Merchant of Alyss

by Thomas Locke

  Hyam struggled for some way to show the depth of his gratitude, but the words did not come, or perhaps did not exist at all. But the queen must have sensed his effort, for she said, “Such are the times when true friends are counted.” She turned to her mate. “Darwain, I feel this is the moment.”

  In reply, the king waved the healer and Joelle’s attendants from the room. When they were alone, he said, “When a new ruler takes the Elven throne, their spouse accepts two names. One is the Elven title of consort, which is used by all those who seek her favor as ruler. The other is hers and hers alone.”

  “To be used once and buried with her, never to be taken by another,” Hyam remembered.

  “Just so. The consort’s name holds a special purpose. The name is intended to represent his or her hidden treasure, the portion that keeps the ruler from being consumed by the power they wield. Their deepest talent, their heart’s gift.”

  “The flavor of love,” Hyam said, for once not ashamed of his tears.

  “My wife’s name is Ainya. It comes from old Elven and signifies a heart that shines with a unique brilliance and splendor.”

  He bowed in gratitude at yet another priceless gift and said, “Highness, it suits you.”

  A voice faint as a sunset breeze whispered, “Hyam?”

  He did not kneel so much as collapse at the side of her bed. “Joelle, my darling.”

  “Is it really you? I’ve been so . . .” And then she was gone once more.

  “Joelle, my treasure, my heart, please . . .” But she had already resumed her half state, lost to him.

  Hyam fitted his face into the shadows where her hair spilled across her neck and wept for his failure and for all the empty hours. He felt hands settle upon his shoulders and sensed the caring strength of friends. But they could not respond to the accusations that wracked him. If only he had not failed. If only he had retrieved the vial. If only he had been wiser. If only he had been enough.

  Over the next four days, Hyam scarcely released Joelle’s hand. He slept on the floor by her pallet. The maidservants worked around him. The healer came regularly and made him eat. When they were alone, Hyam talked with her. He dwelt little on the past, for what could he say that mattered, save how he had returned without her breath? So he spoke of the days to come. He gave voice to his hopes for them both, and he formulated his plans. Now and then he knew a faint hint of peace, as though Joelle had managed to reach across the divide and share her love.

  Bryna came daily, sometimes accompanied by an Ashanta elder, more often alone. Twice Hyam woke in the night to find her gazing down at them both. He found considerable comfort in her silent sorrow.

  Trace came once every day, accompanied by either Darwain or his queen. Each time, Hyam shared the component of his plans that was ready, for there were things that needed to be put in motion. He must leave Joelle in order to help her return. He knew this. Sitting with her in this tree haven granted him the clarity to piece together the next stage.

  When Hyam explained his plans to his allies, he was prepared for objections or doubts. For he spoke with people who had vast experience at forming strategy. But neither Trace nor the Elven rulers found it necessary to say more than, “It will be done as you say.” Hyam assumed they were being kind, and took this with the same broken gratitude as he accepted most things these days.

  On the fifth day, Trace was escorted into the balcony by Ainya. The Elven queen was flanked by two guards who carried bundles. There was a certain formality to how the senior mage of Falmouth and the ruler of the hidden kingdom stood and punctuated the moment with their silence. Telling Hyam with utter solemnity that it was time.

  Trace asked, “Has she taken more of the dragon’s elixir?”

  “Not since the first day. When I offer, she tightens her lips.”

  “Has she awoken again?”

  “From time to time she sighs. I think I hear my name. She has squeezed my hand. Occasionally she stirs, as though she tries to waken.” Hyam stroked her arm. “Most of the time, she is as you see.”

  Ainya asked softly, “Have you drunk the elixir?”

  Hyam did not respond.

  The queen motioned to her guards, who deposited their bundles and departed. When only Trace remained with them, Ainya seated herself on the floor beside Hyam. She took hold of his free hand. And waited.

  Eventually Hyam did as she wished, which was to turn from his beloved. And meet her gaze.

  Ainya’s complexion was more blond than green, like sunlight seen through a minty veil. Her cheekbones were pronounced in the manner of her race, which slanted her eyes up at an angle that on her was beautiful. Her golden eyes held a combination of authority, wisdom, and compassion. As did her voice, even when she whispered, “Joelle needs for you to continue your quest.”

  Hyam found both comfort and dismay in hearing what he knew to be true.

  “For you to succeed, you must take the next step.”

  Hyam wanted to speak. He tried to fashion the words, here in this haven where time was not made welcome. He wanted to explain how his desperate longing to drink the elixir felt like treachery. How could he even want to be healed when he had failed to restore Joelle? How could he know the exquisite joy of regaining his mage powers when her own breath was lost? But the words did not come.

  Ainya went on, “Everything you suggested has been put in place.”

  Trace added, “Bayard has done as you requested. Not because you asked. Because it is right for the kingdom. But the Earl of Falmouth is not a patient man. You have kept him waiting as long as you possibly can.”

  Ainya said, “Your company is ready. Ashanta and Elf, human and ghost, even the dragon king’s mate has made contact through the general of shadows.”

  Trace said, “My liege, my oath requires me to offer you counsel. Hard as this step must be for you, it must be taken, and now.”

  Ainya continued, “I understand your reluctance. You are alive while your beloved’s breath is held by fiends. You are wracked by the guilt of living. Of knowing hope. You fear being made whole.”

  At a gesture from Ainya, Trace unlatched the top to the golden cup. “Highness.”

  The Elven queen filled the spoon and held it before Hyam’s face. The dragon’s gift gleamed in the forest light. “I will not belittle your burdens with arguments. But you must drink. For Joelle. And for us all.”

  52

  For Shona, returning home was disturbing on many levels. Traveling the Elven road back from the dragon island, she worried that her father might see her as the child she was no longer. She feared her mother’s criticism. She could almost hear her brothers’ mocking laughter.

  When she arrived home, Shona found everything she had dreaded, and more besides.

  Her family’s response to her journey was clear within the first hour. Her mother exclaimed in horror over her clothes, her filthy state, her unkempt hair, her sun-blasted complexion. Shona found it oddly unsettling to bathe and have her hair trimmed and put on a dress. The woman in the silver-backed mirror showed both a stricken gaze and a wealth of stories her family did not wish to hear.

  Timmins then insisted she help him work through a scroll he had recently acquired. Shona spoke hardly a word, but rather sat and listened as her two brothers and her father argued over how the information fit into Falmouth’s history. It began to rain while she sat in Timmins’s study. Shona watched the storm and felt herself struggling to draw a decent breath.

  For dinner that evening, her mother invited a young man from one of Falmouth’s most powerful clans. Everyone chatted gaily except Shona. No one asked about her adventures. Her absence was treated like a temporary inconvenience that held no lasting importance.

  Shona slept little that night. When she arose the next morning, her mind was made up.

  She found the clothes she had worn home in a pile of refuse waiting to be burned. The salt and the grime scratched her skin. The smell could only be described as ripe. The cotton trousers and blous
e were more grey now than white. By the time she finished packing, her doubts were all but vanquished.

  When her parents came downstairs an hour later, they found Shona seated at the kitchen table. They stared in outrage at the two satchels by her feet.

  Timmins demanded, “What on earth—”

  Shona did not allow him to complete his question. One by one she used her mage-light to fire the candles in the kitchen. There were fourteen in all, counting the candelabra stored on a shelf and used only for formal meals. Then she lit the four lamps. Then the two fireplaces.

  Her mother’s features turned stricken. Shona almost gave in then, but her father chose that moment to shout, “I demand you halt this nonsense this instant!”

  It was all the affirmation Shona required.

  She shielded herself, then plucked the flames from their sources. She drew them slowly across the room, gathering them one by one above her head. When all the flames were extinguished save that one, she began the strengthening process. She fed into the flaming ball all her bitter regret, all her determination, all her frustration . . .

  All her love.

  “Turn that off!”

  In reply, Shona made the light grow stronger still.

  “Child, did you not hear—”

  She added heat to the light. She built it to such an intensity that her parents, whom she did not shield, cried aloud in shock. They had no choice but to retreat from the room.

  “Shona!”

  She extinguished the light and waited. They returned to the kitchen, hesitant, uncertain. It hurt her to see the confusion on their faces. But Shona knew she had done the right thing. Her parents watched in despair as Shona lit the lanterns and the fires once more. She did nothing with the candles, for the heat she had created had turned them into puddles.

  When her parents looked at her, truly looked, she said quietly, “We must talk.”

  Shona moved into the dorm for female acolytes, a windowless chamber deep in the castle’s rock-lined cellars. She was assigned to the beginners’ class, where she was the oldest student by seven years.

  She found herself unable to contact any of Hyam’s company. Bayard refused her request for a meeting. Trace and Fareed actually turned away from her. The one time she found Meda on the practice grounds, the guards captain rebuffed Shona’s attempt to give back the Milantian sword, telling her instead to take it up with Hyam. Which Shona would have been happy to do. Except that she had not seen him once since their return.

  By the fourth day, Shona was convinced they intended to send her home again. She readied a multitude of arguments, but she knew Bayard’s command would leave her no choice. Frustration mounted in lockstep with her helplessness and her fears.

  On the fifth morning, Trace entered the classroom and spoke softly with Shona’s teacher, a pompous greybeard who treated the acolytes as his personal serfs. The teacher’s protests ended when the Earl of Oberon stepped into the doorway. Bayard gestured for Shona to join them. As she passed the mage, the old man muttered, “Good riddance.”

  They climbed the main stairs leading into the palace proper. As they entered the central vestibule, Meda and Alembord stepped to either side of Shona, flanking her as they would a prisoner. She started to ask what she had done, but their expressions were almost warlike, their gazes sharing a fierce glow. Shona walked on between them, following the earl and his master wizard, feeling very small indeed.

  When they entered the grand council chamber, Shona saw her parents standing at the far wall, along with the earl’s entire inner cabinet. Then she spotted Hyam. He was seated directly across from the earl’s throne-like chair, the position normally taken by the lord chancellor, the earl’s chief of staff. Hyam was surrounded by a faint ethereal glow. It reminded her of Dyamid, the Elven king, in that slim moment between his release from the ceramic eye and his departure. Hyam looked scarcely more attached to earth than his wife.

  Shona asked, “Are you all right?”

  Hyam smiled a gentle welcome and waited until she had seated herself to reply, “I’m not sure.”

  Up close Hyam’s glow was even more pronounced. “Do the Elves not understand that you must eat and sleep?”

  Hyam pointed across the table. “Your uncle has something to tell you.”

  Shona glanced across the table and was surprised to find Bayard and Trace watching her with genuine satisfaction. As though they mightily approved of this conversation. She was about to demand an explanation when Bayard said, “Everyone please take your places.”

  Shona’s gaze was captured by her parents as they seated themselves on her other side. The gazes of Timmins and his wife mirrored a shock so deep they moved as if asleep. Shona then realized that Meda and Alembord had taken up position behind her chair. Just as two honor guards did for Bayard during formal ceremonies.

  She asked no one in particular, “What is happening?”

  Hyam took hold of her hand and said, “Pay attention.”

  Bayard began, “After considerable deliberation, I and the council have come to feel that Hyam is correct in his thinking. I cannot ask you to become my heir.”

  Hyam’s grip tightened slightly, and in that instant Shona realized Hyam had drunk the dragon’s tears. The force carried with it an otherworldly potency.

  Then she realized what Bayard was asking her to do.

  53

  The word was investiture, and it meant the bestowing of a title.

  In her younger years, the lone candle in Shona’s bedchamber had often become a dozen golden chandeliers, a parade of light that burnished the trumpets playing her fanfare. She had dreamed of a golden tiara with an emerald the size of a goose egg. Then Bayard had led her onto a balcony overlooking the main square, and all the people cheered.

  This reality was very different indeed.

  For one thing, everything took place in a frantic rush. The morning of her investiture came just two days later. Bayard had never been a patient man. But now his haste was shared by all of Falmouth. When she protested to Trace, he said simply that certain events have a life and a speed all their very own, as she would soon discover.

  Shona’s investiture most resembled a council of war. Bayard was flanked by his council and senior officers. To their numbers were added two dozen badland chieftains. The two Calebs accompanied the Rothmore leaders. Connell and the earl’s representative came from Emporis. At dawn that same day, Selim, the newly appointed governor of Olom, offered Bayard fealty. All this was possible because Darwain had opened the Elven portals and sent messengers throughout the fiefdom, inviting all who wished to join them.

  Wonder upon wonder was how Shona heard the day described. She watched from the palace balcony as Darwain and his queen marched with his Elven guard down the long road leading to the Falmouth gates. Joining them were the elders of the Ashanta empire, the seldom-seen folk who never stepped beyond their white boundary stones. Yet here they were, the green warrior race not seen for a thousand years, entering Falmouth with the same people who had stood aside and let the Milantian hordes destroy their civilization. By the time the newcomers reached the palace gates, the entire city of Falmouth was rendered silent by the spectacle.

  Bayard and his elders had told her what was to take place, of course. In fact, they had spoken of these events as if asking her permission. Shona knew her role, and she also knew what her actions would represent. Word of this day would soon filter throughout the realm. What she said would matter little. In fact, Shona had every intention of saying nothing at all. Instead, she wanted her actions to make a statement. She wanted people to remember who she was, not by what she said, but by how she met this challenge.

  She worked in secret with Bayard’s wife, a regal woman whose good nature had remained intact despite her only child’s illness and her husband’s fief being erased from all maps of the realm. Tamara brought in a trusted seamstress who worked night and day to give form to Shona’s plans.

  When it came time for Shona to appear,
she left her chamber dressed in a formal gown modeled after a penitent’s robe. The cloth was pearl grey, a fabric so soft it drifted cloud-like about her. Her hair was woven into a long braid with nothing save a grey ribbon for adornment. She wore no jewelry.

  In her right hand she carried the wand with its glowing miniature orb.

  The company who greeted her were dressed in royal finery, which only highlighted her humble state. Shona stood with them in the stone antechamber leading to the palace’s main hall, studying each in turn. Fareed looked mightily uncomfortable in tailored mage robes, which Shona knew were from Connell’s own wardrobe. Trace wore the blue-striped robe of master wizard and greeted her with a smile intended to gentle her nerves. Alembord and Meda wore the golden breastplates that Shona knew had last seen the light of day when Bayard’s forebears were kings of Oberon. The Milantian sword hilt rose above Alembord’s left shoulder. Selim wore desert robes laced in silver. Even Hyam was adorned in the golden overmantle of a king’s adviser.

  There was no fanfare as Shona entered the banquet hall. Nor was there crown, nor diadem, nor any other element of gold or gemstone. On this she had been most firm. Bayard wore his formal robes, as did his wife. But he also wore his broadsword, and beside his throne rested his shield. He and all the others rose as she entered the chamber. They stood in silence as she marched down the length of the hall, up the stairs, and took her place upon the throne.

  Bayard turned to the gathered company and declared, “I gave my oath never to seek the crown for myself. And I for one keep my oaths. But we all bear witness to what has happened in our beloved realm. Darkness spreads its cloak once more. The capital has become a haven for the fiends who once sought to enslave us all. They have returned and been received by our so-called rulers with open arms.” The Earl of Falmouth unsheathed his sword and lifted it high overhead. “I for one will not stand for this!”

  The entire gathering rose and responded with one voice, so loud and so long it seemed to Shona as if the stones of Falmouth trembled in agreement.