Elsewhens (Glass Thorns)

by Melanie Rawn

  Whatever the young man might have replied was lost in an almighty blast. The deck shuddered again and again as the cannons fired. Cade managed not to stagger with the shock and the noise, but it was a good five minutes before he felt his heartbeats calm down again. Smoke drifted through the air, making him cough.

  “I think they know we’re here now,” Rafe commented.

  “What?” Mieka shouted.

  Cade glanced at Jeska, who was shaking his head as if to clear it. “You, too?”

  “What?”

  “Elfen ears,” Rafe said. “Poor delicate little creatures.”

  “You know, of course,” Cade mused, “we could say absolutely anything to either of them right now, and get away with it.”

  “What could we say that we don’t already say when they can hear us?”

  “It’s the concept that intrigues me.” He grinned as Mieka patted his ears as if to comfort them, or to make sure they were still attached.

  “Whatever you’re saying,” Mieka yelled, “I wasn’t there, I didn’t do it, and you can’t prove anything!”

  “Frightfully sloppy,” was Kearney Fairwalk’s verdict. “All the guns were supposed to fire in unison on both ships.”

  An hour’s sail upriver, and the two ships docked in a bright and busy port that sprawled, like Gallantrybanks, on both sides of the river. The passengers were ushered into carriages for a drive through cobblestoned streets, out past the eastern edges of town, and deep into the countryside. The carriages moved swiftly, and the change from the rocking of the ship to the sharp juddering of wheels turned Rafe a bit green again. When Cade switched seats with him so he could have access to a window if necessary, the jostling nearly landed him atop one of Briuly’s lute cases. Snarls ensued. Cade apologized. Briuly glared at him for the whole rest of the drive.

  The cobbles ran out and the coaches bounced over the packed dirt of a country road. Eventually they emerged from behind a grove of laurel trees, and ahead was a castle.

  “Good Lord and Lady,” Jeska breathed in awe. “It looks made of whipped cream!”

  Mieka regarded the view. “Laced with beet juice—and bits of shrimp for extra pink.”

  This proposed combination was, for Rafe the baker’s son, too much. The window was desperately opened and immediately deployed.

  “I thought it was Crisiant who’s s’posed to get sick,” Mieka remarked.

  The coaches pulled up to an airy rose-colored confection of slender columns, and turrets topped with pointed puffs of pink tile, and more white-curtained windows than seemed architecturally or aesthetically appropriate. This, it was explained by a stout little man wearing a silver badge of office that covered half his chest, would be their home for the night while the luggage was offloaded onto barges for the journey upriver. After this, coaches would be waiting to take them the rest of the way to Gref Jyziero.

  Cade wished Derien were with him; the child adored maps, and could have told him precisely where he was in relation to everything else, and how long all this traveling would take. Every sign he’d seen thus far had been in a script familiar to him but a language unknown. He made a mental note to tell Dery that if his ambition truly was to represent Albeyn in foreign lands, he’d have to learn a lot more languages a lot more earnestly than he had hitherto studied their own. Perhaps Drevan Wordturner could assist with a book or two.

  Except for the fussing little official, the castle was empty. A cold though copious supper had been laid on in the main hall by servants who were nowhere in evidence. A plan of the castle had been drawn onto a board propped beside the stairs, with names or titles assigned to bedchambers on upper floors. TOUCHSTONE, for instance, was neatly lettered across a fair-sized room on the third floor, just above LORD FAIRWALK and just below OTHER STAFF. The only servants were those who had come over on the two ships, and several of them wearing orange-and-gray livery flustered about with much wringing of hands. These men belonged to the Archduke, who was to serve as Prince Ashgar’s proxy.

  “But—baths, and breakfast—”

  “And what of the sheets? Are they clean? Properly scented?”

  All at once a deep, powerful voice spoke into the confusion. “I am convinced that the bedding will be entirely satisfactory.”

  Thus Cade got his first close-up look at the Archduke. Not quite so tall as Cade, and proportioned more sturdily, he had a broad and high-boned face dominated by golden-brown eyes as luxuriantly lashed as Mieka’s. Above them were straight dark brows and a wide forehead and thin chestnut hair with a slight wave. The smile he wore was patient, indulgent, as he addressed his anxious servants.

  “As for bathing—I’m told we shan’t be departing tomorrow until well into the morning, and there’s a lovely lake behind the castle just begging to be splashed in on a warm summer day. Now, if you’ve no other worries, do go get some rest, won’t you?”

  He seemed pleasantly lenient with his servants, for a man who was as close to Royal as one could get without having to be addressed as Your Highness. Kearney had explained it all one evening at such length that after the third generation, Mieka simply put his hands over his ears and moaned. Unencumbered by Kearney’s meanderings, the story was this: King Kearnian (Lord Fairwalk was named after him, because the queen’s younger sister had married into the Fairwalk family) had a son to inherit, another son in case of accidents, and a daughter to marry off. Princess Veddie, showing perhaps the feistiness of an Elfen strain in her mother’s bloodline, refused point-blank to wed any of the eminently suitable nobles her parents proposed. By twenty-two, she was almost of an age to be unmarriageable. Then a young man came traveling on behalf of his own father, a Prince of somewhere-or-other on the Continent; the Archduke and the Princess fell in love; the King gave them vast estates and allowed him to keep his title. The couple’s granddaughter married the heir to the throne, and became the grandparents of King Meredan. As for the spare prince—his granddaughter had married the heir to the Archduchy. The end result after five generations was that the current Archduke was cousin twice over to Prince Ashgar, and as a senior Royal had been chosen to bring Ashgar’s bride home to Albeyn.

  Descended as he was from King Kearnian and Queen Saffa, the Archduke was known to have Wizard and Elf in his bloodlines. Neither could be seen in his solid build, his ruddy complexion, his small, lobeless, rounded ears. Neither had ever been evidenced in his character or talents. No rumors had ever been bruited about that he had even a dollop of magic in him. He was, to look at and to deal with, entirely Human.

  And he was approaching the little knot of young men that was Touchstone, an affable smile on his face. “Forgive me for not introducing myself earlier—departure was rather chaotic, and shouting from ship to ship seemed even more impolite than not saying anything at all. Cyed Henick. I’ve had the great pleasure of seeing you perform several times.”

  Kearney greeted him as a kinsman, almost as an equal. Introductions were made, nods given on the one side and half-bows on the other, and they all moved towards the food spread out on tables in the great hall. Everyone ate while standing, or found a chair or stair to sit on. Kearney carried the conversation, with some assistance from Jeska. Cade didn’t say much; more unusually, neither did Mieka. Wondering if, like him, the Elf was remembering the man in the Archduke’s livery who’d come round asking about Blye’s glassworks last year, Cade finally decided it was time to collect a few bottles and go upstairs.

  “And I understand, Master Silversun,” the Archduke suddenly said, “that Lord Oakapple has commissioned a play. Might one ask its subject?”

  Mieka chose this moment to open his mouth for reasons other than shoveling food into it. “One might ask, Your Grace, but one wouldn’t receive much of an answer!” The words were delivered in an accent quite as upper-upper as Kearney Fairwalk’s. Moreover, the grin was his most innocently disarming, but there was something in those eyes that told Cade he’d been thinking exactly what Cade had suspected he was thinking. “The creative mind
, and all that sort of thing, don’t you see. Why, he doesn’t even let his own partners know where his thoughts are taking him, not until he’s quite finished being clever. Mere slaves to his artistic visions, that’s all we are.” A quick, teasing glance upwards at Cade. “Talking of that, you were busy being brilliant all day, even on the drive here, weren’t you—there’s a look he gets,” he confided to the Archduke, “no mistaking it, all clouded and misty-eyed, hardly speaks a word, and wouldn’t notice if I cracked a withie over his head! He’s got a bit of that look right now, so mayhap it’s time to toddle off to write it all down before he forgets. Your Grace’s servant,” he finished with a bow, and nudged Cade towards the stairs.

  “What was all that, then?” Cade whispered when they had maneuvered around those seated on the steps and reached the first landing.

  “Couldn’t bear another instant alongside him, could I?” He made a face. “Oily as a fish fry, that one.”

  “You could’ve waited until we’d snagged a few more drinks,” he complained.

  Mieka shook his head mournfully. “Still underestimating me, after all this time!” Whereupon he parted his jacket to show a bottle clutched to each side with his elbows.

  The next morning, the sun through their chamber’s east-facing windows was startlingly bright. And hot, especially lying next to another’s body heat. When Cade woke, sweating, he flung off the sheets. Mieka rolled onto his other side, snarling in his sleep. Nothing in the world seemed lovelier to Cade than a plunge into that nice, cool lake he could glimpse from the windows. But as he turned to find something to wear downstairs, laughter drove everything else from his mind. He prodded Mieka in the shoulder.

  “Wake up!” he whispered. “You have to see this!”

  On the Winterly Circuit Cade had learned that the Elf was a matchless grouker. Unless startled from sleep by the abrupt removal of warm blankets or application of a pitcherful of water in the face, it took him upwards of ten minutes to rouse from slumber, longer if it had been a short night, longer still if he’d gone to bed drunk. Fuzzy-eyed, surly, he would turn onto one side, then the other, then bury his face in the pillows, and finally flop over onto his back and glare. After only one bottle of wine and a good ten hours of sleep, he had bypassed the turning and the pillows and was at the glaring stage.

  “Look!” Cade pointed to the other bed.

  Jeska was cuddled into Rafe’s arms, both of them sleeping as serenely as Angels with folded wings. Mieka gave a snorting giggle. “Gods, they’re adorable! D’you think Rafe thinks he’s Crisiant?”

  “I surely as all hells hope so!”

  “I heard that,” said Rafe, and pushed Jeska to the other side of the bed. A mumble and a snuggle closer made him shove the masquer against the wall.

  “Wha–? What’d you do that for?”

  “Maybe,” Cade mused, “he thought Rafe was—no, not with that beard.”

  Bleary and disoriented, and slightly bruised, Jeska blinked a few times before catching on.

  The pillow fight was still going strong when someone knocked on their door. Kearney walked in to find Touchstone, stark naked in a cloud of feathers, laughing themselves silly.

  Cade found that he wasn’t as instantly contrite as he might once have been at being caught in a rough-and-tumble by the grown-ups. He was having too much fun to be sorry—and there were servants to clean everything up, weren’t there? Not that he’d seen any, but somebody must take care of this pile of pink pudding. Not his responsibility. So he grinned at Kearney and found a pillow not yet gutted of its feathers, and threw it at him.

  His Lordship was not amused. Two hours later, he was still picking bits of white off his immaculate turquoise brocade jacket.

  They were back in the coaches, but heading southeast away from the port town. It had been explained that they would reach the barges upriver by late afternoon. All their luggage and gear had been transferred while at the docks, and from here until they reached Gref Jyziero they would be spending each night sleeping on the barges and each day on land. Various excursions had been designed for their amusement: outdoor meals, scenic walks, and a shopping expedition in a locally famous market town with a thoroughly unpronounceable name.

  During the long drive Mieka was, as expected, bored. Cade entertained himself by staring out the windows without taking in a single feature of the countryside; he was working on “Treasure” in his head.

  And then he saw the river.

  Into the sudden hush within their coach, Rafe murmured, “Makes the poor old Gally look like a downhill stream of horse piss.”

  Cade had seen one or two imagings of the Vathis River, but never any that looked directly across at the opposite bank the way he could now, at trees he knew had to be at least thirty feet tall but that seemed less than the height of his little finger. It hadn’t looked this big back at the port, and when he asked Kearney about it he was told things about dams and diversions that he supposed explained it. All he knew for certes was that it had to be a mile across, and very likely more. When the coaches came to a halt, he jumped out and strode to the end of the wooden docks where a fleet of four barges awaited. As far as he could see, both down and up the river, the water was just as wide, just as intensely blue for what looked like a hundred miles.

  “We could’ve sailed our own ships up this monster,” Jeska said.

  Kearney shook his head. “I was told that our sailors won’t come near it. I mean to say, they know the Ocean Sea, and there’s a certain amount of snobbery involved, I should think. A river as opposed to real sailing.”

  “A boat’s a boat,” Rafe observed. “And a sail’s a sail.”

  “But that’s no river,” Mieka retorted. “It’s a baby Flood.”

  “Probably has something to do with hidden shallows,” said Cade. “You’d have to know the river to navigate safely.”

  Jeska snorted. “As if you have the least idea what you’re talking of.”

  “Logically—”

  “Your Lordship!” Drevan Wordturner was hurrying towards them. “You gentlemen are in the second barge—I checked to make sure all your things had been loaded into the proper rooms.”

  “Good of you,” said Kearney. “Show us our cabins, won’t you?”

  They were sorted through a minor anarchy onto the barges. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary to Cade until Mieka, sprawled on the upper bunk in the cubbyhole they had been given, suddenly said, “Where are the horses?”

  “Hmm?” He was sorting through his notes, trying to find the section recording his speculations on the location of the Regal bells.

  “Big brutes. Tails, hooves—you know. Horses.”

  “I thought you didn’t ride.”

  “I don’t. But how are we to travel upriver if there’s nothing to pull us there?”

  Cade gave him a pitying look. “And here you just spent days on a ship with sails.”

  “There aren’t any. This is a barge. Like ones on our rivers and canals. Going downriver with the current, that’s one thing. You just float. But how do we go upriver without horses to haul us along?”

  “Maybe they bring them out at night while we’re asleep. We’ll be traveling by coach during the day—”

  “Then why’s there no towing path ’longside the river?”

  “You know all this because—?”

  “I helped Jed plan where he’s taking Blye.”

  “They ought to be back in Gallantrybanks by now,” Cade mused. “Wish we could be there to sing them into their house.”

  Mieka shook his head emphatically. “Shout, yell, or shriek, Quill, but don’t you ever sing!”

  Dinner was served on the decks, and then everyone was invited to tuck themselves in for the night. Touchstone had two cabins. The servants were crammed six to a room. Cade had intended to get some work done, but found himself yawning by nightfall, and went to bed just as he felt the barge drift gently out into the river. He slept heavily.

  The next morning the barges were ti
ed up, and everyone disembarked for breakfast in a meadow. In the distance, people were working the land, riding or walking the roads, but nobody came near the visitors. Once again coaches showed up to carry them twenty or more miles inland, this time to a pretty hillside with a view of far-off mountains. The afternoon was spent strolling, talking, drinking, or lazing about in the sunshine. Cade joined Mieka in being bored.

  Back to the barges—which were many miles upriver from where they’d left them. Cade began to understand Mieka’s puzzlement about how they’d got there. Dinner was served on trestle tables dockside, and at sunset everyone once more returned to the cabins. Unlike on board ship, there was no evening social life, no drinking, no talking until all hours. Cade didn’t mind; he intended to use the time working. But Mieka wasn’t used to going to bed this early.

  “Tried their best to wear us out today, didn’t they?” the Elf observed irritably as he clambered up onto the top bunk. “Like mums making their children chase round the park.”

  “It’s nice to stretch our legs,” Cade replied idly. His new portfolio was open on the bed, and he was organizing pages according to subject.

  “You didn’t drink much wine tonight.”

  Another of Mieka’s swervings. Not if he lived to be a thousand would he ever get used to them. “Too strong for the fish they served.”

  “Ooh! Ain’t we got grand and all, lately!”

  “Just because I don’t guzzle down anything put in front of me—” He stopped and frowned. “You didn’t drink much, either.”

  Mieka’s upside-down face appeared over the side of the bunk. “I’ve had enough different sorts of thorn to know when I’m being coaxed to sleep.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “And I can’t get the porthole open. It’s locked.” He looked at the door. “So’s that, I wager. Or will be.”

  “But why—?”

  “Shushup!”

  A few moments later he heard the footfalls outside in the narrow corridor. Steps; pause. Steps; pause. All at once Cade caught on—or caught Mieka’s suspicions—and when the steps approached their door he yawned loudly and slurred, “Gods, can’t keep m’eyes open—g’night,” and closed the lamplight. Mieka responded with an equally sleepy “Dream sweet” in the darkness. They listened, and sure enough there was a soft click at the door.