A Child of Great Promise: An Altearth Tale

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A Child of Great Promise: An Altearth Tale Page 10

by Ellis L. Knox


  “Half elf,” Talysse said, forcing her words from a strangled throat. “My mother is human.”

  The reply did not please Olu, but the reader gathered the cards into a deck once more.

  “Speak your question,” Olu said, adding, “the same question,” with heavy emphasis.

  “Who am I?” Talysse asked again, and told herself her voice did not tremble.

  Again Olu spread the cards. Again the pattern and number of the cards was different. Talysse had no doubt now—this Olu was a true reader, which only made the waiting worse. Her question hung like a sword over her head.

  A minute passed in long breaths, then another. Even the silence waited. No black smoke rose and no shapes appeared on the blank white cards. Abruptly, Olu stood.

  “We are done,” she said, her voice brittle and cold, as if she announced a death.

  “What’s wrong, Lyssie?” Detta wondered, also standing.

  Talysse felt as heavy as wet clothes. She struggled to gain her feet. “I don’t know, tante, but something is.”

  The gnome looked to the reader. “What does it mean?”

  “The cards do not speak,” Olu said in clipped tones. “I laid the pattern for elves, but the cards would not speak. This one”—she did not look at Talysse—“is not elf. I dealt the pattern for humans, but the cards were silent. This one is not human. The cards do not know her. That is what it means.”

  She laid two silver coins on the table.

  “Take back your money. We are done.”

  “Lyssie.” Detta’s voice edged toward a wail.

  Talysse picked up the coins, scarcely feeling them. She looked at the blank cards and shuddered.

  “It’s all right,” she said, or someone with her voice was saying. “It’s time to go, that’s all.”

  She walked out of the house, into the street. A cold fist had hold of her heart.

  Who am I?

  Not human.

  Not elf.

  What am I?

  The sun hung bright between white clouds in the blue Arelat sky.

  The day and the city wore at them steadily. Talysse was wrapped within herself. Detta kept glancing at her with eyes full of worry. Twice she tried to cheer Talysse up, but the girl answered only in monosyllables. The heat pressed down, but Talysse would not stop. She would walk every street in the city, she declared in her longest sentence, until she found the king.

  They passed by low brick houses all but concealed by vines bearing tiny purple flowers. They entered an unguarded stone gateway that pierced a thick wall.

  “Who knew there was so much stone in the world?” Detta wondered.

  Still more stone awaited them. Beyond the arch, buildings and streets alike were stone, though there were fewer people. Talysse gave up asking for directions and wandered more or less at random. Her feet were sore, her legs ached, and her stomach was empty, but she refused to stop. She scanned the skyline whenever they emerged into a plaza, judging any tall building to be the palace.

  None were.

  She halted in a small square, which was far less busy than the main streets. An orange tree grew in the center, but it was not thriving. All around the square were three-story buildings with brick walls for the lower levels, and wood for the third. All the windows stood open and voices drifted down like leaves. Mothers called to children, whose high, bird-like replies echoed off every wall, but no faces appeared. It was like being in a plaza of cheerful ghosts.

  “Well,” Detta said, as she set down her pack, “here we are, though I do not know where here is.”

  “Nor do I,” Talysse said. She sighed heavily. The incident with the reader had receded somewhat. It hung behind her like a black rain cloud.

  “Oh, Lyssie.” Detta put one hand to her mouth. “No matter,” she said firmly. “We’re sure to find it.”

  Talysse lifted her chin. “Not by standing here, we won’t. Let’s keep going.”

  In the end, they found the place by accident. It was simply a gray, grim wall, with no windows and a gateway nearly as large as the city gate, guarded by armed men. Each man was tall, bearded and stern.

  “They’re city guards,” Detta whispered, looking at them sidelong.

  “How do you know?”

  “They’re dressed the same, with that gold lion.”

  Pulling Detta behind her, she approached the one who looked least frightening, mostly because he was younger and had at least glanced at her.

  “Your pardon, sir. I am looking for the royal palace of King Raimón.”

  His eyes, gray as the steel of his lance, flickered.

  “Be off,” he said.

  “Please, great lord,” Detta said. “We have been searching all day.”

  The guard stamped his lance for a reply. Detta squealed and retreated behind Talysse. Another guard stepped forward. This one was bigger, with a white scar that disappeared into a black-and-gray beard.

  “You want the palace?”

  Talysse gulped and nodded.

  “There ain’t one. Not in Arles.”

  Talysse’s mouth went dry, but she pressed. “I seek an audience with the king.”

  One of the men laughed aloud. “You going to petition the king when he sits under the great oak tree?”

  “Is he there?” Talysse asked. Hope leaped up within her.

  The older guard waited for the laugh to trail off, then looked down at her as if she were a rather interesting bug.

  “Hear me, country girl. This is the royal castle. Not a palace; only emperors live in them things, and there’s no great oak tree. You be thinking of King Louis up in Paris and him long dead. But you ain’t going to see the King of Arelat because he ain’t in the city.”

  The stone buildings seemed to crowd around her and her heart curled tight against itself.

  “But I must,” Talysse said. It came out as more of a whine than a declaration. She was very tired.

  “But you won’t,” the guard said, without cruelty but also without sympathy. “Do you have a letter for His Majesty? Are you an ambassador? A visiting monarch?” He chuckled. “Of course not. Now be off. You make me look foolish, talking to a bumpkin and her gnome while I’m on duty.” He resumed his position. The younger guard, without moving his head in the slightest, gave her a look that seemed to dare her to speak even one more word. The faces of the guards became more impenetrable than stone. Talysse turned away, dragging her heart with her.

  She walked in no particular direction.

  Within herself, Talysse ran an unending, circular conversation. She would wait for the king to return. But then she would be found. So, she would fight. She would be captured. She would flee. She had no destination. She would return to the gardiens. They would leave Arles and go back. She could not go back. She would wait for the king. And so round and round went her thoughts.

  The last hours of daylight slid by in a haze of dejection. Talysse would walk for a while, then sit at some bench or at a fountain side, or merely against a wall. Detta would put down the pack, covering a sigh with one hand, and sit beside her Lyssie without a word. In a moment or a minute or several, up Talysse got and the gnome followed. The whole time they exchanged no more than a hundred words.

  Talysse walked and thought, without getting anywhere with either. At last, the last of the sun’s rays faded to darkness. Lights came on in the half-timbered shops and stone houses, and her stomach made a decision.

  “Detta, we have to eat.”

  The sign of a rooster hung above a wide door. The sign having been newly painted gave her a bit of hope. The door was large and heavy and moved only grudgingly. Talysse was still pushing when someone pulled it open from the inside.

  “Ho, easy now,” a voice said. A big man smelling of grease and sweat staggered out and kept going, the sour smell trailing after him.

  Talysse squinted through a light haze of smoke. Torches cast pools of amber light onto some tables while others sat in deep shadow. Most of the benches were occupied by hum
an men. Talysse ducked her head, feeling at the edges of her scarf for stray hair.

  “Come along, Detta,” she said, tugging at the gnome’s cloak. “Let’s find someplace in the shadows.” She made her way to a table next to the wall, just big enough for two. A burned-out torch hung above.

  Exhaustion settled over her like a heavy blanket. She wanted food and sleep equally, but both were going to require her to keep thinking for a little longer.

  A stooped, older woman appeared at the table. She looked at them expectantly. Talysse looked back and summoned a weak smile.

  “Food or drink?” The woman’s voice was clipped in a strange accent.

  “Oh! Sorry,” Talysse said. She tried to straighten her body. “We are very tired. What kind of food?”

  “What kind? The kind we have.” The woman looked around when men at another table called to her. “Quick now.”

  “Oh. Sorry.” Talysse thought she might be repeating herself. “Food and drink, then.”

  The woman hurried off without acknowledgment, disappearing into the gray haze.

  “Do you think she will bring us some?” Detta asked.

  “I hope so,” Talysse said. She leaned against the wall. “Else I think I’ll just die right here.”

  Drink appeared first, and Talysse was halfway through the tankard before she realized she ought to have waited for the food. By the time the plate of cold meat, hard bread, and discolored cheese arrived, her head was spinning. She pushed the tankard away until she had filled her belly, then finished the tankard more slowly.

  “Detta, get out our coins. We shall have to pay for this.”

  “I could not eat the cheese,” Detta said. “It has gone bad.”

  “I think we’ll have to pay for it anyway.”

  Detta spread the coins on the table between them just as the old woman reappeared. All were copper, save two. Several had a lion with a staff, but others were marked by three bars, and two with a fleur-de-lis. The silver coins were very small, stamped with a checkerboard pattern.

  “Put that away, you goose,” the old woman hissed.

  Detta looked up, puzzled, but Talysse grasped the message at once. She scooped the coins into a pile and covered them. It only required one hand.

  “What do we owe?”

  “A penny each for the meal, and two for the wine.”

  Talysse slid out four copper coins. The maid said, “No, it’s two each for the drinks… oh, never mind. Put your money away, you simpleton. Half the tables are watching.”

  Talysse scooped the coins back into the pouch. She dared a glance. “I don’t see anyone looking,” she said.

  “Naturally. That’s what marks you. Can you muster six silver pennies? I could get you a room with a lock.”

  Talysse shook her head, feeling another layer of tiredness descend.

  “We have only four, plus the coppers.”

  “It would take all you have, but you’d be safe for the night.”

  “Lyssie,” Detta began.

  “Hush, tante,” Talysse said. To the maid she said, “We need the money for food. We can sleep outside.”

  The serving woman gathered the four coins. “Off with you, then,” she said, sounding put out. “May you be luckier than you are smart.”

  Talysse wanted to reply, but the maid turned heel and hurried to another table. She wanted to say, I don’t need to be lucky, I am strong. No cutpurse could get through my defenses! She aimed a dismissive snort after the woman.

  But she also looked at the room again. The men at the tables talked as ever. None looked at her, but she could not shoo away the thought that she had shown her modest wealth plainly. Someone had to have seen. In the normal bustle of the inn, she thought she caught quick, sharp looks, like knife jabs. Hard-eyed men leaned close, whispering. She had so little; why would anyone bother to rob her?

  She stood up. “Time to leave, Detta,” she said briskly. She grabbed a last piece of bread, scanning the room as she did so. People had been coming and going all along. Someone might be lying in wait just outside the door. She thought again about the maid’s offer of safety.

  Let them try, she told herself. I’ll thump them good. But the words wilted even as she thought them. She could fly. She could manipulate a flame. Just lately, and only occasionally, she could shape salt water. There had been exercises at the cenobitum on physical fighting. Had she stayed, there would have been lessons in bladework.

  But right now, tonight, out in the darkened streets, what would she do? What could she do? Leap away, leaving Detta at the mercy of ruffians? A sour fear sank into her stomach.

  “Lyssie?”

  Detta’s voice pulled her away from her thoughts. She blinked. She was being timid. They would be fine. Who would rob them for a handful of silver? Almost anyone, she answered herself Her vision narrowed as she crossed to the door and pulled at it. Go through the door, her mind ordered. Her body obeyed. She gave herself no opportunity for thought. It was the same set of mind she had used when she first leaped from a tree into empty air, first held fire in her bare hand, first flew over the blue sea. She considered only the moment.

  The two left the inn. Night had fallen. The moon formed a pale scythe at the end of the street. The only real light came from a few windows or an open door. People moved in handfuls, hurrying past the girl and the gnome with incurious glances. Night was for being home, being where you belonged, not in the streets. The only ones who belonged in the streets at night were best avoided.

  Alleys opened like caverns in the dark. Talysse watched each sharply, heart crawling up her throat at each approach, settling again as they passed. She began to think about where they might sleep. None of those dark alleys seemed like a place to stay safely. Maybe a different inn would cost less, but where were they to find more money tomorrow and the day after?

  These and similar thoughts occupied her, when two men struck from behind. A blow sent Talysse stumbling into one of the black alleys. A high window dripped faint light into the darkness. The man had shoved her hard; her right arm hurt. Had he hit her? Confusion swirled with the dark. The other man had picked up Detta and now tossed her to the ground like a sack of flour. The gnome scrambled to her feet and stood close to Talysse, who put a hand on her shoulder. The gnome trembled like a rabbit.

  “Hand over the purse.”

  Her attacker moved close, hand out. His face was as hard and expressionless as a board. He stank of old liquor and older sweat. A smell of rot came from his mouth.

  Talysse pulled the purse from her belt. All her courage was gone; she only hoped they would not hurt her or Detta. She was helpless, sick. Her insides were turning into puddles. She placed the purse in his palm, then snatched her hand back. It was like setting something in the mouth of a spider. He took the purse into his left hand, then he hit her. Her eye glimpsed the quick snake of his fist. She felt the blow catch on the side of her face. There was a pure, clean sound of a bell, and the night exploded into stars that pulsed with colors. She fell back and bounced hard against the wall.

  Detta shrieked and did not stop until the other man struck her, too. Even through the lights, Talysse saw the gnome fall. The ringing faded, her sight cleared, and her fists clenched. She leaped at Detta’s assailant, snarling and spitting. Strong hands pulled her off and flung her aside. She hit the ground hard, but got up again at once. No one was going to hurt Detta.

  A third man appeared at the opening of the alley, a tall silhouette. He carried a staff even taller. Was she going to be clubbed to death? The possibility felt real, but abstract.

  “Return what you have taken,” the man said in a deep voice that held tension, promised violence.

  “Easy now, citizen,” said the man who had hit her. He edged to one wall while his partner moved to the other. They ignored the women, and Talysse eased to Detta’s side. “You got no business here.” The two bandits slid forward like whispers.

  The tall man did not move. He held the staff at an angle so that it
crossed his body.

  “You shall not be clever,” he said. “Return what you have stolen.”

  “Never stole it. The girl handed it over. See? It’s right here.”

  They were within three paces of the man. The one with the coin purse made a strangled noise and threw the coin purse at the man’s head, and both robbers sprang forward, seemingly to dart past and escape, making the man have to choose which one to stop.

  He chose both. The staff blurred. A series of sharp thwacks, and both robbers were on the ground, unmoving. He poked at each, nodded, then returned his quarterstaff to the sheath on his back. He came no closer but spoke in a deep voice.

  “My name is Jehan d’Ursay,” he said. “Mademoiselle has nothing to fear from me. Are you hurt? Is the gnome injured?”

  Talysse’s insides were no longer water, but she was shaking and her head reeled as if she’d been spun like a top. She struggled to her feet, propping one hand against the wall.

  “Je… Jehan? Who are you? Are you a wizard?”

  “No, mademoiselle. I am an elf…” He said another word but it throttled in his throat.

  Talysse staggered over to where Detta lay. She shook the gnome gently, but got no response. She looked to the elf.

  “Can you help us? Detta will not wake up.”

  “Best get on home,” the elf said. “It is not safe here.”

  Talysse rubbed Detta’s hand. “We don’t have a home,” she said, the words sour in her mouth.

  Jehan took a step forward. “Listen to me. These two will wake up soon enough. I tell you it is not safe.” He turned to go.

  “I heard you,” Talysse said angrily, “but Detta didn’t. That’s because they knocked her out. She can’t move and I can’t carry her. Why did you save us only to leave us here?” Everything was so hopeless, she had to let go of Detta’s hand, for her own were closing into fists. She badly wanted to hit someone. Anyone.

  The elf stood at the end of the alley, muttering. Then he laughed—a short, bitter sound. It made her turn to look at him.

  He was coming into the alley. He stepped over the body of one of the bandits and came near.

  “Will this be the first, then?” he asked, but he said it low, as to himself. Talysse barely heard him and the words made no sense anyway. He knelt and picked up Detta, cradling her gently against his chest.

 

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