Alexa Drey- the Veils of Lamerell

by Ember Lane

  “Are you aware,” he said, “that we are in a country called Irydia?”

  “Yes,” I replied. “A newt told me.” I didn’t feel the slightest bit strange about it.

  “Hmmm,” Greman said. “I’ll ignore that remark. Where was I? Oh yes, Irydia. By this land’s standards, it’s a fair-sized country. The capital of Irydia is Brokenford, and one of its most powerful lords, Lord Zybandian, lives in Castle Zybond. The road Merrivale is on is the main trade route, The Silver Road, between the two places, and it forks toward Shyantium too, so it’s a busy place.”

  “What’s Shyantium?”

  “The wizard’s little country,” Petroo scoffed. “A place of unrivalled incompetence, bureaucracy, and procrastination, just as you’d expect. Ah, here we are. After you, Alexa.”

  I looked up to see we’d arrived at a substantial building on the corner of an intersection of two roads. It had mottled, quartered windows, a large pair of double front doors, and looking up, I saw a sign dangling down—a painted depiction of a dragon flying above a unicorn.

  Greman held the door open for me, a burst of mumbled conversations floated out over me, and he pushed me in. I could just make out Marista, Shylan, Cronis, and Gromolor, plus another man hunched over a table in the far corner, seemingly deep in thought. As I walked toward them, the place fell silent, and folk started to back away from me.

  Behind the bar counter, I noticed a large, grim-looking woman staring at me. “Get out,” her voice rumbled, echoing with threat, and a large club appeared in her hand. Marista looked up, as if torn from her conversation, and then all hell broke loose. I looked behind me to grab Petroo or Greman’s hand, but neither were anywhere to be seen. Marista was on her feet, marching toward me, and the woman behind the counter had rounded it and was closing in on me, with menace. Drunken men growled and surrounded me, their faces flushed red, leaning in, breathing ale-soaked curses. I tried to shrink away, but was trapped. The burly barmaid closed farther—club held high.

  Marista slithered between the advancing barkeep and me, with inches to spare.

  “She’s with me, believe it or not,” Marista said.

  “This bloodied scamp? You sure, Lady Fenwalker?”

  “Get her an ale.” Marista sighed, “and if there’s anything left in the pot, a bowl of it. I doubt she’s eaten. If you could take her to the kitchen and lend her a bowl of water so she might clean the blood off her face, that would be a boon. Oh, and you’ll probably find an apachalant and a beggle in there. Use the club to bring them out. They have some explaining to do.”

  The woman took a great gulp of air and let out a slow, hissing breath. “I take it I’ll be adding it to your tally?”

  “You will. This is my companion, Alexa. I fear she has had a busier afternoon than I.” Marista studied me. “Quite the productive one too,” she added, and returned to her table, leaving me with the fearsome woman, who then dragged me around the bar’s counter.

  “Name’s Shelby, you can call me Shel, or Shelby, your choice. I answer to both. What I don’t answer to is rudeness; my club does—and hard—so bear that in mind. What on earth have you been up to? It’s just down here—the kitchen. Mind though, it’s quite narrow.”

  I wondered what I should tell her, but luckily, she just kept rambling on. She raised a flap in the counter and ushered me into the kitchen. I caught Petroo and Greman red-handed, spoons in the cooking pot. They both looked up, startled.

  “Alexa, we were just looking for you…” Greman mumbled.

  “Yes, just…” said Petroo.

  “Get out of my pot,” growled Shelby, and she raised the club menacingly.

  Petroo and Greman dashed past her and back out into the taproom. I was stuck with the strange woman. Though she did give me a bowl to wash in, and even ladled some warm water into it to ease the chill.

  “There,” she said. “Alexa, it was Alexa, wasn’t it? Hell of a night you’ve had, haven’t you. Was it bandits? Tell me it wasn’t bandits again. My sister lives in Thickwick, I hope she’s alright. Now, once you’re freshened up, you just nip back out and sit with the good lady and her servants, and I’ll bring out three hearty broths for you latecomers. Star’s behind the counter, she’ll pour you a drink.” Her words spilled out, almost tumbling over each other in a bid to be spoken.

  I hung back, though Shelby set about her tasks and appeared to have forgotten me. “Star” I thought. Was it too much of a coincidence that the girl was called Star, and I’d seen one explode a few nights ago. I pinched my eyes. I was being stupid. Taking a breath, I ducked under the bar flap and prepared to face Marista. As I reappeared in the bar, I noticed most folk stop chatting briefly and look me up and down.

  “They’ve never seen a human dressed as a pixie afore,” a soft, purring voice drifted over me.

  “A pixie?” I said, spinning around.

  Leaning on the bar, a conspiratorial look gracing her pale face, was a girl who I assumed was Star. She was about my age, and my heart nearly leapt for joy. While I loved Greman, Shylan and the rest, they were much older than the company I would have kept before.

  “Star?” I asked.

  She pushed her curly, blond hair up, tilted her head slightly, and looked at me out of the corners of her deep, blue eyes.

  “Who wants to know?”

  That stumped me.

  “I… I…” I said, wondering if I’d said something wrong, but her grin told me she was playing, and she pushed herself off the counter and did a little twirl.

  “I wish I had a pixie getup, I’d trim the sleeves, and the gloves don’t really go, and you can’t see much…” And she nodded at my chest and winked.

  Star, I assumed it was Star, was wearing a thin, cotton, summer dress, that left little to the imagination. She smiled and laughed as she waltzed up to one end of the bar and then back to other. “Do you want an ale?” her voice sang out.

  I nodded and said yes, making my way around the bar to Marista and the rest. Something about Star’s demeanor made me a little wary of her. She danced all the way over to me and put my ale on the counter. “There,” she said, “and on the stiff lady’s tab, no doubt.” I swept it up, bid her thank you, and slunk away.

  “The way that girl behaves is nothing more than a disgrace,” Marista said, her eyes darting past me—thankfully—her nose high in the air, soon lowering, along with her gaze, until her eyes fell on me. “Sit, please, Alexa. It is time we talked.”

  Marista sat at the table’s end; beside her were Gromolor, and the man I didn’t recognize, but I swear he was doing his best to ignore me. He had the strangest of hair, all angles and points as though it was usually straight and he’d been running his fingers through it time and again. He looked a little older than me, though not by too much, and a wicked grin adorned his quite handsome face.

  Opposite them, Shylan, Cronis, Greman, and then Petroo, sat in a line. I shuffled in next to Marista and opposite the Apachalant prince. As soon as I was seated, Shelby waddled over with three broths and some flat bread. Just its smell made my mouth water, and though it was no great banquet, I tore chunks off the dry bread and spooned in the strange-tasting broth. I could almost feel my energy straining to stay within its limits.

  Marista was clearly biding her time, and the moment I put my spoon down, she began. Except it wasn’t quite what I expected.

  “We, all except…” She indicated the man at the end, but I noticed he was looking out of the window beside him, taking no note of the conversation. “We made a mistake, and for that we are sorry,” she spat out, and then made a face like she had a mouth full of wasps.

  “We all are,” mumbled Greman.

  “Nearly got you killed,” added Petroo.

  “She did fine,” said Shylan.

  “Excelled,” agreed Cronis.

  “True,” Marista continued. “True or not, we still put you in harm’s way. How on earth you defeated a Katrox—”

  “I think Petroo did it, I just stabbed it in the n
eck.”

  “No child, you ended its possession. Petroo’s arrows were not capable of ousting a demon, weakening it, yes, defeating, no.”

  “So you think I…”

  Marista nodded. “I know; I can see your stats. I also know that you called on magic that you couldn’t possibly know, and that is a mystery to me. Do you have any idea how?”

  “I just struck the dwarven king. I don’t think I used any magic.”

  “You must have. How else could you have leveled your magic to five and opened spell casting, and that other mana?”

  Greman cleared his throat. “You did shout a curse, but I thought it just that, thought it probably a phrase from your land.”

  “I did?”

  “Yes, let me think. You shouted, ‘Ga farag a…’ something.”

  I shrugged my shoulders.

  “Ga farag a’tweeth,” the man at the end of the table announced.

  “Are you familiar with the language, Flip?” Marista asked, and I immediately recognized the name from Cronis’s book—the mysterious Flip.

  “It is an old tongue, not even a language really—just a few words spoken before stone clamped their lips. Most all of its native speakers no longer speak, so to speak,” and then the man sprang up onto the table. One moment he’d been slumped on his seat, the next he was over me, standing on the table. He jumped off and faced me, bending on one knee. He fished out my hand from under the table and pulled it to his silken lips. It was then I noticed his eyes glowed gold.

  “Alexa Drey, Petroo told me this bunch had no manners. My name is Prince Chukwuemeka Conchobar Cyneweard of The Five Isles, but that is a bit of a mouthful, so you can call me Flip.”

  He was truly enchanting.

  Gromolor huffed and shuffled along the bench. Marista sighed and did likewise, and I budged up so that Flip could sit next to me.

  “Now,” he said, “it is quite clear that these good folk cannot protect you.”

  Shylan scoffed.

  “Blah,” spat Cronis.

  “But you see, what do you expect from them? Cronis here, well he’s so old he remembers the land before the mists themselves fell, and Shylan was his apprentice—so only marginally behind. Greman, well his burden can only be untangled from his mind by the most careful of fingers. Marista has the weight of the world on her shoulders, and Petroo is torn by two loves.”

  “Enough, pirate,” growled Petroo, but Flip merely raised a hand, his eyes glinting gold, and Petroo settled.

  “Gromolor thinks the throne of the dwarven king should be his and not Ishitar’s—all these distractions will keep their minds off the task at hand,” he said, his voice trailing away.

  “So you’d do better?” I asked.

  He got up and took the seat. “Alexa, I can train you to throw a knife and split a cherry in two. I can show you the way of the sword, the ax, the lasso. Potions, poisons and elixirs are a side specialty of mine. Disguise, stealth...” He raised his fingers and started counting them down. “pickpocketing, shadow jumping, how to climb a sheer wall, how to slide down the same.” He cupped my chin with his outstretched palm and let his golden eyes bear down on me. “So, in short, yes. I can teach you how to survive.” He held a last finger up. “And I excel at the staff.”

  I was speechless. Eventually, I managed a thank you. He ruffled his hair, and beamed.

  “You’re very welcome,” he said. “We start tomorrow on the way to Castle Zybond,” and then he yawned, stood, and announced he was done for the night, but as he made his way out, he hesitated.

  “Ga farag a’tweeth,” he shouted, and swiveled around, leaping back to the table, his hands planted on it, his face leaning into Marista’s. “It is from the few words spoken by the graveling shaman before they completely turned to stone—thus it hasn’t been heard in an age—if ever—and would not be recognized by Tongues of Time.”

  “Graveling? How could she know that?”

  He twitched a smile. “She can’t, no one can, and that’s the fun of it.”

  “So, what does it mean?”

  “Ga means Go.” He grinned a wicked grin.

  “A’tweeth is To Yourself.” He put one finger in the air.

  “Ironically, Farag has no real translation. It means—” He left his next word hanging, unspoken for a moment. “It means what it means, and what it means is bring death, but so much more,” and he winked at me. I melted a bit, a lot.

  “Well, that’s some odd spell,” Marista said, her voice curiously detached.

  Flip stood up, a bored look on his face. “Oh well,” he said, and danced off, and out of the door. His head soon poked back in. “Star!” he shouted, “are you coming?” And Star leapt the bar and followed him out.

  “He is,” Shylan muttered.

  “Unique,” Greman finished off.

  15

  What’s Plain To See

  I woke to the sound of stones bouncing off the thick, bottle-green window of the bedroom I was sharing with Marista. She was sound asleep, as if she was rarely afforded the luxury of a bed. Hoping it would go away, I pulled the rough blankets over my head and closed my eyes again.

  Tap, tap, tap.

  Eventually, I sighed and got up, opened the window and peered out. Flip was in the street looking up. He held five fingers up, and I took that to mean minutes. Suddenly, my heart started pumping. All the things he’d said he’d train me in coursed through my mind. After the fluke in the dwarven city, I didn’t want to have to rely on luck quite so much again. Then it dawned on me, my Luck was only six with enhancements, and I hadn’t pumped any points into it. With twelve unallocated, I decided to add six to luck and six to intelligence. The way I saw it, I needed intelligence for magic, and luck to survive. As soon as I’d done it, I felt that familiar glow in my stomach.

  Looking around at Marista, I saw she was still asleep. The glow grew and grew within me, roiling, bursting trying to break free. I tried to hold it in, to stop it busting out and waking Marista, but it consumed me in a ball of bright light, pulling my feet off the ground.

  Congratulations! You have 40 allocated attribute points. You are progressing nicely. Barakdor awards you 2500 XP. You’re getting the hang of this game.

  Congratuations! You have reached Level 6. You have 6 unallocated attribute points.

  The ball of light faded, and I settled back onto the floor.

  “Too early,” Marista mumbled and turned over.

  I was beaming from ear to ear. I dumped half the points in intelligence and half in charisma, figuring I might need to talk myself out of some sticky situations in this land. Quite proud of myself, I dressed quickly and left the room, bounding down the stairs and out to meet Flip.

  “Now that makes a change,” he said.

  “What does?”

  “Someone actually taking five to get ready. Now, first things first. Have you got any weapons?”

  “A knife,” I said.

  “Show me.”

  I took my strange sack out from inside my tunic, reached in and groped around. Pricking my finger on the knife, I swore.

  “Haven’t they even showed you how to use the sack?”

  I shook my head.

  “Walk with me.” He set off up the narrow street. “Now, I’m going to assume you know nothing and try and teach you everything. Rivers and streams and towns and villages—that is the first lesson. Always wash upstream. Never trust an inn to fill your morning bowl with upstream water, always go seek it out yourself.”

  “Why?” I asked, but it dawned on me right away. “Eww,” I said, and he grunted a laugh.

  “You can’t escape it, but you can do your best to avoid it. Now, what do you want to learn first?”

  We’d walked over the crossroads and were following a narrow, stony road up a gentle slope. The buildings on either side stole most of the morning light, the occasional burst of amber breaking through, making me squint. A couple of times, I felt Flip’s hand on the back of my tunic almost pulling me back. It was
like he was trying to manage the pace I was walking at, and I wondered if it was the start of my training. Then, without saying anything, he near shoved me down a tight side alley.

  The alley was a mess of sluice buckets, empty crates and piles of old, dirty straw. Flip grabbed my hand and picked up his pace even further. I looked behind me but could see nothing—nothing that would explain Flip’s actions, and then he slowed right down, pulled me into yet another dark and dingy alley. We dashed down it for a hundred yards or so, and he turned again.

  “I think we’re being followed,” he hissed.

  I nodded, bit my lip, but said nothing. After the feeling I’d had outside the vale, after the incident with the Katrox, I wasn’t about to dismiss his fears lightly. We’d turned in near enough a complete circle, and so I wasn’t surprised to walk across the small main road we’d been following in the first place. Flip stopped dead in the middle of it, threw his arms up in the air and put his hands on his hips.

  “I think we are lost, Alexa,” he announced, a little louder than needed.

  Looking around, I knew the inn was just down the road we were standing on and was fairly sure that Flip was playacting, so I mimicked his stance and looked up and down the road. I couldn’t be sure, but I thought I saw someone hanging back, lurking in the shadows. After a couple of minutes, Flip ruffled his hair, pointed down the alleyway opposite and set off, dragging me with him. We marched right to the alley’s end and out onto a mud bank that sloped down to the valley’s river.

  Flip turned upstream, and we forged on until we came to Merrivale’s stockade. Here, the bank had been built up into a balcony, with a wide set of steps leading down to the water.

  “Quite civilized for this high up in the mountains,” Flip muttered, and walked down the steps to the river’s edge. Sitting, he took his boots, jacket and tunic off, rolled his pant legs up and hopped into the flowing water. “Need to wash away last night’s ale and merriment,” he said, smiled, and started washing.