Rise of a Merchant Prince

by Raymond E. Feist

  “That,” said Pug, “I do not know. It’s clear, though, that someone is prepared to try.”

  “What do we do?” asked Miranda.

  Pug said, “We wait and study this thing, and see what they do next.”

  Miranda said, “What about Calis?”

  Tomas said, “We wait.”

  Miranda said, “I want to return to look for him and the others.”

  Pug said, “I know you do, but it would be foolish.

  They will have moved on, and whoever we face, whoever is left alive there will be on guard and looking for him as well. The second you pop into existence there, whatever magic is left will fall on you like a burning house.”

  Nakor said, “I’ll go.”

  Pug turned and said, “What?”

  “I will go,” he said slowly. “Get me to Krondor and I will get a ship and I will sail down to that place he left his boat and I will get him back.”

  Pug said, “You’re serious?”

  Nakor said, “I told this one” —he motioned to prince.qxd 9/4/02 10:39 AM Page 552

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  Sho Pi— “we had to go on a trip. This is just a bit farther than I thought.”

  He grinned a moment, then the smile faded. In the most serious tones anyone had heard Nakor use, he said, “A great and terrible storm is coming, Pug.

  It is black and deadly and we don’t understand yet what is behind it. Everyone here has a duty. I do, too: to find Calis and the others and bring back whatever they’ve learned after Miranda left.”

  Aglaranna said, “Take from us whatever we can give if it will help you find our son.”

  Nakor said, “Just get me to Krondor.”

  Pug said, “Any particular place?”

  Nakor thought a moment. “The court of the Prince will do.”

  Pug nodded, then to Sho Pi he said, “You too?”

  “I follow my master.”

  Pug said, “Very well; join hands.”

  They did, and Pug wove a spell, and suddenly they were gone.

  Calis was unconscious and Erik carried him as he would a child. Bobby was barely conscious, and leaned on Alfred’s shoulder. Of the thirty-seven men who had left the deep temple of the Pantathians, nine were alive. Three times they had encountered hostile forces and had to fight. At Calis’s insistence, they had continued on. Despite his demand they leave him, they carried him.

  Erik had found a deep fissure in the mountain, from which heat rose in shimmering waves. He had ordered the armor and other items thrown into the fissure, certain that even if the heat wasn’t sufficient to destroy the Valheru artifacts, no mortal would be prince.qxd 9/4/02 10:39 AM Page 553

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  able to retrieve them.

  A few minutes after he had done this, the mountain shook with a terrible quake, and rocks fell, killing one man, injuring another. A howling wind shot through the tunnel they were in, knocking them down and deafening them for nearly an hour after-ward, and a crackle of angry energy shot along the ceiling of the tunnel, as if mad lightning were seeking a way upward, back into the sky.

  Erik judged that even when they attempted to destroy those magic items, it was wise not to let them come into contact. He hoped the violence heralded the destruction of the Valheru artifacts.

  Then they had been attacked, first by a ragged band of Pantathians, who appeared to have been survivors of the demon’s raid on one of the crèches, and twice they had been forced to confront the Saaur.

  The only reason they were alive was that those other forces were trying to get out of the mountains as desperately as Calis’s company, and didn’t pursue once combat was broken off.

  But the attacks had forced them upward, higher into the mountains. Alfred came from the head of the line and said, “There’s a cave ahead.”

  They entered the cave and Erik looked out its mouth. Arrayed at his feet were the snow-covered peaks of the mountains as the late afternoon sun struck rose and golden highlights across the ridges.

  For a brief moment he thought that despite his pain and fear, beauty endured, but he was just too tired, hungry, and cold to enjoy it.

  “Make camp,” he ordered and wondered how long they could survive. Men broke torches out of a backpack and used them to make a small fire.

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  Erik took inventory and judged they had enough food and things they could burn to keep them alive for five or six days. After that, no matter how damaged the men, they would have to start down from the snow line, trying to avoid detection from whatever Pantathians had escaped the destruction of the Dragon Lord artifacts, and find forage enough to keep them going.

  He wondered if the horses were still in the valley, and if he could even find that valley. With both Calis and de Loungville hurt, Erik was now leading the survivors.

  “Sergeant,” said Alfred. “Better come here.”

  Erik worked past the men struggling to light a fire and knelt next to Alfred. De Loungville’s eyes were open.

  “Sergeant Major,” said Erik.

  “How’s the Captain?” asked de Loungville.

  “Alive,” said Erik. He marveled at that simple fact. “Any lesser man would have been dead this morning. He’s asleep.”

  Erik looked at the pale complexion of his immediate superior and said, “How are you?”

  De Loungville coughed and Erik could see blood fleck the saliva running from his mouth. “I’m dying,” said de Loungville in the same matter-of-fact tone in which he would have asked for another helping of supper. “Each breath is . . . harder.” He pointed to his side. “I think I have a piece of rib sticking me in the lung.” Then he closed his eyes in pain. “I know I have a piece of rib sticking me in the lung.”

  Erik closed his eyes and fought back regret. If the man had been allowed to rest and if the bone fragments had been discovered, something might prince.qxd 9/4/02 10:39 AM Page 555

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  have been done, but a fragment sticking him while he was being half carried, dragged, forced to walk

  . . . it must have been sawing into that lung for half the day. The pain must have been incredible. No wonder de Loungville had been unconscious most of the time.

  “No regrets,” said de Loungville as if reading Erik’s thoughts. He reached out and took Erik’s tunic in his hand. Pulling him close, he said, “Keep him alive.”

  Erik nodded. He didn’t need to be told whom de Loungville spoke of. “I will.”

  “If you don’t, I’ll come back and haunt you, I swear it.” He coughed and the pain was enough to cause his body to spasm, and his eyes filled with tears.

  When he could speak again, he whispered, “You don’t know, but I was the first. I was a soldier, and he saved me at Hamsa. He carried me for two days. He raised me up!” Tears gathered in Bobby’s eyes; Erik couldn’t tell if it was from pain or emotion. “He made me important.” De Loungville’s voice grew even weaker. “I have no family, Erik. He is my father and brother. He is my son. Keep him—” De Loungville’s body contorted in spasm, and he spewed blood across his chest. A great racking attempt to breathe brought only tears to his eyes and he pulled himself upright.

  Erik wrapped his arms around Bobby de Loungville, holding him close, tightly so he wouldn’t flop on the stones, but as gently as he would a child, and listened with tears running down his own cheeks as de Loungville tried to take a breath that would not come. Only a gurgling sound of lungs fill-

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  ing with blond was heard, and then de Loungville went limp.

  Erik held him closely for a long minute, letting the tears fall without shame. Then he gently lowered him to the stone. Alfred reached out and closed the now vacant eyes. Erik sat unable to think, until Alfred sa
id, “I’ll find a place where the scavengers won’t get him, Sergeant.”

  Erik nodded, and looked back to where Calis lay.

  Feeling the bitter cold, he began pulling Bobby’s heavy cloak off his body. He said to a soldier near by,

  “Help me. It’s what he would have done.”

  They stripped the Sergeant Major’s body and piled the clothing upon the unconscious half-elf.

  Erik looked at his color and wondered. If he survived the blast in the Pantathian hall, he might survive this cold, provided he could rest and heal.

  Erik knew that the only possibility would be to rest a few days, and then cold and hunger would force them out of the cave and down the mountain.

  He turned as Alfred and another man picked up de Loungville’s body and carried it out into the snow, and he returned his gaze to Calis’s face.

  “I promise, Bobby,” Erik said softly. “I’ll keep him alive.”

  A short time later, Alfred and the other soldier returned, and Alfred said, “There’s a small ice cave over there.” He pointed slightly to the west. “We put him in there and piled some rocks over the entrance.”

  Sitting as close to the fire as he could, he said, “I don’t think it ever thaws out up here. He’ll be safe there, Sergeant.”

  Erik nodded. His mind pleaded to fail into black despair, and he felt as if he needed nothing more than prince.qxd 9/4/02 10:39 AM Page 557

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  to lie down and sleep. Instead he knew he had to plan and to work, for there were six other men, and one very special being who was more than a man, who were now dependent upon him to survive, and he had made a promise, a promise he would honor. He took a deep breath, pushed aside fatigue and failure, and turned his mind to getting everyone out of these mountains.

  Roo looked up as a commotion broke out downstairs. Several voices were raised in protest. “What ...

  ?”

  “Nakor!” he said as the Isalani gambler hurried up the stairs, a step before three waiters trying to halt him.

  “You can’t go up there!” shouted Kurt, trying to overtake Nakor.

  Roo stood up and said, “It’s all right, Kurt. He’s an old . . . business associate.”

  “I tried to tell him,” said Nakor. He grinned at Kurt as the now disgruntled waiter turned and descended the stairs.

  Roo said, “What brings you here?”

  “You do. I just came from the palace, and Lord James tells me he can’t give me a ship. I need a ship.

  He said you have ships, so I came here to get a ship from you.”

  Roo laughed. “You want me to give you a ship?

  What for?”

  Nakor said, “Calis, Erik, Bobby, the others, they’re stuck down in Novindus. Someone has to go get them.”

  Roo said, “What do you mean, ‘stuck’?”

  Nakor said, “They went down to find and destroy prince.qxd 9/4/02 10:39 AM Page 558

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  the Pantathians. I don’t know if they destroyed them, but they hurt them badly. Calis sent Miranda to his father on some important business, and now they are all stuck down there with no way to get home. Lord James says he can’t spare the ships and is going to keep them here to defend the city. So I thought I’d get one from you.”

  Roo didn’t hesitate, but turned to Jason and said,

  “What ships of ours are in the harbor?”

  Jason consulted a sheaf of paper. Thumbing though the pages, he said, “Six, of the—”

  “Which is the fastest?”

  “Bitter Sea Queen,” answered Jason.

  “I want it outfitted for a six-month voyage and I want fifty of the toughest mercenaries we can hire ready to go with us at first light tomorrow.”

  “With us?” asked Nakor.

  Roo shrugged. “Erik is the only brother I’ve known, and if he’s down there with Calis, I’m going.”

  Nakor sat down and helped himself to a cup of coffee from a pot on the corner of Roo’s desk. He sipped the hot brew and said, “You going to be able to do this thing?”

  Roo nodded. “I’ve got people I can trust I can leave in charge.” He thought of Sylvia and Karli, and then Helen Jacoby, and said, “I need to say a few good-byes.”

  “I need to eat,” answered Nakor. “Oh, Sho Pi is downstairs. Being more polite than I, he believed them when they said he couldn’t come up here.”

  Roo motioned to Jason to fetch Sho Pi and said,

  “And then I must go find Luis and Duncan. I need to work out who’s in charge of what while I’m gone.”

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  Jason nodded and departed, and Roo said, “We’ll get them back.”

  Nakor smiled, nodded, and drank more coffee.

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  Epilogue

  Rescue

  Erik pointed.

  Calis nodded. “I see it.”

  The five remaining soldiers sat atop a bluff, overlooking the ocean, before a rude hut they had called home for more than two months. “The fisherman who carried word spotted it on the horizon before sundown yesterday. He said they were sailing far to the south of the Queen’s ships’ normal patrol. Too close to the iceberg floes for anyone who knows the local waters.”

  “A Kingdom ship?” asked Renaldo, turning to look at Micha, the other soldier who had accompanied Calis, Erik, and Alfred down from the mountains.

  “Perhaps,” said Calis, forcing himself upright on a makeshift crutch. He had endured punishing conditions when they had come down from the mountains, three months earlier. Alter six days in the caves, with nothing more than torches and each other for a source of warmth, they had started downward.

  Calis had regained a bit of strength during that time, 560

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  but had to be assisted for the first two days.

  They reached a cave below the snow line where Erik started a fire and trapped some hares, and they rested another two days. After that it had been a long walk, for not only could Erik not find the valley with the horses in it again, lie almost put them on the wrong side of the river Dee, with no way to ford to the southern side.

  But eventually they had reached the coast and found the fishing village. The village had been raided by a Saaur patrol, and the drying shed with the Brijaner ship burned down, and the six men left to guard it killed. The Saaur had left warriors behind for two weeks, but when no one returned they had left to rejoin their compatriots. A black despair had washed over all five of them, but after a day of dejection, Erik had organized the other three healthy men and begun a modest camp some distance from the village.

  The villagers had been more than willing to help, in exchange for work, and because these men were obviously enemies of their oppressors. Not one member of the village had suggested they be turned over to the Emerald Queen’s army.

  As they watched, the ship grew slowly on the horizon. At last Calis said, “It’s a Kingdom ship.”

  Alfred and Renaldo let out a whoop of pleasure, while Micha gave a short prayer of thanks to Tith-Onanka, the God of War. Calis stood, leaning on his crutch.

  “We’d better get to the village.”

  Erik walked near Calis in case he needed help. He had taken more damage than any mortal should have to endure, and still he lived. He was healing. He prince.qxd 9/4/02 10:39 AM Page 562

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  would carry burn scars on the left side of his face, but his hair was growing back. For the severity of the wounds—which Erik had cleaned daily, and regularly performed reiki on—the scars weren’t bad. There was some weakness on his left side and he limped, but Erik was certain once they reached the Kingdom, some help, from the Prince’s chirurgean or one of the healing priests at one of
the temples, would bring the Captain back to his former vigor.

  They didn’t speak at all of Bobby de Loungville, alone in his icy tomb high in the mountains above.

  Erik had some vague sense that the unwillingness to speak of the dead was Calis’s elven heritage. He also sensed some deep personal loss: Bobby had been more than just a friend to Calis. He had been the first man recruited to Calis’s special cause, and he had endured longer than any man in Calis’s command.

  As they reached the beach, Erik realized with something close to shock that now only Jadow Shati stood longer in term of service to Calis than he, and he had barely served for three years. He shook his head.

  Calis noticed and said, “What?”

  Erik shrugged. “I was just thinking that longevity isn’t a hallmark of this service.”

  “That’s the truth,” said Calis. “And I fear the carnage has only just begun. Of us five here, none may be alive when this is all done.”

  Erik said nothing. They reached the village, where one of the older fishermen, named Rajis, said,

  “Do you wish to meet that ship?”

  “Yes,” said Erik. “It is one of ours. It will take us home.” The villager nodded, and shook Erik’s hand, then Calis’s and the others’. “We can only say thank prince.qxd 9/4/02 10:39 AM Page 563

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  you,” said Calis.

  “If we help you in defeating the Emerald Queen, you need not thank us.”

  They entered a boat and were pushed out into the surf and two fishermen began to row. As the ship approached, Erik said, “That’s not a royal ship.”

  Calis nodded. “They fly a trading banner.”

  “What?” said Alfred. “It’s a merchantman?”

  “So it would seem,” answered Calis.

  After a few minutes, Erik said, “I don’t know. . .

  .” He stood and began waving. As the ship approached, figures on the deck began waving back, then suddenly Erik recognized one of them. “It’s Roo!” he shouted. “It’s Roo!” A moment later he said, “And Nakor’s with him! And Sho Pi!”