“The gull with a tooth in his clutch. The shamelessness of the Agrians,” I whispered to Ahrad.
“What’s so bad about that? A little creepy isn’t bad.”
“It is when that’s the Feljust. That thing has destroyed too many homes, too many human lives to be merely creepy.”
“A seagull did what? Erland, I fancy myself an alf of imagination, but that sure is odd.”
“Only odd if you don’t know the story.” I pointed to the tooth. “That thing it has in its talon was the tooth of a witch. Feljust used it when he was a human to turn into a gull. Made it easier to escape when he stole something. The witch put a curse on him though. ‘May the water you drink be swallowed by the air and the land where you perch be swallowed by the water’ was how the curse went. It’s a symbol of death to us Shaloor, and anyone who wears it can only intend death.”
Ahrad’s eye widened and the smirk on his face died. “I can see why you wouldn’t like him, then.”
The man then stopped his fire-work and stood to salute someone who just entered the room. “Solas, I am sorry to say I have still not done any better.”
Solas spoke at the doorway and walked down to the man. “Solas, vith vhat I have brought to you vill free you from your coarse fetter.”
I pulled myself further into the row, Solas was drawing closer.
Chapter 6
The Simpleton of Elderbear
The man’s expression brightened a slight bit. “What then did you bring?” I wriggled farther under the bench, worried that Solas could see my legs stretch out from my hiding place.
He didn’t seem to notice me, the jarl just held a pot up. “Something nyourishing. Prunes of apple and prunes of pear, stewed long, hot, and soft. You look dappled and it voes me Cher, so please, eat more oft.” Solas placed the pot on the hearth, beside the man with a spoon.
With the tattooed arm, he started to eat. “Not very much, but what sort of guest would I be to expect more at this hour?”
Solas chuckled. “The kind to be locked in a tower.”
Ahrad leaned over and whispered, “That guy sure does talk funny.” I nodded. The two then engaged in some small talk, but I crawled a little closer. A white pain pierced my arm and I bumped my head against the bench. Ahrad grasped my mouth a split second after I yelped and the cause of my pain, that ember from before, rolled to the ash bucket. I pulled my arm closer and bit my lip, and hoped Solas didn’t notice my outburst.
He just looked in my direction, but seemed to instead look above.
“Hognyosht, how have you faired in breaking the curse, nyo interruptions?”
The man grunted, acknowledging the name. “None. Your warning to the servants have left me shunned…I mean they’ve avoided me.” Hognosht corrected himself as to not rhyme.
“Yes, as I can surely see. It seems the curse of land vas indeed easier to break than the curse of sea.”
Hognosht nodded as he took a spoonful of the drink, steam escaping his nostrils shortly afterward.
I was gobsmacked when each and every bite evaporated. “Curse of the sea; that which you drink will be swallowed by the air,” I whispered under my breath.
“So, that man is the real Feljust? But what was it they did to break the curse of land?”
I looked into the fire and recalled the harbor burning. “They sacrificed the entire harbor, I just know it.”
He held the bowl over the fire to warm it some more. “It is difficult to work the magic, the curse doesn’t seem to want to be broken.”
“Difficult to break the curse pelagic? That is sad, ve vill have to use this token.” Solas reached into his pocket and pulled something out. He tossed it into the fire and a new tongue of fire immediately leapt up, glowing a floral green. “Try nyow.”
Hognosht did as he was told and his eyes twinkled with surprise. “How? This makes it far easier.”
Solas responded, “I should hope so, it is from a grove just south of here. They are alfvood, brought to this land by the Vanyir.”
“It’s marvelous, could I have some more of this wood?”
“You may most certainly not,” Ahrad huffed. I quickly hushed his objection so we could listen more.
“Having more vould be good, but ve only just cured this and ve are on short supply. An elven specter guards those trees, and ve’ve nyo reason why.”
To my surprise, Ahrad was getting truly annoyed with what he had discovered. All the joviality was gone and the cunning fox was replaced by a predator.
“An elven ghost, eh?” Hognosht laughed as if he had heard a joke. “I suppose I doubt one would show up this far from their homes, so I think I might take a break from stoking flames tonight to take a look. The fresh air would be welcome at the very least.”
“Very vell I’d say. But for nyow I vould vish that you again take break, so my servants may cook breakfast. I am starved and am in need of a feast.”
“Fine then, just allow me to finish my soup.”
Solas agreed to the notion and, after he had slurped up the last bit, they both rose to depart.
A light began to flicker in Ahrad’s direction. As it would be, he was rasping his fingers on the bench and pulling out of it that way. “Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t tell those two they can’t take those trees, Erland.”
His demand shocked me, to think that he would ask me of all people for a reason to not attack my sworn enemy. For as must, I figured that was a sarcastic question, only asked to vaguely encourage his decision.
A group of servants now huddled about the fire with pans and eggs at the ready. “I’m all for it,” I told him as I reached behind me. For that small moment I expected that my shields were strapped to my back, so I was shocked when I only grasped air. I looked back to Ahrad, who was preparing to release an illusion from his gambantein.
I clenched my tongue just before I said, “I do have a reason.”
“Eh?” He pressed the tip against the ground and thus stopped the phantasm from being unleashed.
“Well, it’s just that neither of us is armed and I don’t think your figments will be enough to hold them back. I know that you have to guard those trees, but wouldn’t it be better to fight them in your terrain?”
Ahrad’s face twitched as he thought that over, looking to the cooks and then the faint aura about his gambantein. “Fine,” he said, releasing the energy in a flash. When the light subsided, Ahrad was not there.
“What did you do?”
“Used my magic to hold the Agrians back.”
“Hey,” one of the servants shouted. “Vhat are you doing down there?” He bolted over and then dragged me by my arms.
My immediate effort was to try to pull myself back and out of his grip, but that combined effort of opposing forces failed to direct me in either of the intended directions. Instead of those, I went upward and gave myself a good thwack upside the head. Stunned by that, I went along without any more fight left in me.
“Jarl Solas,” he groveled to his master, “I found this hunchback hiding under one of the benches. Vhat should I do vith the trespasser?”
“Hunchback?” I said to myself, more confused than indignant of the comment. In the corner of my mind, I figured it was come sort of degenerate comment, but didn’t seem like the normal kind of insult from them. Just out of curiosity, I turned to see my shoulder. To my surprise, I had an actual hunch, my shoulder was scrunched and clear over my eyes. It must have been Ahrad’s illusion, so I decided to go along with it.
Solas drew near me, insisting Hognosht continue along without him. “Tell me, who are you nyow, stranger?” he asked slowly, making sure he annunciated properly.
I flexed my lips as I considered what I would say or do. The strongest part of me wanted to just punch Solas in the nose, as would be the strongest instinct for anyone in such a straight. However, I fought down this urge and merely strained to think about what my story would be.
Nothing ca
me to me, though; all I could do was think of jobs or stories that would be suspicious from a man of my supposed deformities. “Vell? Do tell.”
A voice whispered to me, “Tell him you’re a fish monger.”
I twisted in the direction of the noise and yelled, “What?” Much to my surprise, there was no one there.
“Vhat to vhat?” Solas asked me.
I looked back to him, astonished that he didn’t even hear a hiss of what I’d heard. “We-Vell, um, er.” I stumbled over myself still to figure out what to say, but now I was fighting my urge to point at where I heard the noise, half-failing at that.
The “jarl” gave a glance at where I was pointing and broke into a chortle. “He is of nyo concern to us, He is but a lost simpleton. For him, I must look at the law. Nyow? Put to vork that singleton.”
That was a notion I most certainly didn’t like, both on the grounds of being an inconvenience to my escape and being forced to do work for the Agrians, period. However, I looked over to where that sound came from. It was clear it was Ahrad and he seemed to have a plan. Working under that assumption, I followed the servant to do some work at the hearth.
The first thing I did was help make breakfast, a simple dish made entirely out of fried eggs, fresh milk, and bread. It had been a very long time since I’d last had bread. That wonderfully crunchy shell encasing a cloud was such a foreign notion to the alfar, who found grains unpalatable anyway. Finding myself with a fresh slice again made me forget I was being held prisoner in effect, and I placed my egg upon the slice and ate as such.
The others about me gave me odd looks at the way I ate. As my father had once told me, this is strictly a Shaloor way of eating eggs, our way of eating being more efficient workers by being able to eat and work all at once. Fortunately, disguise granted me some room for error as they all shrugged it off as coincidence and lack of Agrian “etiquette.”
“All right, then,” said one of the men after the meal had been finished, “time for us all to get to vork. Everybody go off and do their usual chores. I’ll help the simpleton clean up here.” He took a quick glance at me and noted I had personally not finished my half sandwich. “Hurry, ve nyeed to scrape the dishes,” he said slowly and condescendingly.
I hid my sneers with a bite and defiantly slowed my rate of chewing. On top of that, I waddled in a lost manner, giving a confused look. “Vhich…is?” I asked him.
He stroked his beard as he looked at the dishes. “Nyevermind,” he half-shouted as he grabbed a pail and shovel. “Scoop up the ashes, the dusty stuff in there, and put them in this bucket.”
I just stood there, staring at the bucket and finishing my last morsel. As I turned to look at the fireplace, I also pointed. “That?”
By now, the man was getting a little red in the face. “Yes, nyow do it,” he shouted. His speech now grew faster as he thrusted the pail at me.
So, I then cleaned the hearth, making sure my movements were uncoordinated, something that ironically needed a lot of coordination. The first thing I did was chop up a log of cinder, a log of what originally appeared to be from alfwood. Much of it had been burned away, but there were small beads glittering within the remains and a mist escaping with the ashes.
“Such a real shame, but don’t worry about offending me. The best that can be done now is to return it to nature to make more trees,” a voice beside me whispered.
I twisted my head over and noted there was no one there again. “Ahrad, is that you?”
“But of course. Do you know of any other handsome, invisible elves around here?”
“Handsome, invisib…” I said slowly while going back to cleaning the hearth, and when it dawned on me what he had just said, I almost had to beat his invisible nose to see some visible blood. “Why are you tormenting me, Ahrad? Is this your way of punishing me for wanting to get revenge on Reo?”
“No, no, it’s nothing like that, it’s just I was on a tight budget for magic, and disguising you was the only way to save you.”
“Well, why didn’t you turn me invisible and wear the disguise yourself? You’re the better actor after all.”
There was a silence long enough for me to fill a quarter of the pail in the middle of it. “There’s a very logical reason for that, a very logical, funny reason…I didn’t think of that at the time.”
“Ahrad!” I couldn’t control myself anymore. Here I thought I was playing the moron because he had a brilliant plan when I was really just the victim of a real moron. All I could think to do was swing the shovel until I hit him while screaming.
“Hey, simpleton! Cut that out,” my temporary owner roared at me. Dropping the last pot, he marched over and plucked the recently made bludgeoning device out of my hand. “Do you see this?” He gritted his teeth while clenching the shaft of metal in a double fist. “This is for scooping stuff up, nyot knyocking my skull loose. Nyow, go and do the job right.” He shoved the shovel back into my hands and rotated me to face the pile of ashes again.
“Don’t worry, I’ll get you out of here, I promise,” Ahead whispered into my ear before leaving.
* * * *
The rest of the morning was just as demeaning as that first chore. After I had gotten every last grain of ash picked up (I’m surprised he didn’t force me to lap up what could be scraped up), he herded me outside to the shore to dump the remains. I closed my eyes as I finished the job, trying to imagine some of the ash returning to the fields and becoming food for plants again…and making the Agrians that might eat them become sickly.
“Jarl Solas,” my slave-driver interrupted my daydreaming with his whining, “could you please relieve me?”
That tyrant sat on the edge of the cliff, listening to the waves crashing against the rocks and twirling a quill in his hand. “If you’d please, I am at peace. I have yet to decide, vhat shall be done. So be patient, the day is young.”
“But, my Jarl, he is an imbecile. I cannyot tolerate his ignyorance.”
Solas tightened his face and clenched the quill. “Then bring him to Erick, to chop some vood. He vill get, a second chance.”
“Master” looked grudgingly at Solas, his face growing red even at his own master.
“Understood?” Solas added after a long awaited and unreceived response.
There was then another pause, abruptly destroyed by his grabbing me by the hand and muttering out loud as he dragged me off.
As we headed off, the waves died down. “That’s odd, I’ve never heard of waves calming that quickly.” I looked up at the sky. “Come to think of it, it shouldn’t have been high tide. Not at this time of day.”
This Erick fellow I was brought to, I really still was debating whether he was better. To understand why I say that, you must realize the wood I was being told to chop was some of the wood from the grove, I could tell by the X-shaped notches where the branches grew. This made me stare at the wood blocks, not wanting to be involved in such things.
Unlike my previous supervisor, however, Erick treated me with patience, condescending patience. “Nyo, Nyo, hold it like this and sving like that,” he’d tell me endlessly, trying to guide my hands to do the action.
I cannot tell you how annoying that was, but I was relieved when he finally gave up for a lunch break. We hadn’t chopped even a chord of firewood, but I was still hungry by the time we reached the main hall.
After Erick “helped” me receive my lunch, he left me to enjoy my meal alone. Just as at breakfast, the base of the meal was a large slice of bread. Unlike breakfast, however, there was also some lettuce and a jar of salmon roe. I was absolutely astonished by the seafood, bread was wonderful, but I never expected to see such a luxury until I got back home. Carefully, I tore off a piece from my bread to use as an edible spoon and scooped the delicacies onto it. I bit down slowly, savoring the pop and push of juices that was the defining trait of the gems.
As I continued to enjoy the roe, Alodia came to sit beside me. She smiled softly as sh
e ate her roe, only she used the lettuce instead. “Are you enjoying your lunch?” she asked.
I nodded as I licked a stray egg off of my thumb. “Have you seen my friend yet?”
Alodia gave a curious look but tried to conceal it. “Nyo, I haven’t. Vhat does he look like?”
I now returned her curious look. Didn’t she already know my friend was an alf? “Well, he’s probably invisible right now, but if you can see him, he’ll look really blurry.”
“Then I definitely have nyot. But do nyot vorry, I’m sure he’ll turn up if you just keep your eyes open.”
I looked around a bit to see if I couldn’t see a sign of Ahrad and then nodded. “Alodia, where did you get this roe?”
Alodia started back at my use of her name. “Erland? Vha-vhat happened to you?”
“My friend happened. We were about to be spotted and he panicked. Made me look like this and turned himself invisible. Now where did you get this salmon roe? I thought you Agrians couldn’t stand seafood.”
Alodia slouched and squinted at me. “All this has happened to you and all you can think of is food? Erland, are you sure vhatever illusion it is that you’re vearing isn’t making you think like an idiot?”
“I’m surrounded by Agrians who think I’ll drown if it starts to rain.” I waved my hand at everyone else. “Food is the only concern of mine that I can actually do something about. Now, could you please tell me where you got this?”
“There is a salmon farm nyearby. It is a rare treat for us to be able to have this, especially vith it being carried in those jars.”
I looked down at what was left of my roe, just of few more drops were left and they were sticking to the side of the jar. Seemed like I really should have expected Agrians to do something like that. Instead of just letting the fish do whatever they wanted to do until the day they came up and just about gave you the eggs, they’d go and make sure there was an unnecessary means to control the resource. Even better was how I recognized the containers it was in when Alodia called my attention to it, the exact same size, shape, and quality of the one that svartalf was carrying around. “Yeah, I bet it would be hard to get your hands on salmon roe canned in glass like this.” I let it drop to the ground but it didn’t even crack, remarkable handiwork for Agrians right there. “Alfar aren’t the only things I’ve come across living in those woods, I’ve also seen what you call dark elves there. They craft hideous, life-killing potions and they store them in jars just like that one. I bet those jars are so hard to get your hands on because they’re all given to them.”
Across the Kolgan Sea Page 8