The Princess of Trelian

by Michelle Knudsen

  “Of course,” Meg said. She stood up, and Calen did, too. “Did you check outside yet? We can start there. She may have gone back to visit Jakl.” But then Meg stopped, a terrible thought beginning to take shape.

  Nan Vera was nodding. “Good. I’ll keep looking inside. I’ve been alerting all the guards I pass as well. They know to bring her directly to me if they find her.” She smiled a little grimly. “No matter what excuse she gives. You know how she is about talking her way out of getting in trouble.”

  “Nan Vera,” Meg said. The older woman looked at her, and her smile faded at whatever she saw in Meg’s face. Meg swallowed and said, “I think she may have gone into the forest.”

  Nan Vera stared at her. So did Calen. “Why would she do that?” he asked.

  “She was talking . . . Yesterday, she was asking questions about Jakl, about whether there could be other dragons out there, waiting to be found. I thought — I thought she was just daydreaming — you know, pretending she was going to have a dragon, too, and that he and Jakl would be friends. . . .” She closed her eyes for a long moment. “I wasn’t really paying close attention. I didn’t . . . I should have remembered who I was dealing with. Oh, gods.”

  “I’ll go tell your parents,” Nan Vera whispered. She turned and hurried away.

  “Meg,” Calen said, “you don’t know that’s what happened. She could be anywhere. You know how Maurel likes to hide and play games.”

  “I know,” Meg said. “But she never misses lunch, Calen. I know that sounds silly, but it’s true. Not ever. What if she went out there looking for dragons and something happened to her? What if —?”

  She thought of Lourin’s soldiers, of wild animals, of wandering thieves and bandits.

  She thought of Sen Eva. And she thought of the slaahr.

  “Even if she did go outside the castle grounds,” Calen said, speaking slowly and calmly, “she probably just got lost in the woods or something. The guards will bring her back. She’ll hear them calling and come right back to us. You’ll see.”

  But by evening, they still hadn’t found her.

  THEY WERE ALL IN ONE OF the king and queen’s fancy meeting rooms: Calen, Meg, the king and queen, Nan Vera, Serek, and Anders. Even Meg’s littlest sister Mattie was there, cradled carefully in the queen’s arms. Calen half wondered why Serek hadn’t invited those other mages to come, too, but he guessed this was private Trelian business, not really anything to do with the Magistratum. Maurel could still just be off exploring somewhere. She could be hiding to get attention, or she could have lost track of the time, or maybe she really did get lost somewhere off the castle grounds — which of course couldn’t be very fun for her, but surely they’d be able to find her and bring her back safely if that were the case.

  Calen was more worried that something else had happened. Something less easily made right again.

  He looked at Meg and knew she was thinking the same thing.

  There was no real reason to think that Sen Eva had anything to do with Maurel’s disappearance. Except that whenever something bad happened lately, Sen Eva seemed to be behind it somehow.

  “The guards are walking a search pattern around the castle grounds and the surrounding forest,” the king was saying, “but so far they haven’t found anything, not even a sign that she’s passed through a certain area. Nan Vera, I know you’ve checked all her usual hiding spots, and Meg and Calen have searched likely places as well. We’ve got the entire castle staff on alert, but somehow I doubt she’s still inside the castle. I am open to suggestions for other ways to look for her.”

  Calen raised his hand tentatively. “Did anyone check — there’s that secret passage where they found that other queen that time. . . .”

  “Yes,” King Tormon said. “We looked there, and I’ve got guards checking all the other secret passages we know about. It wouldn’t surprise me if Maurel knows about a few that we don’t, but I have to believe that she would not stay away this long by her own choice.”

  “Do we think it could be Sen Eva?” Meg asked. She looked back and forth between her father and Mage Serek. “Now that she can’t get at us through the dreams, maybe she decided to try a different way?”

  “I do think it’s a possibility,” Serek answered. “We know she is not a woman who gives up easily.”

  The queen looked horrified. “Surely she can’t just enter the castle or the grounds without us knowing? I realize she is powerful, but have we no defenses at all against such a thing?”

  “I wish I could reassure you, Your Majesty,” Serek said apologetically, “but I’m afraid she is capable of much that is beyond our own abilities. Perhaps she lured Maurel off the grounds somehow. Or perhaps she found a way inside. Now that we know she can change her appearance, who is to say she did not merely walk right past the guards at the gate in the guise of someone they knew?”

  “Or just influenced them to let her in, the way she influenced King Gerald,” Calen added.

  Everyone was starting to look a little sick as the implications began to sink in.

  “I am ashamed to say we did not think to ward the entrances in some way,” Serek said. “We have done so now, of course, and will know if any mages, marked or not, attempt to enter the castle grounds. But obviously we are a little, ah, late on that front. I am deeply sorry. I never suspected Sen Eva would attempt to physically return here.”

  “I still think Maurel went out on her own,” Meg said. “I told you: I think she went out to find her own dragon. Once she was outside, Sen Eva wouldn’t have had any trouble just — just grabbing her. . . .” She looked like she was going to cry.

  “But why —?” The king was making an obvious effort to keep the conversation moving forward. “Why would she want to take Maurel? I don’t see how this would serve her ends unless she planned to blame it on Lourin to interfere with the peace negotiations.”

  “You are sure that it is not Lourin?” Nan Vera asked. “There are those soldiers they sent; maybe they had a different mission from the one you were told about.”

  The king shook his head. “I have to believe that King Gerald is dealing with us in good faith. He would have no reason to abduct our daughter. He would know that such an act would only provoke hostilities, and I truly believe he does not want to be at war.”

  “But with Sen Eva whispering in his ear —” the queen began.

  “We’ve discussed that, Merilyn, and he seems to be no longer under her influence.”

  “But we can’t know —”

  “There may be a way I can help,” Serek broke in. “If you have something of Maurel’s I can use, we can try a locator spell. They’re not foolproof by any means, and the results can sometimes be too muddled to be of practical use, but I’d say we’ve reached the point where it’s worth trying, at least.”

  “Yes,” the queen said at once. “Please, anything you can try would be most welcome, Mage Serek.”

  The king nodded agreement, and Nan Vera ran out to fetch something from Maurel’s rooms. “Something small!” Serek called after her.

  Anders leaned over toward Serek. “Do you want me to assist on this?” he asked.

  “Actually,” Serek said, “I’m going to have Calen assist. He’s got a talent for divination, and we might as well use every advantage we can.”

  Anders raised his eyebrows. He didn’t look insulted or anything, just surprised. “I see,” he said. “I’ll look forward to seeing this, I think.”

  “But —” Calen began.

  Serek spoke over him. “Run back to my study and grab the small pouch out of the top right drawer of my desk.”

  Calen darted out the door. If Serek didn’t think this counted as continuing Calen’s lessons, Calen was not going to argue. He supposed this was another case where the benefits outweighed the risks. And anyway, this probably counted as an emergency.

  By the time Calen returned to the meeting room, Nan Vera was back and Serek was seated at one side of a small table in the center o
f the room. A map of the kingdom was unrolled on the table’s surface. He gestured for Calen to sit down across from him. Calen handed him the pouch, and Serek opened it and withdrew a piece of string and a small, dark stone shaped almost like a flat arrow.

  Nan Vera handed Serek the object she’d brought back from Maurel’s rooms: a small stuffed toy that looked like some kind of lizard with lots of teeth. Calen looked up at Nan Vera, who seemed a little embarrassed. “It’s her favorite. She sleeps with it on her pillow every night.”

  “It’s just fine,” Serek assured her. He tied the string around it and then knotted the end of the string around the stone. Then he passed everything to Calen and told him to hold the string by the other end, so that the lizard and stone swung freely at the bottom.

  “All right,” Serek said in that calm, soft voice he used whenever he was talking Calen through an unfamiliar spell. “Clear your mind, and then I want you to picture Maurel as fully as possible. Give me your free hand first; this will work better if we’re in physical contact. I’m going to do the casting, and I want you to simply allow the spell to work through you. Do nothing but focus on Maurel in your mind. Do you understand?”

  Calen nodded and placed his free hand on the table, palm up. Serek grasped Calen’s hand in his own, and then Calen saw the beginnings of the spell starting to form around them. He quickly closed his eyes and pictured Maurel, her bright smile, her always-slightly-messy brown hair, her lighthearted demeanor and near fearlessness in most situations. As he focused, he began to see things he hadn’t even remembered: the dimple on her left cheek when she grinned, the way that one strand of hair tended to fall across her eyes no matter how many pins Nan Vera tried to secure it with.

  He felt a sudden overwhelming desire to see her in context, and realized that must be Serek’s part of the spell working on him. Where are you? he thought, seeking her out with his mind. He could feel the magic energy around him, flowing through Serek’s hand into his own, seeming to touch the image in his mind and push through it to where the real girl was, somewhere, somewhere not very close but not really very far away, either. He felt the string begin to move purposefully beneath his fingers, swinging in a widening pattern. He resisted the urge to open his eyes and see what it was doing. His job was to focus on Maurel, to see her, to see where she was, to find her. . . . where are you, where are you, Maurel, we’re going to come for you, we’re coming, tell us where you are. . . .

  He could see her! Not just the image he’d created in his mind, but Maurel herself. She’d been crying; she was afraid but not alone; someone was there, someone who frightened her, and he could see trees behind her, and there was a row of tall rocks pointing at the sky and the sound of water rushing, crashing — a waterfall? — and it was getting dark and —

  The hand holding the string was suddenly pulled down forcefully, slamming painfully against the table, and he heard a collective gasp from the others in the room.

  “Don’t move, Calen,” Serek said. “But you can open your eyes.”

  Calen did so. His hand was flat against the map, and Serek was taking careful note of where the stone had fallen underneath his hand.

  “Is that where she is?” Calen asked. “It worked, didn’t it?”

  “Did it feel like it was working?” Serek asked.

  “Oh, yes,” Calen breathed. “I could see her.”

  “You could?” Meg asked at the same time that her mother rushed forward and asked, “Is she all right? Could you see if she was all right?”

  “Yes,” Calen said, still feeling a little dreamy from the vision. “She was scared, but all right. I couldn’t see who was with her, but she definitely wasn’t alone. She’d — she’d been crying, I think. And — oh! There were these rocks, a row of tall, narrow rocks pointing up at the sky, and I could hear rushing water nearby. . . .”

  “That’s Bellman’s Pass,” King Tormon said. “It must be. That’s more than a day’s fast ride from here. How could she . . . ?”

  “That points to Sen Eva’s involvement more than anything else, I’m afraid,” Serek said, sounding troubled. “All right, Calen, you can move your hand now. I’ve got the map marked, although it sounds like we know where to look in any case.”

  “We’ll send a full company,” the king said. “Soldiers, not House Guard. If Sen Eva’s truly taken her —”

  “Serek.” Anders spoke suddenly from where he’d been leaning against the wall to one side of them. His voice sounded strange. He was standing bolt upright now, awkwardly, one hand pressed to the wall as if for support. He was staring at some fixed point in the air before him.

  Serek turned to look at Anders and then froze in his seat. “Quiet,” he said softly. “Nobody move — nobody speak.”

  “Choose carefully,” Anders said in that same, strange voice. “Mage Krelig stands on the brink of return. All depends on what is decided now. Soldiers will not be enough.”

  “Me,” Meg said. “Of course, I’m going.”

  “You cannot,” her father said. “Lourin.”

  “You’re not serious,” Meg turned on him. “You’re going to let —”

  “What part of ‘Quiet. Nobody move — nobody speak’ did you not understand?” Serek snapped at them in a low voice. “Be silent!” The king frowned at him, and Serek added hastily, “Uh, Your Majesty. Your Highness. Please.”

  Anders spoke again: “Choose carefully, or Maurel will not return.”

  The queen gave a choked sob at this, and Meg looked stricken.

  Anders blinked suddenly and seemed to come back to himself again.

  There was an uneasy silence.

  “What just happened?” Meg asked.

  “Anders has visions,” Calen said.

  “Visions? You mean he sees things that are going to happen?”

  Calen suddenly remembered that it was a secret. “Oh. Oh, I’m sorry, Mage Anders. I forgot I wasn’t supposed to . . .”

  “It’s all right, Calen,” Anders said, lowering himself into a chair. “Everyone here just saw it happen anyway.”

  “But what did it mean?” Meg asked.

  “I have to admit, that was not one of your more helpful sightings,” Serek said. “Choose wisely? What would the wise choice be in this situation?”

  “Not soldiers alone,” Anders said. “Maybe not soldiers at all. Soldiers are not going to bring back the little princess. I think . . . I think I saw that boy. What’s-his-name. The good-looking one with the nightmares. Willard.”

  “Wilem?” Calen asked.

  “Ah,” said the king. “Maybe she wants to trade hostages.”

  “Not just him, though,” Anders said.

  “Not him at all!” Calen said. Everyone turned to look at him. “Have you all forgotten who he is? We can’t let him go!”

  “We can if Sen Eva is willing to trade Maurel for him,” said the queen.

  “Merilyn,” the king said. He sounded as though he were going to say more to her, but didn’t. Instead he turned back to Serek. “But if that’s the case, why didn’t she let us know she’d taken Maurel? If she wanted to arrange for a trade, she should have contacted us.”

  “Maybe she knew we’d figure it out,” Serek said.

  “Or maybe she meant to let us worry in ignorance for as long as possible before she contacted us,” said the queen.

  “Who else did you see?” Meg pressed Anders. “Did you see me?”

  “Sorry,” Anders said. “I just know that boy has to be among those who go after the little princess. And it matters a great deal who else goes, but I can’t say who the choices should be.” He looked at Serek. “It was an odd vision. Usually they are clear, showing two outcomes of a choice. This was . . . muddy. As though too many elements are still undetermined.”

  “But wait!” Calen said. “That’s just crazy! We can’t send Wilem. That’s probably the worst idea I have ever, ever heard! Uh, no offense, Mage Anders,” he added.

  “None taken!” Anders said cheerfully. “I agree
— it sounds like a terrible idea. But it’s the right one, all the same.”

  “What about those other mages, the ones who came to see you?” asked the king. “Could they help with this?”

  “Calen,” Serek said suddenly. “You need to leave.”

  “What? Why?”

  “You know why.”

  King Tormon looked back and forth between them. “What’s this about?”

  Calen crossed his arms and waited for Serek to answer.

  “There have been portents,” Serek said, “that indicate the possibility that Calen could become involved with Mage Krelig somehow. It seems best to us to keep him, ah, ignorant of the details of our plans in that area. If we believe Sen Eva has taken Maurel, which is certainly how it seems, then the situation is too close to Mage Krelig for Calen to participate further.”

  Calen felt everyone’s eyes on him. He felt like a criminal.

  “It’s nonsense,” Meg said. “Anyone who knows Calen can see that.”

  “Thank you, Meg,” he said.

  Serek sighed. “I have complete faith in Calen’s loyalty,” he said. “But we cannot take risks —”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Calen said, getting up from his chair. “I’m going.” He walked out without looking back.

  This was so stupid. Serek knew he could help. He knew! Hadn’t he just had Calen assist with the location spell? And he said he didn’t doubt Calen’s loyalty. But those were clearly just empty words, because if he really trusted Calen, he wouldn’t have sent him away.

  The castle halls were dark and empty. It was getting late, and Calen knew should probably just go to bed, but he was too worked up to think about sleep. He needed to do something — he couldn’t bear just sitting around, not even knowing what was being decided.

  He stopped suddenly, an idea taking root in his brain.

  Maybe he didn’t have to just sit around. Maybe this was the opportunity he’d been waiting for. While the rest of them sat around talking and wondering who to send after Maurel, he would just go. He would go on his own and rescue her himself. And then Serek would see that he was firmly on Trelian’s side.