by Lana Nielsen
Arithel laughed and ran towards the door, tossing the barricade aside despite the Elinmoorian girl’s protests. She stubbed her toe on the bench but paid little heed to the throbbing pain. Another round of cannons went off in the distance.
Arithel tried to stop Zander. She was dragged a little way in the process and yelled for him to follow her. A group of Nureenian cavalry thundered down the alley, striking down unlucky shantymen.
“This way!” She attempted to pull the giant towards the house.
Meldane ran towards them. Zander picked up Arithel as he rushed towards his master. With his other arm he scooped up Meldane and they burst inside the door just as the cavalry caught up. Zander let Meldane and Arithel down. The Elinmoorian girl and an old woman simply stared at them, mouths agape.
The Elinmoorians retreated to their hearth. Arithel, Meldane, and Zander crouched below the window, listening to the slaughter. Shots rang out in the alleyway and Arithel saw the muskets. They looked similar to Fallon’s hand-cannon, only much bigger and heavier, with a narrower tube. The Nureenians had to hoist the weapons up to their shoulders to aim and laboriously stuff the barrels with powder and projectile between each shot. The musket did not seem all that efficient or accurate, even if it was sleek, modern in appearance, and capable of making dreadful sounds.
Within minutes, the Nureenians turned back towards the gate. The discord subsided; there were no more chants, no more demands from the slum people. The crowd dispersed. The remaining rioters were soon walking instead of desperately running for their lives. Cool winds scattered the clouds of body heat and gunpowder.
“I wonder how many are dead,” the Elinmoorian girl remarked.
“No telling. Rioting like that was a stupid move. Surely they knew how it would end,” Arithel said bitterly, thinking of Fallon.
She was afraid to look for him.
“Maybe with all the dead we will get more grain for the winter,” the old woman said hopefully, stroking her daughter’s pale hair.
“Where is your friend, the lapdog?” Meldane asked Arithel.
“Funny greeting to someone who just saved your life.”
“Fallon didn’t save me. You and Zander did,” Meldane said.
Arithel laughed. “I know. I was referring to myself. That was still a rather rude hello.”
Meldane gave her an oblique look.
“Never mind,” she said. “I lost him in the crowd.”
“Oh, well…” Meldane shrugged with a little smile. He demanded the Elinmoorian girl bring him a drink, any drink. She complied with his request, handing him a cup of watery beer. Arithel felt sorry for this girl, her home invaded at sword point and now ordered about by some barbarian and his slave. She wouldn’t have been nearly so patient.
“He shouldn’t have been in the slums,” Meldane said. “A leech can’t survive long out of water.”
Arithel wondered if he meant anything by that or if he was just rambling.
“Morden must be desperate to waste his boy’s talents like this. Your friend should be practicing necromancy in some dusty old vault, not stumbling aimlessly about the Eastern wastes,” Meldane continued.
“Necromancy? Are you serious?” Arithel laughed incredulously.
The Elinmoorian girl made the sign of Agron. Meldane slurped down his beer and demanded another.
“Why do I find you in the slums again, Lady Arithel?”
Arithel was bemused at how friendly he was towards her despite his clear hatred of Fallon. It was hard to imagine Meldane snapping, as he did in their last meeting. Arithel noticed the Elinmoorian girl gawking at him, her eyes lingering on his broad shoulders.
It was hard to keep from laughing.
“We were looking for you,” said Arithel.
“I guessed as much. That’s why we were headed out of town,” Meldane said with a smug smile.
“We don’t wish you ill. Fallon—and I—” she cleared her throat, “wanted to make you an offer.”
“What could Morden’s slave possibly offer me?”
“What you long for the most.”
“That’s a bold claim,” said Meldane.
“We can give you redemption.” Arithel stood up, her back straight and head high. “Fallon promises that if you help us deliver our weapon to Paden, he will negotiate with Morden to return you to your rightful spot at court. You can go home, see your family again. Isn’t that what you want?”
“No, it is not,” Meldane said, his hands pressed together.
“The offer doesn’t interest you in the slightest? You can have back everything you lost. All you need to do is travel with us, protect us if necessary…”
“Never. I’m never going back. Nothing that can change that.”
He stood up and looked Arithel in the eye. Though it was dark, she noted his eyes had an unusual hint of silver.
“I know your friend,” he said. “He won’t deliver anything. He’s a trickster, a bootlicker. You have nothing real to back up claims of some mighty weapon. You just want my sword; you want me to serve you. I’m not stupid enough to get swept into Morden’s hexes a second time. We Northmen are not the dullards the rest of the world makes us out to be.”
Arithel was unaware that there was some broad perception of Padenites as dullards. Blood-crazed homicidal godless barbarians, perhaps, but not dullards. The dullards were the Elinmoorians and perhaps the half-mute Ialorians.
“We are sincere, that I promise you. If you just come with me, we can show you our weapon.”
“You don’t even have to show me; just tell me what it is.” Meldane grinned then sat down.
He sipped his drink and awaited an answer.
He wouldn’t believe her if she told the truth.
“I can’t properly describe it here. For full effect, you must see it in person.”
Meldane laughed, his teeth flashing in the shadows. Zander, too, laughed a bit, his grim and ugly countenance broken for a half second.
“I understand now. As Fallon is to Morden, you are to Fallon. You make a fine disciple, but it is telling that the only person he can get to invest in his ideas is some obscure, outspoken little woman.”
Arithel resisted the impulse to fire back. This was too important to mess up. She knew something of Meldane’s nature, what he was like, and what sort of behavior set him off. She could not be herself in this moment.
She slowly walked to the other side of the room, sat on a bench, and lowered her head into her hands. She repeatedly dabbed the corner of her right eye, to appear as if she was shedding stoic tears. She drew her cloak over the front of her body. She said nothing for several minutes and waited on the Northmen to speak to her. Despite the riot being quelled, they wouldn’t leave.
Meldane stared at her, confused.
“I… er… am sorry,” he said.
“Will you at least help me find him, when the crowd quiets?” Arithel asked in a soft voice.
“You’re on your own, lady.” He finished his second drink.
“You owe me. I just saved you.” Arithel snapped, giving up her feigned offense all too easily.
Meldane was taken aback. “Actually, we are even. But… perhaps we will help you. At least for the rest of today.”
She smirked.
Arithel, Meldane, and the giant left the Elinmoorian woman’s house, not even sparing a penny for her trouble. The crowd had disappeared save for a few stragglers looking for lost loved ones. The Nureenians were still atop the wall, now standing in formations three deep, their cannons and crossbows poised for use.
At least fifty bodies were on the ground, some limbless or headless, all bloodied beyond recognition. A few of the fallen were still alive, groaning as they lifted their arms and feebly cried for help.
After a cursory search of the square and surrounding streets, they didn’t locate Fallon.
“Maybe he found his way back already,” Arithel remarked hopefully.
Zander yelled for his master. Meldane and Arithel rushed
towards him, seeing him squatting over two bodies, a man and woman. As Arithel approached she noticed that another body lay beneath those two, with its legs, one arm, and the top part of the head sticking out. Arithel saw the tousled brown hair and the gold trim of the cloak and knew it was Fallon.
With Zander’s help, she shoved the other two bodies off him. Fallon was still and his eyes were closed. He was covered in dust and dirt. One side of his face was swollen, as if he had been stepped on. His chest rose and fell, and his limbs were not bent and twisted like the other victims of the riot.
Arithel smiled with relief and shook him. There was no response. She feared that even though he was alive, his brain had been shaken so badly that he might be little more than a vegetable. He would be like Godwin Walker, some sort of wraith shitting himself. Arithel felt her eyes moisten; she pulled his body onto her lap. “Wake, Fallon, wake!” She nervously slapped his cheeks. “I know you’re in there. I can see you breathing.”
Arithel bit her lip and pried apart his eyelids. She did not know why she was doing it—perhaps to reassure herself that he was not a shell.
Fallon coughed, the dust on his lips flying into the air. He weakly brushed Arithel’s hand aside and opened his eyes.
“Thank Agron.” She sighed and helped him sit up.
He looked absolutely bewildered as his eyes roved about. He coughed for several minutes, spitting out blood. He complained that his ribs hurt.
Arithel beat on his back to clear his lungs. He noticed Meldane and Zander and told Arithel, “Don’t.”
Fallon slowly rose to his feet. They all retreated to the nearest alleyway, away from the Nureenians.
“I was looking for you when the cannons went off. One nearly took off my head. I never experienced anything like that,” Arithel told her friend.
Fallon mumbled something incomprehensible. Meldane handed him a canteen.
“I almost got stomped to death. I’m not going to feel very well for the next couple weeks,” Fallon said, spitting out another mouthful of blood and dirt between words.
He coughed more.
“Don’t waste your breath talking,” Arithel advised.
She could not help but remember that just hours earlier, Fallon had bent her over a barrel and smacked her for impertinence. It was a surreal memory. She could not picture him doing it now.
“I’m fine. Just all the dust, the smoke… mud, too,” he said.
“How’d you end up buried like that? Did the dead folk shit themselves?” Meldane laughed a bit.
Fallon was not amused.
“I don’t remember. Two people beside me were hit by crossbow bolts. That’s the last thing I saw.”
“You won’t be any worse for wear,” Meldane said.
“I hope not,” Fallon answered.
He turned to Arithel and almost took her hands in his. “I’m sorry I lost you.”
“Don’t be,” she said. “We are alive. Who knows how it would have turned out otherwise?”
He breathed and leaned against a building.
As Fallon rested, Zander and Meldane talked amongst themselves.
Meldane observed, “Hard to believe what they did to an innocent crowd. They could have just tossed some bread to scatter them. There is plenty in the inner quarter.”
“They had to do it. Those people would have torn the whole city down given the chance, even if it meant gouging out their own eyes in the process. I would have made the same call,” Fallon said.
“Rich words coming from someone nearly killed in the mess,” Meldane pointed out.
“I’m a realist.”
Arithel did not think that was true. There was certainly nothing realistic about taking Darren to Paden with the goal of eventually presenting him as some lost prince. There was nothing realistic about his quasi-religious devotion to an exiled Nureenian doctor…
“Lady Arithel here tells me you want to make an offer,” Meldane said.
“I thought you weren’t interested,” Arithel said.
“I may have changed my heart a little.”
One of Nureenians rode up to them and rebuked them for being in streets. They all lifted their arms in surrender immediately. The soldier pointed his lance at Zander. His black eyes darted nervously at each of their weapons, resting longest upon the broadsword on Meldane’s back.
“We start curfew in hour. After that, we will have no choice but to shoot. Go back to your homes,” he barked.
“Sir,” Fallon said, his hands behind his head. “Could we get passage back to the middle quarter? It was an accident becoming entangled in all this. Surely you can determine that by our manner and dress. We’re merchants.”
The guard appraised them all skeptically. Fallon opened his bag, and handed the man a fistful of cuplets. “All for yourself, sir.”
Arithel was surprised he had been able to hold onto it during the riot.
The soldier nodded and lowered his spear. He beckoned for them to follow him to the gate and ordered the wheel-crankers to open it. The great iron door creaked just a little and they slipped through.
“We can discuss my offer at our place,” Fallon told Meldane with a smile.
Chapter Thirty
They arrived back at Widow White’s. As soon as they walked through the door, she said: “New friends, eh? Remember what I said about keeping your dealings away from here?”
Fallon responded by dumping a pile of coins atop of her breakfast table.
“You could have just said so,” she muttered. After scooping up the change, she disappeared into her husband’s office, slamming the door.
Fallon led them upstairs. Zander hit his head on the ceiling and cursed it.
They burst into Darren’s room without warning. Fallon opened the door and declared dramatically, “This, my good Northmen, is our weapon.”
Darren was sitting on his bed, looking slightly confused. Mira was hunched atop a stool by the window, knitting a pair of woolen gloves. Arithel wondered if she was making them for herself or someone else.
“Am I missing something?” Meldane said, walking around the room. He barked an order at Zander.
Zander immediately opened the wardrobe and pawed through it. The contents were mostly Widow White’s clothes. He overturned a chest and hacked at the lock with his axe.
“The boy. Isn’t it obvious?” Fallon said.
Meldane pointed at Darren. “This milksop here? What’s he going do for us?”
Arithel caught Mira goggling at Meldane’s teeth. She could not blame her; after all, they were as pearly and even as Darren’s. She supposed in a hard country like Paden, even princes rarely tasted sweets.
“That was not very respectful,” Darren said.
“Do you know who you’re talking with, Darren?” Fallon asked.
“No...”
“The man before you is a prince of Paden, Meldane Dusaldr. That’s right, true royalty.”
Meldane appeared embarrassed by the introduction.
Darren nodded, his eyes wide and unblinking. Arithel knew Elspeth’s prophecy must have come to his mind.
He stood up and bowed. “I am honored to meet you, my lord.” Mira followed Darren’s lead, and awkwardly curtsied to the Northman. Her breasts nearly spilled from her chemise as she leaned over. Arithel didn’t understand Mira. Despite the self-professed shame of her past, she still drew her stays so tight that it must have been difficult for her to breathe.
“That’s not necessary, boy. I’m no prince anymore,” Meldane said.
“You still have the right blood, aye? Blood stays the same, as long as you live,” Fallon said.
“What is this all about?” Meldane asked. He sat down at the foot of Darren’s bed. Zander walked over to the door, and stood imposingly in front of it.
Fallon retrieved his smoking paraphernalia and prepared his pipe. “Meldane, I am sure you are more than aware of what Tiresias did to the ruling family of Nureen, how he usurped their throne.”
“Yeah,�
� Meldane said, clearly unimpressed.
Fallon lit his pipe and offered Meldane the first drag. The Northman refused.
Arithel recognized Fallon’s methods by now; he would build a sense of wonder and mystery, using his stories and the atmosphere of the room to lull Meldane into a sort of foggy bemusement that would make him open to suggestion.
“I am sure you knew that the second eldest daughter, Milisandia—the nun—was not actually killed in the massacre, being housed at a remote convent in the world’s most forbidding and inaccessible peaks, the Shadow Mountains. When she learned that Tiresias was marching on the capital, she recognized the danger and fled east. On the road, she was seduced by an Ered-Linnean knight, Sir Kelser. From that union—and few knew of this, it was only recently that Morden himself found out—she bore a healthy son. She intended to seek shelter in Neldor but none of the nobles she pleaded with answered her letters. She went into hiding in Northern Elinmoor. She assumed a new identity, ‘Magda,’ and lived like a common vagrant. Unfortunately, she succumbed to madness about ten years ago and disappeared. She left her son behind in the care of the kindly old farmers who had kept her from starvation. Darren here is that son, the lost heir, the golden child that never was.”
“Magda was my mother! Magda was the princess?” Darren said incredulously, his eyes moist with disbelief. “It can’t be… she… she was a witch! This isn’t the way the story went the first time. Surely that woman who raised me was… was someone else. Milisandia, you said, was a nun.”
Arithel almost laughed. Apparently a nun eventually succumbing to witchcraft and madness was inconceivable in his universe.
“Quiet,” Fallon commanded. “It’s more complicated than you think. We’ll discuss the details later.”
Meldane smiled. “You can’t even keep your story straight, lapdog. I am supposed to take this at face value?”
“Why shouldn’t you? He has the right blood. You know Morden has ways, ways in which he gathers the absolute truth in all his endeavors. This lad here, this strong and stout sixteen-year-old youth, is the rightful ruler and heir to all Nureen, all its empire. Morden will know him when he arrives in Paden. His people will know him when he charges through the gates of Mt. Aerys. His blood will reveal the truth.”