“It wouldn’t do for so many of the palace staff to see me sneaking into your room at night,” she explained softly. She was lying atop the covers, while he was beneath them.
“You have told me a lot today Silas – though most of the meat wasn’t face-to-face!” she mock lectured him once more. “What does it all mean? What are your plans?” she asked.
“I hope my leg is healing quickly,” he began. He lifted his arm out from under the covers and circled it around her shoulders.
“If it heals quickly, I’m going to ask the imps to take me and Riesta to Ivaric again, so that we can destroy the L’Anvien temple. The gods want me to do that, to finish sweeping the evil one off our continent.
“Then, I’ll come back here with you, if I may, and I’ll wait until Gwen returns, so that I know she’ll protect you while I’m gone,” he offered.
“Gone to the great continent, Rolemica?” Lumene asked.
Silas nodded.
“And you do not have any further feelings for Mata, no obligation to her?” Lumene asked.
“I still think of her as a friend,” Silas answered. “She is a good person, and I wouldn’t deny that. But she is not going to marry me; she is going to go to Brigamme with Tagg and marry him.
“I’ll go there to see my child in Brigamme; I wouldn’t want to miss that,” Silas said. “I wouldn’t want that little boy or girl to think that their father doesn’t love them.”
Lumene nodded sympathetically. “That wouldn’t be right,” she agreed.
“And what about us, Silas?” she asked. “You just want to make sure Gwen is here to be my bodyguard?”
“Do you remember when we escaped from the palace, and the Ivaric forces had a Tracker – Tagg – and we were on the run together through the mountains?” he asked.
“Of course I do,” she replied. “How could I forget. There was the time I slipped into the waters, and you took me to the healing spring – the first time you undressed me and handled me without regard to my regal status!” she smiled. “And you showed me an imp!
“And we slept in the forests, or we fought L’Anvien’s priests when they tried to set up a temple in the south,” she continued.
“And you threw me through the air – from one mountain to another!” she sounded indignant.
“I started to fall in love with you on that trip,” Silas cut her off. “You were smart, and brave, and you hardly complained about the hardships of the trip,” he recounted.
“And we came back to the city after we won the battles in the countryside. After the storm to destroy the fleet, after I healed, when I was here in the palace again, you were here and so desirable that I couldn’t act right, I couldn’t think straight, I couldn’t stand to be torn apart between my duty and my heart, so I left,” he continued.
”And now I hope I can put my heart and my life together,” he paused. He was leading up to something, a statement or declaration or question, faster than he had expected.
“I want to marry you. Will you have me?” he asked her.
Lumene hardly paused before answering.
“Would we get married before you leave on your quest, or after?” she asked.
“I want to marry you as soon as possible,” he declared, pleased by the question instead of a rejection.
“You are a commoner,” Lumene said slowly, making Silas grow alert. “I am the heir to the throne. It could be complicated.
“But you are no ordinary commoner either,” she added. “Your heroics have saved my life, and you’ve saved our whole nation – you’ve even saved our whole race, perhaps.
“I will marry you,” she replied, making him grin.
“But not until you return from your battle against L’Anvien,” she pulled him up short.
“Why wait?” he asked, rising up on one elbow now, more alert and confused by the conversation.
“When we announce that we are engaged, the people will look at me differently,” Lumene said slowly. “My marriage to a commoner, even an extraordinary one, will raise eyebrows, and make the wheels turn in the minds of the people, especially the nobility.
“I had dinner with an Earl tonight, you know,” she pointed out. “That type of event is part of the court’s way of continuing the dynasty. I can select my own mate, my consort, but,” she paused.
“If you and I become betrothed, and then you leave, especially if you are absent for a long time, the court will turn, and rumors will fly, and people will begin to imagine that my betrothal could be overturned, or wasn’t serious, or perhaps wasn’t even legitimate – not carried out appropriately.
“You could return some distant day in the future and find that the court is unhappy with me, even ready to select a mate for me, or declare me unsuitable as the heir, or will choose to declare that some distant branch of the family should be placed on the throne instead of me,” she was up on an elbow.
“Either we declare our betrothal and marry before you go, or we wait and do both after you return,” she stated firmly. “It’s what must be, for the good of the throne and the nation.”
Her eyes were resolute, Silas saw. Yet the issue was foolish, petty, in his mind.
“That doesn’t make any sense,” he protested. “I love you, and I think you love me, don’t you?”
“Yes, Silas, of course I do. I fell in love with you when we were in the mountains, just as you fell in love with me,” she answered evenly. “There is a simple answer here – become betrothed and become married, and perhaps beget an heir to the throne,” she gave a wicked grin. “Then you can go on your quest, and everything will be accepted and acceptable.”
“That could all take months,” Silas protested.
“I would think so,” Lumene agreed mildly. She leaned towards him, and began to kiss him passionately. “It wouldn’t be a bad way to spend a few months of your life, would it?” she asked breathlessly.
“What if we did that – we were betrothed, then married, then had a baby, but it was a baby boy?” Silas asked.
“Then we would have to try again to have a suitable heir. The crown descends from mother to daughter, from woman to woman. That is the way it must be,” she told him.
It could take years for the course of nature to produce a suitable heir, Silas realized. He felt frustrated.
“Let me go to Ivaric and destroy the temple, then come back and decide what to do,” he equivocated.
Lumene’s eyes grew cold. “If you don’t feel that you can make the decision to marry me, right now, I understand,” she said frostily. She rose from his bed and wrapped her robe around her body.
“It’s growing late, and I think it’s best I go back to my own room to have a suitable rest,” the princess announced.
“We can talk again when you feel you have something to propose,” she turned and stalked out of the room.
Silas punched the empty half of the bed in frustration. The woman had placed politics above love, the palace above the two of them. She had decided that she had to follow some unwritten culture of the crown. It was complicated, far more complicated than falling in love should have been.
He lay in bed, restless, unable to sleep. After long minutes of tossing and turning, he rose and dressed himself, then grabbed his cane and walked out into the hallway. Only a single guard stood discretely in position outside Lumene’s door, as Silas went for a walk, slowly working his one-footed way towards the guard.
“She said you might come to visit, to talk,” the guard gave Silas a knowing grin.
“I’m not,” Silas snapped. “I’m going for a walk,” and he passed by the surprised guard. He went down the hall to a small door that led to a narrow hallway, that led to the stairs to the top of the Speaker’s Tower.
The tower top stood as he had left it after the great storm that had destroyed the fleet. The walls and roof were gone, leaving a platform that was open to the stars and the breezes of the mild night. Silas sat and looked at the sparkling stars that twinkled so brightly in ba
nds and constellations in the sky.
Perhaps he was thinking too much; perhaps he was being too proud, he told himself.
His ears unexpectedly rang with the beginning of a message.
“This is Minnie of the caravan, calling Silas, the boy who cannot be stopped!” there was a gentle laugh in her voice.
“Oh, this will probably reach you before dawn, before you’re even awake. I should have thought about that; it’s only just breakfast time here, my apologies,” she had a conversational tone. “I won’t waste much of my breath. We received your messages and are glad to know you’re alive. Our caravan is south of Ivaric city, halfway to the border with Avaleen. We are all alive, which is perhaps surprising, and I’m so glad that you are too, my young hero. I’ll Speak to you again in a couple of hours, when the sun should have risen in Amenozume,” she offered. “Sleep tight, Silas,” she told him, and the message ended.
It was a pleasure to hear from her, to know that the caravan members were alive and well. It perhaps was a sign, he impulsively decided, a sign that he should go visit them, to reunite with the heroic crew that had carried him to Ivaric, and then followed him into the heart of the battle and thank them for their bravery.
“Stillwater!” Silas called aloud. “Stillwater, Stillwater, my imp friend.”
There was no reaction.
“Odare,” he called vaguely worried. Stillwater was a reliable imp. His failure to respond was troubling.
After another second of growing concern, Odare appeared in the air, yawning and wearing an unusual, bright yellow jumpsuit.
“Is there a problem?” she asked after getting the yawn under control. “Is there some emergency that makes you roust your friends out of bed just as we are turning in for the night after a long day of labor?”
Silas felt abashed,
“No, no emergency. I just wanted to ask for a ride to visit our friends in the caravan,” he replied. “It doesn’t have to happen now. Go back to sleep, I’m sorry.
“Are those your pajamas?” he couldn’t help but ask.
“Yes they are, and few men are ever lucky enough to see them,” Odare snipped.
“Since we’re already awake, why don’t you accompany us to the healing spring for a visit, and then we can go see your friends in the caravan perhaps, if we can locate it,” the imp offered.
The proposal sounded suitable to Silas. A visit to the spring would placate the sense of injury that Odare obviously felt, and it would be good for him as well. And it would allow time to pass before he and the imps went on a morning hunt for the caravan.
“Gather a troop of imps and we’ll go to the spring,” he agreed.
“Really? You are more easily trained than I expected!” Odare laughed in surprise. She swooped low to pat the top of his head as if he were a pet, then she disappeared.
Just a few minutes later, she reappeared, with Stillwater and Fowler as companions. “These friends of yours have cheerfully arisen from their beds,” Odare pronounced. “And now we will go to enjoy night time dreams.” The trio silently encompassed Silas and made their quick transition to the vicinity of Kere’s magical spring.
Silas dutifully placed the imps in the dark water, then sat down and dangled his own leg into the water as well, while he quietly looked up at the sky overhead, where a set of constellations different from his own were on display. He was glad the weather was clear, letting him watch the stars and even a pair of falling stars that drew faint streaks across the sky.
Silas tried to give the imps a suitable amount of time in the water, but eventually decided they had enough, and he pulled them from the spring, then let them quietly awaken, and come cuddle by him for a few seconds of friendship, until they were ready to move on.
“You want to go to a place in the country?” Stillwater asked sleepily.
“Yes. If Riesta is still with the caravan, I want to go to the caravan of friends of Faralag,” Silas confirmed.
“And what if Riesta is not with the caravan?” Fowler asked. “Do you want to go to her or to the caravan?”
“Is she someplace else? Did you take her to Faralag?” Silas asked.
“No, she is still with the caravan, as far as we know,” Odare replied, and she gave Fowler a withering look, making the imp shrug.
“I will find Riesta-friend,” Odare declared. She paused as she hung in the dark evening air, and closed her eyes for several seconds. “Ah,” she said, then looked at the other imps. “Are you ready?”
They both nodded, and gathered around Silas, pressed against him, and made their location change.
Silas blinked in the morning light. He was facing east, towards a sun that was several degrees above the horizon, shining brightly. He held a hand up to provide shade, and heard the sounds of wagon wheels rolling.
“Silas?” a not-too-distant voice called in surprise.
“Do you need us any longer?” Stillwater asked.
Silas spotted the leading wagon of the caravan, rolling towards him, just twenty yards away. It was Prima’s wagon.
“No, I don’t need you for a while. Go get some sleep, and I’ll call you in the morning,” he replied. He heard three quiet ‘farewells’, and then he stood carefully balanced without the imps.
“Silas!” Prima was jumping off the moving wagon, tossing the reins to Minnie as he departed, and then he ran across the edge of a field of green plants and embraced Silas in a hug so tight that the Abomination had trouble breathing.
Prima released Silas after long, long seconds, then held him at arm’s length and looked at him affectionately.
“Don’t just stand there!” Minnie shouted, as she slowed the pace of the mules that pulled the wagon. “Bring the boy over here where I can see him!”
Prima took Silas’s arm without asking and looped it over his shoulder, then wrapped an arm around Silas’s back, and guided him over to the wagon. He placed both hands on Silas’s waist and boosted the boy up, leaving Silas to scramble with his hands and his one foot to gain a purchase on the floorboard, and plop down onto the seat, followed by Prima.
Silas was sandwiched between the two dear friends as Minnie kissed him repeatedly on his cheeks and his forehead and his nose, laughing at the reunion.
“Silas! It’s so good to see you!” she told him. “You got my message this morning?”
“I did; I wasn’t sleeping,” he replied. The whole scene of emotional turmoil at the Amenozume palace suddenly seemed far in the past, and of less importance than it had before.
“Your poor foot,” she mourned. “When I saw that axe cut your leg, I screamed; I thought all was lost. But then the guard went crazy and attacked his own leader! What was the man thinking?” she exclaimed. “Did he say anything? Did you hear him?”
“I made him do it,” Silas confided. “I put the thought in his head. He seemed like he might be a good enough person to accept the right suggest – all things considered under his circumstances,” Silas replied.
“You changed his thoughts?” Prima asked in amazement. “You can do that? Mind control?”
Silas pursed his lips. He hadn’t thought about what he’d done since he’d heard Kai lecture him on it. He knew it was a very special ability to be able to be able to try to plant thoughts in the hearts of others.
“It was the only way,” he admitted. “But the gods told me not to do it again except in life-or-death situations. I haven’t tried it again. It’s not easy,” he stumbled to find a way to move away from the topic.
“Is Riesta here? Is she still with the caravan?” he asked.
“She is,” Prima said proudly. “My sister offered to take her along on the fleet, or even to have her sent back home by the sprites, but she chose to stay with us!”
“And Ruten,” Minnie pointed out in a mild tone of voice.
“What does your sister have to do with anything?” Silas asked Prima in confusion.
The caravan leader looked at Silas with a surprised expression, then laughed. “That’s
right! We never told you. And you obviously never guessed!”
Silas looked from Prima to Minnie in confusion, seeking some explanation.
“You’re speaking to Prince Prima of Faralag, brother to Queen Preeanne of Faralag,” Minnie adopted a humorously formal tone.
And then Silas knew. He knew why Preeanne had seemed so familiar when he’d met her, why her features had haunted him. The resemblance between the brother and sister was uncanny.
“You’re a prince!” Silas exclaimed.
“A visitor!” Ruten exclaimed loudly as he rode up at that moment. He easily leapt off his horse and onto the wagon running board, then gripped Silas’s arm affectionately.
The friends had a long conversation that explained what each had done leading up to and following the spectacular confrontation at the Ivaric waterfront.
“I’d like to see Riesta,” Silas finally said.
“And who wouldn’t? Even setting aside all the plans you mentioned in your Speaker messages,” Minnie laughed, poking a finger in Ruten’s ribcage. “Do you want to give our friend a ride back to the back of the caravan?” she asked.
Silas looked at the saddle on Ruten’s horse, and imagined the difficulty he would have with his awkward balance.
“I can send myself back there, if it’s okay,” Silas offered. “I have ways, you know,” he grinned.
Minutes later, he floated down from the sky and landed softly on the bench next to Riesta on the last wagon in the caravan.
“Silas!” she greeted him affectionately with a hug and a robust kiss on the lips.
“It’s not just anyone who can drop in for a visit on the caravan in the middle of nowhere. How are you?” she asked significantly, looking with a brief glance at his leg.
“Getting better, thanks to the Healing Spring,’ he assured her. “Hopefully it will only take a few days to grow a foot as good as new.
“But there’s a favor I have to ask,” he warned, making her look at him alertly. Her expression reminded him of a fox, one that was eagerly looking towards a new opportunity for rewarding mischief.
“I have to go back to Ivaric to destroy the temple of L’Anvien,” he began.
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