by P. M. Biswas
“No, no,” Soma said easily. “The Stone has already reached a conclusion—a conclusion that was, I daresay, aided by your… disruption.”
“Eh?” Tam was flummoxed.
“It was quite handy.” Soma tapped the Stone. “Your hearts were bared as you bantered.”
“That wasn’t banter,” Loren muttered. “It was torture. Systematic torture.”
“Don’t be so dramatic.” Tam rolled her eyes. “You need to be pricked every now and then. Like a bubble. A pompous, pretentious bubble.”
“You do realize that bubbles burst when they’re pricked?”
“Do they?” Tam asked innocently, recalling how she’d gotten a spar out of Loren when he’d last burst. “I had no idea.”
Loren glared at her.
Tam didn’t let her faux innocence waver.
Eras coughed. “Seer, have the assignments for the mission been confirmed by the Stone?”
“Yes,” said Soma. “I suggest that those traveling—including myself—disperse to pack our belongings and to say goodbye to our loved ones.”
Well. That was a depressing statement. And here Tam had been working so hard to lift everyone’s spirits… especially Loren’s, since Loren was such a fragile buttercup. If moral indignation didn’t inflate his ego on a regular basis, he shrank into self-doubt and misery.
Speaking of misery, Tam would have to write letters to her loved ones. Borik. Kay. She couldn’t go and meet them; given the urgency of this mission, Tam couldn’t ride back to the fort and bid farewell to them personally.
As if sharing the same opinion, Emeraude left her throne and descended the platform. After bowing deeply before Soma, she summoned Tam to her.
“Come, Tam.” Sadness had softened Emeraude’s customarily cool mien. “We both have letters to send.”
“Both…?” Tam asked. “Aren’t you going back to the palace?”
“Not until this ordeal is over. In the interim I shall rule by proxy, sending Kay instructions, should he need them.” Turning to Loren, Emeraude asked, “Your Highness, would you mind terribly if I borrowed your bonded for a while?”
“M-my…,” Loren floundered. “That is, Your Majesty, you don’t have to….”
“You definitely don’t have to ask anyone’s permission but mine when it comes to me,” Tam said, perhaps a tad too forcefully, and Emeraude smiled—a knowing smile which told Tam that Emeraude had, as usual, deliberately said what would rouse Tam’s spiritedness.
“Precisely,” Loren said, relieved. He held his arm out to Tam for another salute. “I shall see you later, comrade.”
Tam gripped Loren’s arm firmly. “Later, then.”
THE HUMAN delegation was staying in a section of the Wanderwood not unlike where Ato and his wife dwelled. Emeraude was housed in a massive oak-like tree with a trunk several yards wide—nine yards, if Tam had it right—and while it had no artificial decorations on its exterior, the fruits dangling from its vines like giant blue pearls were decoration enough, the treetop like a grand chandelier that tinkled and shimmered overhead. Tam ducked into the doorway curtained with intricately interwoven, minuscule star-shaped flowers, and into a room whose arched ceiling was a knotted mass of inseparable branches. In a corner, a stairwell of yet more protruding branches led to an upper level.
It was alien and otherworldly and wonderful. Tam gawked at it all like a country bumpkin at a city fair—the furniture comprised of tables that were discs of wood bulging out of the walls and chairs that rose naturally out of the ground, their backs cushioned by thick, waxy leaves.
“Erm,” said Tam, “i-is it appropriate for me to be in your private chambers, Your Maje—”
“Emeraude,” corrected the queen.
“E-Emeraude?”
“Well, I am no virginal damsel and you are no persistent suitor. There’s nothing inappropriate about it.”
“I… I meant as a peasant, not a suitor, but….” Tam giggled nervously. That was a jest, wasn’t it? Why were Emeraude’s jests always so bizarre? Mayhap it was because Emeraude didn’t know how to jest; she could plot and scheme, but everyday humor was beyond her.
“I heard that was how Maryada courted her wife,” Emeraude said absently, walking over to a dainty portable desk that had foldable joints. It was markedly of human make and had likely been carted in with the queen’s sundry baggage. “Ten years ago, before they got married. By climbing in through the window.”
“That sounds like Maryada,” Tam admitted.
“Now they are due to have their tenth anniversary. How time flies. My husband and I would have had our twenty-third anniversary a month ago, were he still alive. We were wed when we were just eighteen.”
Tam had no clue what to say to that. What could she say to that?
Emeraude still wasn’t looking at Tam; she was studying the joins of the desk like an augurer studying a hen’s markings. “In sending you on this mission, I am robbing you of anniversaries you will never have. Lovers you will never wed. Children you will never embrace. Sweetnesses and tragedies beyond your imagining.”
“That’s why I don’t imagine them,” Tam said matter-of-factly, and Emeraude glanced up at her, startled. “Because they’re beyond my imagining. Why waste my energies on them?”
Emeraude just stared at her.
What, was Tam supposed to pity herself for living a short life? Short as Tam was, perhaps a short life suited her. She would rather have a meaningful life than a long one.
It wasn’t that Tam didn’t respect the everyday joys of family and intimacy—she had seen how in love her parents were, and that love was forever ingrained in her mind as the ideal marriage. It was just that such joys took years to cultivate, and to Tam, who had grown up amidst a war, it was more efficient to spend those years training and fighting. If she survived, she would come home victorious and would go about discovering the sweetnesses that Emeraude spoke of.
“You’re a remarkable girl,” Emeraude said, and Tam shrugged one-shouldered, ill at ease.
“I’m just stubborn. That’s what my ma told me.”
“She was right, I’d wager.”
“Heh. She was.”
Beside Emeraude’s rickety collapsible desk was an open box full of parchment and bottled ink that Tam could borrow sheaves and a quill from. Tam noticed the presence of another box—the hulking sandalwood monstrosity that had borne gifts for the elven king.
“Um,” said Tam, “did King Eras not accept your presents?”
“Indeed not,” Emeraude answered with some bemusement. “I offered them to the king such that he may disburse them amongst his citizenry if he so desired, but he said that the elves have no use for metals such as gold. To them, gold is lifeless and without magic—a metal without value. A blade of grass has more value to them than a gold coin, for it has more life in it.” Emeraude ran her hand over the engraved enamel of the box. “The silks were likewise rejected, as the elves wear enchanted clothing and ours would only serve to discomfit them.”
“The elves are eccentric, aren’t they?” Tam wouldn’t refuse a box full of gold if she was gifted it. Silks, she was less interested in, but with gold she could commission a custom spear for herself, buy a purebred warhorse, and feast on an endless supply of cinnamon-and-apple pies. Her stomach growled.
“Not more eccentric than we are.” Emeraude heeded Tam’s hunger and slid a plate of floury greenish flatbreads toward her. Augh. It must be the infamous leaf-bread. “We simply evolved from different pasts and were shaped by different experiences. But our personhood is the same.”
Tam wasn’t sure she understood the concept of “personhood,” but she didn’t want an hour-long philosophical lecture on it, so she only hummed in agreement and stuffed a leaf-bread into her mouth.
It was—
It was like spinach pastry, actually. Not Tam’s favorite, but not unpleasant either. Tam stuffed a second bread into her mouth and chewed enthusiastically.
“There’s wine in that pitche
r.” Emeraude indicated a winding, twisting jug with a spout as long as a swan’s neck. She bent to retrieve sheaves of paper from the stationery box and laid them upon the desk. “I’ll give you some privacy to write your letters.”
Tam shook her head vigorously. “N-no!” she managed around her mouthful of bread, spewing breadcrumbs all over herself. “I’m the subject and you’re the monarch! It is I who should leave!”
“Sit down,” Emeraude said with a stony sort of gentleness, “at this antique desk that my secretary loaned me for this expedition and is likely weeping over back home, and write your letters on it. Spreading the parchment over your knees and then attempting to write will only further botch your already messy scrawl.”
Was Emeraude critiquing Tam’s handwriting? How unfair. Tam didn’t have calligraphy tutors like the royals did. And Kay’s handwriting was crabby even after all that tutoring. “All right,” Tam said sullenly and sat at the miniature desk with a thump. “Thanks.”
As if amused by Tam’s fit of adolescent pique, Emeraude patted Tam’s head on her way out.
Brilliant. To Emeraude, Tam must seem about as mature as a newborn chick three days post-hatching. Well done, Bladeborn.
Grumbling to herself, Tam tucked her ankles beneath the rung of the stool attached to the desk and dipped a quill in ink. She would begin by writing to Kay.
Then it hit her.
She had no notion of what to write. She’d never been good at essays, and this was so much worse than an essay. Tam was basically informing a young man that his best friend may never be coming back. “Hello, I’m going to die!” didn’t seem like the thing to say, and yet it was all Tam could think of.
By Astar, why did Emeraude have to leave? Tam could have asked her to dictate the perfect letter, just like Emeraude dictated royal writs to her secretary.
Dear Kay, Tam began and stopped. I got accidentally married to an elf, she wrote and then crossed out. I am embarking on a quest to save the world! Tam wrote instead, and left that there. It was suitably impressive. And optimistic. No funereal declarations of impending doom.
I will be accompanied by an elven warrior who loathes me and may kill me if I so much as look at her wrong, an ancient Seer with immense powers to whom I am probably as insignificant as algae, and the aforementioned elf who accidentally married me.
Tam crossed out that last bit too. Gods, this was impossible. She crumpled up the parchment and shoved it into the back pocket of her breeches. Littering the queen’s apartment would be frowned upon, wouldn’t it?
Tam began anew on a fresh sheaf.
It wasn’t just a quest, Tam decided. It was an epic quest.
Dear Kay,
I am embarking on an epic quest to save the world! There are just four of us going, me included, and I’m the only human. Awkward. The other three are a Seer, a warrior, and a prince. Yes, another prince. He’s like you—he likes herbs and things—but he’s a much bigger prat. Not that you’re a smaller prat. You’re not a prat, is what I’m saying. But he is.
Anyhow, there’s magic and danger and the possibility of having fun along the way, so I’m excited to go. You must’ve guessed that it isn’t just an exciting jaunt, though, given that I’m writing you a letter and I’m not the letter-writing sort.
I might not make it back. Then again, even if I did go on to become a soldier like I always wanted, I might not have made it back from my battles, whenever I left to fight. Think of this as inevitable, and forgive me for leaving you behind. I’d said that I wouldn’t. But I am.
Or maybe I’m not, who knows? Astar does, but when does He ever share His plans with us? Never, that’s when. It must be more fun for Him that way, to dangle us like puppets on strings and see us do that jerky little dance called life.
I hope I come riding back into town like a hero. I really do. If nothing else, I’ll get free drinks at every tavern for at least three months. And trust me, I’ll need those drinks. Just spending a minute in that poncy prince’s company makes me want to down a barrel of ale. Or drown myself in it. I live in holy terror of what prolonged exposure to him will do to my brain. If I have a brain! You’ve often contended that I don’t, and you may have been right. Else, I wouldn’t have volunteered for this mission.
Yes, I volunteered. Please don’t blame your mother. I am proud to be her herald and her subject.
But I am even prouder to be your friend.
Wish me luck! Don’t observe those gloomy mourning rites, like wearing all black for months if I don’t come back. Black doesn’t suit you; you won’t win Caradoc over like that. Wear blue in my honor, if you must honor me at all. Blue matches your eyes. And then ask Caradoc out on a hunt. A hunt in your pants, perhaps?
I’m sorry, this must be the most improper end to a farewell letter ever written, but I’m the improper type, so I guess it’s the proper end, after all.
Hoping that what I just said makes even a lick of sense,
Yours always and forever,
Your devoted sister,
Tam
There. That ought to do it.
Except that, all of a sudden, image after image of Kay assailed her—his shy smile, his befuddled expression when he was interrupted midbook, the wild tufts of his hair after he’d been tugging at them while reading, and most of all, how he’d held her hand through everything that had happened after Tam’s first, disastrous battle.
A telling heat prickled at the corners of Tam’s eyes; she scrubbed it away. She would not cry. She wouldn’t. That wasn’t what a hero on a quest did.
Tam didn’t give in to the temptation to reread her letter to Kay, because that would multiply the chances of her crying by about six orders of magnitude. So what if she’d made horrible spelling mistakes? She’d just leave them where they were. Writing had never been her strong suit, anyway. It wasn’t like Kay didn’t know it.
Borik knew it too.
Tam took a deep breath and started on her next letter. The foreign sensation of Emeraude patting her head had stayed with her, and Tam missed Borik’s fond hair-ruffling. She’d resented it then, but she missed it now. If only you were here to ruffle my hair, Tam didn’t say. There were more important matters to write about.
Dear Borik,
I miss you so much. I didn’t get to talk to you before I left, but I wanted to be there when you woke up. I wanted to be there for you through your rehabilitation, and when you resumed training the new recruits. I wanted to be among those recruits. I wanted you to train me. But that may never happen.
I don’t think you’re going to fall for my blabber if I tell you I’m not in trouble. You know me; I’m always in trouble. And I’ve, um. I’ve gotten myself into quite a bit of it now. Enough that I might not survive it, this time. It was bound to happen someday, right? Don’t get too down in the dumps about it.
The queen will tell you the whole story much better than I can, and will likely make me sound much better than I am, so I’ll leave the storytelling to her. I am only writing to tell you that you’re…. You’ve been my father in all but name, and you’ve looked out for me when nobody else would’ve had the patience to.
Thank you for that. Thank you for stopping me from joining the army, and for telling me I wasn’t ready. I wasn’t. I’m still not. But circumstance is throwing me headlong into hell, and I’m going there willingly. If anybody would go there willingly, it would be me. So don’t think I was at all pressured into it. You are well aware that even fate itself could not pressure me; I would just grab it by the neck and kick it in the bal—
Er. Never mind.
I have faithful allies with me, and that’s all one can ask for, isn’t it? To have comrades at the end of it all, who will face that end with you?
I’ve been praying every day for your recovery, which I am certain Astar is watching over. You are a warrior as you always were; you won’t let your injuries stop you from serving your country, even if you have to find new ways of serving it. I will be with you every step of the wa
y, in spirit if not in form.
Goodbye, my friend and my mentor, my teacher, and my father. I miss you more than words can say.
Ever yours,
Tam
P.S. Please tell Maryada that the elves are pretty. Very pretty. I lied to her about that before. Dunno why, but I did. They’re pretty. And please congratulate Maryada and her wife on their tenth anniversary on my behalf. I wish I could’ve been there to celebrate with you all.
P.P.S. If you don’t knock back more than twenty tankards of mead in my name, I will be sorely insulted. You’re huge; I know you can handle them.
The prickle of tears threatened again, but Tam suppressed it with every ounce of her will.
Thus concluding her letters, Tam folded them into neat rectangles—if her handwriting couldn’t be neat, at least the paper could—and left them on Emeraude’s desk. She knew that the letters would not reach the palace until all of this was over and Emeraude herself brought the letters back, because if the letters were sent by horseback or pigeon, their contents may alert any spy that intercepted them as to what was happening.
It wasn’t just Danis’s spies that might interfere. Not all the elves were in favor of this alliance, nor were all the humans, if the dithering of Emeraude’s ministers was anything to go by. Any messenger sent forth might betray the alliance and redirect the letters toward Danis. Any pigeon may be shot down.
Tam wasn’t a total fool. She had a basic appreciation of tactics.
She’d need more than a basic appreciation to succeed at this task, but she was confident that experience would educate her accordingly. It always did.
THE ELVEN court was teeming with activity the day of the departure. Tam had passed the night in the lower level of Emeraude’s quarters, on a wooden bed carved in the shape of a giant cupped hand and lined with yet more leaves. It had been astonishingly cozy for such a creepy-looking bed, but Tam had been vibrating out of her skin with mingled anxiety and anticipation, so she hadn’t slept and was as groggy come morning as Dale used to be after a night of drinking.