by LeRoy Clary
Damme said to Hannah, “Malawian steel of the highest order. The first I’ve encountered. Perhaps you will examine my collection when we reach Dagger and make recommendations to me? And if you need to practice, I have a pair of swords from Dire you might feel comfortable wielding.”
The salon was as quiet as a locked bakery in a boy’s school used to pilfering. Damme was doing me a great favor in speaking of my sword as he had. If I’d have wanted to keep it, and my training a secret, I would have refused to display it in public. I had every suspicion he knew exactly what he was doing—and why. Only a fool would attack me, now.
It was a thinly veiled warning to every person on the ship. Don’t mess with Damon. He is a master swordsman with a blade worthy of one in ten thousand.
He handed it back, showing the respect the blade deserved. Hannah mentioned they needed to sleep and bid me a good night. I sat and watched out the windows at the storm still raging, noticing the conversation was unusually subdued at the table. As I was about to take my leave, a face appeared in the window inset in the door, off to one side, so only I would see it. Will. He wanted to talk again. In private.
Standing, I yawned and made my way outside, expecting to find Will waiting. He was not. Instead of going to my cabin, I strolled the deck. Near the stern, in the deepest shadows on the ship where there were the least lanterns, Will emerged.
Without preamble, he said, “I’ve spoken with your friend.”
“The gambler-bully?”
“Yes. It seems he knew about the storm before we sailed from Trager. He learned that information ashore, and also that the storm was intended to keep this ship from ever reaching Dagger. No ships sailing from Trager will reach Dagger, for an unspecified time. The south sea will be closed from now on.”
“So, it’s not all about me?”
Will turned his head away as another passenger walked the decks and came too close. After he was a good distance away, Will said, “He didn’t know. He rambled as we talked. There was a mention of a Dragon Tamer, the secret mission of Princess Elizabeth, and the deaths of several mages. Nothing was said directly of you, but he obviously does not like you and won’t forgive you for embarrassing him.”
On a personal note, that was good news of a sort. The cause of the storm and ship delay was not because of me. It could be Kendra, the unknown Dragon Tamer, or Elizabeth, or the deaths of the mages—however, I was only a part of those, so of no direct consequence.
On a broader note, Dagger had blocked all ships in the sea from sailing south. We couldn’t guess for how long, but it delayed our trip at least, and perhaps prevented the king’s mission from ever reaching Dagger. That meant Elizabeth and her entourage may as well return to Dire. We might as well go with them.
“The gambler, is he all right?”
“He will live, although it was dicey for a while.” Will slipped around a corner and disappeared as a pretty young woman made her way near me. I’d noticed her a time or two, which was each time she’d shown herself on the voyage.
She was alone, studiously ignoring me. That meant she was interested. I said, “Good evening. My name is Damon.”
She glanced my way, then turned her back to me. Interested? She was in love with me!
I moved closer. “Nice evening, isn’t it?”
With a tiny shake of her head, she strode away as if she didn’t hear me. Playing hard to get, I figured. While waiting for her to slink her way back to me, another woman approached, a little older and more sure of herself.
She said, “You are Damon, the sword fighter.”
“Yes. And you are?”
She was not from Kondor. Her features were more northern, Dire maybe, but if so, I should have seen her there and remembered. Her clothing was made of fine material, the stitches so small and even they were almost unseen. Her manners were royal. Not the royal manners of a servant such as me, but the effortless manners of good breeding.
With that established, the question became, why was she seeking me out? The coincidence of two beautiful women accidentally meeting me at the rail, one after the other, when there were only a few on board, two being Kendra and Elizabeth, was remote. If they were not working together, they were after the same objective, leaving me to figure out what that might be.
However, as slow-witted as I could be, one thing I did know was that clandestine meetings in the middle of the night bring no good things. Before she could object, I bid her good-night and left to claim my bed. Alone.
The night was warm, the air calm, and the ship moved steadily towards land. Just as I opened the door to the passageway, a wet slap of sound and a muted grunt drew my attention. It came from my left. Two steps took me to the corner of the deck below the captain’s bridge.
A quick glance found Will there. He held up his thumb and motioned for me to continue on my way. As I turned, the light shifted, and an inert body lay on the deck at his feet. I entered the passageway and went directly to my cabin.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
T he morning brought an air of excitement as word spread that we expected to reach Trager again, near midday. Why that was exciting was odd, since it was the very port we’d sailed from a few days earlier. Still, after the time fighting the storm, and the dullness of the two days after trying to go around it, any port with solid ground that did not rock and twist underfoot sounded wonderful.
Flier’s progress with his leg had improved even more. He walked nearly as fast as me, and after a light breakfast, we sat on the now familiar hatch cover and enjoyed the warming of the early morning sun as it burned off a thin fog.
He started to speak a few times but couldn’t seem to get the right words out. Since we were alone, I decided it concerned me and waited for him to gather his thoughts.
“It’s none of my business,” he said as a preamble that usually meant it was none of his business, but he wanted to butt in anyhow. That’s the way it works with that phrase.
“Go on.”
He drew a deep breath, then with a rush said, “You gave me back my life. If you need to get to Vin, or go on to Dagger, tell me. I’ll get you there.”
“Do you know how to sail a ship through an endless storm?” Acid dripped from my every word.
He ignored that. “Remember, I was a foot-messenger between Vin and Trager. I used the Vin Pass over the mountains.”
Now he had my attention. “I’m sorry. Just grouchy.”
“We used a wide trail, almost a road. Runners like me crossed it almost every day after the snows were gone. Back then, the kings of Trager and Vin worked together against the hated Daggers. Vin wasn’t even part of the Kondor Empire, as they call it now.”
“Dagger became an ‘empire’ just because it defeated Vin?”
Flier laughed, then controlled himself. “You don’t know much about Kondor politics or history, do you?”
It was more a statement than a question. He was right. More than right, because I knew nothing of either. “Start at the beginning.”
We sat in the warm sun and watched the remainder of the fog burn off, as seamen climbed the masts and performed their morning chores with lines, sails, pulleys, and whatever. Flier said, “Is the map in the salon the only one you’ve seen?”
“No, there are a few more.”
“What lies south of Kondor?”
That question stumped me.
He said, “I thought so. Kondor is not the bottom of the world. There are many kingdoms south of it. Hundreds of them.”
My face must have relayed my disbelief.
“It’s true,” he said. “Those in the north call Kondor the ‘Brownlands,’ but there are more. South of the Brownlands, if you go far enough, they say you reach more Greenlands. There are people in all of them.”
His revelation stunned me.
He sighed. “I’ve heard there is also an east-west sea down there that goes to even more lands. They say one has a river so wide some believed it another sea in olden days. Now, I’m repeating tales I d
on’t know to be true, but why would the world just come to an end at the Brownlands? I’ll just ask you that.”
My thoughts were jumbled but seized on one item. “There must be other maps.”
He smiled. Ships have them. Chandlers in seaports sell them. All sorts of maps. Even old ones where kingdoms held other names. I’ve seen some like that.”
“If what you say is true, and I suspect it is, Dire is located on a sea far to the north, where one can sail no more, but here at Trager, the sea narrows and can be blockaded.”
“And widens again south of Vin, well before you get to Dagger. It would take hundreds of ships to block the sea down there.”
He allowed me the time to think and digest all he’d said. The sun was higher and the decks full of people when my mind felt organized enough to speak intelligently again. However, first I looked at the working crew, and then the passengers on their morning walks. His suggestions and information, if factual, brought a whole new aspect to my thinking. I’d been thinking there were those from Dire . . . and others, most of whom were from Kondor.
It didn’t answer the core questions about dragons and mages but suggested there may be far more that I wasn’t aware of while existing in my tiny kingdom at the north end of nowhere. At least, there seemed a hint of all I didn’t know. That told me something new.
“Are there dragons and Wyverns in Vin and Trager?” I heard myself ask.
“Dragons? Of course not. Plenty of Wyverns, especially lately. Dozens of them, whole flocks flying south as if fleeing from something. Maybe Kendra’s dragon?”
Talking with Flier produced results in the most unexpected times and places. His observation confirmed one of my suspicions. Wyverns were flocking to Kondor after Kendra released the dragon—Kondor, where the mages also fled to. It had to be related. While the dragon seemed to provide the source for magic to all, the indications were that wyvern did too, if on a smaller scale.
The dragon seemed to provide almost unlimited magic, but a wyvern provided a measure, and several of them together might provide as much or more as a dragon. The mages seemed to be ‘attracting’ the wyvern to Dagger.
“How’s your leg?” I asked, again.
“You already asked me that,” he said.
“Well, then. How would you recommend we walk to Vin? And are you up to it?”
He grinned. “I’ve been thinking about that all morning. First, we do it in secret. Everyone left in Trager is trying to earn a meal. Spies are everywhere. Those working for the crown and the ruling committee buy information, and the pass is closed to all.”
“It’ll be hard to get off the ship without notice,” I told him. “Especially with the girls.”
“Maybe. I have a few ideas about that, too. How many of us are going?”
That was a good question. We needed to ask Elizabeth and get her ideas, which meant other eyes would see us meeting and more tongues on the ship would wag. Still, she needed to decide our future plans.
That said, it was not up to me. Kendra was far better at this sort of thing and could slip into Elizabeth’s cabin almost without notice. She was also better at devising plans. If we could get Damme and Hannah to watch the girls for a short while, Flier, Kendra and I could sit down and make our tentative plans. Kendra could then carry them to Elizabeth. From there, they would decide what was best.
And maps. I wanted maps, but they would have to wait. At least, for a while.
Damme and Hannah approached, and I asked for their help in watching the girls again. They were more than happy to do so. Soon afterward, Kendra came to sit with us, sans children. She said, directly to the point, “What’s so important?”
We explained. She remained stone-faced, usually a warning sign. We talked faster.
She asked questions and listened to our answers. Then she stood. “What you’re saying makes sense. I don’t like it, nor do I like your ideas, but I’ll go see Elizabeth, first. Stay here.”
She strode away, head up, back straight.
Flier said, “Your sister will only tell part of the story and influence Elizabeth to her side.”
“Do you know who Elizabeth is? Or us?”
He shrugged. “I thought so.”
“This stays between trusted friends. She is Princess Elizabeth of Dire. Her father, the king, sent her on a diplomatic mission to Kondor and we are not supposed to know her during the trip. Why, is not important. She has been our master since we were children and we live in her apartment in Castle Crestfallen.” I settled back, certain to have impressed him. He would understand our importance and how our tasks were royal appointments.
He waited a while before speaking. “I was not the beggar you met on the docks, or better said, I was not always that wretch of a man. My father was a powerful merchant, and my two older brothers worked for him. Another became a priest. There was not a position for me in his business, so he purchased an officer’s commission in the King’s Army, and I was made a messenger. An officer.”
“I suspected you were educated, and that usually means you come from a wealthy family. What happened?”
“To them? I hope to find out they are well, but my father supported our king.”
“After you were taken prisoner and tortured, there was no way to go home?”
He shrugged. “The pain lasted for years. Fever often had me in sweats for days. At times I crawled, dragging the leg with the arrowhead. You found me on one of my better days.”
I’d suspected a similar tale. A wretch born to beg who spoke and acted differently. That line of thinking brought me to my own origins for the thousandth time. It was a common thread in the tapestry of Kendra’s and my lives. Like Flier, we didn’t speak and act like lowborn, but we had no other solid reason for thinking otherwise.
No, that was not fully true. There was one other thing. Our dark skins, thin features, and thick hair all said we came from Kondor, or somewhere similar. Not Dire. That indicated we had traveled in a time where only the wealthy did so. Setting aside a few borne of royalty, merchants, and sailors, nobody in Dire traveled beyond the kingdom borders, and seldom beyond their towns or villages.
I suspected it was the same in other kingdoms, which begged the question of why were my sister and I alone in Dire? A common sailor would never be permitted to take his children along on a voyage.
That left wealthy merchants and royalty who could afford to travel. Again, there seemed to be another option. The word flee, brought up an unconsidered idea, one that might ring with a hint of truth. If our parents, or one of them, had fled another kingdom with us in tow, then died, it might better account for our circumstances.
“Do you remember the way across the pass?” I asked.
He nodded as he said, “I crossed it more than twenty times in one year, alone.”
That was enough of an answer. A commotion drew my attention. People were crowding to the rail, their attention on the horizon. They had spotted land.
After the intense storm and the listless days sailing along the stationary storm front, everyone was anxious to reach port—even if it was Trager. The water from the kegs tasted old and green, there were no fresh fruits or vegetables, and the baked goods were long gone. Salted fish satisfied a belly, but a mind demanded more. I’d heard the wine was also running low. That might turn the passengers against the ship.
Kendra came up from behind and startled me. In other circumstances, it may have been funny when I jumped and pulled my knife.
She glanced at Flier and decided to speak freely in front of him. “Elizabeth apologizes for her aloofness, but it is part of the task her father gave her and those with her. She is to meet with the Council of Nine in Kondor—not the king. She is to negotiate a treaty. She indicated there is more, but didn’t share it with me. There were others present in her cabin.”
“And us?”
“We were never supposed to be on the ship. She was holding us in reserve. Only a few of her entourage know of us as anything but servants.”
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“So, we sail with her to Dagger and help if she requests it?”
Kendra shook her head. “She wants us to travel by land if possible, using Flier as a guide if he is willing, and we will meet her in Dagger. That is assuming the storm is intended to block you and me, and she is allowed to sail on. One way or another, she has a message to be delivered to Avery, of all people. The message is simple. We are to order him to ‘proceed’ and no, I do not know what that means. He will.”
We sat in silence, the three of us. We would do as she instructed, but there was more unsaid. “At Crestfallen, when a royal audience is required, the least powerful of the pair travels. Assuming that is true of this meeting, Dire is the weaker.”
“Perhaps not the weaker of the two, but the one that wishes the meeting to take place,” she said. “Or the one more willing to make a deal.”
The silence lingered on. Flier said, “If your king had been in communication with the king of Kondor in years past, he might wish to understand what has transpired to change the leadership to the Council of Nine.”
I added, “And to make sure the same thing does not happen in Dire. But Elizabeth is to meet with the council, not the king.”
Kendra seemed to agree. Then she said, “I asked if Elizabeth can take the girls on the ship with her. She refused. Her reasons were sound, and I accepted them.”
“Meaning they will travel with us?”
She shrugged but remained quiet. The other choice was to leave them in Trager, which was unthinkable. It was not her first choice to take them with us, but she would accept it. The girls would either remain with us, or we would find another solution—which seemed unlikely.
Hours later, as the ship pulled up next to the same dock, a small crowd waited to greet us as the same two longboats towed us to the same pier. There were merchants with wrinkled apples in a basket, smoked strips of small meat that might have been made from any animal, and a few handcrafted wooden items. In short, nothing we would be interested in.