Alik woke with a start from hours drifting in and out of strange and turbulent dreams. The door had slammed: was it the wind or someone exiting? All was black. The window was open, and a muggy, smoky breeze passed in and out, in and out. A rough but regular breathing came from a long chair across the room. Someone sleeping. Maybe the girl. From outside, a multitude of sounds and conversations bubbled at the window: “…like Chellaeia from the Waterwood…” “drakes? No, not I;” “four silver for the head, three gold for the rest…throw in two free for the dozen…” “…two days from now. It’s going to be all-out; spare no expense for my daughter…” “…drugged…” “…still going out there with that archer at large?” “…river fish, ocean fish, sharks and rays, scuttle fish…” “…just need some help with the boatsman and getting the boy out unnoticed.”
He sat bolt upright. A swirl of giddy waviness and a sharp pain crashed through his head. “drugged…just need some help with the boatsman and getting the boy out unnoticed.” He felt a chill pass through him and reached out his hand frantically for a support, missed the table by the bedside, and slipped to the ground like a fish. His cloak, which had been set upon the table and roughly folded, fell upon him in a heap. Gingerly he stuck his arms through it and pulled it over his painful head.
He crawled toward the sound of the sleeper in the long chair by the bed and found her foot. Yes, it was the girl. He shook her by the foot, then by the knee, then by the elbow, then by the shoulder. Before his eyes she seemed like a dark purplish blob in a black sea on a black night. “…drugged…” “Wake up,” he said, “Teh da-nurhadai’ia!”
But she did not wake up.
He heard footsteps on stairs outside the room, coming closer. He stood up. He could see nothing, but the general sense of lightness in the room and the sound of the breeze rustling the shutters led him to the window. Dark bluish spots and streaks swum through his eyes as he turned his head this way and that, staying low to the sill. He heard a sudden breath and the crack of a fist hitting flesh, then a thud outside the door. Water was trickling past him; if he reached out, it would have splashed on his hand. Below he heard the plip-plip-plip of the water in the rain barrel. The doorknob turned. He crawled onto the sill, covered his head with both arms, and rolled off.
There was a splash below, and a horse neighed and broke the rope it was tied with. Someone burst through the door of the inn, shouting, and several others joined him to try to catch the horse.
Saria groaned and turned over in her bed on the chair. There was a clatter in the room and she strained to pull herself fully into reality. Footsteps running. She slitted her eyes open and managed to catch a glimpse of the tail of a dark cloak whooshing out of the room. She stood but nearly fell back down. The room rolled like the ocean in storm. Alik. Alik was gone.
Alik tumbled out of the overturned rain barrel, ringing with pain, drenched with slime, aching the length of his body, but somehow, miraculously unhurt. The breeze which only a moment before had seemed so warm and muggy chilled him inch for inch. He caught his breath and staggered around the corner into the alley, feeling the way frantically with his hands. A hand fell upon his shoulder, and he jerked free and ran. “Hey! Thief!” a strange voice cried behind him in a strangely tinny note...but he was already rounding the corner onto the opposite street, only by luck not tripping over one of the beggars laying in the alley or smashing his shoulder against a wall.
“Hey, watch it, kid,” a second voice said right in front of him. He ducked back, knocking over something that hit the ground with a metallic clash, and found the wall. The sounds of scores of people passing by to the right or left flooded over him. He swallowed with difficulty. His head spun. He remained stuck against the wall, in shock or in paralysis of mind.
All his senses were in confusion. His eyes could not see, and the smells and sounds that came to him he could neither place nor describe. They were like free phantoms, growing stronger and stronger and more and more impossible to pin down. Where was the ocean? How could he get back there? How could he survive? Where could he go? Even his sense of the ocean was damped and diffused: it seemed that there was ocean all around him.
The words of passers-by grew clearer. Some man was talking about rebels in Oris City; another, horse-carts; another, how busy he was. A woman laughed. Someone muttered a curse on reckless drivers. From somewhere behind him a voice said, “I think he’s a thief. He went that way.”
Alik panicked: they were after him! He darted into the crowd, crashing off-center into a man with a thick, hairy coat, ducked away from the man and knocked against someone else’s bags, and dashed recklessly forward, heedless of every protest and outburst. He did not know where he was and before he knew it his foot gave way beneath him and his ankle twisted on the curb, and he fell headlong and flailing into the gutter muck. A horse neighed, a driver shouted, and Alik curled up into a ball to take the blow. Someone was shouting at him; others were starting to murmur in surprise and concern. One of them cried out, “Alik!” He thought he might have recognized it—was it good or bad? Another shouted, “Stop that boy!” He scrambled to his feet and dashed across the street, somehow missing another horse cart, hit the wall of a building with both hands, and ran along it to the next alley opening, where he disappeared into the Beggars’ Quarter.
Saria saw where he entered and cautiously, when she was certain there was no one left in sight wearing a dark cloak, followed him in.
“Poor kid,” someone said.
“Call it off,” said someone else. “Nothing’s stolen.”
The Beggars’ Quarter was a slum of filthy structures, one stuffed right up against another in tight blocks separated by alleys no wider than a morgue cart. The quarter was cluttered with rubbish and seeping with putrid water. Only a few people could ever be seen in those streets, and those Alik met did not bother him at all. His body and mind ached with pain and chill, and he wandered aimlessly until he was hopelessly and completely lost and could no longer move a step. He sat down where he was, almost delirious, set his head down on his sleeve, and wept quietly until he fell asleep.
He felt as though it was raining, and he was being lifted up. Little jabs of pain chewed at his fingers, and hollow squeaks kept echoing around his ears.
He saw a swamp. (The swamp was the world.) It was large and lush and watery, and out of it there rose a mountain with a waterfall. Around the mountain there was a shrill ringing, and bat-like creatures, and darkness. The bluish crystal on his necklace glowed and...something it had never done...answered the ringing noise with a ringing of its own, more shrill, more numbing, more intense. Then all was quiet.
A man in a black hooded cloak stood over him and kicked something away, then lifted him up and carried him away.
For a long while he sensed nothing at all.
The sentry nodded and Donnell, the large-eared swordsman, rushed up to the entrance as Xaeland strode in, carrying the filthy and sodden child in his arms.
“I sent out Finnlagh looking for you!” said Donnell anxiously.
“You shouldn’t have,” said Xaeland. “Doughal, Flan, prepare the boy a place by the fire and a bit of food...and a wash.” Doughal, the large, dark-haired, dark-skinned soldier, who was sitting at the fire testing the soup, and Flan, the thin, fiery red-haired man, who was sitting beside him cleaning and sharpening a pair of long-handled knives, rose to carry out Xaeland’s instructions.
“Who is he?” asked Donnell.
“No one,” said Xaeland. Doughal spread out his cloak beside the fire and gathered a few extra cloaks, and Xaeland laid Alik down. Alik moaned but remained unconscious.
“Is he sick?” asked Donnell.
“Maybe,” Xaeland said.
“Do we have time for this? Shouldn’t we be getting to the palace?” Donnell persisted.
“Don’t worry. Find Finnlagh,” said Xaeland. “This shouldn’t take long.”
“I will, Sir,” said Donnell. He left.
Xaeland leaned over
the boy and felt his forehead, then his neck, then his wrist, then listened to his breath. Flan returned, awkwardly carrying a filled washbowl. Xaeland nodded in thanks and dipped a rag into the bowl and began to wipe the dirt away from the boy’s face.
“His air offends the smelling of the nose,” commented Doughal.
Xaeland noticed an old bandage behind Alik’s right eye and tested the area gently. Alik jerked his head away with a moan, “Do ee-yatha.”
Xaeland stopped short.
“He’s a little tender,” Flan noted. “He may be a runaway. Someone may be looking for him.”
“Shh—“ said Xaeland. “Do ee-yatha,” he said.
“Whot?” asked Doughal. “Is it a code?”
“It means ‘no more pain,’” Xaeland replied. “He’s a wizard.”
“No, he only knows a few words,” said Flan. “How could he be? Or perhaps he knows no words and was only blabbering.”
“They say that only eight remain now that the line of Arisarrion has died,” spoke Doughal. “Morin’s son; the wretch Krythar; Thaurim; Trypho’s two idiot heirs; Taia of Brolethiria; your cousin Taravon; and yourself. All the others were slain without an heir.”
“Strange things happen,” Xaeland replied. He checked Alik’s mouth and—very gently—his eyes. “He’s not ill, physically,” he pronounced. He traced with his washrag the series of cuts and bruises covering the boy, splashed water on his head to rinse him off, and took one of the cloaks to use as a towel. Alik murmured something else but Xaeland did not translate.
Xaeland pulled the filthy cloak off over Alik’s head and handed it to Doughal. “Sholl I burn it?” asked Doughal, taking a whiff—but Xaeland did not answer. The third figure who had been seated by the fire—a giant, hairless, scarred man with livid eyes who was shrouded in a dark cloak—stood up and paced solemnly over to stand over Alik.
At the same time, Donnell reentered with Finnlagh, the blond-haired archer. “What is it, Caelhuin?” Donnell asked the cloaked giant.
“He sees...,” Finnlagh began.
Xaeland stared at Alik’s necklace and murmured, “Halaia.” A faint, flickering glow grew in the heart of the blue shard hanging over Alik’s heart. “Halaiea,” Xaeland tried again, correcting his pronunciation. The light grew stronger and steadier until it bathed all of them in a dim, blue bath: then abruptly it went out, and Alik’s eyes opened.
“Ce kyif-sa?” said Alik.
Xaeland paused. “Anthirion City,” he answered. “You are safe.”
“Whot did he say?” asked Doughal.
“Teae kyi-sa?” said Alik, slightly panicked.
“We are friends,” said Xaeland. “He asks who we are and where he is.”
Alik reached up and touched Xaeland’s face and felt it.
“He can’t...,” Donnell began.
Caelhuin, the silent giant, knelt down beside Alik, took his hand, and gently touched it first to his own eyes, then to Alik’s. Alik trembled.
“This is Caelhuin,” Xaeland said to Alik. “He is also blind...and mute, and deaf, and without taste, and without touch. He was burned over his entire body by dragon’s fire and nearly died. But he learned one trick from the dragons that’s an advantage: he can read minds. What is your name?”
“Alik,” replied Alik.
“Who were your parents, Alik?” Xaeland asked.
“Veat su Calar. Veah...duu kyiv xruu.”
“Your father’s name was Calar. Did he ever tell you her name?” asked Xaeland.
“Do; veat veah-vaowvoe.”
“No,” said Xaeland. “But he speaks the tongue as though he were a natural, or as if he had studied under Kirion—may he be blessed—himself.”
“Or Morin, may he be cursed,” commented Flan.
“Give him some stew,” said Xaeland, waving a finger back and forth in front of Alik’s eyes. Alik heard the swish of soup poured into a bowl and the clack of a wooden spoon against a wooden bowl, and he turned his head. “Very recent damage,” Xaeland said. Doughal handed the bowl toward Alik and Xaeland took it. Alik waited expectantly. Xaeland silently produced a blue vial from his belt and poured a drop into the soup, then handed it to Alik. Alik dove into it.
“I don’t know what you’re expecting,” said the swordsman, Donnell. “All of Anthirion is on the verge of war and the fate of the free nations depends on its prevention, and here we who’ve been sent to prevent it are sipping soup and adopting orphans.”
“Anything else?” asked Xaeland.
“You realize the Anthirion king has rejected the embassy from Ristoria that was sent to arbitrate the negotiations. He’s refused even to see them. He appointed some stranger to go in his stead.”
“He doesn’t trust the elves. He should have requested a different negotiator from the start,” said Xaeland.
“He’s stalling and he intends trouble,” said Finnlagh, the archer.
“And you will be there to make sure there is none,” said Xaeland. “That’s all we can do for now.”
“Are you going to abandon our plan to capture the king and take him to safety?” asked Donnell.
“Yes. How are you feeling, Alik?”
Alik had just finished the bowl of soup and set it down. “E fija,” said Alik. “Th...thank you.”
“You need to get some rest,” Xaeland replied. “See, Donnell: you have fatigued him.”
“Heh,” snorted Donnell—but he said nothing.
“If you could have one dream, Alik,” said Xaeland, “what would it be?”
Alik thought for a moment. Tinglies floated through his body, as though little pieces of sleep had already come but were only pawing at him till the rest arrived. “Traivee y lossne, ose ise; saemmivuhr reliruh-li,” he said.
Xaeland smiled. “Whot did he sayen?” asked Doughal curiously.
“He would be traveling in the snow, but it is warm, and he is watching the sun set,” said Xaeland. “You will, little one, some day,” said Xaeland. “Some day.”
Alik lowered his head and closed his eyes. He felt very tired indeed, and numb, and very much at peace. In a few moments he was drifting into sleep’s domain.
Xaeland produced a small black trinket from his belt—something from Nessak Lamartos’ antique shop—dialed a knob on it a few times counterclockwise, and pressed a switch beside the knob. A little red light came on at the opposite end. Caelhuin rose and left. Donnell glanced after him. Xaeland continued as though he had not noticed and drew out a frame of lenses something like a microscope. He then opened Alik’s eyelid and put his eye right down to it until it was almost touching. He turned back to the small black device and dialed it down a few more times, then screwed it into the lens-frame and adjusted the lenses. Then he looked up. “Flan; you have a fine touch: put your hand here and hold his eye open. Finnlagh; you check this gauge.” The two complied.
At that moment Caelhuin reentered, holding a frightened little girl, almost the same age as Alik but taller and bonier, with icy blonde hair: Saria.
II.iv.
It turned out that the site where the king’s ambassadors and Jevan were to meet the councilors from Oris and their allies and the Ristorian negotiator was somewhat distant from Anthirion City, at a battle memorial called the Pathon Fields. Moreover, despite everything Jevan could do, the Anthirian councilors found no end of excuses for stalling, and the group made such poor progress that by the dinner hour they were still five miles out and had two thrown horse-shoes. So Jevan was forced to call a halt and (with a wry comment from Heao, who had arrived back on foot a few hours earlier with the bad news about Alik’s disappearance, about Anthirion blacksmithing) send back to the city for a smith. They camped above the road on a somewhat defensible circle of hills, posted more sentries than the entire police force of the island, and went to sleep.
Jevan did not sleep well and at one point went out for a walk. He felt responsible for Alik but knew he could do nothing for the boy now. Glancing up at the sky, he prayed briefly for Alik’s saf
ety and happiness, but he continued to worry nonetheless. He wandered about the camp. Although he was very sleepy and did not have his glasses on, he was certain he saw a lone rider, decked in feathers and a flowing cloak, armed with a sheaf of arrows and a longbow, circling just outside the perimeter of the camp.
Stars poked in and out of the clouds, and the night was cool and damp. Sometime during the night there was a light rain, and in the morning there was a heavy fog.
Jevan woke a little later than he had hoped for and found that the king’s servants had laid out for him a pale blue tunic of the king’s livery, a pair of simple, un-dyed pants, a blue and silver cloth cap, a cloak, and a pair of new, soft leather shoes to replace his tattered boots. There was no official scribe’s insignia or marking. He smiled at the shoes, discarded the badge-less cloak, and dressed.
Outside, he found Heao playing swords with the elder of the two knights the king had appointed to accompany them: a general from Taiz’ City, he had said. His crest was a small silver star on a murry field. He had pure white hair, a hawk-nose, and dim blue eyes. He had woken early to perform his ritual battle exercises. Jevan went up to him.
“Master Delossan! General Rigel was showing me how to use a sword!” exclaimed Heao quietly as Jevan came up.
“I pray you will be spared the use of it,” said Jevan.
“You can’t ever tell, with elves around,” said the general, squinting an eye at Jevan.
“Elves?” asked Jevan, but decided not to press the issue. He was noticing that the Anthirians were suspicious of anybody not Anthirian. “General; if you could wake the camp and douse the fire....”
“Are you thinking of leading out without breakfast, and in the fog?” asked Rigel. “You’re not likely to find much support for that idea in camp.”
“Let them eat on the way,” said Jevan. “I am not looking for a popularity vote. If they prefer to stay, I am sure I can reach a peace settlement without them.”
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