Merchant of Alyss

by Thomas Locke

  Lystra’s queen showed satisfaction at the question. “Our males are kept in strictest purdah. But none against their will.”

  When Hyam translated, Fareed said, “There are desert legends of drovers who sleepwalk away from campfires, lured by beauties who lock them in silver cages, beyond even time’s reach.”

  Hyam disliked the conversation’s course, but translated nonetheless. The queen replied, “True enough, young sir, save for the cages. All our men are free to go. Which makes our shared pleasure sweeter still when they choose to stay.” She frowned at a pair of young beauties who flirted with Fareed. “But we harbor no human mages within our keep. They are forbidden.”

  The last word was a lash, softly spoken yet enough to twirl the ladies away. They spun back and around, pouting until their attention focused upon Alembord.

  The queen clearly approved of their new prey, for she said, “This tall one with the flame of adventure in his eyes, he would be made welcome. As would the drover. I prefer my men to carry the spice of secrets. Their flavor is exquisite when finally revealed. Shall my ladies sing for these?”

  “Later, perhaps. First I have questions.”

  She seemed to expect it, for she took this as an invitation to command, “Dance then, ladies. Dance!”

  There was nothing Hyam could do except leave, and he could not depart, not until he knew whether there was truly a hope for Joelle in this realm of Milantian witches. He asked, “What is your bond to the eagle?”

  “Not the bird. He merely serves as courier for the covert one.”

  Hyam hoped desperately that Alembord would prove able to fight the lure. He did not want another lost soul on his conscience. But the ladies were unabashed in their play as temptresses. They were beauties of every age, dressed in diaphanous silks that revealed far more than they hid. Silently they swept about Alembord and Selim in a sinuous chain. Inviting them to depart the human realm and know only pleasure.

  Hyam turned so he did not have to observe the ladies and asked, “What can a dragon offer the queen of this ancient realm?”

  “What indeed.” She clearly took pleasure in watching her ladies weave their spell. “We are bound by a treaty older than your race’s memory. Old as Lystra. Older!”

  “What is your bond to the crimson mage?”

  She disliked the question intensely. But Alembord and Selim appeared captivated by the dance. Worriedly so. She seemed to find enough satisfaction in this to answer, “You humans think all Milantians are evil by nature. Phah. Your history is blind, strange one. Blind! Mage power is but a doorway. You enter and choose which way to proceed. We selected one direction. Mages like the one you destroyed chose another. So it has been since Lystra’s earliest days. We have nothing to do with his ilk. Nothing!”

  A third time Hyam sensed she was lying, at least partly. But the next question was the one he could not ask. About his own heritage. So instead he said, “What can you tell me about the dragon?”

  “Nothing! I can tell you not one iota. How you even know of his existence is a mystery!” She gestured angrily at her minions. “Enough of your questions, strange one. Now it is time for my ladies to sing!”

  “One moment,” Hyam said. “I wish to ask—”

  She clapped her hands, silencing his tactic. “Sing!”

  Hyam had space for one thought, or rather, a single glimpse beyond the lure. He realized that Shona and Meda and Fareed were gone. Then his thoughts swam into a delirium of yearning so powerful his entire body ached.

  The women sang of a different realm, one where neither sorrow nor worries could enter. Their lurid dance was no longer a ring of beauties, for they had joined somehow, the sound of their voices linking them into one unified whole. Magnetic. Pleading. Inviting.

  Hyam felt the hint of a name sweep through his mind. He felt a keening sense of disconnect and realized he had a choice. Either he could join in the joy of unknowing, of pleasure beyond the ability of his senses to deny. Or he could recall the name and all it had meant to him.

  He managed to utter one word. “Don’t.”

  The dancers hesitated. Hyam had not meant it as a command so much as a plea. Yet his word shattered the spell, at least for one moment. And it released the queen’s ire. She turned to him in regal fury. “You dare command a ruler in her own fief?”

  Hyam drew his thoughts into some form of sensible order. “I am your guest. These are my company.”

  She sniffed. “Do not such as these have the right to choose for themselves?” The queen snapped her fingers at her ladies. “Sing!”

  As he struggled to shape another protest, a witch slipped up to the queen’s side and whispered a few words. Instantly the palace went silent.

  Alembord cried in genuine anguish. The loss of the song was a vacuum Hyam felt deep in his bones.

  “The covert one has signaled his arrival.” The queen lashed the air with a vexed hand. “Ladies, join me.”

  The company of witches followed their queen, casting mournful glances back at Alembord and the others. They gathered at the nexus of the central keep, formed a circle, and began weaving another spell.

  Hyam forced his leaden limbs to carry him over to where Alembord stood. The soldier’s features were taut with the hunger of a lonely young man. Hyam gripped his arm and said, “They are witches.”

  Alembord’s only response was another rasping breath.

  “They will feed upon you for as long as you survive.” Hyam tightened his grip. “But it is not just about you. They seek a captive. One of our own. It would bind us to the vow of secrecy. If we were to speak of this place once we departed, you would die.”

  Alembord blinked once. Again. And struggled to see who it was who spoke to him.

  “These are not human beauties,” Hyam said, shaking Alembord’s arm. “Remember how the witches looked before we climbed the hill.”

  Alembord shuddered. Coughed. Wiped his face. And was back. “I almost . . .”

  “I know.” Hyam breathed a trace easier. But the danger still remained. And Shona and Meda and Fareed were nowhere to be seen. He spoke to Selim in Elven. “You are all right?”

  Selim looked shaken but intact. “The race who destroyed my homeland cannot hide behind spells. I see them for who they are.”

  Alembord asked, “What tongue do you speak?”

  Hyam shook his head. That would have to wait. Now the queen beckoned to him. Hyam said to Selim, “Will you join me?”

  Selim clearly had no interest in approaching the witches again. “What can possibly be worth attending them?”

  “Answers,” Hyam replied. “Mysteries revealed. I hope.”

  26

  The circle of witches weaved and worked their midnight loom. They forged a silver bonfire whose brilliant flames rose five times a man’s height. Pewter sparks shot into the star-flecked sky.

  Gradually the flames refashioned themselves, and the dragon grew within the silver fire’s heart. His eyes sparked like the stars as it searched and craned. When his gaze fastened upon Hyam, the beast rose to his feet, and in that one motion he dwarfed both the bonfire and the central keep.

  The dragon stretched out wings broad as a ship’s mainsail and chattered the drumbeat Hyam had come to understand. The beast’s greeting consisted of just one word, “Treaty.”

  It was the same word carved into every boundary stone lining the Ashanta settlements. Hyam suspected it served the same purpose here. He stepped forward and stretched out his arms, a human’s equivalent of the behemoth before him. Unarmed and exposed. He responded in kind. “Treaty.”

  The dragon’s silver-flamed head swiveled from side to side, inspecting Hyam closely. “You understand the word’s true meaning?”

  “I understand these are bonds untouched by time or race,” Hyam replied. “I understand that in the past we united in moments of dire need. I accept that another such time has come.”

  The dragon remained an ethereal form, fashioned by moonlight and cold fire. He tucked h
is wings back and turned to the queen of Lystra. “Leave us.”

  She bridled. “This is my keep! My realm! My subjects!”

  Hyam said, “She has hidden away three of my company. Two women and a young mage.”

  “Release them,” the beast commanded.

  “We need assurance that our secrets remain ours alone!” The queen stamped her foot. “We broke the oath of eons to admit them!”

  “I will seal their lips,” the beast chattered. “None will speak because none will be able. Now free this one’s company and go.”

  Hyam waited until the witches retreated to ask, “Why am I here?”

  “My people face a crisis that could end us forever.”

  “My question remains the same,” Hyam replied. “I accept the treaty. But why me?”

  “When all hope was lost, the west wind spoke to me. It carried your name. It revealed your face.”

  Hyam was swamped by the futile pain of fear without answers. “I lost my mage-force in the Emporis battle. Then some new foe attacked my beloved. I am alone. I have nothing to offer.”

  Selim spoke for the first time since entering the fire circle. “Not alone, Emissary.”

  The dragon shifted his ponderous form and spoke to the drover. “I salute you, child of Ethrin. Once your kind were our closest allies among the small folk. Will you grant me the boon of serving as guide to this one?”

  “I have confirmed this to your messenger.” Selim revealed a solemn dignity in his bow. “If it is within my ability, I will do as you have asked.”

  “Hyam must be brought to the port where your ancestors established their lineage.”

  Selim shuddered. The fire crackled. The sparks rose. Hyam waited with the beast, not understanding. Finally Selim said, “Sire, Alyss is no more.”

  “Nonetheless, that is his destination.”

  “Sire . . . in living memory, none who have taken this route have ever returned.”

  “I am aware of the risks, child of Ethrin. The bird will accompany you and serve as scout. Perhaps you will survive. Perhaps.”

  Hyam asked, “If the road is so perilous, why can’t you fly over and bring me back?”

  “It is forbidden for my kind to enter the human realm. A treaty more ancient than the ones binding our races forbids this. Even speaking through your dreams threatens the treaty’s fabric. Even revealing myself in the witches’ flames. But the alternative is my kind’s destruction. Either way is filled with dread portents. So I have come this far. But no farther.”

  “What of my beloved?” The words scalded Hyam’s throat. “What of Joelle?”

  He ruffled his wings. “We have much in common, you and I. Forces beyond my ken threaten my own mate’s next breath. I suspect the Milantian foes who robbed you of your most precious element had a hand in my mate’s calamity. But I cannot detect either the method or the purpose.”

  Hyam’s hands might as well have been stained by Joelle’s blood. “What can I do, a mage who is mage no more?”

  “There is no purpose to this discussion, human. Not until you complete the journey. Travel to Alyss. You will save us. How, I cannot say. Nor do I need to. For the west wind spoke to me and said this would come to pass. The west wind does not lie.”

  Hyam replied as he must, for there was but one possible course. “I will come.”

  The dragon unfurled his great wings. “Dawn arrives. I cannot allow the sun to notice my presence. Farewell, human. Survive the quest. Go to the port of Alyss. Stand at the harbor’s mouth, face the sea, and await me there. By your coming you shall save us all and earn a dragon king’s gratitude.”

  The dragon lifted up and drew the flames with him. The entire bonfire fashioned itself into wings big as the keep. The dragon flapped once, twice, and leapt into the sky. Instantly the form was gone, and the fire with him. A billion pewter sparks rose and joined with the first faint light of dawn.

  27

  Shona moved through the next two days in a heat-drenched stupor. She waited for Meda or Fareed to speak of what had happened during their captivity. But neither did. In fact, it seemed as though neither was aware of being imprisoned at all. But Shona knew. She remembered everything.

  She had been frozen as tightly as when the Emporis witch had chained her with smoke. A bevy of witches had dragged her to one of the giant pillars lining the central keep. The stone column had grown a portal, or rather, a mouth, and swallowed her whole. From within, she had seen that Fareed’s legend of silver cages was indeed true. Between the slender bars had stood sheets of palest amber, and she had watched the witches sing, though she’d heard nothing. She had seen Alembord give in and Selim shudder and Hyam struggle. She had wanted to shriek a warning, but the power of speech was as distant as her ability to breathe. She could not even feel her heart’s beating, as though the column possessed the ability to trap her somewhere beyond time’s reach, out where she would remain a living component of this magical realm for all the eons yet to spin.

  She watched Fareed and Meda closely those first two days back with the caravan, almost as carefully as she scouted behind them, ever fearful the witches would swoop down and ensnare her again. But the yellow realm remained empty, and her fellow prisoners showed no foul remnants from their lost hours.

  Selim led them steadily onward, pushing them hard. At sunset on the third day they arrived at a well. There was no marking to announce its presence. In fact, the stone circle was hidden behind a sand hillock. The first indication Shona had was when her animal snorted and accelerated. As they halted and watered beasts and men alike, Shona wondered how Selim had led them here across this featureless plain.

  That night, after a stew of rice and dates and dried vegetables spiced with desert sorrel, after they had drunk cup after endless cup of mint tea, Selim spoke of his past. He addressed his words to Hyam but spoke in the human tongue so they all could hear and understand.

  “Elves are great ones for tales from the distant past. But they are not much for the counting of years. I have no idea how long ago it happened. I only know it was a number of generations before the Milantians invaded. An Elven forebear of mine was of royal blood. The king of Ethrin sent him to Alyss, which supplied the king with all manner of human finery. And there my ancestor fell in love with a commoner. Their marriage cost him everything, but by all accounts he lived and died a contented man.” Selim shrugged. “Legends have a way of growing happy endings.”

  “It was no legend,” Hyam said softly. “Which suggests the ending was real as well.”

  The two men stared into the magical fire at the center of their gathering. The caravan drovers clustered about their own mage-light, which Shona had lit after Hyam suggested they not use their precious oil for what could be supplied for free. Selim’s assistant had thanked her with the quiet solemnity that Shona was coming to recognize as the desert way. Passions were kept well hidden, as though the flames within these hearts were so fierce all were best served by extreme politeness.

  Selim spoke that way now, addressing the fire with a voice soft as the night. “My forebear established a trading house of his own, one that served the Elves throughout the realm. A generation or so later, my clan were appointed bankers to the Ashanta, and their house grew in wealth and power. But the legacy of their Elven heritage remained alive. Each child was taught the tongue and the history of the green realms. Those with the talent were also taught the Ashanta speech and that of the bird. Whose own forebears have been our allies since those earliest days.”

  Hyam asked, “Did anyone ever mention the dragons?”

  “I have wondered about this ever since you first spoke of the beast. Just in the past few years the bird has spoken of a master, and I feared it might have been ensnared by the crimson foe.”

  His features and Hyam’s now shared a similar cast, of hard-earned wisdom and tragedy and the impact of experiences beyond Shona’s reach. She listened as Selim went on, “When the crimson horde invaded, my forebear was off with a trading carav
an. He loved the road and the journey, which is most odd for one with Elven blood. Even so, this oddity saved him. He was in Emporis when word arrived of the destruction of Alyss. By the time he returned to his former home, there was nothing but ash and ruin. Soon after, word arrived that Ethrin had suffered the same fate.”

  Hyam asked, “Where do you live now?”

  “Up ahead is a desert oasis where a city has grown. Olom, it’s called, which is the ancient word for golem.” Selim’s smile was utterly without humor. “You will see some strange things there, I assure you.”

  “Why make that your home?”

  “There are riches to be had for one who is cautious. Olom supplies gemstones to all the human realm.”

  “And you carry them.”

  “Just so. My clan has fashioned a haven out of a neighboring valley.” He made a distinctly desert gesture, right hand to heart and lips and forehead. “You and your company are welcome.”

  “I thank you for the offer of hospitality,” Hyam replied. “What of the scrolls?”

  “The scrolls, ah, the scrolls, had I never come across them.” Selim rose to his feet. “That is a tale for another night. Sleep well. Dawn comes soon.”

  28

  As the others prepared for sleep, Shona watched Hyam walk toward his belongings piled by the reclining camel. The beast snorted, turned her ponderous neck, and opened her mouth. She possessed an astonishing array of long yellow teeth.

  Fareed called over, “Sahib, do not flinch away or show fear.”

  “I told you not to call me that.”

  “Indeed, sahib. Now raise your fist as though you are going to swipe at the animal.”

  Hyam did as Fareed instructed. The camel might have snarled or she might have belched. Whatever the sound, she lowered her head and did not move again as Hyam rummaged through his things.

  He returned to the mage-fire holding the sheathed Milantian blade with both hands. Meda must have known what was coming, for she rose to her feet and watched wide-eyed as he approached.