The Crafter's Son: Book One of the Exciting New Coming of Age Epic Fantasy Series, The Crafter Chronicles

by Matthew Berg

  Laudan nodded. “I was thinking of that this morning. Normally, I wouldn’t think twice about him going missing for a few hours. But he missed muster this morning. And if he hadn’t been acting so strangely of late . . .”

  Breeden nodded. He understood just what Laudan meant.

  When Breeden and Oskar finally tracked down their teacher, he had known nothing about the boy’s departure, and he appeared as concerned as they were. He had frowned at mention of the princess’s minister but made no further judgment or comment, and he regretfully told them that the death of a monarch was no mean event and that, for the time being, he would have to rely on them to figure out where Kestrel may have gone. In fact, he told them, they would have no more classes until the princess had left for Arlon.

  But Cedric’s not knowing about Kestrel’s departure was the final nail in the coffin for Breeden and his friends. They were now fairly confident he hadn’t gone home and the princess’s minister knew something about it. But how would they ever find the boy?

  30

  Captured

  The cell was beyond dark. No matter how many times Kestrel waved his hand in front of his face, he couldn’t even sense movement. He was usually comfortable crawling through dark, cramped spaces, and he had even gotten stuck in a tunnel once before and been trapped for hours. But until now he’d never been locked in a cell. And he had never been so terrified in all his life.

  The worst thing about the darkness was that he had no way of telling how long he’d been locked up. That ate at him more than anything, because the news he carried could not wait. But the darkness obscured time as effectively as it did the hand he waved in front of his face. He had slept a handful of times already—three or four times at least—so he guessed he’d been in the cell for at least two or three days. But it easily could have been a single day, or a week for his lack of certainty.

  After the darkness was the cold. He knew it wasn’t cold enough that he should be shivering, but he’d only worn a light tunic when he’d come down to the cellars, and the stones of his cell were ever so slowly sucking the warmth from his body. The shivering had begun right before the last time he’d slept, and he’d had a hard time falling asleep because of it.

  After the cold, he supposed the thirst was the worst. He’d gotten over the hunger a long time ago—though the ache would come back occasionally, each time duller than the last. But the thirst was ever present. His lips were cracking. And his nose would bleed if he so much as touched it.

  Of growing concern, but still not at a level to cause him too much worry, was the fact that he had started seeing ghostly shapes floating in the air. He tried hard to convince himself that it was just the darkness and his eyes playing tricks on him. But then he’d heard whispers. There were no words he could understand. And they weren’t speaking the common tongue. But he was certain that the voices at least were not summoned by his imagination. They were too subtle. And they moved around him with a purpose, as if they were examining him and deciding what they should do about him.

  Kestrel tried to reach out toward one of the voices with his manacled hands—and it shrank away from him, still talking but fading backward in the room. He spoke. “What is it? What do you want? Who are you?”

  The voices paused while he spoke but then resumed again. He assumed they’d not understood him, or had chosen to ignore his questions. On a whim, he spoke a phrase in elvish he’d learned from the hunt master.

  The words he had spoken meant “Are you friend or foe?”

  The voices went silent then.

  Time passed, and Kestrel struggled to remember other words in the elvish tongue. At first he tried to think of something to say that would mean “Come back,” or “I am friend,” or “Who are you?”—but the words escaped him. Instead, he spoke what elvish words he hoped would not intimidate the ghosts and might even bring them back, “Friend. Home. Friend.”

  He stopped talking and strained his ears. The shapes were gone, and the voices with them. He sat in silence. Nothing. He must have scared them away or angered them or done something else—offended them, perhaps—to make them want to stay away. The silence grew. Kestrel shivered.

  And then he heard something. But it wasn’t the ghosts—it sounded like footsteps. His heart raced. He sat up straight, his back flat against the stone wall. He tried to bring up some saliva, something to swallow to clear the rising lump in his throat.

  It was more than one person. Booted feet. Two people, he thought. And walking with purpose. They knew where they were going. He quailed then, fearing the worst. If someone were searching for him, they’d not be so deliberate. They would be hunting for him, not marching straight for his cell. The darkness was lightening around him, he noticed with an odd mix of joy and fear. He could see his hands. He could see the cell around him. And then the light was bright—like the sun—shining through the small window near the top of the heavy door that held him in.

  The torch had been thrust up into the window so whoever had come could see him. It didn’t remain there long before he heard the latch being raised and the door gliding open, almost without a sound. They’d oiled the hinges. He remembered smelling the oil when he’d first been imprisoned, but the smell had faded. It was back now, and along with the scent of oil, he could smell the sour sweat of the two men who entered.

  He couldn’t make out much more than their silhouettes. One was of average build and height. He stood closest to Kestrel. And he appeared to be leaning over and examining him. The other, much larger, stood back in the doorway.

  The shorter one grunted, “A boy. They call me from Arlon to question a boy?” Kestrel thought the man sounded annoyed. But after another moment’s pause, he continued.

  “Very well. Dura! Go fetch me a chair or something to sit on from one of these other rooms.”

  He held the torch casually, with the butt against his thigh, and he watched Kestrel in silence until the other man had returned with a chair. Then he pulled the chair right in front of Kestrel and sat down—putting his face within a handspan of Kestrel’s.

  “What do you know, boy? What did you hear, eh? Look me in the eye, boy!”

  Kestrel complied, blinking against the light, his eyes nearly squinted shut so he could focus on the man’s face. “I can’t see very well. I’ve been in the dark for so long.” His voice cracked as he spoke the word dark.

  The man before him made a pronounced nod, and as his features became clearer, Kestrel saw that he was very old and wore a grim, fixed smile. “You’ll not be coming out today either, son. In fact, you’ll not be seeing the sun again. The two things you’ve got to think about now are how much longer you want to be down here and how quickly you want your end to come when it most assuredly does come.”

  Kestrel’s instincts had been right. He was going to be killed. And the man before him spoke of torture. Distractedly Kestrel recalled that the Torturers’ Guild had been disbanded by the king. Cedric had mentioned it in one of their lessons on the ethical responsibilities of being a member of royalty.

  Kestrel realized the man was waiting for a response. But he didn’t know what to offer, what he could possibly say to avoid being killed.

  “I don’t know what you think I’ve done, sir.”

  The fixed smile broadened. “Ah, you see! And I had figured you for one who would boldly tell me straight off what you’d done wrong! Better this way, then. I’d hate to forgo the usual ministrations. Will you show me some spirit, then, son?”

  Kestrel’s stomach contracted. The hunger cramps had been dormant for so long, but the man’s words brought his guts back to life. He could taste the bile rising in his throat.

  “I would hope it doesn’t have to come to that, sir.”

  The man barked a laugh. “So you would hope that I might be convinced of your innocence and that I might choose to set you free? Now, that I really didn’t expect from you. I thought I saw a spark of intelligence when I looked in your eyes.”

  Kestrel merely
stared at the man. What could he possibly offer? But the man seemed bent on talking, and he continued after a slight pause.

  “There are two kinds I treat with—almost exclusively. First, there’s the bold and unapologetic. Then there’s the groveling and pitiful. Most are innocent—in their own minds, anyway. But the reality is that all—every last one of them—have been guilty. Not necessarily of the thing I’m supposed to extract, I’ll admit. But you’d be disgusted by the things they tell me when I ply my art. The worst are the mad ones, with no motive or reason for what they do, such as the ones that killed—or did worse with—their brothers or sisters or children. Many do it for spite from some trifling offense. And many do things simply for pleasure.

  “I understand the darkness in a person who revels in blood and filth. It’s why I’m so good at my job, after all. But most who like the darker side of things are undisciplined. And one needs to be disciplined to master the art of inflicting pain.

  “Which brings me to my chief point, boy. And that is this: I am a rare man, in that I enjoy this work, but I am also very careful and disciplined in how I go about it. What does that mean for you? It means you can expect your pain to be exquisite. It means I’ll push the limits of your ability to bear it.

  “I am not boasting, son. You’ll see that soon enough. So, the one thing you’ve got going for you is that you can cooperate and tell me what I want to hear, and I promise I’ll keep the sessions short. Because if you don’t, well, then I can promise you the last few weeks of your life will feel as long as the life you’ve already led!”

  Kestrel said nothing. And the man allowed the moment to linger.

  “Understand what I’m saying, son? I hope for your sake you do. I’ll be back when I’m back.” With that, the man rose from the chair, and pulled it with him out of the cell. Kestrel heard the latch rattle, and the clunk of a heavy timber falling in place. He had been returned to darkness.

  Kestrel could hear the men as they walked down the hall. They weren’t trying to mask their words at all. And he caught snippets of their conversation.

  “He’s nothing but a young eavesdropper. Probably peeps on the ladies’ chambers too, I’d wager.”

  “He’s a scared little boy, for sure. I suspect he’ll go quickly.”

  Kestrel realized that the men had made no mention of him being of royalty, or being a squire. And he smiled with a rare glimmer of hope when he remembered he’d worn an old set of clothes down to the cellars. They were worn thin from long use and had holes in both knees of the trousers and one elbow, and his family crest had been removed some time ago to use again on a newer shirt he’d had made. Maybe the man didn’t know who he was. Maybe he didn’t know that Kestrel was capable of understanding the conversation he’d overheard. There had to be some reason to celebrate that.

  But his satisfaction was brief, because he knew that when the man came back, he would have little reason to be happy. Not knowing he was a squire might shorten the torture—and allow Kestrel to protect what he’d heard—but he now knew that it wouldn’t save him from being killed down here. And besides, what good would it do him to know about the princess’s plans? He hadn’t had a chance to tell anyone—not even Laudan! And he knew he couldn’t escape. The knowledge would die with him.

  31

  Revelations

  It had been two days since Kestrel had gone missing. And so far they hadn’t been able to discover more than the fact that the minister was probably lying. Janelle was spending much of her time helping the princess with her preparations to leave. And Laudan was trying to figure out how he might arrange to go with her. It felt like Oskar and Breeden were the only ones trying to find their missing friend.

  Breeden returned home, exhausted from another day’s failed search, to discover that Aegir the giant was once again in his kitchen.

  But the visit was an altogether different one from the previous spring. It had been more than a year since the giant’s last visit. And Breeden had grown. He also had one too many reasons not to be very happy right now.

  Oddly, a somehow solemn smile was all the giant was able to muster as well. And Breeden hadn’t even noticed the look on his parents’ faces right away. But when he did, his own sadness and concern vanished in a moment. “What’s wrong? Why are you all so sad?”

  Breeden could tell his mother was trying to hold herself together, but she was failing. Instinctively he ran into her arms to comfort her. As he held her, he turned to his father and the giant. “Why is she so sad? What’s happened?”

  Breeden’s father put his hand on his son’s back and gently rubbed it in a circling motion. The unconscious act, a calming ritual he’d used to quiet a young boy having nightmares in his bed, had its effect. Breeden’s rising panic held for a moment. “Son, we need to have a talk. Just you and me.”

  Breeden understood that the conversation likely wouldn’t be an enjoyable one, but he nodded his acceptance, squeezed his mother one last time, and turned toward the home’s front door. After bending over to give his wife a kiss on the head, his father joined Breeden outside.

  They walked in the direction of the deepwater piers, and Breeden’s father removed his pipe and a pouch of tobacco from his pocket. He stuffed the pipe full to the top, tamped it down gently so none of the tobacco was visible above the rim of the pipe’s scarred and blackened bowl, and then he stopped to light a taper from a lantern hanging next to his neighbor’s door.

  Breeden understood the comfort and clarity the pipe brought to his father, and despite his impatience, he allowed his father the time to expel his first blue cloud before saying another word. “Dad, please tell me what’s going on.”

  His father glanced at him and agreed. “Yes. Soon enough, my son.”

  Breeden realized that his father was not sad, as his mother was, but was masking some other emotion. And then his father began to talk.

  “When I was a young man, not much older than you are now, I sailed in King Raulin’s navy. While I had a few patrols along the southern coasts, I mostly traveled in the northern and eastern waters. We constantly patrolled the edges of the king’s domain to remind the Krigares we were there—just in case they might happen to forget their treaties.”

  Breeden had heard as much from his father before and was wondering why any of this was so important right now. But he also knew his father was not a man of words, and that if he was telling a tale from the past, there was likely a good reason for it.

  “Not all among the Krigares were savage. Many among them were good and just men. And I befriended some of them. As you know, too—though you may not know the whole story of how we met—I encountered Aegir on these same travels. He was . . . is a rarity among his kind in that he enjoys traveling about, meeting people, and seeing new sights. And he doesn’t carry the same fear and distrust of humans most of his kind bear. I can’t say I agree with his opinion more than that of the rest of his kin, but that’s a discussion for another time.

  “Anyway, Aegir was particularly fond of exploring the archipelago, and the waters among them, to the north of his people. Of interest to this story is the fact that within a small cluster of islands he favored, he met a wizard and his young Krigare wife. They were an odd pair. He was not a Krigare. He was a good deal older than she—though apparently still quite strong and healthy. And they had mostly removed themselves from the affairs of her homeland, and from the world at large, really.

  “Aegir became attached to these two humans. He appreciated how they lived alone together out on the edges of the world. And he communicated with them in much the same way he stays in touch with me and your mother. Well, as anyone who works on the sea knows can happen, they were killed in one of the raging northeastern storms that make the region infamous. By some miracle, their newborn child was spared by the storm gods, and Aegir himself found the child floating among the wreckage of their sailboat.

  “As it turns out, Aegir happened to know another couple—though far to the south. And this second
couple were not capable of having children of their own. The woman had proven barren and, more, had even passed beyond the years when a healthy woman can bear a child without risking her life. And Aegir knew how much this second couple desperately wished they could have a child of their own.”

  Breeden was silent, his mind leaping ahead of his father’s tale to draw fearful conclusions.

  “And while I can see that you suspect the end of the story, but are not ready to commit to the realization, I will confirm your suspicions: Yes, Breeden. You are that child. And your mother and I, who have raised you, are not your mother and father by blood.

  “I’m sorry, my son. You must know I love you no less for your knowing the truth. And it’s my hope you feel the same way about your mother and me.”

  As his father had guessed, Breeden had jumped to the story’s conclusion as soon as he mentioned the infant child’s survival. Instinctively Breeden realized that the knowledge would have no effect on his relationship with his parents—as far as he was concerned, anyway. And he let his father know as much. “You will always be my da, Dad. And mother will always be mother to me as well. But what does all of this matter, and why the telling now?”

  Breeden’s father laughed, and he hugged his son, welled tears spilling from the corners of his eyes. “Indeed, you are my son as sure as the stars spin about the earth! I wish your mother were here to hear your answer!” The explosion of mirth was followed by a pronounced sigh and a prolonged inhalation as Breeden’s father appeared to draw in strength from the very air around him. “In fact, now the hard part’s out, shall we return home and tell her, and perhaps share a cup? Aegir can better tell you the next part of the story, anyway.”

  Breeden agreed, and they walked the short distance home in silence as he ran the matter of his true heritage again and again through his thoughts.