by Ted Neill
In the end there can only be power.
“I shall. I renounce him,” Sade said, his stomach fluttering, his head light.
“Louder.”
“I renounce him.”
Raven sat up and stared at him over his folded hands. “So be it. Your bond to the Servior is greater than that of blood. You will go to Foyle with the only family you have left, the Servior.” He pushed aside a stack of books and inclined his head towards his student, his fingers rolling the broken ring that hung around his neck. “Now it is time for you to learn who our true masters are. Now it is time for you to learn of the Kryen.”
It was raining when the tide was changing that afternoon, when it was time for Sade to depart on a vessel trading iron works for furs in the north. Sade covered himself in a sealskin cloak and made his way down to the dock with a satchel of modest belongings that fit his status as a lowly weather worker. He was dressed as a traveler, not a Servior, and although Raven had shared with him some of the secrets of their order, the story of their true masters, and the promise of their powers, he felt a physical pain in his chest, a pain of loneliness, of exile. For what was the promise of eternal life, limitless power, if he were alone? He had traded the one bond he had in the world for knowledge of masters he might never meet.
Before he was halfway down the dock he had to lean against a pylon to steady himself. He wrung his hands and was taken by surprise by a sudden surge of sickness in his throat. He vomited over the side of the dock, the contents of his stomach spreading out in a cloud, fouling the water. Raven had said he would be joined by a companion and indeed, as he walked down the dock he saw a figure, also hooded and standing in the rain, features indistinct in the rain and mist, waiting as the trading galley rowed towards them.
Sade cleared his throat, wiped his mouth, and adjusted the satchel on his shoulder. He threw his shoulders back and his chin up to project a sense of confidence he did not feel at the moment. Would the companion be of higher rank or lower? Would they be equals? Traveling in disguise, perhaps rank would not matter. He rounded on the figure and looked into his face.
“Vondales?”
His brother’s features were strained, his face wet, not just rain, but tears.
He knows I renounced him, Sade thought. Raven told him.
There were no words of apology that would do. He did not expect his brother to understand. There was no explaining his decision.
“You have come to say good-bye?” Sade finally said, his jaw shaking.
Vondales looked back at him with an expression of bewilderment. “No, Raven said I must go to Foyle.”
“Foyle?”
“Yes, without you.”
Sade could not help but smile. His knees felt weak. “He said I must go without you. That he would send me a companion best suited for me.”
“Could he mean me?”
“He must.”
They embraced. Sade fell to thinking of Raven and what a gift he had given him in his own brother. The order was paramount, but in the end the best suited companion was his brother. He wondered if his mentor watched even now from the window of his study high above. Despite the relief they both felt, Vondales still cleared his throat, as if choking on something that he could not swallow.
“What is wrong, brother?”
“Raven told me I had to choose. Choose between you and the order.”
A stillness came over Sade like a pall. He released his brother from his embrace. “He told me the same.”
Vondales fought to keep his lower lip from trembling but lost the battle. He looked away. “I’m sorry, Sade, I renounced you.”
Silence came over them as each searched the other’s face for some outward sign of change. What did betrayal look like after all? Could words truly surmount blood? As the ship neared, neither said another word.
Chapter 12
Betrayal
The Elawn glided over the hills of the island. After so many weeks over water, Gabriella was fascinated by the undulations of this new land, its hills, valleys, and ridges rising higher than waves. Towards the center of the island, a few rocky promontories jutted out of the forest.
Gabriella steered the Elawn around their rocky shoulders to remain close to the treetops where grey, blue, white, and black birds sang among the autumn leaves. There were numerous lakes in the autumnal forest, mirrors glittering among spilled paint. Dameon acted as if he had forgotten the wyvern all together. The foreign bird species were the objects of his fascination now. He spoke breathlessly, mostly to himself, comparing the birds he saw with birds he knew while obsessively pointing out their differences.
When the rest of the island rolled into view, Gabriella could see wisps of chimney smoke twisting over a town in the distance. Fishing boats bounced in the waves of the channel between the island and the mainland. Throughout the forest below, breaks in the trees revealed houses nestled next to cultivated fields. Since leaving Harkness, the little crew on the Elawn had not benefited from a single meeting with land dwellers. Gabriella hoped the inhabitants of this island would be different.
At this lower altitude, as the Elawn traversed this strange land, Gabriella noticed that the mud-and-timber houses on this island were of an unusual design—round with a central, circular main room with smaller round rooms off to the side. The largest one Gabriella saw was two stories.
Despite the difference in style, she was struck by homesickness when she saw signs of normal life: the grass and vegetation about the main houses trampled into bare earth by foot traffic, fire pits needing tending, shelters for animals—she spied pigs, chickens, and goats—as well as crops such as maize, beans, and wheat. Life on this island was not terribly different than life on Harkness.
As the Elawn floated over the houses, children were the first to spot the airship. The smallest ran; the older ones waved. Gabriella waved back. The children cheered and danced in the yards outside their homes.
A better welcoming than Kejel or Foyle already, she thought.
It was the same scene on every ridge. Children gathered on one hill after another, alerted by the cries across the valley that something was coming. Gabriella rushed about the deck, waving back at the children and even shook Dameon’s arm to make him wave. She wanted to appear as friendly as possible. She lowered the ship so the Elawn could be seen more clearly.
A blast sounded in the sky, a deep, somber note. It sounded again. This time Gabriella could tell it came from behind them. On the last ridge, they had passed over a man who stood among the children with a large shell in his hand. Gabriella waved at him, but he ignored her and began to blow on the horn.
The sound had a sobering effect on the island children. They now stood in silence and watched. The sound also drew parents out of their houses or out of the fields. When they looked up to the sky and spotted the Elawn, they became frantic. Their arms jerked wildly as they called their children into their houses and slammed the doors shut.
Odd, Gabriella thought, a sinking feeling in her chest.
Stretching along the length of the channel, the main settlement on the eastern shore was much too large to be called just a village. Gabriella brought the ship lower. The forest ended, and the Elawn floated over fields, their approach now heralded by rolling blasts from conch horns all over the island. Workers dropped their tools and bundles and ran for cover. Women cowered. Men hollered to one another. Gabriella saw people on the edges of the fields disappearing into the forest. Some fields looked completely empty until, looking straight down between stalks of wheat, she saw people cowering, mothers spreading themselves over their children.
“What’s going on?”
“They sense we are powerful,” Mortimer said. “It might be a good hand to play.” The gleam in his eye that had been there when he held his sword over the wyvern egg was returning.
Adamantus regarded him with narrow eyes.
“Nonsense! We can’t be very powerful if our ship is about to collapse and our stores are running
low,” Gabriella said.
Yet islanders continued to flee before the Elawn. The ship was low among the treetops now, and Gabriella slowed their approach as they neared the town. Alerted by the horn blasts from the hills and the cries from the fields, the town square was feverish with activity. The street vendors were shaking down their tents and throwing their wares into sacks. Beyond the town, in the channel, fishermen opened their sails and fought the waves to return to port. A bell rang. A girl grabbed her little brother and hustled him away. Gabriella remembered that day when the Servior had come to Harkness. Now, strangely, the roles were reversed. She was part of the visiting party bringing what was new and perhaps dangerous.
The ship groaned and crunched as it settled on the earth. As she landed, Gabriella realized they were taking a risk—after all, they were highly outnumbered—but her intuition told her the people were too scared to attack them. The townspeople stood frozen, all of them more than a stone’s throw away, as if an invisible fence around the Elawn held them all back. It seemed to Gabriella as if the entire world had stopped. Only the wind stirred, flapping a few streamers on the peaks of buildings and shaking the slack shrouds on the ship.
Finally, an old man shuffled out from the crowd. He was stooped and walked with small steps, but Gabriella could tell that once he had been a tall, imposing man. The skin of his face was leathery and lined from years of hard work. His white hair and beard were long and braided. Braiding was something only women did on Harkness.
“Why is his beard braided? Braids are for girls,” Dameon asked.
Gabriella’s mouth was dry. She struggled to swallow and gave the answer her father always did when she asked about visiting sailors who had foreign ways of tying knots. “Different twists for different tribes, Dameon.”
The man stopped a few steps away from the edge of the crowd. He spoke in a strong voice that belied his frail appearance in a language that was incomprehensible to Gabriella. She felt intimidated until she noticed that one of the braids in the man’s beard was tied with a bright pink ribbon. Something changed in her towards him. He was still as imposing as before, but she sensed a softness to him. Gabriella envisioned a granddaughter, or even a great-granddaughter sitting on his lap, tying the bow. She knew they could trust this man.
“He has welcomed us,” the elk said.
“You can understand them?” Mortimer asked.
“I understood what I heard,” the elk said. “My kind possess the gift of tongues. Whether that includes all languages of the windblown worlds, I am not sure. If it includes the language of these people, we will soon find out.”
“Let’s go down there and find out standing on their level,” Gabriella suggested.
The elk nodded his approval. Gabriella lowered the gangway, took Dameon by the hand—which she noticed he squeezed firmly—and led him down. Adamantus followed. Mortimer came last. Then something unexpected happened: the old man got down onto his knees, shaking as he did so. He leaned forward, placed his forearms on the ground to steady himself, and did not stop until his head touched the earth.
There was a shuffling sound all around them as the hundreds gathered did the same.
“This is certainly a better reception that I was expecting,” Mortimer remarked.
They remained prostrated a long time. Not a word was spoken. It occurred to Gabriella that perhaps the people were waiting for one of them to tell them to rise, as kings and queens would do in stories. She rushed forward.
“No, no no,” she said coming up beside the old man. He clearly could not understand her words, but fear filled his eyes as he sensed her displeasure. She took his hand. A few villagers nearby lifted their faces tentatively to watch what was unfolding.
“Please,” Gabriella said. “Please get up. We are visitors, not conquerors.”
Still uncomprehending of her words, the old man obeyed her actions and moved to stand up. It was not something he could do without her help. She held his hand and steadied his arm, the same way she had helped her grandmarm before she passed. When she looked around the square, she saw that every other villager was still prostrate. Gabriella ran to each person along the edge of the crowd and bid them to get up, helping any old women and men to their feet. Most of the people recoiled at her touch, but the old seemed grateful.
As she made a circuit of the square, the naked stares of fear turned into smiles of relief and welcome. Children peeked between their mother’s skirts. Gabriella noticed how their hair braids were completely different to those she remembered on Harkness, and the jewelry of shades and shapes she had never seen before. Some men had artwork painted upon the backs of their hands and sides of their necks. By the time she had circled the entire crowd, children were reaching out to touch her.
She came back to the old man. He nodded and spoke again the same words of welcome. Adamantus came close beside him listening. Mortimer remained at a distance, his hand on his sword. The presence of the elk, so close, and so tame, made the old man quiet again. Gabriella touched the elk on the nose to show that he was friendly and motioned for the man to do so as well.
“Soft,” she said, touching the elk.
The man muttered a word in response.
“Elk,” Adamantus translated. “He said ‘elk.’”
The man backed away in shock as the elk spoke. The entire crowd erupted in whispers then quickly went silent again. Gabriella tried to show with her hands that Adamantus was friendly. Then she pointed to herself and said her name. She did the same with Dameon, Adamantus, and Mortimer.
“Chas,” the man said, pointing to himself. He began to speak slowly, and after a few words, Adamantus caught the meanings and began to translate.
“He says that it has been many years, generations even, since they have seen an airship. He knows from stories that his grandparents told that those who sailed the airships—he calls them the Rachma—were dangerous, murderous sorcerers. The people of this island still fear the Rachma. But Chas sees that we are not they and so he welcomes us to this island, Vasan. He and his people are the Vasani.”
“Tell him we are definitely not sorcerers and mean no harm,” Gabriella said.
“Tell him no such thing,” Mortimer interjected, speaking for the first time “They outnumber us! Who is to say once they realize we are not wizards they will not rush us, kill us, and steal the Elawn? If you had not run about holding hands with all of them, they still might fear us. Fear is the only advantage we have.”
“Mortimer,” Adamantus said. “There is power in friendship too.”
Mortimer’s nostrils flared. Adamantus spoke in the language of the Vasani now for a long while, with only a few interruptions from Chas when the old man asked questions. Gabriella sensed that the elk was telling their entire story. When Adamantus had finished, the old man nodded his head and said, “Kaawa.”
The elk translated. “It means, ‘All is well.’”
Chas turned and spoke to the crowd. He seemed to tell a short version of their story, then his tone changed to one of exhortation. The people clapped and, in an instant, the entire square turned into a tumult of activity.
“What is going on?” Mortimer asked.
“He has told the villagers our story,” Adamantus said. “They have chosen to help us.”
There was a rebuke in the elk’s voice, but it was subtle. Already Vasani women were carrying bushels of flour to the Elawn. Mortimer ran to stop them from climbing the gangway.
“Do you really trust them to go aboard?” he asked Gabriella and Adamantus.
“I do,” she answered.
“As do I,” the elk said.
Mortimer shook his head, exasperated. “I must object.” He turned to the women and said, “Only children may come aboard.”
The women looked to Chas, then Adamantus, who translated for them. The women quickly called their children out of the crowd. The mothers seemed happy to drop their loads at the bottom of the gangway and let their children carry them up into the ship. More c
hildren materialized and began rushing up the gangway, cheering.
Chas’ eyes twinkled and he said something in Gabriella’s ear. Adamantus translated, “Your friend will wish he had held his tongue.”
The old man was right. Already Mortimer was hurrying about the deck as children swung on ropes and bounced on the railings. Chas called to other children and gestured for them to go help the visitor on the ship. Gabriella giggled in spite of her best efforts not to. Gabriella had been born too late to know either of her grandfathers, but she felt her heart warm towards Chas and wished she had known a grandfather like him.
Chas led Adamantus, Dameon, and Gabriella to an awning attached to one of the buildings at the edge of the square. Chairs and tables waited in the shade. This may have been a foreign land, but Gabriella recognized a place for drinking and talking when she saw it. Other elders of the village gathered and sat down with them while one hung a kettle over a fire to boil water. As they settled down under the awning, chairs were offered to her and her brother. Dameon remembered to thank them, although his voice was slightly too loud.
Dameon kept close to her, his head nodding quickly, his eyes darting about them randomly as mayflies. He was nervous. The Vasani did not fear him, but they did not approach him. They mostly ignored him, and Gabriella was grateful. Some of the children stared, but none taunted or laughed.
Adamantus began to speak in Vasani. Gabriella could understand from certain words like “Dis” and “Nicomedes” that he was inquiring about the proximity of the city. She was pleased to see Chas nod. The old man requested a quill and parchment from one of the younger men in the crowd of onlookers. Chas made a rudimentary map. Gabriella could already recognize the shape of the Vasan Island on it.