JET 8.8: ROYAL REQUEST
“Let the wind pick you up and carry you away. Do not be afraid to lose yourself. What are you really afraid of risking? Lose yourself! You’ll no longer spend the nights frightened beneath the bedsheets, listening to the darkness whispering. You’ll whisper from it! You’ll lounge in the dark places and laugh in mockery at the pitiful creatures tiptoeing by.”
– from ‘Grandfather’s Open Arms’
“Okay guys, that’ll do. Perfect, good work!”
I waved down at my demons, returning most of them to Infernum. Pinktongue I placed back on my shoulder, where I left him most of the time now. The Scaleshaker’s captain was always giving me the stink-eye, muttering ‘warlock’ like it was a curse-word – I’d found that a visible reminder of my power was enough to keep him away, keep him and his glare off my back.
But a fair few of the crew didn’t seem to share his inhibitions. Horvin stood a few feet from me, a senior sailor with a long, thin brown beard and laughing eyes, and he applauded absent-mindedly as he perused what I’d achieved. The ships into Telior had to basically wait in a queue as the harbour wizards worked their way back and forth across the bay, breaking up the ice. Most ships didn’t have access to bintaborax weaponry and imp-fire, though, and I wasn’t staying on a boat a minute longer than I had to – the dark elves had already made me throw discretion to the cold north winds.
Horvin gave a few commands, and within a couple of minutes the ship started moving again. Ahead of us, Telior waited.
Telior looked like a gigantic ship that had beached itself against the black cliffs and then mated with the rocks, forming a horizontal forest of intertwined buildings, roots driven into the windswept coastline. The morning was grey – grey skies, grey seas – and there still had to be a thousand lanterns burning yellow-orange along the wooden town’s spray-soaked walkways, thousands more behind its salt-stained glass windows.
Not town – city. Sure, it wasn’t even as big as Salnifast, I supposed, and certainly it had none of the port-city’s beauty. But having seen Blackice Bay and Irontooth Gates, I knew the difference between a town and a city now. This was the latter. It was built on dozens of levels, each seemingly connected by various spans, ramps, stairs, ladders – even ropes… And in these harsh conditions, there was activity everywhere I looked. Thousands of people, streaming along the rickety-looking bridges, many bearing burdens under their arms or on their shoulders. I could even pick out the richer districts, where ramshackle constructions of various timbers gave way to ancient-looking structures of a single hue. These halls were weathered all the same, but had been curiously crafted with sweeping arches, struts shaped like the arcs made by fish leaping from the water.
I looked up at the dreary sky. If today was anything like yesterday, or the day before, the lights would be burning all day long anyway. Grey was the name of the game, when it came to these dire places at the ends of the earth. We were probably as far north as Zadhal, here, if the maps were to be trusted.
I faced into the wind, turning my attention to the twins as they came up onto the deck, clad in the warmest clothing I’d grabbed them before leaving Mund. I had my thick woollen vest and hose on under my robe, and both the pairs of socks I was wearing were pulled up to my knees, but at least I had the wraith to help me. I could tell they were suffering with the cold, even wrapped in furs, but Jaid was doing her best to hide it, looking off at the city with the familiar distance in her eyes. Meanwhile, Jaroan was indulging in his opportunity to moan, revelling in his shivers by flinging his body about dramatically, proclaiming his discomfort loudly with every passing moment – every slow, excruciating moment, sand being squeezed through the eye of time’s hourglass like blood squeezed from a pricked vein.
I reminded myself not to get attached to Telior. We’d be moving on as soon as Jaid’s boots hit the boardwalks, I was quite certain. We had left it up to her, after all.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
As we finally approached our dock, I heard the choral music of Enye’s singers rising above the crashing of the waves on the piers, and I wished things could be different. I liked this place. I felt it in my soul already. I wanted to stay, if only for awhile. I was intrigued by the fact they had weather-magicians here, and wondered what I might be able to achieve in a place like this. The Magisterium had a long reach, but I was beyond their remit now. If I adopted a new name, cut my hair a bit, kept a glamour up to cover the scar… we could fit in here with little adjustment.
But I had to ignore what I wanted, yet again. I knew in my bones, I couldn’t be satisfied until they were happy. Both of them. Maybe that meant I’d never be happy again, never be able to look myself in the eye in the mirror and know peace –
– the last one slipped and slid through the blood, snarling against the pain of her injuries, clawing with delicate fingers at the contorted robes and slick flesh of her fallen comrades in a desperate attempt to escape; but her gleaming hair became caught on the treacherous belt-buckle of a dead man, and the predator caught up with her, extending a hand to cut off her pitiful struggle, letting her own redness join the river –
– but I had to do what was right by them, or die trying.
Maybe – just maybe – one day they would be settled, wherever we ended up, and I could go back…
“What’re you thinking about?” Jaroan asked me suspiciously, striding over.
“Nothing,” I lied. “This place… It looks cool, to me.”
“Me too.” You couldn’t tell from his expressionless expression. He glanced without the least covertness over his shoulder at Jaid. “We’re going to be outvoted by the minority, though.”
“My thoughts exactly.” I did my best to smile. “You never know your luck, eh?”
“No, you do.” He frowned, and curled his lip at Telior. “That’s why we’re here, isn’t it? Why we had to go.”
I put my hand on his shoulder, and he recoiled, shrugged me away.
“Okay, whatever.” I put my arm back down. “Can you hear that, Jaid? That’s the Daffodil Chant, only the words are different.”
She came up towards the rail, turning her nose up at the familiar music floating across the broken ice. “It’s cold, Kas. I don’t like it here.”
Jaroan moaned theatrically, flinging his arms up in his best imitation of our sister.
“Horvin,” I said, turning aside to face the man, “do you have archmages here in Telior?”
He was conversing in Telese with one of his subordinates, but he turned to me and replied in Mundic.
“There are two. Two archmage. Sin-Aidre – Greenheart, you vould call her in your tongue. She is a… How do you say? Mender?”
“Healer? A druid?”
“Druid.” The bearded sailor nodded. “She does not take payment. No one knows her true name. She vill appear, and she vill leave. She has many shape.”
A champion, basically, then… But without the Magisterium – without receiving payment – what would she do for a living?
“And the second?”
“Orcan Finfaltik. He is – vizard. He has saved Telior many time. But he is old. He has book from your Mund, and teach many vot he knows – ve hope enough.”
I looked back at the open sea, the shrouded sky, and I understood.
“How did you get on before Orcan?” I asked.
“There vere more magician before. More archmage. More people, before Black Vinter.” He shrugged, turning back to his colleague. “Immonaz o camogh si it af alent…”
I looked back at the pier-coated coastline, the jabbering crowds. I could make out faces, now. These people looked happy, on the whole. There was little shiftiness to their expressions and they seemed to greet one another merrily-enough as they went about their business.
Yet, if there had been a decline in the population… Was this place on its way out? What was the Black Winter? Horvin didn’t seem keen on explaining, for whatever reason, yet he’d usually been forthcoming with information whenever I’d asked. I’d learned from him that Telior paid its tribute to Mund in the form of rare pearls discovered in the bellies of certain aquatic monsters – Mund’s navy laid claims to all the oceans, apparently, and for hundreds of years Telior’s kings had bowed and scraped before the magical empire’s envoys. He didn’t seem to mind discussing topics that might frame his society as less than perfect, which made his reticence now all the more intriguing.
We finally drew up to the quayside, the Scaleshaker surrounded in bobbing ice-floes, melted to their gleaming white cores by wizardry. I paid the shifty-eyed captain, letting a single gorgeous gold coin fall into his grubby palm, then gestured for the twins to go ashore ahead of me. They disembarked, and I followed them, dismissing Pinktongue as I went.
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