An Heir to Thorns and Steel

by M. C. A. Hogarth

  “God and saints,” I said. “How can you possibly still be carrying me?”

  “Oh ho, the sleeper has a tongue,” the man said with a laugh as Almond scampered forward to clutch my dangling hand.

  “Master!”

  “Truly,” I said, embarrassed, “you don’t have to carry me any further.”

  “I am begging to differ,” the man said companionably. “I can feel the slackness in your limbs. Your mind woke before the rest of you, but the laudanum’s gripped you right fierce. You just rest you gentle here while me and mine get you back to the ship.”

  “There’s more of you?”

  A man laughed behind me. “You didn’t think the first mate’d be carrying you all by himself all that way, did you? Even wasted as you are, you’re a bit of an awkward bundle there, scholar.”

  I couldn’t twist to look behind me, not slung over the first mate’s shoulder like a sack of fruit. “Kelu...?”

  “Here,” the genet said from the other side of the man.

  “When you collapsed, she went to get help,” Almond said. “She can travel faster than you can, Master.”

  “Anyone can travel faster than he can,” Kelu said, voice acerbic. I couldn’t see her in the dark but I could imagine her expression.

  “Don’t embarrass the lad,” the first mate said, his voice rumbling beneath my stomach. “He’s done sick.”

  I cleared my throat. “Ah... thank you, by the by.”

  “It’s no trouble,” the man said. “We’re paid well to run these charters to the islands, and there’s a bonus in it if we bring back the lady’s long lost prince. You don’t look much like a prince to me, but the little fluff says you’re it, and their noses don’t lie.”

  “I see,” I said. “How far are we, do you suppose?”

  “Oh, a day or so,” the first mate said. “Thought about renting some horses, but never been aught good with the beasts. Glad you’re such a feather of a thing, scholar, else I’d be dragging you instead of carrying.”

  “I’m glad too,” I said fervently.

  He laughed. Behind him his other man said, “Well, he talks like an elf.”

  “Naw,” the first mate said. “He talks like an educated human. Fancy university, I’m betting. Yes?”

  “Ah... yes,” I said, startled.

  “If he’d been a real elf, he’d be speaking that poet garble of theirs,” the first mate continued. “And he’d be a sight more imperious than he’s been.” He grinned and hefted me more comfortably onto his shoulder. “What about it, scholar? Always this humble?”

  “I hardly think of myself as humble.”

  “You hardly think of yourself at all, y’mean,” the first mate said, laughing. “Ah, that’s not a good thing, not at all, not if you’re going to survive the elfs. They’ll grind you up and have you for supper if you act meek.”

  “I’m not meek,” I said. “I’m just in pain. Pain teaches you to be quiet.”

  “Suppose it does at that.”

  Behind me the second man said, “Hey, Almond, this really your prince or is this some lamb you’re bringing west for sacrifice?”

  “He’s the one,” Almond said.

  “He could use some roughening,” the second man said, and I stiffened.

  The first mate patted my side. “There now. We’re not that kind. Besides, the elfs will want you in one piece, eh? And one color.”

  “Bet he’s never skipped a meal in his life,” the second man muttered.

  “Shut up, Cab,” the first mate said, his voice suddenly quelling. To me, “You just relax, scholar. We’ll be stopping for the night in an hour or so.”

  “I... “ I trailed off. Then I simply said, “Thank you.”

  “Not a word.”

  I shrugged and let him walk. At our side, Almond kept my hand and trotted, silent and determined.

  We did stop for the night, and Kelu’s helpmeet offered jerky and water. The latter I drank as if desert-born... the former I attempted, but my jaws simply refused the abuse. I waited until the others had fallen asleep and then struggled with it in as much dignity and silence as possible, abetted by the dark.

  “Wet it and work it with your hands before you chew it,” the first mate said, quiet.

  I glanced at him.

  “It’s tough old stuff,” he said with a grin I could hear in the dark. “You learn how to get by or you don’t eat.”

  I followed his suggestion in silence until the meat began to fray, then popped a twist of it in my mouth and sucked. The salt bit my tongue like sparks on skin. After I managed a swallow, I said, “Thank you.”

  “Just doing the job I was hired for.”

  I narrowed my eyes, trying to make out his face. “You know what I mean.”

  “Well, maybe I do.”

  I chewed my way through half my dinner before I found the courage to ask. “What gave me away?”

  There was a shrug in his voice. “Men who don’t eat waste away in a certain way. Addicts a different way. You’re wasted like a sick man. Swollen joints. Stiff.”

  Something I could do nothing to disguise without swathes of clothes. I sighed.

  “Nothing to be ashamed of, scholar. But take your dose, eh?”

  “I’d rather not,” I said, and almost meant it.

  “The good fluffies will bite me if you don’t.”

  I snorted... but when the man passed me a leather jack I drank the bitterness of it to the dregs and passed it back, lips curled back from my teeth. “You’ve met the elves?”

  “Aye that,” he said. “One of the few on board who have. Interesting lot.”

  “Are they what Almond says they are?” I asked. “Or what Kelu says?”

  The man chuffed a laugh. “And what do they say? They’re angels and demons?”

  Strange words to have chosen. I said, “Something like that.”

  “All I know is that they’re rich and they pay even though it’s more than obvious they think we’re the lowest dirt beneath their feet.”

  “What a recommendation,” I said dryly.

  “I’ll just hope they believe you’re this prince of theirs,” he said. “If you’re not, you come back to the ship and we’ll get you home.”

  “I would have liked to stay and study their language and culture,” I said, “since I suspect Almond’s belief in me is... fanciful.”

  “You won’t be studying any culture or language, scholar,” the first mate said, shaking his head. “You know what’s safe, do your business and go home. The Archipelago’s no place for normal folks. Everyone there is insane.”

  “That’s a little strong, don’t you think?” I asked, fighting the haze of the drug as it encroached.

  “You’ll find out when you get there.”

  “You know more than you’re telling,” I said, thinking it the height of insight in my drug-softened state.

  He laughed. “Not so. But I may suspect more than I’m willing to gossip.”

  “And you’ll tell me on the trip to the islands,” I said. “Won’t you? I’d hate to be unprepared.”

  “I’ll do my best to help you,” he said, and even through the poppy fog I could hear the sudden gravity in the words. “Now you’ll help me best by sleeping, eh? Maybe I won’t have to carry you as far tomorrow, then.”

  “Right,” I said, finding that I’d become prone without remembering how I’d gotten there. “Do you believe in Heaven, sir?”

  “Why?” the first mate asked, laughing. “You planning to make a trip there too?”

  I struggled for an answer, but no answer seemed as important as sleeping... so, I slept.

  The following morning the mate and his man and the two genets shepherded me across the plains, taking turns propping me up or carrying me. I am ashamed of how much they had to drug me to make movement possible; even leaning on the genets and soaking in their delicious warmth didn’t offset the deleterious effects of the wet, clammy air, the days without proper sleep or food. Through the laudanum ha
ze I could sense the angry reluctance of my limbs, the kind that warned that pushing too much further would result in permanent damage. I would have been afraid had it been possible.

  We never regained the road, so my first view of Far Horizon came unexpectedly as we crested a particularly muddy hill. Supported between the first mate and Almond, I stared at the town through the mist on my glasses, at an impression of industry and vibrancy, of brown brick and wood-smoke and carriages and motion.

  And yet... and yet... for all the bustle and distraction of the town, my eyes rose past it to fix on the ocean. And there they remained.

  “Ahhhh,” the first mate said with a laugh. “You feel it.”

  “The elves feel it too,” his man said behind him.

  “Well, he’s either one of theirs or one of ours,” the first mate said. “And he looks like one of ours, so that’s what I’ll bank on. Come on, then, scholar. Let’s introduce you to the sea.”

  “The sea,” Kelu added, “is nashfe.”

  “Nashfe,” I murmured, and thought of coming home.

  “This way,” the first mate said, and we set off across the field. For once I stumbled not because of my body-weakness, but because my eyes refused to stay on the uneven ground we crossed. They kept rising, as if buoyed, to the horizon and the gray water there, the endless sky with its complex palette of clouds. I had never felt the size of the sky until that moment, when it dwarfed the human settlement perched on the edge of the sea with the variety, the height and the depth of its clouds, filling it like a bottomless glass.

  But then a building blocked my view and I found my boots clicking on cobblestones, and we were walking along the edge of the shore where Far Horizon’s poorest fishers hove to their rude docks, barely planks nailed to a single post.

  “Stinks,” Kelu said, wrinkling her nose.

  “You always say that, furry,” the mate’s companion said with a guffaw.

  “It’s always true.”

  I looked down at the genets and found them with nearly identical expressions of revulsion. The smell on the wind was pungent, yes, but... fascinating. Complex. Thick with rot and life, but wiped clean by the breeze’s briny sting, so damp it left my hair wet enough to cling to my jaw and throat.

  “Good, eh?” the first mate said, laughing.

  “Yes,” I said, as if punched. The word just spilled out. “Unbelievable.”

  “He’ll get sea-sick, watch,” the second man said.

  “I’ll wager on that.”

  “Bottle of rum?”

  “Cask of it.”

  I listened but without urgency. All my attention was on the air, the cool wetness of it. Soft like a blanket. Restless like hunger. Playful: one moment brushing my hair from my face, the next catching it in my mouth and nostrils. Like the scent it had so much character I hardly knew what to think of it. I had taken the air in Evertrue for granted, but it had allowed me that by being bland and self-effacing. There was nothing demure about the air off the ocean.

  The uneven cobbles became even ones, and then a raised wooden boardwalk, and soon our footfalls made hollow thumps as we walked past piers of increasing size and complexity, mooring vessels that could be called ships. They too fascinated me, with their purposeful lines and lacework rigging. The largest ones stole my breath entirely. Who had designed such amazingly complex things? How had they been built? They bobbed on the waves like the lightest of toys but they creaked and groaned with terrifying solidity. They had mass and weight and presence. They belonged to an entirely different world than the one I knew, and every line that defined them hinted at needs and laws I knew nothing about.

  “Here we are, scholar,” the first mate said, and I looked up and out and felt my heart flutter.

  “Beautiful,” I said.

  “Eh, well, maybe he’s not all bad,” the second man said. They both laughed, these lined and weathered keepers-of-secrets, and I envied them.

  It seemed incredible to me that such a vast vessel could float. As we drew closer it rose higher and higher over my head until it became as tall as a building with multiple stories studded with thick glass windows and the more ominous shadows of cannon ports. I stared up until the back of my neck ached and my eyes watered and realized only then that they had allowed me to stand there and gawk until I had had my fill.

  “The company’s smallest galleon,” the first mate said, “but God will forgive me for believing she’s the best. That’s the Steadfast Dreamer.”

  “Of course,” I said, because what else could she be called but something high-minded and fair?

  “We’ll be leaving soon?” Kelu asked.

  “Now that we’ve got your man, yes,” the first mate said. “We’re already done re-supplying and taking on cargo for the rest of the run. Just need to get you folk settled and we’ll cast off.”

  “Good,” Kelu said. “I don’t want to keep her waiting.”

  “Aye no, that we don’t,” the first mate said. “Go on up, then. I’ll take care of the rest.”

  I looked uncertainly at the plank.

  “Don’t worry,” Almond said. “I’ll hold your hand.”

  I didn’t have the heart to tell her that if I tripped, she would hardly be enough to keep me from falling into the water. But truth be told, I was far more interested in reaching the top than in worrying that I wouldn’t. More than anything I wanted to stand on the deck of the Steadfast Dreamer. I did not for a moment believe that I was the heir to some estate in a foreign land, nor its long-lost prince or even that I was some other race entirely... but that this trip had ruined me forever for Evertrue I believed with all my heart. The idea of living so far inland, so far from the water, was heart-breaking. How devastating to be torn between family, friends and love... and the sea. I started up the plank, Almond’s hand in mine, and thought only of my longing to leave the coast behind.

  And of course, I stumbled, tripped, and fell.

  The sea was cold and complicated with currents, and my body refused to fight it. I floated on my back, stunned by how hard I’d struck the surface, and stared up in shock at Almond’s worried face. That I could still see it clearly was a relief; my glasses had stayed with me. I didn’t want to imagine them consigned to the floor of the harbor.

  “Taking it like a man,” observed the man who’d accompanied us. Then he waved down a few sailors to help me back on board. My arrival onto the ship’s deck was unceremonious, uncomfortable, and embarrassing; worse, when I could focus it was on the sight of the squared-off points of two scuffed boots. I looked up and found myself at the feet of what could only be the ship’s captain.

  “So the sea had a taste of you,” he said.

  “And spit me back out again,” I said with a tired grin. “Is she always so fickle?”

  “Like the girl you desperately want and can’t have,” the man said and offered me a hand up. “I’m Captain Gant of Merit.”

  “Morgan Locke of Evertrue,” I said, taking it. For once it didn’t matter how much I hurt, or that I was soggy and exhausted. I was on a ship.

  “You’re the one we’re taking to the eastern trade,” the captain said. “You don’t look as I was expecting.”

  “I imagine not,” I said.

  He studied me, then nodded. “Join me for a drink, eh?”

  “Happy to.”

  “Come along, fluff,” he added to Almond.

  We followed him to a cozy cabin with distracting nautical maps for wall hangings. I stared at them while the captain poured two glasses at his sideboard and did not turn until I heard his footsteps behind me. The liquor was whisky, and smelled pungently of smoke and cedar.

  “Most of the crew don’t know that we trade with elves, save the scant handful I need to help me in their business offices,” the captain said without preamble. “I’d appreciate you not spreading that.”

  Taken aback, I said, “Of course.”

  “Sit,” he said, pointing at one of the chairs before his desk. I did as he bade; Almond kneeled
at my feet, something that would have disquieted me had I not been so intrigued by Gant.

  “We’ll do as we always do for them,” he continued. “Drop you off at the easternmost island of their archipelago where they keep their outland-facing port, town by the name of Mene. You won’t be seeing any elves there either, only servants. What few elves live there don’t leave their houses of commerce. They are not so much secretive as that they can’t be troubled to meet with us directly, us being humans and not much better than cattle to them.”

  “How have you explained them?” I asked, nodding at Almond.

  He shrugged. “Exotics. There are enough things walking this earth to make a man accept a great deal... and a sailor anything. We see a lot, skirting the fringes of the world.”

  “I imagine,” I said, envious. I sipped the whisky, wondering only after it had singed my throat if combining it with my poppy habit was a good idea.

  “So then,” Gant said. “Maybe you can explain why the fluffs went looking for an elf and brought back you.”

  “I wish I could,” I said. “But they seem convinced that I am what they seek.”

  “And you believe them.”

  I looked at him. “Why do I have the feeling you are about to suggest I do otherwise?”

  “Because safety is important,” Gant said. He looked at Almond. “Have you given him a blood-flag name?”

  Almond said, “Sir, he is a blood-flag. He is the brother of the king.”

  “He looks human,” Gant said.

  “He isn’t,” she replied, serene. Somehow she could make her contradictions sound like obedience, as if she was not correcting her betters, only stating facts so transcendently true that they were beyond anyone’s refutation.

  “What’s a blood-flag?” I asked.

  “The elves,” Gant said. “They have things like families, like noble houses. They call them blood-flags. All the important elves are a blood-flag and all the lessers owe affiliation to one... or had better, if they want to thrive. Everything an important elf owns is assigned to that flag. I am technically an asset of the blood-flag Sadar, because my ship and I and our missions are protected by the master of that blood-flag, what you might call the patriarch of it, Kemses e Sadar. He’s one of the wealthiest of elves: he has an entire city of his own, the port of Erevar on their mainland. If the fluffs want you to be safe, they’d give you a blood-flag name to claim as protection... so that the first elf that sees you wandering without one of them won’t steal you for his kennels.”