“I hate Shapers,” Doron said fervently. Then she touched his shoulder, a gentle caress of her fingers, and his arms encircled her. She tilted her head and regarded him. “Present company excepted, most times.”
“Thank you.” He held her close, happy when she clung to him as fiercely as he did her. He resisted the urge to make love to her for a few moments longer. He had something he had to say. “We’ll be having an announcement for the gathering, lass.”
She stayed still and stubbornly silent in the circle of his arms.
He shook her a little. “Won’t we? Or must you make everything harder than it has to be?”
She looked at him. “Duty or love, Pirse of Dherrica?”
He smiled at the question. “Since when are you a romantic, Doron of Juniper Ridge?”
“Answer my question.”
“Both.”
“Good.”
“And if I ask you the same question?”
She buried her head in his tunic, but he heard her muffled, “Both,” and knew better than to push for details. He swung her up in his arms. She yelped as her feet left the floor. He carried her toward the bed. “Pirse!”
“Hush,” he ordered. “I want to find how much the—lass, is it?—is going to get in our way.”
“Lass it is,” she announced as she began pulling off his tunic. “And not much, knowing us.”
“Good.”
* * *
“Is it too late for supper?” Ivey asked plaintively.
“This is the king’s house.” Jeyn pulled on her second slipper. “The king is always hungry. Therefore it is never too late for supper.”
“Good. I worked up an appetite.”
“I hope so.”
“Aren’t you hungry, lass?” He found a clean tunic in the chest at the foot of his bed, and pulled it over his now-dry hair.
“I’m the king’s daughter.”
He glanced back at the rumpled bed. “I’ve been thinking about that.”
“Let’s go to the dining room. Someone will notice us if we sit at the table and look pitiful enough.”
The rain had stopped, so they cut around the outside of the house on the terrace, hand in hand. Jeyn turned the corner first, then jerked Ivey back into the shadows.
To her relief, he didn’t argue, but whispered, “What?”
“There’s someone there,” she whispered back.
He bit her ear. “I guessed that. Who?”
“My father.”
“Let’s leave.” He tried to pull her away, but she stood on his foot.
“He’s with someone.”
“Who?” he repeated, then added in a light-hearted way, “Do I sound like an owl?”
“Yes. Feather.”
“Oh.”
Together they peered around the corner. Sene had just picked Feather up, his hands around her tiny waist, and settled her on the stone railing across from the dining room doors. He leaned against the pillar next to her, arms crossed over his broad chest. She smiled worshipfully into his face, and he beamed benignly back.
Ivey drew Jeyn back around the corner. His expression was distinctly puzzled. “Does he know he’s doing that?”
“Doing what?” she temporized, although she knew exactly what he meant. She’d been watching it most of the summer.
“I know what we’ve been doing. Is that what they’re doing?”
“I don’t think so, exactly. At least, I hope not. She’s supposed to marry my brother.” She sighed. “But she’s in love with my father.”
Ivey looked back around the corner. The quiet voices of the couple were audible, although Jeyn couldn’t make out any words. Ivey turned back to her. “Sene? He’s too old.”
“I don’t think Feather’s noticed. She avoids Chasa, and the way Dad dotes on her isn’t helping any.”
“Does he know what he’s doing?” Ivey repeated.
Jeyn shook her head. “For the sake of peace in this family, I hope not. I really hope not.” She took his hand again and turned them back the way they’d come. “Let’s take the hallway.”
“I think that’s a fine idea,” he agreed.
Chapter 31
From horizon to horizon, only one speck moved against the prevailing pattern of the gray-green waves. A hint of dark coastline hugged the southern rim of the visible world, as unobtrusive as the few birds floating on the wind. Only the ship, tacking hard to port, its wake a jagged curve of white foam, and the huge mound of water that rose up beneath its keel, interrupted the otherwise monotonous scene.
The sea had been growing more choppy as the day progressed. Restless waves reflected the agitated clouds that scudded overhead. The fitful wind strengthened, blowing the tops off the waves and spattering drops of water against the ship.
It was just after they’d seen the first flash of lightning against the dark clouds on the northern horizon that the sea monster had come.
Chasa saw it as a challenge. Ivey insisted that minstrel lore defined it as a sea dragon. Chasa, launching his harpoon toward the sensitive gill-slit, didn’t waste breath replying.
After that, the battle became a blur to Chasa’s senses. The captain and crew of his ship performed as heroically as always, carrying him close enough for the attack, evading the monster’s attempts at retaliation. Ivey handed him two harpoons, one after the other. Both bounced harmlessly off the thick scales of the monster’s body. On the next pass, Chasa passed his sword to Ivey. To his credit, the minstrel grasped the sword without hesitation, although he flinched at the tingle of magic against his palms.
The dragon’s mighty tail whipped overhead, sending two seamen sprawling and threatening the mast. Ivey hacked halfway through it with his first blow. The monster’s head surged out of the water, jaws wide, its roar slamming against Chasa’s chest like a physical blow. Then it disappeared, taking its entire length below the waves. Ivey leaped to one side of the ship, Chasa to the other. A great mound of water rose beneath them, marking the precise location of the returning monster’s head.
At Chasa’s signal, the captain shouted instructions to his men. The ship slid backward. Chasa clambered over the rail, hooked a line in place, and leaned into his shoulder harness, feet braced against the side of the hull. Ivey balanced the sword in both hands, aiming at the dark green shape that grew larger and larger beneath them.
A child could have stood upright within the gaping mouth. The beast emitted a desperate scream as the minstrel pierced its right eye with the sword. Then its cry choked off, as Chasa’s harpoon buried half its length into the monster’s gill slit. The oarsmen backed them nimbly out of range of the spout of yellowish, faintly smoking blood that erupted from the triple nostrils. Chasa accepted Ivey’s helping hand and pulled himself back on deck.
They rushed to the bow, water dripping from their clothes. The rest of the sea monster’s body floated to the surface, over fifty feet of scaled muscle, tapering from the broad base of the head to a tail no thicker than a common snake’s.
Chasa grinned at the look of annoyance on the Dherrican’s face. “You get used to being wet.”
“I never planned to become an apprentice hero. First phantom cats, then weapons training, now this. The whole summer, gone. I can’t decide whether to blame your father or your sister. Or you.”
“I promised I wouldn’t do it again,” Chasa muttered. Despite Jeyn’s best efforts, their father had found out about his foray into Rhenlan. The king had listened to his and Aage’s report about the Abstainers and Soen and Rhenlan’s captain of the guard with his usual keen attention. Later, in private, he’d vented his disapproval of the escapade with such vehemence that Chasa’s ears burned just thinking about it. “Besides, it’s not my fault that it’s been a busy summer for monsters.”
Bare feet scuffled on planking behind them as the seamen prepared to raise the sail.
“They’ve kept you running from one end of Sitrine to the other,” Ivey agreed. “Too bad you have to wait for a report before you ca
n act.”
“Aage can locate monsters the moment they appear—that is, if he had the time for daily searches. I look forward to the day Mojil or Forrit comes of age.”
“Your Dreamer cousins?”
“Second cousins. No, third. I don’t know them very well.”
“Because of their Dreamer training, I suppose.”
Chasa shrugged. “The Greenmothers visit them now and then, but apparently there’s not much they can do in the way of training until their magic comes to them. So it’s not that they’re so busy, just that they live near Bren, and I don’t get down there very often.”
“It should come soon, shouldn’t it?”
“The girl’s thirteen, the boy’s eleven. Aage says it’s not just a matter of physical maturity. They have to be ready in every way to bend the power before their gifts will be revealed.”
Ivey said, “I can’t imagine waiting so long to know exactly what my life’s work would be. I started training as a musician when I was seven.”
“It would be unsettling, wouldn’t it? Knowing that you’ll have this amazing power, but not knowing what form it will take.”
The ship steered past several of the floating harpoons, close enough that one of the men reached down to retrieve them from the troubled surface without much difficulty. The harpoons, like Chasa’s sword, were the result of Aage’s mastery of the art of making magic weapons. For over sixty years, he had overseen the forging of all of Sitrine’s monster-slaying blades. Most followed the traditional pattern used by generations of Shapers—the killing edge permeated with dragon powder and the weapon as a whole magically attuned to a single user. Sene carried such a sword, as did Hion of Rhenlan and Pirse of Dherrica.
However, toward the end of the long battle with the fire bears, Aage had moved beyond tradition. As the death toll among the Shapers mounted, Aage had located a few exceptional Keepers with the strength and reflexes to control the power-filled weapons. In addition, he discovered that, if he infused a blade with the minimum amount of dragon powder necessary to harm monsters, he could render it safe for use by as many as ten people. The magically weak weapons were useless against the large dragons of Dherrica, but they proved acceptable against fire bears and ideal for hunting sea monsters.
The men and women who crewed Chasa’s ship were chosen not just for their sailing skills, but because they could tolerate the bending of power that surrounded the specially forged harpoon heads and Chasa’s dragon sword. A few had even learned to wield them. Ivey, to Sene’s delight, proved receptive to Aage’s magical imprinting. He would probably never develop the swordsmanship needed to defeat a phantom cat, but hacking at a sea dragon required no finesse, only perseverance.
Ivey moved out of the way as they pulled alongside the monster’s corpse. Chasa snagged his sword out of its eye, then stretched forward to detach one of its gills.
“Not much smaller than a dragon’s ears.” Chasa resumed his education of the reluctant minstrel. “Aage prepares most of them for Jenil to use in her healing. He says all the monsters have to bend power to a certain extent, just to exist.”
With the aid of a large hook, Chasa rolled the body in the water so that he could reach the other gill, then laid it on top of the first on the deck. Chasa pushed the now faintly shimmering body away with the hook, then took a dry cloth out of the storage locker forward of the mast and began to clean his sword.
“Being healed by magic’s unpleasant. Our bodies aren’t designed to have power bent through them. Without that,” he indicated the sea monster’s gills with a flick of his sword, “no one could survive any extensive power-bending healing.”
The captain approached Chasa. “We’ve retrieved all the weapons, Your Highness.”
“Very well. Set course for port.”
“Aye, sir.”
Chasa took one last look at the monster. All of its magic had dissipated, leaving it a peculiar mass of seemingly unrelated blobs of flesh. As he watched, what had been the tail jerked and vanished beneath the surface of the water, snatched by some scavenger fish glad of an easy meal.
Ivey stood at his shoulder. “You’ve given me another story to sing about—as soon as I’m back on the road.”
Rain clouds loomed closer from the north. Chasa and Ivey went below out of the freshening wind before the storm arrived.
* * *
After the leaves began to turn, just after Fall Festival, there was the Horse Fair. There had been an annual Horse Fair in Edian for generations of Dreamers. Once, the horse people had been part of it. According to the Redmothers, the horse people had started it, long before Edian itself had existed. At the northeast corner of the lake, near the center of the best grazing land in the three kingdoms, horse traders and horse admirers gathered to buy, sell, and talk about horses.
Dael rode along the line of, and spoke briefly to, his guards at their posts. After this first inspection of the day he could get some breakfast. Once, he had enjoyed being at the fair. The easy duty of policing visitors and making sure the events went smoothly had been something to look forward to. The fair signaled the end of summer for him more than the Fall Festival. Some of the people who arrived for the Fall Festival, especially the minstrels and entertainers of various sorts, stayed for the fair, some stayed until midwinter, and some simply stayed through until spring. A few outstayed their welcome, and had to be escorted out of town, but most contributed to a more colorful Edian. Dael still anticipated the post-fair festivities. He enjoyed the parties with the entertainers, and the company of the pretty girls visiting from the countryside. But the fair itself, the animals and the skills they demonstrated, no longer interested him.
The queen’s pavilions occupied their customary choice location, near the show rings and convenient to the watering troughs. Dael gave the complex a cursory glance. Queen Gallia brought her entire staff up each year, and needed no help from the guard. He saw several horses being exercised in the smaller ring, the thud of hooves clear in the still morning air. There was a dry smell of straw and sawdust. In the next row of stables a wisp of smoke from a cook fire spiraled lazily skyward.
The road into Edian was still empty. Dael urged his horse to a canter, in a hurry to be away. He was feeling very much alone today. The Horse Fair was full of reminders of the royal family, and of the past. He didn’t have time for melancholy anymore. He had a full day ahead of him, starting with breakfast at the Lakeside inn. A breakfast planned since the beginning of the summer, although he no longer looked forward to the meeting.
Dael handed his reins to the inn’s stable boy and crossed the yard. The familiar horse was standing next to the wall. He mounted the steps and walked into the cool interior of the inn’s main room. A trio of merchants sat by the hearth, engrossed in conversation. He identified them as regular visitors to Edian, still blissfully ignorant of the unease growing among the local business leaders. They were of no concern to Dael this morning.
The man Dael had come to meet was seated at a table near the large, diamond-paned window that overlooked the lake.
“Dael,” the carter said in greeting.
“You arrived last night?” Dael asked as he took a seat opposite Jordy.
“Aye.”
A pretty serving girl, smiling familiarly, said, “The usual, Dael?” then disappeared into the kitchen before Dael could do more than nod his agreement.
“You’re well-known, I see.”
Dael smirked and reached across the table to snare a slice of bread from the carter’s full plate. Jordy, his mouth full, merely raised his eyebrows.
“I’ve been working,” Dael explained. “Where’s Tob? He’s usually the one to filch from your plate.”
“Back at the market,” Jordy said after he swallowed, “with the wagon. Probably still asleep. We came in very late.”
“I have some news.” Dael wanted to have it said at once. “I located that boy from your village.”
Jordy put his fork down. “Pross. Well?”
&n
bsp; “He was sent to the Dherrican border. An outpost on the Galla, fifty miles up from the sea.”
“Can you get him away from there? Reassign him to a troop nearer home, at least.”
“He’s dead, Jordy.”
The blunt statement drained the color from the man’s face. Jordy lowered his eyes for just a moment, his jaw set. He looked up again to ask, “What happened?”
“The details aren’t really necessary.”
“His family will think so. Yours would.”
Dael accepted the rebuke, tasting bitterness. “He and another boy were practicing swordplay. Pross dropped his shield. The other boy tried to stop his swing, lost control. His blade went through Pross’ thigh. He bled to death.”
There was more Dael could have said. He’d been thinking about it for days, ever since receiving the report of the accident. If he’d been the man training them it wouldn’t have happened. If they’d had a Brownmother at that outpost, the boy might have lived. It was all so useless!
Jordy sighed. “It’s not what I hoped to bring back to Broadford, but at least we know. I’ll tell his parents, and our Redmother.”
“Thank you, Jordy. I am sorry.”
“Nothing you could have done.” The carter picked up his fork, then stabbed it into a hunk of potato and pushed the plate away from him.
The serving girl chose that moment to reappear, a laden tray in her hands. She set a plate heaped with biscuits in front of Dael, and put the dish of ham gravy to one side. At his left she placed a pot of steaming tea and a cup.
“I’d rather have a brandy,” he muttered.
“Nonsense,” she replied, patting his head. “Eat your breakfast.”
Dael watched her bustle over to another pair of early guests. He sighed. He was hungry. The news, dismal as it was, was old to him. He picked up a biscuit. “I’m making slow progress with the townspeople here.”
The carter accepted the change of subject. “They’re content. Edian reaps more benefits than troubles from the state of things. What about the guard?”
“Some I’m sure still follow their vows. Others enjoy the power Damon offers to those who serve him well. I have to be careful who I trust. Damon has spies in the guard, in the court, in Edian, and in the rest of Rhenlan, as well. I hope you’re careful who you talk to.”
Moons' Dreaming (Children of the Rock) Page 34