Suddenly, Kaihar’s lax stance toward her made sense. As my tutor, he needed to refine my skill and myself as a person. Well, I supposed that having someone antagonizing me like she did might have helped, but it certainly wouldn’t untie that unwholesome complex of emotions I felt for the Agrians. No, a knot like that needs to be cut, not coaxed into unwinding. Maybe I should thank Solas for his service to me. “In that case, thank you.” I sighed.
Reokashothi turned to look through the canvas at Alodia and the nurse who was pouring something into her mouth. “When do you think Alodia will feel better?” she asked. The question didn’t really need to be answered or even guessed at, as when Reokashothi said, “better” Alodia woke up with a fit of panic.
She flailed her arms and legs about, knocking the bowl full of medicine into the air and shoving the nurse backward. “Vhat’s going on here? Get your hands off of me,” Alodia screamed. “Vhy are you here vhen the alfar vould nyot allow you here?” Alodia erupted with words both normal and obscene about her predicament.
I quickly dove under the canvas to try to calm her down. By the time I crossed the veil, Alodia had already backed into a corner, keeping the svartalf back with a burning block of wood. “Alodia, it’s all right. You were drugged, but I ordered the svartalfar to cure you…” It might have been better for me to have chosen some different words than those, as they caused Alodia’s angry, panicked expression to pass over to me.
“Erland, how could you? I thought the elves vere your friends, but nyow you are vorking vith their enyemies? And you brought me into this nyeedlessly too.”
Despite her getting louder and louder, I was only confused and gave a quick look over at the svartalf nurse. She shrugged. “The drug makes humans a little paranoid,” was all she said.
I rolled my eyes back over to Alodia and tried to persuade her out of such nonsense. “Alodia, please let me explain.”
“Vhat is there to explain? You betrayed your friends and have me held prisonyer.”
“Alodia, had I actually betrayed my friends, you included, you would not be alive right now. You would be dead.”
“Is that—” She paused as she thought about that remark. “Good point. So vhat are ve doing here, then?” I recalled for her everything I just told Reokashothi and a little more. About Solas, how Hognosht ruined the forest, the svartalfar killing all the alfar but Reo, and how I managed to gain temporary authority over them.
She just sat there, probably in the same post-high daze state Reokashothi was in, not making so much as a whistle until I finished. “Vell, that’s interesting. So I suppose that means you’ll nyeed a nyew boat, then.”
I nodded, and she rubbed her head. “Nyow don’t get mad at me for this, but I knyow of anyother boat.”
I blinked at that remark. “A boat? You’re not talking about any of those that burned up at the dock, because I already know those ones won’t do.”
“Nyo, this vone’s Solas’ own private ship. Trapped in a little covey beneath his house. I stumbled on the doorway to it yesteryear.” Miffed and surprised by the little glimmer of hope she gave me, I just sat there for a little while longer.
“Another…boat? And why didn’t you tell me?”
“Vell, you vere very emotional back vhen those boats vere burned into the sea and I didn’t vant you to do anything rash. I’m very sorry if my concern for you offends you, Erland.” She held her forehead and reached for the bowl and what little medicine was inside of it. “But vith all that has happened, I believe vhat I did nyot do earlier is nyot important. Vhen do you think you’ll try to take it?” She took a sip and puckered quickly afterward.
“I don’t think I’ll ever be ready to sneak into Solas’ house. I’ve seen him do things that make it so I don’t want to risk getting found.”
“You vill nyot nyeed to face him, Erland. I knyow of vays into there that vill make it easy.”
A quick fit of sneezing came from behind the canvas, reminding me that Reokashothi was behind it, being irritated by the whiff of smoke. It occurred to me that I’d need to take care of Reokashothi and make sure the svartalfar didn’t do anything bad while I was away. “If you’re that confident in your knowledge of that place, I’ll prepare to leave tonight. Just let me handle one quick thing.” I waved at the svartalf nurse to follow me over to Reokashothi.
Reokashothi seemed to have recovered a little bit more. Her eyes weren’t glossed over anymore and her motions were far more decisive. I walked to her and placed my hand on her shoulder. “My good nurse,” I said to the svartalf, “I shall be leaving this dusk and hopefully will not be returning for a very long time if at all. Until the day I return, this alf shall be your leader. Obey her as you would me, as she is my wife and bears power that rivals mine.”
With only one quick look at Reokashothi, the svartalf dove to the ground before her and kissed her feet. While she was distracted with digging a new basement to the svartalf pit of opportunism, Reokashothi latched her nails to my ear and hissed at me. “What are you doing? If this is some Shaloor way of proposing, allow me to remind you the only time we see eye to eye is if we’re in a staring contest. In fact, I’m pretty sure I am not old enough.”
The svartalf took no notice of Reokashothi, obviously making too loud a slurping and smacking noise with her lips against her feet. I tried to diffuse her resentment as quickly as possible. “Don’t worry. I’m giving them a reason to fear you because I don’t expect my word is enough to make them obey their ancient enemy for so long. Just think of it like pulling a really big prank on them.” That was all I needed to tell her, as her expression moved into a new state of euphoric dream. I could only imagine what she had in mind, but that was more than enough for me to already feel bad about this being my only way to handle this. “Just don’t go too far with your power,” was what I added in just before I caught up with Alodia.
“If you say so, my lovely,” Reokashothi threw back at me.
I winced. “Don’t call me that.”
“But I was—”
“I know, I know, I just don’t like that name.”
* * * *
It was beginning to get hard to see by the time we were nearing our destination, as a wintry evening snuck up on us from the west. I would have gladly agreed to providing any sort of illumination, torch, magical, even firefly if we could manage to find enough of them at this time of year. Alas, all such luxuries would have only served to endanger us both, as Elderbear was easily spotted in the distance by the torchlight that all melded into one glowing pit on the surface of the earth. As Alodia’s line of reasoning suggested, if we could see those lights, it would be possible for her fellow townsfolk to discover us as easily as a youth spots the first star that appears in the night sky.
On the bright side, the black sky that began to loom over our heads answered at least part of my concern on this matter. I didn’t lack faith that Alodia could duck both of us into the little mouse-hole she knew about without drawing the attention of anybody, but the voyage of Solas’ private ship did seem like it would be rather noticeable. Thanks to the veil of night, however, all but the frozen beggars would be inside, huddled by the fire and warmth.
The closer we got, the easier it was to distinguish one torch from another. There wasn’t just one cluster of light, however. There was one cast all across the town proper and another smaller one surrounded Solas’ manor, judging by the size of the building revealed by the glow of the fires. Alodia stopped me for a moment as she tried to figure out what the meaning of them was. From the distance we were standing at, perhaps 500 yards away, she cupped her hands over her eyes to act like an impromptu telescope.
“No doubt that’s some villagers up in a mob from the svartalfar attacking,” I noted to her as she strained to see better through the glare. “It's probably going to make it harder to sneak in.”
“Correction, it vill be impossible to get through vhere I planned to. Look.” She then handed her hand telescope
to me. I almost took them to use, but realizing how ridiculous that would be, I pushed them away and used my own hands. The “telescope” didn’t actually make it so I could see farther so much as it did make it easier to focus on one thing. Such additional concentration was very helpful with cutting through the blur of dull orange light. What was there was most certainly a large pack of Agrians, but they were all organized around one spot. The particular spot they surrounded was a massive crater in the manor. “Either your nyot-so-friends aren’t too familiar vith subtlety, or there’s been a good deal of changes to the hall since I vas there last.” She sighed. “This certainly complicates things.”
“What do you mean ‘complicates’? I thought you said it was impossible,” I said, hoping for some other trick up her sleeve.
“First off, I said, ‘impossible to get through vhere I planned to,’ nyot ‘impossible period.’ I can still do it, but I vill have to snyeak in by myself.”
“But then where will I go?”
“Around to the front entrance. Follow the shore until you come across an iron gate. You vill have to vait until I open the door. But don’t vorry, I’ll do it.” And without any time for me to object, she just ran off toward the mob. I didn’t dare shout over to her out of fear of drawing attention. I supposed the plan was in motion. Alodia was risking her silvered skin for me, so I went and did the part set up for me.
I made my way around the mob of Agrians around the hall by walking as far away from there as practical before climbing down onto the shoreline cliff. The rocks were slippery and smooth from centuries of waves beating it down. “High tide’s coming in,” I noted as my shoes and pants were getting steadily more soaked. “We’re probably going to have to hurry with getting that ship out before the water’s too high for it to get out.”
As Alodia told me, there was indeed a gate, the coarseness of rust refracting moonlight off the bottom. What she didn’t tell me was that the place that gave me that view was the most precarious place to stand on. Not only was it a sheer ledge that forced me to place more faith in my hand’s grip than on my footing, but everything was coated in a thick layer of algae and dozens of mussels and other crustaceans. I supposed I should have been grateful for the mussels though. The little bumps they provided on the wall worked fantastically as extra places to grip. It still wasn’t the most pleasant of experiences.
My arms grew numb from holding that position for so long, but there weren’t very many other places for me to move and those few I had still required me to hold my arms high above my head. I watched the last warmth of sunset die off in the distance, and when that was gone, I peeked down every now and again to see just how far up my leg the water had gotten. By the time the water got up to my knees, both my arm and my mind wondered what was taking Alodia so long. The tide, the stars, even the position changing of the moon was enough to tell me it had been at least an hour that I was dangling there.
“If she was safe, she would have opened the door by now.” The thought ran through my mind. It had been sitting quietly in the back of my head for a while now, but now that I was growing impatient, it started to overwhelm me. There wasn’t any reason why she would be taking this long. The only conclusion I could come to was she’d been found. I looked to the now eerie light of numerous townsfolk’s torches above me. That didn’t seem to sit right with her being caught. If she was, there would almost definitely be more outraged noises coming from above. So, what did that leave me with? An equal chance that she’d been caught and she was fine but just taking a long time.
Whichever was the case, my arms were getting too tired to hold me up any longer, so I simply couldn’t wait any longer. I decided upon a compromise between the two guesses. Namely, I would slip into the water to let my legs do some work for a while and slowly swim back. I was just in the part of my plan where I was getting over the cold sting of the water rising over my stomach, when lights of different colors began to shimmer on the water.
At first, they all were random bumps of color, mostly blue with some red and pale patches. They swam about and mingled together, becoming more tangible until they assembled the form of a man—specifically Solas. He stretched out maybe five yards and elongated like a shadow cast by someone standing above me. Above me was just torchlight, though too distant to make something like that. No doubt this was yet another of those visions from Aegir.
Solas’ reflection held its chin up high and proclaimed, “Such a fool you are, Erland. I thought you knyew me better. My knyowledge of future’s grand, soon I’ll put you in fetter.” The edge of his pants shimmered and more lights leapt out of them and toward me. At first they were gold, but then he smiled and said, “And you’ll share their fates.”
More figures emerged from what now seemed like elven blood, and the paled corpses of many dark elves crept toward me. They remained in the water, seeming completely unable to leave its grasp, but their angered faces still terrified me. “They’re just illusions, they’re just illusions,” I repeated in my head.
A lurch and rumble came from the gate and the spirits and Solas vanished. Still, it made me uneasy going into the water, the feeling that there really were angry spirits in the water taunting me. I looked over at the opening yawn, the site giving me confidence. After all, if it was opening, Alodia was surely there. Regardless, I closed my eyes before leaping into the water; nothing attacked me. Now in the water, I swam my way into the dock.
Moonlight reflected its way off the water and into the chamber. There was a large dock that ran the entire way around the walls, yet there was only one ship that rested inside of it. The amount of space was justified for it nonetheless, even if it wasn’t a terribly large ship. The space was sure there, more as a way to prevent the ship from getting damaged, as it was more decorative than seaworthy, definitely of superior quality to the “ships” at the actual docks. The mast was thin but solid, embellished by knot art and seagulls dancing in the middle of it. The boat itself was only large enough to fit maybe two or three, but formed from oak girded with metal and traced with silver on the railings and mast. The bow of the ship twisted into the neck of Jormungandr and ended with his hissing, serpentine head. The ladder to climb onto the dock was against the wall opposite of me, and above it was a large shrine. As would be expected from a man who worshipped Aegir, the statue was of the sea god and resembled him when I had that nightmare of an illusion. The only difference was there was a small basin at the base of the altar, likely for the purpose of making sacrifices.
I mostly shunted the statue out of my view, instead focusing on my way out. I shoved the longboat out by the bow.
Over at the entrance, Alodia’s blue face was just barely in view with the amount of moonlight coming in. “Hey, Alodia,” I shouted over to her. “Help me push this thing out.” I wasn’t too concerned about much noise being noticed down here, too far away from anyone for them to hear us. I quickly discovered it didn’t matter how loud I was for a different reason, as I had already been discovered.
Out from the shadows, Solas emerged clenching Alodia’s neck in his hand. Now that they were more in view, it became clear that rocks were tied to her feet. “Surrender nyow, and I’ll drown your friend.”
That phrase threw me off guard. “I’m sorry,” I negotiated, “but isn’t that supposed to be surrender now or I’ll kill your friend?”
It was difficult to determine gestures from this distance but I could tell he shrugged. “Usually, but if you don’t surrender, I’ll end it quickly, do you comprehend?”
He then held Alodia over the water and placed a knife to her throat. I was taken aback by the sadistic nature of that offer. I was being forced to choose how to kill Alodia. For a short moment, I grabbed a chunk of the ship’s bulk to try to fuel a spell, and magic rippled through it as I readied to launch my attack. “She’s still dangling over the waters, even if you kill me.” The casual comment was more than enough to make me stop.
“Which should I do?” I cycled thro
ugh what to do. “If I go, she’ll die. If I don’t then she dies anyway. He’s made this decision actually simple, though still hard I have to say. Her life by being killed by steel would be better than if she drowned.” I began to continue pushing the boat out. “She helped me and knew what the risk would be. I need to be with my family for their sake. One life for the sake of twelve.”
The boat was halfway out of the dock, and Solas said nothing until that point. “Is that your choice, then? To live vith knyowing she vill have received a life in Nyifleheim? Namely, as a traitorous flea?”
That made me think more into this. What would her life in Niflheim be like? I couldn’t really say I agreed with his notion of what she’d be judged as a traitor. Queen Hel, though cold and wicked against the living, was just with the dead. She’d see what was being done, and I believed she would recognize that her deeds were not the act of a traitor to her country, but an act of sympathy to a stranger. All his statement did was strengthen my resolve to go on with my decision.
Life and death still lingered in my mind, though. These thoughts were not for Alodia anymore, but for me. I was about to embark out to sea while an enemy who could command the seas watched. I stepped onto the ship to get a better look at the two of them—Alodia looking both at me and the knife near her with a plea for mercy in her eyes, Solas unflinching in gaze and composure. “If I leave, won’t you just go and kill me with the sea?” As those words flew from my mouth, I felt disgusted with myself as I said them in front of my last friend.
Solas let a slight of a smile relax. “If you leave, you’ll be struck by neither wave nor force of the sea.”
He slowly lowered the dagger to grab his quill, still stained by his own blood, and cast it aside. My chest felt like it was being compressed between two stones. Fear of Alodia taking revenge from beyond the grave rushed through my mind. I wouldn’t really blame her for doing that, what with how selfish I was. Tears were streaming down her eyes now and some welled up in mine as well. She was going to die either way, and this way was her best chance to have a good afterlife, I just needed a quick chance to tell her that. To ease my conscience. “Can I have a quick word with her before I go?” I said, never taking my eyes off her.
Across the Kolgan Sea Page 19