Solas gave a long “hmmm,” seeming to think for a very long time. A grin larger than Fenrir the wolf darkened his face and he grabbed the knife again. “No,” he said just as he slit her throat.
Rage overcame me as she fell to the ground and I grabbed an oar and threw it with a tear-filled scream. The jarl caught the plank mid-flight and examined it for a moment. “So you stay to fight? As I foresaw.” He took a step back and tugged loose a rope. In response, the gate descended. There was no escape for me now; I was trapped here with Solas. Because that was true, I saw no need to keep this boat, so I placed my hands on the railing to make it into a flurry of darts.
My hands didn’t even grab hold, they stopped just a paper’s thickness above them and just quivered. Up in his hand was once again the quill, pointed at me. “Please, my boy, do nyot make me guffaw. I vowed nyot to hurt you by sea and vave, but I may have your blood as I had hers.”
My fingers swelled, veins of blue bulged out and my skin turned red from the pressure. As it moved along my hands and into the rest of my body, it felt like someone were stabbing me with an iron bar. It reached my throat and I lost the ability to breathe. I fell to the ground unable to move. Red flooded over my eyes, a difficult color to discern in the dark, but still possible. A thought rushed into my mind, a deep-voiced one that did not come from me. “All has been taken from you,” was all it said before I passed out from lack of air.
Chapter 12
Honor Lost
There wasn’t much to say about how I was dragged away from that spot, just that all I remembered was a migraine and the sensation of being carried. Solas didn’t seem to have much desire to kill me, as he was more than capable of killing me with my own blood. He was quite fine with just tormenting me and using me as some sort of spectacle at his nightly parties.
That chamber that Solas celebrated with his five acolytes in was where I was also being held. When they were in here, the room had just enough fires lit to keep the room warm, but the illumination was rounded off by moonlight, reflected inside through a plate of polished silver. The occasion that seemed to bring them to drinking and singing was me, a trophy for their enjoyment. I was given none of the food or drink they reveled on, which made my stomach ache and my throat dry even more.
Worse still, was the only part of the festivities that they would allow me to participate in was a little song made by Solas to mock me. It related what he claimed to have thought when he saw me. Apparently, he thought I was a beached whale at first. The chorus, where I was forced to sing, was still stuck in my head.
“Look at this whale! This runt of a whale.
It must have been beached with great ease.
It fought against a child of a gale
Spat out by its mother the sea.”
My chin, wrists, and sides all had wounds that weren’t even cleaned from when I didn’t sing along or sang off-key. The stones I was tied to even had a few chips in them from when the knives missed me.
Until night and the parties that occurred down here, the chamber was nothing but cold stone, darkness, and a pool of water in the center. I had been told torture was a horrid thing that left one mad from the physical pains that immediately threatened one, that this was what drove a man to the desperation of doing or saying anything—physical isolation. I’d been locked here in the cold and starvation for four days and that wasn’t the worst part of it. Loneliness, lack of anything to look at, and the torment of what little company I had was the worst part. It wasn’t Solas and his acolytes I was referring to, but what I saw in that pool. At random times, it would light up with blood and the same dark elves as appeared day after day would swim around, not cloying at me but pleading with me to free them. They called me their master, acted as if they didn’t know they were drowned at times.
The most vivid, though, was Alodia. Her mirage was not in the water like the others but standing just above it. The very same stones that had been tied to her when I last saw her were dangling in the water and making ripples. A patch of red stained her neck and the collar of her dress. She didn’t say anything, her face didn’t have any expression on it, she just stood there and stared straight back at me.
The best thing I could do was hold my eyes shut for that entire time and not listen to anything until Solas returned.
* * * *
At long last, Solas returned, and I was able to move on to a more bearable form of torment. His servants went forth and lit the torches as usual, but there were only two of them this time, Fredrick and Jussi, an aged and white-haired man. Kaarle wasn’t there carrying in the vat, nor Maarku or Reino. Solas, however, wore his necklace of strung pearls and a satisfied look on his face. He didn’t walk around the water as he entered, he merely walked over it, not even getting the bottom of his pants wet.
I croaked out a few words when he finally was standing right in front of me. “Nighttime already?”
He replied, “Nyo, but you’re ready for vhat is the truth.”
I shook my head in a little bit of curiosity, but that was all I could muster for the moment. He smirked a bit and then began to rub a clump of my hair, which was now greasy from lack of cleaning. “Many days ago, I said that you and I have a strong resemblance to vone anyother. The answer did I sleuth.”
I dropped my head down to pull the hair out of his fingers and then fought to get my head back up. “You know well enough we couldn’t be related. I am of Shaloor, not an Agrian.”
His eyebrow raised up. “Is that so? I doubt you’ll like vhat I tell you then. I have prayed to my god and told of things true.”
He waved his hand to the shirt he wore, ceremonious in its nature with waves ranging from small to large and pale blue to blood red sown into it at the bottom. These represented Aegir’s nine daughters. Solas continued, “This is vhat vas told me, and I shall let you knyow. For four days and four nyights, I danced and sang for knowledge to be endowed, a pearl from my nyecklace did I give. A vision of your father vas shown.”
I lifted my head when he mentioned my father, and it was now my turn to raise my eyebrow. Seemingly pleased to know he drew my attention, he continued, “He looked like a man this town has long since hated. He vas my treacherous brother, who ve banyished to sea.”
My face went numb as he told me that and remnants of my deep-rooted hatred for Agrians surfaced again. “I am not one of you, gödshanden,” I spat at him, using a derogatory term for Agrian meaning “dung hand.” “My father is a true Shaloor, and not one of you—scum.” I began to hesitate as something dawned upon me. Father knew more about Agrians than any other brine-blooded man I knew. Come to think of it, he didn’t like speaking ill of Agrians either.
Solas inquired, “Is your father’s nyame nyot Fridtjof?”
I slowly nodded as I mentally questioned everything I knew about my father.
Solas continued, “Interesting, before my brother left in shame that vas the nyame he took for himself. Fitting for a thief of peace and a man of such pelf. Before then, his given nyame vas Aadolf.”
Confident that I was too weak to even spit at him, he walked closer and put his hand on my shoulder. “Nyephew, you told me that ve vould be related as a half-breed to a pure bred. I believe that arrow you sent flew and struck you in the head.”
Shivers began to travel all through my spine, ushering the horrid news to every vein, every bone, every vestige of my body. Solas was the pure bred and I was the mutt.
Still he went on. “Vhere is your home then, nyephew? Nyot vith the Shaloor, you’re half Agrian. Nyot Agria, from Shaloor again. Only people it is possible for you to be of is the barbarians. So by telling me vhere my brother is, you are betraying nyo vone. The Shaloor are hard for us to find, you are nyot truly of this var. Simply tell me vhere they are, and I will do my best to end this senseless bloodshed.”
The trauma of it all struck my eyes like hammer to a window. Cracks of blindness began to swim past my eyes and slowly mingled into one mass of bla
ck. I began to see him, sailing ashore to the island I was born upon, the pillar fjords surrounding it shrouded by mist. Not strong enough to speak, I shook my head. They were still my family, and not even my half-bloodedness could stop that.
He looked on with false remorse on his face. “You hold too fast. Do you nyot vant this to end at last? Let var be past? Be a bargain be beseeched? Nyew knyowledge for yours? Of this rune reasonably?”
From his pocket, he pulled out the rock with the runes upon it, which had been taken from me when I was captured. Once again, there was a power glowing from it, seeming to be drawn out of Solas’ being into it. He was still exchanging more secrets of my family, but this time there was little intervention that he needed because it was Aegir who first gave this to me. Surely Solas already knew the answer though.
The offer tempted me, and I succumbed. “What is the meaning of it? What does it have to do with my family?”
Solas smiled. “Our family. These markings mean children. Their power is to guarantee a girl is born. Count the kids of your clan. They match to my master’s spawn. Nyine to nyine plus vone. The midvife to your mother. She did this to mock Aegir. To claim the Shaloor are over him.”
That sank in a little bit farther than the previous remark. Was it true that Runa would do that? If it was, her powers were far greater than I had previously imagined. Come to think of it, this might be why Solas called me “yellow tooth.” To compare me disfavorably to Heimdall with the golden teeth, son of Aegir’s nine daughters. None of this meant anything, though. All I had to go on for this was a stone my enemies gave me, and then their interpretation of its meaning. Hardly a trustworthy evidence at all. “You lie,” I told him calmly.
He replied, “That is vhat you may say, but it is truth. Just tell me vhere they are nyow. Don’t break your promise, youth.”
Was he really asking for me to sell out to the Agrians over pitiful “information” like that? Such a ridiculous concept that was. Still, I was an honorable man, unlike him, so I told him a bit of what I know. “They are on an island to the east at sea. And it is surrounded by fjords.” Never did I have to say that the information had to be specific. Sure, the mention of fjords narrowed the search down by an island or two, but not enough to matter. I only told him enough to satisfy my honor and no more. Solas then looked up and rubbed a pearl on his necklace. With a bright flash, the pearl disintegrated into dust, and Solas smirked.
He said, “Treacherous pillar fjords? I knyow this isle for sure. And are there many Shaloor behind those jagged shores?”
For a moment, I stared at the pile of dust on the floor. He must have used his power of divination take what little I told him and make it meaningful. Even when trying to avoid it, I still betrayed my friends at home. The only thing I could do to try and save my former people, my family, was to dissuade him. “No,” I gasped, “only a small town lies within there. We—the Shaloor are certain to stay distant from one another for fear of your land’s wrath.”
Solas just strolled back through the door. “Then I suppose I shall just send word to my superiors that I’m headed to visit my brother.” Fredrick and Jussi both followed shortly, but Jussi was slowest to leave. He had an ashamed look on his face and glanced at one of the door hinges as he fit the key into the slot.
“That uh—story of his made me think of me,” he muttered just loud enough for it to reach me.
“How so?”
He ran his fingers through his hair. “I used to have blond hair before stress and guilt overtook me.” Of all the ways to identify a Shaloor I knew, that was one of the sure fire—blond hair.
“Then what on earth are you doing here? More importantly, what does that have to do with this?”
“I was just about to get to that. I was a Shaloor until I sold where three whole islands full of Shaloor were. Three whole islands, my friend, and there were two Shaloor on each of those for every blade of grass too.” He leaned himself against the door and didn’t speak for very long, probably waiting for a reaction from me. “I didn’t do it because I hated them or anything either, I just thought that Agrian-minted coin bought more than anything my folks traded in.”
A small knot of anger roiled deep inside of me, like the start of a typhoon. I just hung there despite that feeling anyway, all the fight I had was burned away on Solas. The guard, however, had some fight left in him and banged his fist against the door. “Three isles,” he said explosively. “Don’t you get it, kid? I betrayed us to our most hated enemy without second thought.” He hung his head low. “That’s why I’m working for Solas, all I had left of what I abandoned was the sea itself, and Aegir with it. I'm a traitor. A traitor. A traitor. Say whatever you want to about me, kid, I need to feel guilty.” Halfway through, he began to smack the door with his palm in rhythm with his speech.
The corner of my lip twitched for a moment with indifference. “So…you turned to Aegir because he’s the closest thing you have to home? Why’d he accept you, then? I heard how he feels about us right from Solas and Aegir himself.”
He peeked over at me. “Because I do what they want. I burn incense at Aegir’s holy days, I sweep garbage for Solas. You can say they let me live because I live the life our ancestors fled, as a slave. So go on, I know you want to yell at me. Just do it.”
“What would making you feel guilty accomplish? Only actual justice at the hands of a Shaloor tribunal would bring any justice. Telling you things you already know in an angry fashion would just make me feel more tired and you more depressed.”
Jussi looked back at me with an amazed look. He muttered something to himself as he held the key up to the light and then he regained his composure and held the keys to the door to his face. “You’re right.” Without a moment’s hesitation, he jabbed the thing back into the keyhole and unlocked the door once again. “Feeling bad about myself won’t do anything. Making things up to the people I betrayed will. That’s the way to go about easing my conscience.” He spilled through the door the moment it was unlocked and bolted for the shackles that held me up. He started with my ankles and then my wrists. He was gracious enough to hold me up while I regained my balance.
I was barely able to stand even then; I was too tired to do anything. “Just let me be, there’s no way I can get out of this hall, let alone set sail.”
Jussi snorted a bit as he picked me up. “I’m not going to take any of that now. You’re going to get out of here even if I have to row you all the way to your home by myself. Even if that means I’m going to be executed.” He looked behind him. “Hold on, I’ll get you some food.”
So he left me there, barely able to roll into a comfortable position. My hand tumbled into the water after a while, a comforting sensation, even with all the horrible things I’d been forced to see in it. The cool caress of the water gave me a small amount of strength, enough to pull myself there and drink. As I drank, not only did more energy return to me, but my mind became clearer.
When it got its clearest, what was happening began to dawn on me. I was being given the opportunity to escape, to go home. That wasn’t as comforting a thought as one would expect, however, having been faced with that twice before and having both times end in catastrophe. All because Solas somehow possessed prophetic powers, he was able to thwart me every time. There was no reason to believe this time would be any different, especially because I was even closer to Solas than the other two times.
Jussi returned with a sack and crouched down beside me. Reaching into the bag, he pulled out a hunk of bread and some cheese. “I should have enough here to feed the both of us for a week if we ration, but I’m only comfortable giving you this much now. You haven’t been fed anything and I don’t want to make you sick.”
I took the food and devoured it. “I don’t think we should leave,” I said as I finished both morsels. “Solas is just too smart, he probably already knows what we’re up to.”
Jussi didn’t seem to care much about that. He just smiled and pull
ed me up. “On the contrary, there’s a good chance Solas doesn’t. I know what you’re talking about. He’s supposed to be a prophet and everything, but being his little slave has given me the chance to learn just how he does it.”
“What?” I was still a little weak and had to lean against Jussi a little bit.
“Yes, the thing is he isn’t actually a prophet. You see, a long time ago, he killed a volvu and sealed her own power to foresee the future into that necklace of his. For the whole solid years he’s had that, it was working fine, but lately it hasn’t. Haven’t you noticed how he hasn’t been rhyming just as much? I’ve even noticed he’s been wrong about a few things. Just last night, he was even startled by a cat falling off the roof.”
Now that he mentioned it, Solas was lacking in some of his obnoxious meter of late. In fact, back when I sent those svartalfar after him, there were also some symptoms of him slipping. I can only guess that that quill of his is also a gambantein based on how he used it whenever he bent water to his whim. How he impaled himself…that was more like an act of desperation than predetermination. I felt reassured by his remark. Solas’ magic was dependent on using that necklace and his quill, the necklace at the very least was certainly weakening. So I followed Jussi to the ship.
He led me to the dock as promised and grabbed ahold of a wheel connected to a chain. “Help me to move this, it’s kind of heavy,” he beseeched with a grunt. I heeded the request and gripped it as well, but I was still looking at that spot where Alodia was killed. It was but a blotch of void at the edge of the lantern’s glow, two stains of blood that clung tightly to the wood, too deep for any washing to remove. Jussi gave a quick, strong pull on the wheel, a bit too strong and quick. Before either of us could react, the wheel began to spin like a whirlpool and the chain it was connected to come arcing down upon us. The guard picked up the chain when its speed was no greater than a slither, about three spins afterward it flew out of control. “I guess Solas did see this coming. This chain was sawed through.”
Across the Kolgan Sea Page 20