A King's Bargain

by J. D. L. Rosell

Garin couldn't have felt more the opposite. He barely noticed the cold, and it wasn't from his clothes being any better-tailored than theirs. For one, Wren had warmed his bedroll the past several nights, finally having grown certain enough of her father's health to leave his side. Falcon Sunstring was still no beauty, his skin mending back where bugs and decay had had their way with it, and at the end of his right wrist lay a conspicuous vacancy. But despite it all, he was again smiling, and like spring to flowers, with the reemergence of the minstrel's good humor, his daughter's passion for Garin had rekindled.

  His grin felt as if it stretched from ear to ear just thinking about it.

  But nights with Wren weren't the only thing warming him. Soon, he would see his family again. He would be the lost son returned, the son who had gone and seen more places than he could count on both hands and would be able to lord it over his brothers. He would feel his sister's arms tight around him, see his mother and her surprised, joyous smile. They would clamor to ask where he'd been, what he'd done, and he would tell them tales they wouldn't believe.

  An adventure, he thought. Just like in the fireside stories.

  His smile faltered a little at the thought. No — his journey hadn't quite been like the tales. The Nightsong and the Singer had been quiet ever since that day atop the Coral Castle's roof, but he knew he wasn't free of them. Like something he'd forgotten, the fell magic niggled at the back of his mind, always there, always waiting. Still, most times, he could forget he'd ever heard them. Most times.

  But though he anticipated the reunion, he couldn't help but imagine the farewells. I can't stay. I have to go on. To see the elves and their sage elders. To…

  He didn't know what reason he'd give. Not the truth; never that. But could he lie? He'd lied many times to get out of trouble as a boy, but that was before he'd become a man. Now, the thought gave him an uneasy disquiet. What would Father have done? he thought. What should a man do? Lie to protect his family? Or tell them the truth?

  It wasn't an argument — he knew better than that. Not even Wren knew the complete truth, and she'd been with him through it all. Aelyn and Tal, he suspected, knew more than they'd let on, and the fewer who knew what he'd become, the better.

  I'll come, he'd said, and the Singer and the Song had exalted. I'll come — though he didn't have the faintest idea where he was supposed to go.

  "I didn't know you slept with your eyes open."

  Garin blinked and looked over. Wren, who sat next to him on the cart, was watching him, a small smile on her lips. Gods and devils, but I love that smile, he thought.

  But his own smile came out strained. "Just thinking."

  "Thinking? Don't overextend yourself."

  He nudged her, more for the chance to touch her than to silence her, and her smile grew coy. His mouth went dry imagining what that smile dared him to do.

  "So when will you introduce me to your family?"

  Once again, she'd caught him wrong-footed, and he fumbled for an answer. "Uh, as soon as we get there, I suppose."

  Wren raised an eyebrow, the edge of the smile disappearing. "I suppose? Are you ashamed of me?"

  "Ashamed? Of course I'm not!"

  A laugh burst from her. "You're too soft, Garin! You'd think you'd have grown a spine by now."

  He wasn't sure whether to smile or scowl and found his expression caught somewhere between. "Caught me off-guard is all," he muttered.

  She patted him on the back. "Don't worry. We'll work on it."

  A few hours later, the short-lived daylight was fast dissipating, and though they were close to Hunt's Hollow, a halt was called at the Winegulch Bridge. To Garin's protests, Tal only held up his hands.

  "It was Falcon's call," his mentor said, "but it's the right one. No use in getting there early if it costs us a wheel. I know you're eager, lad, but we'll get there tomorrow, never fear."

  Garin turned away, trying to hide his disappointment and failing. When Wren asked him what was wrong, he only shrugged and muttered, "Going for a leak," leaving her to frown at his back.

  The forest closed around him, the familiar scents and sounds helping to slow his beating heart. Stillness — he'd nearly forgotten what it sounded like, traveling amidst a troupe of actors and musicians. Someone always seemed to be laughing or singing — or both, if the casks of dwarven honeywine they'd carted from Halenhol were involved.

  He untied his britches and winced at the cold, then began to relieve himself. For a moment, the trickling on the dead leaves was all he heard.

  Then crunching sounded from the forest behind him.

  He glanced back as he quickly began tying up his britches. Most likely, it was just someone from the troupe who'd come to do their business. But he couldn't help a prickling of unease at the back of his mind. Breath coming quick, he stared into the gloom where he'd heard the sound.

  More crunching, both left and right. Garin whipped his head each way, a hand falling to his belt knife. Did he glimpse a shadow moving among the closest trees? Were those footsteps, or just forest creatures walking carelessly? He drew his knife, watching, waiting, straining to listen over his thumping heart.

  A burst of sound came from behind him, and Garin whirled, then fell back as someone clapped a gloved hand over his mouth. Without hesitation, Garin swung the knife at the assailant's arm, heard him roar in pain, and fought to work free of his grip.

  Cold steel pressed against his throat and bit shallowly into his skin. He felt blood trickle down his neck.

  "Drop it," the man rasped in his ear, his breath was hot on his skin. When Garin hesitated, the knife pressed deeper, and his hand opened of its own accord.

  "Good lad." Someone, large and heavy-footed, emerged from the shadows. In his fear-clouded state, it took Garin a moment to recognize him, and as he did, his stomach gave a painful wrench. The big bandit in charge of the band of deserters, who had waylaid them on their way to Halenhol, was the last man he wanted to see.

  The highwayman didn't look pleased to see him either, scrunching up his eyes as he stared at him. "You. I know you. You're that boy who traveled with the man who burned my hammer." The large man stared at him like Garin were a brace of cooked hares rather than a young man with slightly soiled pants. "Burned my hammer," he repeated with a grim smile.

  "And he cut my arm," the bandit holding Garin growled.

  "Quit your bloody yapping! I don't give a shit if he cut your arm or your prick or your balls — don't whine about it to me." The big man had closed the distance between them and loomed over Garin, half a head taller, even with Garin having grown an inch since the last time they'd met. "Know what I do give a shit about, you little… shit?" He screwed up his eyes tighter, as if debating whether or not to take out his ineloquence on Garin, then continued. "That man who burned my hammer. I've got a score to settle, and you're going to help me. Got that?"

  Garin met his eyes and didn't look away. His mind pulsed with a subtle rhythm, sounds that had no cadence drowning out everything else in his mind as they suddenly wove into an urgent chorus. The whining of a fox. The whisk of a reaper through tall grass. The scream of a slaughtered hog. Even with a man holding a knife to his throat, the big outlaw staring hate down at him, and the rest of the band around him, his fear was quickly draining away. Behind the bandit's glove, he started to smile.

  The big man moved far quicker than a man his size seemed able, pounding his fist into Garin's stomach. Garin jerked, barely able to keep himself from doubling over and accidentally slit his own throat.

  "Release him, you fucking moron!" the bandit leader hissed. "I need him to talk."

  Garin felt the knife and hand pull away, then he was shoved forward and onto his knees. Just as he rose, he was laid flat, his side burning where the highwayman kicked him, lungs struggling to suck in air.

  "Well?" the big outlaw demanded as he stood over him.

  Garin didn't try to rise again but turned over to stare up at the brigand. Pain wracked his body, and the shallow cut in
his neck still dribbled blood. But fear had been replaced by that pulsing, all-consuming Song. He opened his mouth.

  The words hissed and curled in unfamiliar sounds even to his own ears. Yet somehow, he knew their meaning as clear as if he'd spoken in Reachtongue.

  "Boil blood."

  The big man's expression shifted, then he stumbled back a step, eyes widening, staring at his hands. Garin watched as his skin rippled, and his veins bulged, then looked away as the man began to scream. His shrieks cut off in a sudden, wet squelch, and the blood, burning hot, seared Garin's face in droplets.

  For a moment, no one moved. Garin opened his eyes and looked around at the bandits. The buzzing still filled his ears, incessant and maddening, like hornets had made a hive of his head.

  As his gaze fell upon them, the highwaymen broke, some slinking away into the shadows, others abandoning all dignity and pelting into the forest. In seconds, they were gone, leaving their leader's prone, bloody body on the forest floor.

  Garin's eyes fell to what had become of the big brigand. What you did to him, some part of him corrected, but it was hard to listen with the Nightsong filling his ears, the sharp sounds cutting into him, the soft sounds carrying him away—

  "Garin!"

  He opened his eyes, and Tal knelt before him, hand on his shoulder, eyes creased with concern. As if his name had been the word needed to break the trance, the buzzing faded away.

  "Garin," Tal repeated, low but urgent, "are there any more?"

  Garin saw Aelyn standing just behind him, staring with a mixture of disgust and fascination at the remains of the bandit. As the smell of blood suddenly registered, he felt his stomach twist, and then he was bending forward, splashing sick up Tal's boots.

  "Never mind, never mind," Tal muttered, shifting out of the way while maintaining his grip on Garin's shoulder. "You're not the first man to retch at the sight of a corpse."

  "Though that one's a good deal uglier than most," Aelyn observed.

  Garin sat up and wiped his mouth. I did that, he thought, the words cycling through his mind. I did that. It was more than the act of it; he had willed it, wished to hurt the man with every shred of himself. It hadn't been the Singer's command that had done it. It was him.

  And it was only then that he knew: even when they reached Hunt's Hollow, he wouldn't be coming home. There was no home for the devil he'd become.

  Welcome to Hunt's Hollow.

  The words were carved into a board raised by two poles that the town's mayor had cobbled together, but Tal supposed it served as an archway. You certainly know where you are, he thought.

  Home. He wondered if returning to Hunt's Hollow was coming home. He'd been born and raised within its borders, but he'd left before he'd even become a man. He'd been too many places, seen and done too many great and terrible things, to believe he could call anywhere home.

  Yet, in some small way, thinking of Hunt's Hollow as home was a comfort. And we all need what small comforts we can get.

  He glanced at Garin, who stood staring up at the sign next to him. Wren was on Garin's other side, watching him with a creased brow. He wondered if the boy now felt the same as he did. Ever since the incident with the highwaymen the evening before, he'd barely said more than two words within Tal's earshot.

  "Can we enter? I'd rather not waste any more time here than necessary." Aelyn stood at Tal's other shoulder, his nose wrinkled as if smelling something foul. It wasn't just the mage's sensitive nose — the stink of livestock permeated the air, thick and pungent as a duchess' perfume. A sharp-tipped traveler's hat once again hid his pointed ears and shaded his elven eyes.

  "You go on," Tal said, "and you as well, Wren. I want a private word with my apprentice."

  Wren curled her lips. "Just get me when you're ready," she said to Garin, then went back to join the rest of the troupe as they continued setting up camp behind them.

  "Don't keep me waiting," Aelyn said with a strained smile, then went forward to wait under the welcome arch with uncharacteristic patience. He's more eager for this leg of our journey to be over than I — to make no mention of removing that Binding Ring from his finger.

  He turned back to Garin. "Something's troubling you."

  The youth shrugged. "Just the same as before."

  "It's a heavy burden. I'm sorry I placed it on you."

  "You didn't." Garin finally looked over at him. "I chose to go with you. I pushed to enter the ruins. I knew the risks. Besides, maybe it's just as you said: maybe this devil has always lived inside me." He hung his head. "Anyway, a man makes his own decisions, and he has to live with them."

  True enough. Tal looked back toward the village. He knew Garin had grown and matured. He could only hope it would be enough.

  "Even so," Tal said, "there's something you ought to know."

  He hesitated. Say the words, part of him whispered. You must say the words.

  But the truth often brought far less healing than it promised. Even when it was owed. Even when it was overdue.

  Garin was watching him, waiting, his brow creased again. Perhaps the last time he'll look at you, another part of him mocked. Surely the last time he'll want to.

  But no matter the consequences, no matter how it would change both of them, Tal forged on ahead, if only to ease the guilt pressing down on his chest.

  "Have you ever wondered why I took you on as my apprentice?"

  The space between Garin's shoulders prickled at his words. Have I done anything but wonder?

  "A lot of people asked," he answered, his voice neutral.

  The man he'd followed through Night's Pyres and back sighed like he was setting down a heavy rucksack. "Don't mistake me; there were other reasons. In part, it was due to your curious and restless nature, and the fact that you often hung around my farm. But those are the meanest of my excuses." Tal's mouth stretched wide, but it looked like the grin some of the draugars had worn, a corpse's smile. "The truth is… I knew your father."

  Garin looked sharply at Tal, his heart suddenly pumping like he were running a race. "You did?"

  "Yes. I told you I was born in Hunt's Hollow. Growing up, most of the other children called me Bran the Bastard on account of my unsavory origins. Your father wasn't one of them. He was a friend, my only friend, in a town that shunned me for being a fatherless, unnatural whelp."

  "Friends?" Whatever Garin had been expecting, it wasn't this.

  "That's just the beginning." Several hollow laughs joined that stiff smile. "Your father was called back into the King's service before he died, isn't that right?"

  "Yes. He was the captain of a company."

  Once again, he saw their parting farewell: his mother tearing him away from his father, the hot, incessant tears, his brothers teasing him for crying, his father shouldering his pack and leaving with his band of hardened soldiers.

  "He had a mission." Tal's mouth worked for a moment, then he shrugged and said in a falsely light voice, "But perhaps you had best ask your mother for the rest. I am sure Nyssa knew what her husband was sent to do."

  The questions flared so hotly in him for a moment it seemed they must come tumbling out. But do you want to hear it from him, whatever it is?

  The thought stopped him cold.

  "Then I'll ask my mother," Garin said softly and turned back to the carts to find Wren.

  "A heart-wrenching conversation, it seemed," Aelyn observed as they trudged along the muddy thoroughfare that cut through the town. "Did you tell the boy sharp secrets of his past, I wonder?"

  "Not yet," Tal muttered. He wondered if he'd done what was best or simply opted for the coward's way out. So I didn't have to see his face when he realized the truth.

  "Ah, well. There's always tomorrow. And the past's regrets never bear fruit in the present, I hear." Aelyn smiled thinly, then swept his arm through the air. "Where, pray, was your humble abode again?"

  As they neared his house, Tal was taken aback at the changes. A few short months and already, the mar
sh had begun to claim his small farm back. The grass had grown long; the fence had broken in several places. No chickens or pigs roamed the abandoned fields, no doubt because neighbors were "taking care" of them in his absence. The house itself looked much the same but seemed comparatively shabby after the opulence of the Coral Castle.

  Was I ever content here? he wondered. Or was I hiding all along?

  "Shall we enter?" Aelyn said, almost cheerily. "And I won't need help over the threshold, I assure you."

  Without waiting for a response, he pushed open the door and entered. Heaving a sigh, Tal followed him in.

  Under the glow of Aelyn's werelight, the room crowded in closer than ever, absurdly cramped after his rooms in Halenhol, and a perfume of wood-rot and mold filled the room so thickly he could taste it. Even Aelyn's bout of good humor flagged under the assault, his bright eyes watery and his smile strained, but the mage still gestured expansively to the small table that could barely seat one, let alone two, as if it were the King's banquet table. "Shall we?"

  Like we're reenacting a scene from a play, Tal mused as he moved around the table to sit in his usual chair while Aelyn took the one he'd sat in before. Only now we undo what was done before.

  Aelyn pulled off his glove and extended his hand across the table, the Binding Ring glittering on his finger. His eyes never left Tal's face. "Our pact is complete," he said softly, his voice almost a purr. "Now, release me."

  Tal held his gaze, hands in his lap. "Did you know?"

  Aelyn narrowed his eyes, good humor starting to dissipate. "Know what?"

  "That our good and merciful King Aldric is a bought man."

  He'd come to think he knew a little of the elven mage, and what he was capable of. But Tal didn't expect him to smile.

  "Of course, I did. There's a larger game at play here than you've ever cared to look for, Harrenfel." Aelyn wiggled his fingers, the milky white crystal winking in the werelight. "Now, if you'll release me, I have much to do in my Queen's service and little desire to remain here."

  Tal sighed, suddenly feeling every year of his age and then some. "Never cared to look, or I didn't dare to."