The Legend Of Eli Monpress

by Rachel Aaron

  “Powers, Eli,” Josef said, picking up a ring set with a ruby that was almost larger than the embellished band it was attached to. “I hope you stole these. I can’t imagine paying good money for something this ugly.”

  “Oh, I paid for them,” Eli said, shoving the rings onto his fingers. “But not much, don’t worry. They’re glass. Fakes. I saw them in the window of one of the stores as we were walking up. They’re what gave me the idea for how we’re going to get into the citadel, actually. Look.” He held up his newly adorned hands and wiggled his fingers. “Remind you of anyone?”

  He’d crammed the rings onto every finger, thumbs included. His right pinky actually had two rings, both smaller gold and pearl bands that looked like something a father would buy for his spoiled daughter. But he was right, the effect was familiar, and Josef began to understand.

  It didn’t seem possible, but Eli’s grin grew even wider. “Come on,” he said, turning on his heel. “This is going to be the most fun I’ve had all year.”

  Josef stepped out after him. Nico, still licking her sticky fingers, kept right on the swordsman’s heels.

  CHAPTER

  12

  Gin made good on his boast. He ran like the wind itself, his long legs eating up the miles as they ran cross-country, on road and off. His orange eyes were completely unhindered by the darkness, and he stopped only when Miranda made him, which she did as much to catch her breath and unclamp her aching hands from his fur for a bit as to make the dog himself rest. Still, they made the journey from the western coast to the edge of Argo, the kingdom of which Gaol was the most prominent duchy, with time to spare, crossing the border shortly after dawn.

  As they ran, Miranda had plenty of time to worry. She had no money or supplies, just what she’d had with her under her Spirit Court robes the day of the trial, which was precious little. Alone and in exile on the beach, she hadn’t given it much attention. Now, however, all she could think was that this was a sorry start to a job. What she needed was some money, a cleaning up, and maybe a writ or other official document that could give her a new identity. As she was, no papers, no money, no authority, her hair thick with salt and her clothes stained with sea spray, she didn’t even know if they’d let her through the city gate.

  At their second stop, however, something happened that made Miranda realize she wasn’t giving the West Wind enough credit. After two hours of hard running, Miranda coaxed Gin to a stop by a creek. While he drank, she stretched her legs, which ached from holding on to the ghosthound so tightly for so long. But as she was bending over to touch her toes, she felt something flutter against her fingers. She jumped in alarm and looked down to see it was a note, the paper money some kingdoms issued for internal use instead of coins or council standards. The note fluttered, and she snatched it between her fingers before it could blow away again. It was from the kingdom of Barat, which she vaguely remembered being somewhere south and west. Miranda studied the note intently before slipping it into her pocket. The number printed on the corner was modest, and she didn’t even know if she could find somewhere that would accept it outside of Barat, but it was more than she’d had a moment ago, so Miranda counted it a lucky find and let the matter drop.

  The next time they rested, it happened again. This time a small rain of silver coins from Fenulli, a city-state hundreds of miles away, landed inches in front of Gin’s nose. After that, every time they stopped, more money appeared, always from countries to the west, and always in small amounts, yet their pile was growing. By the time they reached the Gaol border, Miranda’s pockets were bursting, and she was feeling much more confident about the whole affair. She was still going over the particulars in her head, how she would change the money, what she would say if anyone commented (“My father collected currencies,” or “We’re a traveling act,” which would explain the dog nicely), when she realized Gin was acting oddly. They were still at the Gaol border, off the road but in sight of the signs, standing in a little valley just below a well-kept vineyard, but Gin showed no signs of moving on. Instead, he was pacing back and forth, in and out of the duchy.

  “What is it?” she asked, too tired to be as concerned as she should be.

  “Look at the ground,” Gin growled, his nose against the grass. “See anything odd?”

  Miranda looked at the ground. It looked like field grass to her, with a few stones scattered about. Fortunately, Gin answered his own question before she had to admit her ignorance.

  “The grass is wet here,” Gin said, pawing at the ground on the non-Gaol side of the border, “but dry here.” He jumped the little gully that marked the beginning of the duchy and nosed at the bright green, but bone-dry, Gaol grass. “It’s like that all through here,” he snorted, raising his head. “Like it didn’t rain on Gaol at all. What kind of weather acts like that?”

  Miranda frowned and squinted upward, but the sky was the same rainwashed clear blue as far as she could see on both sides of the border. She looked back at the ground, and her frown deepened. What kind of weather indeed?

  “We are here to investigate strange happenings,” she said. “This would certainly count, but it can’t just be that the rain is acting odd. I don’t think the West Wind would need us for something like that. Let’s go farther in. Maybe we’ll find more oddities.”

  Gin nodded and they trotted up the hill into Gaol itself. They kept the road in sight but stayed to the ridges and trees, Gin slinking lower and lower as the farms grew denser. Still, everything they saw looked perfectly normal. Idyllic even, so much so that Miranda began to wonder why they’d been sent here at all.

  “I never knew Gaol was so pretty,” she said delightedly as they crossed a stone bridge over a clear, babbling brook. “Why in the world does Hern spend so much time scheming in Zarin when he’s got this to come home to?”

  “Well, I don’t like it one bit,” Gin said. “It’s too open and too neat. Even the grass growing in the fields is lined up in a grid. It’s unnatural.”

  “Better get used to it,” Miranda said, signaling him to stop at a picturesque stand of shaggy fir trees. “Because you’re going to be waiting here while I go change this money and gather information. I saw a sign for an inn and trade house a little ways back. It’ll be a start, if nothing else.”

  Gin snorted. “I’m not going to wait here while you wander off.”

  “We’re trying to keep a low profile, remember?” Miranda said, jumping down. “Ghosthounds aren’t exactly inconspicuous.”

  Gin rolled his eyes at that, but he sat down, which meant he was going to go along. Miranda smiled and checked her pockets one last time. The mix of coins and paper ruffled pleasantly under her fingers. Satisfied, she ran her hands through her windblown, salt-stiff hair and bound it back in a stiff braid. When she was as presentable as she could hope for, she left the trees and made her way down the hill to the large, charming lodge at the bottom, whose bright painted sign advertised lodging, baths, and all manner of trade and services for travelers.

  Miranda swerved west and came up to the inn on the road as though she’d been walking on it the whole time. The main building was set back from the road itself, behind a large yard for caravans to turn around in. However, the turnaround was empty this morning. So were the stables, Miranda noted as she climbed up the wooden steps and opened the door to the inn. The building was just as charming inside as it was outside, with large wooden beams across the ceiling, warm lamps hanging on the walls, and a large stone hearth surrounded by benches. Feeling decidedly out of place in her dirty clothes, Miranda put on her most competent face and walked over to the dry-goods counter, where an old man was sorting through a large accounts book below a neatly lettered sign advertising money changing.

  “We don’t trade any council standards,” he said as she approached. “Local currency only.”

  “I wasn’t going to—” Miranda started, then dropped it, fishing her money out of her pockets instead. “Local is fine. Can you change these?”


  The man stared at the strange collection of currencies as though Miranda had just emptied a fishing net on his desk and gave her a look sour enough to curdle cheese. “This ain’t the Zarin exchange, lady.”

  “Just change what you can,” Miranda said. “Please.”

  The man sneered at the pile, and then, with a long-suffering sigh, began to sort the notes and change into stacks.

  “So,” Miranda said, leaning forward just a little. “Quiet day?”

  “Quiet?” The man snorted. “Try dead. The duke’s called conscription and suspended all travel, or didn’t you notice the empty road?”

  “I just arrived,” Miranda explained. “What do you mean ‘called conscription’? Is there a war brewing?”

  The man laughed loud and hard. “Council’d hardly allow that, would they? No, the duke can call conscription for whatever he likes. This here is a duchy in the old way. Old Edward owns everything, every field, every house, every business, even this one. We’re all of us working for him, one way or the other, and conscription duty ain’t any harder than farm work. Anyways, no one would say no to him even if he wasn’t landlord and employer. You don’t say no to the Duke of Gaol. Not if you want to keep the things what make life worth living.”

  Miranda grimaced. This duke sounded like a monster. That was one good thing about being here on her own rather than on the Spirit Court’s business: She wouldn’t have to introduce herself to the duke before getting to work. “Well,” she said and smiled. “Why has he called conscription this time? Is there an emergency?”

  He gave her a look as if she was stupid. “Didn’t you hear? Eli Monpress robbed the duke last night. Stole him clean. Word is the treasury is empty.”

  It took every ounce of Miranda’s discipline to keep her face calm, but inside, she was shrieking with joy. Eli Monpress here? Now? She couldn’t even imagine a stroke of luck this fantastic. If she could somehow get her hands on Eli, why, even Hern couldn’t keep her out of Zarin.

  She looked up to see the innkeeper staring at her, and Miranda realized she must be grinning.

  “That’s too bad,” she said, forcing her face into courteous disinterest. “I hear Monpress has a nice bounty. Did the duke catch him?”

  “No word on that yet,” the innkeeper said, shrugging. “The citadel’s been shut up tight. But look at it this way: Would the duke shut down trade and close the borders if he had the thief in a cell?”

  He might, actually, if he’d done any research on Eli, Miranda thought, but she kept it to herself.

  “Doesn’t matter none anyway,” the man continued. “The duke will catch him all the same. This is Gaol, after all.” He smiled, pushing a small stack of silver coins across the counter.

  “Sixty-four exact,” he said. “Take it or leave it, but you won’t find better for the paper around here.”

  Miranda had no idea if that was good or not, but she took the money without complaint. The coins were thin pressed, and each was stamped with a man’s face in silhouette, which the block lettering on the edges identified as belonging to Edward, Eighteenth Duke of Gaol.

  It must have been a nice bit of money, for the innkeeper’s tone softened considerably. “Anything else, miss?”

  Miranda thought a moment. “Yes,” she said. “I’ll need a new set of clothes. And some soap.”

  The man raised his eyebrows, but he turned around and got a paper-wrapped bar from the shelf behind him.

  “Soap,” he said, slapping the bar on the counter. “One silver. As for clothes… ” He walked over to the corner and opened the first of a series of large chests set against the wall. “My daughter’s work,” he said, pulling out a stretch of brown homespun. “Five silvers each. Just pick out what you like.”

  Miranda walked over with a grimace. The chest was full of dresses. Farmer girl dresses. With little motifs of daisies on the trim and sleeves. A quick look through the other chests showed more of the same. The man’s daughter was apparently prolific, and very fond of daisies. Seeing this was all she was going to get, Miranda settled on a long, rust-colored dress with a wide skirt that looked like it would do for riding, and, most important of all, long sleeves that went down over her fingers to hide her rings. The color didn’t clash with her hair too badly, and the stitching, though large, was sturdy. Satisfied, she paid the man for the soap and the dress, and he even wrapped it up for her for free, cementing her suspicion that she was being vastly overcharged.

  Miranda shoved the package under her arm. Before she turned to leave, however, she asked one final question.

  “Sir,” she said, “did it rain last night?”

  “Of course not,” the man sniffed. “It’s Wednesday.”

  Miranda gave him a funny look. “What does that have to do with rain?”

  “This is Gaol,” the man said. “It only rains on Sundays.”

  Miranda just stood there a moment, stunned, while in her head, several little pieces clicked into place.

  “Thank you,” she said. “Thank you very much.”

  The man just made a harumphing noise before going back to his ledger.

  Miranda walked up the road until she was out of sight of the inn’s windows, then sprinted up the hill to where Gin was hiding. She’d worried he would be asleep, but the dog was awake and waiting.

  “What’s going on?” he asked as soon as she ducked under the shaggy treeline.

  “Strange and wonderful things,” she answered, peeling off her shirt. “Mellinor, could I get some water?”

  The water spirit complied, and she was sopping wet in an instant. Peeling the soap out of its waxed-paper wrapping, Miranda began to scrub her face and hair. She relayed her conversation with the innkeeper as she washed, occasionally breaking to ask Mellinor for more water, which he gave immediately, for he was listening as well.

  “Eli Monpress! Do you believe the luck?” Miranda said again, leaning over to wring out her hair.

  “Lucky indeed,” Gin said. “But go back to that bit about the rain. As I’ve heard it, only a Great Spirit can order the rain, and only then if it’s got the cooperation of the local winds. How is a human doing it?”

  “Maybe he’s Enslaving the Great Spirit of this area,” Miranda said, wincing as she picked at a knot of tangles rooted at the back of her neck.

  “Preposterous,” Mellinor rumbled, giving her a bit more water. “If this place was Enslaved, we would have known miles ago. The whole world would have known. Trust me, a land whose Great Spirit is Enslaved does not look like this.”

  The water slung outward, taking in the lovely hills, rolling farmland, and flowering orchards. Miranda was going to point out that Mellinor had looked pretty nice to her when she’d arrived, but then she remembered that spirits probably saw something completely different and she kept her mouth shut, washing the last of the soap out of her hair in silence.

  “Well, whatever’s happening, it’s not good,” she said, squeezing her hair dry. “Time to ask the spirits what’s going on.”

  She pulled the dress over her head, the thick fabric catching on her wet skin. When the dress was in place, she knelt on the needle-strewn ground and pulled the green stone ring off her little finger.

  “Alliana,” she said softly, placing the ring on the ground, “say hello to the grove for us.”

  The moment the ring touched the ground, a circle of bright green moss began to spread over the brown needles. It spread to the base of the nearest tree, the moss’s tiny rootlings prodding the bark. But as the moss crept up the fir tree, its quiet, tiny sounds became frustrated.

  Finally, almost five minutes later, the moss retreated, and Alliana herself spoke up. “It’s no good, mistress,” the moss said, sounding quite put out. “I can’t get the tree to talk. I couldn’t even talk to the sapling sprouting below it. I don’t understand; green wood is normally very chatty.”

  Miranda frowned. “You’re saying they wouldn’t wake up?”

  “No, they’re awake,” the moss grumbled. “They just
won’t talk. I don’t know what kind of land this is, but its spirits are frightfully rude.”

  Miranda bit her lip. This was an unexpected problem. “Try another tree.”

  They tried five altogether, but every time it was the same. The trees would not talk. None of the spirits in the little grove would. Finally, Alliana asked to go back to sleep, as this was all too frustrating for her, and Miranda drew her back into the moss agate.

  “All right, I give up. What’s going on?” Miranda said, sliding the ring back onto her finger. “Could it be Eli? What did he call it, building goodwill with the countryside?”

  “No amount of goodwill does that,” Mellinor said, flicking a spray of water at the reticent trees. “And I doubt even the thief has this kind of reach. Normally, I’d say Enslavement. I never knew anything else that could shut up young trees once a wizard woke them up, but they don’t seem frightened, just worried.” The water made a thoughtful splashing sound. “No, something is wrong in Gaol, and I doubt it’s only here. The West Wind was right to be worried.”

  “So what are we going to do about it?” Gin said, tail twitching.

  “Start at the top,” Miranda answered. “If anyone can tell us what’s going on, it’s the Great Spirit of Gaol. Since the Fellbro River is by far the largest spirit in this area, I’m going to guess it’s either in charge or knows who is, so we’ll start with it, and for that, we’re going to the capital.”

  “The capital?” Gin gave her a look. “The river runs all down the duchy’s eastern side. Why do we need to go to the capital?”

  “Because it’s only three miles away, and because Eli’s in the capital.” Miranda smiled, shaking her sleeves until they fell down over her rings, hiding them completely. “Nothing wrong with a little bonus.”