“Doubtful,” Boult said. “That wasn’t done yesterday. There was new growth mixed in with the cover. Plus, someone shaped the vines. I don’t think they formed that latticework naturally.”
Boult glanced at Harp out of the corner of his eye. Kitto and Verran were ahead of them on the path, and Boult wanted to know what Verran had told Harp. Boult had been suspicious of Verran from the moment they met him in a waterfront village south of the Amn border. A cold, stinging rain had fallen in sheets, soaking the shivering boy. At first glance, it was obvious the boy was unprepared for whatever he was dealing with. Boult barely gave him a second thought, but Harp had stopped and struck up a conversation.
Harp had bought the boy a hot meal in a nearby inn, and before Boult could kick his captain under the table, Harp had hired the strapping lad to help on the Crane. Despite the fact that he said he didn’t know how to sail. Or use a sword. Or work a trade. Boult didn’t have much use for such helplessness. But Harp was drawn to a needy person like a moth to a flame.
“You’d hire a plague rat to sail our ship,” Boult grumbled as he stomped through the jungle. He glared up at Harp, hoping to get a rise out of him.
“Huh?” Harp asked.
“A plague rat,” Boult repeated impatiently. “And you wouldn’t be able to see his dagger at your throat.”
Harp looked at Boult like he’d lost his senses. “Since when do rats have daggers? What are you babbling about?”
“I’m talking about Verran,” Boult said.
Harp’s brow furrowed. “He’s had a hard time of it, Boult. Give him a chance.”
“He’s a wild shot,” Boult said with annoyance. He should have known that Harp was going to defend him.
“Sometimes wild shots hit their mark,” Harp said. “He took out Bootman. That was helpful.”
“He could have just as easily taken you out,” Boult said. “That doesn’t make you a little nervous?”
“He could have. He didn’t,” Harp said. “And if we find Liel’s body, I’ll be grateful to him.”
“How can you say that?”
“Because I’d know for sure,” Harp said. “I’d know that she was gone.”
Boult sucked in a mouthful of air, mainly to keep himself from saying what he wanted to. Harp’s pining for Liel had gotten old years before, and he hoped the trip into Chult would end it, in whatever way necessary.
“Do you actually think we’re just going to stumble on Liel’s body as soon as we walk into the huge, highly dangerous jungle? Do you know how many people die in the jungle every day?”
Harp rolled his eyes. “No, and neither do you.”
“It has to be a lot. Do you know how many ways there are to die in the jungle? Animals, disease, cannibals … Did I mention they have a disease down here that turns your tongue into an actual slug. In your mouth. Did you hear me? A slug.”
“Ugh,” Harp shuddered. “Tell me why I took the job again?”
“Cause you’re a drunk who can barely keep his ship.”
“Again. Not helping.”
“And I’m not trying to. You were a good sailor once,” Boult said.
“I was good,” Harp said. “That’s why you made me captain.”
Boult snorted. “We made you captain because no one follows a dwarf who gets seasick.”
“Particularly not one as charming as you.”
“There’s another way,” Boult said, after a moment. “We could signal the crew and sail the ships to port.”
“No. I told you already. We have a job to do.”
“We’re not prepared for the jungle,” Boult said quietly. “And selling the Marigold will equal the rest of Avalor’s payment.”
“I’m going to the colony.”
“There’s a good chance that Liel is dead, Harp. What do you want to find? Her decomposing body? Bring it home to her father in a box?”
“Cardew survived somehow,” Harp pointed out. “And I’ll wager Liel is mountains stronger than her pitiful excuse for a husband.”
“Unless he killed her. That’s what Avalor thinks happened, isn’t it?”
Harp hesitated. “He wants proof. And when I find it, it will give me every justification to cut Cardew’s throat.”
“Vankila’s not enough?” When Harp didn’t respond, Boult continued. “Why would Cardew bring Liel all the way down here to kill her?” Boult said. “Why not just kill her in Tethyr? Or just have her kidnapped. Again.”
“Too much protection? Avalor is well connected. And it’s more than that, anyway. Avalor thinks Cardew has his heart set on something else.”
Boult stopped in his tracks. “Avalor thinks so? So what does that sniveling blot of a man have his sights set on?”
“Not much,” Harp said pushing a large fern frond out of his way. “Just the kingdom of Tethyr in the palm of his hand.”
It had been Boult who insisted that Harp answer Avalor’s summons in the first place. Harp and Avalor had never met in person, but the powerful elf had summoned him, and him alone, for a reason. If Avalor offered them a paying job, they would have to take it. Otherwise they were going to lose the Crane. If Harp was being summoned for another reason, he would just have to deal with whatever news Avalor had for him.
“And about time you started dealing with things too,” Boult often said to him. “Kitto looks up to you. And there isn’t much to look up to. Not anymore.”
So Harp hauled himself to the designated meeting place, a pub called the Broken Axe. Although Harp had walked past the shabby building many times, the sign above the front door showed only a war axe cleft in two pieces; there was nothing to show that it was an alehouse.
Harp had a few pints while waiting for Avalor to arrive— just enough to get almost drunk, but sober enough to have a conversation and keep up appearances. It was the best he could possibly expect from himself, given the nature of the situation.
“Don’t drink anything,” Boult had told Harp before he left. “You want to keep your wits about you.”
Then Avalor should have picked an establishment that served tea and sweet cake, Harp thought, taking another drink from his pint and staring out through the dirt-smeared window at the crowded market street. It was late afternoon before some festival to some druid or cleric. Harp couldn’t care less, but it looked as if every wife and daughter from the quarter had turned out to buy a chicken.
“Must be the festival of the chicken,” Harp muttered, earning dark looks from the two scabby men at the table next to his. The pub was only half full, and the two goons had been paying too much attention to him. Harp sighed. If years of hard living hadn’t been enough to dull his senses, he wasn’t sure what would.
“You blokes need something?” he asked in as amicable a tone as he could muster.
The bigger man grunted. “You look familiar.”
That was nothing new to Harp. Whenever he went into a town, a certain element noticed him. Or rather they noticed the spider-web scarring across his face and hands. The scars had faded since the Vankila Slab, but the white lines were still noticeable, particularly if his skin was tanned from days at sea on the Crane. If someone recognized the distinctive scarring, it meant they were familiar with a particular kind of necromancy. As soon as recognition clouded their eyes, Harp hated them for it.
“I don’t think so.” Harp said evenly. It usually played out in one of two ways: The idiot got the hint and shut up, or he insisted on continuing the line of inquiry, in which case Harp usually had to punch something, which wasn’t a good idea. It wasn’t a good idea because Avalor was due to arrive at any moment. It particularly wasn’t a good idea because Boult wasn’t there to back him up. In all the brawls inspired by Harp’s scars, Boult had always been there to back him up.
The men exchanged glances. “You sailed on the Marderward.”
That was not what Harp was expecting. Since they had made no assumptions about his scars, he wasn’t sure what to say to them. But just the mention of the Marderward made him
want to get blinding drunk.
One of the men raised his glass. “To Captain Predeau.” And his comrade raised his glass too.
Harp took a big drink. “May the scars of his victims never heal.”
“Hear! Hear!” the men said appreciatively.
Harp took another drink. “May his enemies tremble at the sound of his name.”
“Hear! Hear!”
Harp drained the last of his ale. “May the cries of the children he orphaned never be silenced!”
The big man set down his glass. “Something tells me you’re not speaking well of the dead.”
“Hard to do when the dead ain’t well,” Harp said as he stood up abruptly and shoved back the table.
The men were on their feet at the same time, fists raised and fury in their eyes. The well-dressed gnome who had been drying glasses behind the bar appeared out of nowhere and thrust himself between Harp and the other men.
“You have a visitor,” the gnome said firmly to Harp. “Through there,” he added, pointing to a door behind the bar. “And if you gentlemen will take your seats, I’ll refill your pints on the house.”
Harp bent over to pick up his pack, happy that the world wasn’t spinning as he made his way across the floor. Since he’d got out of prison, he’d spent way too much time in places like the Broken Axe, throwing words around with men like that.
The back room was a dimly lit storage room, packed with jars of pickled food and barrels of ale. A light was coming from under the door on the other side of the room. Harp opened it, half expecting to see the alley. But the dirty cobblestone streets and shabby storefronts were nowhere to be seen. Instead, Harp was standing in the middle of an old-growth forest. He was surrounded by black-barked trees with strands of long red leaves that whispered in the wind. There was the distinctive slant of the shadows and the buttery light he remembered from the harvest season of his childhood. Harp heard a rustle in the underbrush and spun around. On the other side of the clearing was a great tawny stag with reddish horns branching from its head. It paused when it saw Harp, and leaped into the undergrowth.
Enjoying the quiet noises of small animals hidden in the underbrush, Harp followed the stag and saw a narrow path winding through the trees. He tried to remember the last time he enjoyed the quiet of a forest, but it had been years, before he was imprisoned in the Vankila Slab. He had spent too much of his adulthood in the city.
The path rounded a bend, and in the clearing in front of him, he saw an auburn-haired, copper-skinned elf alone at a mahogany table that was simple in design but polished to a glossy shine. Dressed in unadorned gray robes, the elf’s hands were folded on the table, and his eyes were closed as if he were meditating. A roughly hewn staff rested against the table beside him.
It was Avalor, Treespeaker of the Wealdath Forest and member of Queen Anais’s privy council. And father of Liel, Harp thought, again wishing he were drunker than he was. Avalor didn’t move or give any sign that he recognized Harp’s presence. In fact, he seemed to be in some kind of a trance. From his reputation, Harp knew Avalor was an older elf, although his unlined face and lean body betrayed no signs of aging.
When Harp reached the table, Avalor opened his eyes, rose to his feet, and extended his arm. Harp shook his hand, and the elf looked into his face and smiled gently. Staring into Avalor’s bright green eyes, which were very much like Liel’s eyes, Harp relaxed. The knot of tension in his belly faded away.
“Please sit, Master Levesque,” Avalor said, nodding to a chair.
“Harp,” Harp told him. He’d not used his surname for a long time.
“Thank you for coming,” Avalor said. “I have wanted to meet you for a while.”
“Is this … Are we in the Feywild?” Harp asked, taking a deep breath. The air smelled of honeysuckle and freshly turned earth.
“No, no,” Avalor said. “It’s just an illusion. We are actually in the barkeep’s rather unremarkable garden. Much less pleasant. But we are alone, and the high walls keep away prying eyes. So you may speak freely. I thought we would be more comfortable. I have a keen dislike for the city.”
“It’s remarkable.” Harp shook his head in wonder. “I could swear I’d walked into the heart of a forest.” He looked back at Avalor. “I appreciate it. I, too, have a keen dislike for cities.”
“And yet you frequent them as if you can’t help yourself,” Avalor pointed out.
“I never got a chance to thank you for getting me out of Vankila,” Harp told him.
“And I never got a chance to thank you for saving my daughter,” Avalor replied.
“I didn’t save Liel.”
“I think you did.”
They sat quietly for a moment, and Harp could feel the elf’s eyes inspecting the lines of scars crisscrossing his hands.
“I’m regretful that I couldn’t get you out of Vankila before—”
“I’m grateful for what you did,” Harp broke in. He didn’t want to talk about his scars with Avalor. Someone powerful enough to create such an illusion in the barkeep’s garden was sure to see through his nonchalance. Harp still had nightmares that one day the scars would unbind themselves and his body would fall apart into pieces on the ground. He had no interest in discussing his past with such a living legend.
“I was surprised to receive your summons,” Harp continued.
“Yes, it is a matter of some delicacy,” the elf began.
Harp snorted. “Are you sure I’m the one you want? Delicacy isn’t my strength.”
Avalor studied him. “I believe I can trust you in the matter. Let me begin by saying that we will pay you two thousand gold. Half of it on acceptance of the job, and the rest when you return with the information I need.”
Harp frowned. “That’s a lot of coin. You already had my attention.”
“Yes, but I need your secrecy. You’re a man of strong loyalties. The general nature of the task may be shared with your crew. But I’ll ask you to keep the specifics to yourself, at least in the early stages of the venture.”
“You want me to keep information from my crew?” Harp asked.
“At first. At least until you’re away from our shores. If you don’t feel like you can do that, we can end our conversation right now.”
“It’s not my way to keep secrets from my men,” Harp said slowly. He knew that the coin from the advance itself would let them pay their debts and keep the ship. And without the ship, there wouldn’t be any crew anyway.
“I know,” Avalor said sympathetically. “But I need to make certain this information does not find the wrong ears.”
“All right. But if there comes a time that I have to tell them for their safety, I will.”
“Agreed.”
“So what’s the job?”
“Liel was murdered. I want you to find evidence of the crime and … bring her home.”
Avalor’s words hit Harp like a fist to his throat. He found himself coughing uncontrollably, as if he had swallowed water wrong. When he finally got control of himself, he looked at Avalor, whose angular face betrayed a hint of anger and sadness.
“I’m sorry to be so blunt. There’s no way to soften a truth this hard.”
Harp nodded, still trying to master his shock at the news that Liel was dead.
“I apologize if I upset you. I don’t know the extent of your relationship—”
“I haven’t seen her in years,” Harp interrupted.
“But I know she cared for you deeply and had many regrets after you went to prison. It was at her request that I sought you out in the Vankila Slab. I would have on my own accord, had I known the situation. But, of course, I did not. Until she told me.”
“Why me?” Harp managed to say. “Why of all people do you want me to look for her?”
“Isn’t that is obvious?” Avalor said. “You of all people will take the matter to heart.”
“Who do you think murdered her?”
Avalor reached for the nearby staff, his hands gripping t
he wood until his knuckles were white. “Do you even have to ask?”
“Why would Cardew want his own wife dead?”
“He’s quite involved in the Branch of Linden. They’re backing him for a powerful position on the Privy Council, but having an elvish wife is an embarrassment.”
“How could you let her marry him?”
Avalor laughed. “Let? She knew I didn’t want her to marry him. But she thought their marriage would help the tensions between elves and humans in Tethyr.”
“She did?” Harp asked. Liel never told him that.
“I told her it wouldn’t make any difference, that she shouldn’t sacrifice her happiness for such an unlikely possibility. It became such a raw issue between us, that we stopped talking about Cardew.”
“Still, why kill her? There are other ways to end a marriage,” Harp pointed out.
“Not if you want to marry a queen.”
“Cardew wants to marry Queen Anais?” Harp said doubtfully. The queen already had a consort, who was rumored to be perfectly weak-willed and unambitious enough for her tastes.
“Her niece, Harp. He wants to marry Princess Ysabel.”
Maybe if Harp had been sober, the wheels of his mind would have spun a little faster. As it was, he didn’t comprehend what Avalor was implying.
“Ysabel is just a girl …”
“Impressionable and easily manipulated.”
“What about the queen we already have?”
“As you may or may not know, there have been plots to remove her since The Children’s Massacre. With coordination and cleverness on the part of her masters, Ysabel could become queen of the realm.”
“Which would mean that Cardew …”
“Would be royal consort and have the ear of the queen.”
At that thought, Harp automatically reached for a drink that wasn’t there. “What do you have in mind?”
The Fanged Crown Page 6