. He could see a clash was imminent. He could see their future at that moment. He was the only person in the entire world who could do so.
His eyes travelled along the valley to Wetledale Town, huddled around its new canal basin. The distant canal pulled his eyes onwards to the sea gate and the unruly ocean beyond it.
It is the changing colour of a valley that allows a Transporter to see the future. Every shift in shade tells him that something is reducing or something is growing. These are the indications of where cargo will be required or produced. Know the future, and you know where value will appear; and you can be the Transporter who is there to collect it.
Wetledale had always been a landscape of muted tones, dominated by granite and limestone. However, since the Wetledale Conformance Council implemented regulations to promote the cabinet industry, even that subtle palette had vanished. For a Transporter, Wetledale offered no colour, and therefore no future. Standing at the valley's edge, as the last tendrils of morning mist dissolved from the fields, it was starkly evident that, at least to his eye, nothing had changed.
The Transporter had previously journeyed south and learned to cross the Great Southern River. Bright colours were abundant in the Flatlands beyond that river, and there was a strong demand for them to brighten the interior of the Government Halls in the Southern City.
He had only returned to these northern valleys because the Warehouse Manager had summoned him. The Manager was in dire need of a Transporter capable of crossing the Last Mountains in winter. Just as the Manager had promised, new opportunities for profit had also emerged in the North.
Mist still clung to a small lake high in the valley - the result of a dammed tributary serving as a power reservoir for the wood processing mills. A shape moved across the water. The Transporter, his eyes accustomed to years of scanning the seven valleys, caught the disturbance. He focused on the lake, where a figure emerged from the mist, pulling a rowing boat towards the shore. The figure reached the shrubland along the water's edge and then simply disappeared.
The Transporter stared at the place where the figure had vanished. He could see nothing.
'That,' the Transporter said to himself, 'must be a Fishwick. Only a Fishwick could disappear like that.'
The glimpse of this Fishwick redirected the Transporter's thoughts to the demanding work of the day.
He had crossed the mountains during the night, and now the last vestiges of mist were clearing. He would remain in Wetledale for two days. He had two days ahead in which to derive value from this journey.
He reluctantly pulled his gaze from the valley floor and urged his cart forward, beginning its slow descent along the Valley Head Road. The cart creaked but easily restrained the weight of its cargo. It had been designed to carry three times this weight.
There was a track running along the high edge of the wooded hillside, easily missed without prior study of the valley's layout. The Transporter turned his cart onto this track and followed the contour of the headland. At its end stood a stone cottage, set into the hillside. The cottage was intentionally built to overlook the entire valley and the distant sea beyond its edge.
Built from a mixture of wood and slate scavenged from the surrounding waste, the cottage blended perfectly into the brown and grey of the wooded hillside, aiding its concealment.
The Transporter climbed down from the cart and knocked on the door of the cottage. Then he waited, knowing it would take a while.