Chapter Twenty-Nine
Druadaen smiled at Shaananca. “Your timing is, as ever, singular.”
“So you mention almost every time you see me.” She surveyed the group, fixed her eyes on the mantic. “Master Elweyr, I have news.”
“For me?”
“Yes, regarding your parents. I took the liberty of looking into their disappearance.”
Elweyr darted a look at Druadaen; it was simultaneously resentful and grateful.
“Druadaen neither requested I make inquiries, nor knew I was doing so,” Shaananca added.
Elweyr frowned. “Then how did you know I’m looking for them?”
“I was able to ascertain,” she continued as if the thaumantic had not asked her a question, “that they are alive, safe, and in a secure place but living under different names.”
“What? Where? Why haven’t they—?”
“Unfortunately, for the time being, it seems that they must remain incognito. So it would probably be safer for them if you did not investigate further. At this time.”
Ahearn squinted at Shaananca and then looked toward his friend. “And that’s all you’re going to hear on the matter, unless I am misreading my Dunarrans.”
She seemed not to have heard that comment, either. “I regret that you have not had the opportunity to visit Tlulanxu before undertaking another journey.”
“And how is it that you know we don’t intend to stay awhile?” Ahearn asked.
Her laugh was musical but brief. “Well, firstly, I am not deaf, and yours was not the conversation of a company that has agreed to part ways. So I presume you leave with Druadaen this eve. Secondly, you have not made arrangements to take a boat to the trade quarter, where you would be able to debark.”
“Aye, that’s right,” Ahearn seemed to recall suddenly, “we’re not allowed inside, are we? Keep the riffraff where you can watch ’em, eh?” His tone was merry; his eyes were not.
Her eyes shifted sideways to meet his, unblinking. “It was not always thus, but it became so after the fall of the First Consentium. It was a decision we greatly regretted. But we learned terrible lessons about how even such harmless, oblique jibes as that one can eventually grow into true resentment and hatred.”
Umkhira’s gaze was untroubled, her voice wondering. “You ruled the world. You did not say so. But you did. Yet you did not anticipate that familiarity and mastery cannot long occupy the same tent? How could you be so wise in other matters and so blind in that one?”
Shaananca’s smile became sad as she nodded. “A very fair point and a very good question. And you see how steadfastly we have corrected our imprudent idealism.” She shrugged. “We never sought nor declared mastery, so we presumed they would never be imputed to us.”
S’ythreni’s voice was actually respectful. “Hasn’t enough time passed for the Propretoriate to consider adopting a more moderate course?”
She smiled. “Some propose that. Many more advise against it. In fact, until almost a decade ago, we were making progress. And then…” She shrugged and glanced at Druadaen. “I imagine he has mentioned the attack by the S’Dyxoi, just before he began his time as a Courier.” When she was met with blank stares, she added. “The one he helped repel?” The blank stares widened into surprise and rotated toward Druadaen. Shaananca’s gaze followed theirs, puzzled. “Well, then, I shall tell you—”
Druadaen shook his head. “No time for that. We must board soon.”
Ahearn had folded his massive arms, looked terribly amused. “Now, now, we’ve a few spare minutes. Do tell us, good my Ar mistress.”
Druadaen started. How is it that everyone else can figure out that she’s a follower of the Ar? He turned toward her. “Why have you never told me you are a follower of the Ar?”
Her smile was actually impish. “You never asked.” Before Druadaen could fashion a rhetorical riposte, Shaananca turned to Ahearn. “I almost forgot; I have something that might help you. Well, your dog.” She glanced down at Raun, who stared up at her. “Most dogs do not enjoy the sea. I suspect he is like most of his breed in this?”
“Aye, an’ ye have that right enough. He retches on a short ferry across still waters. Bog only knows how he’ll manage a voyage across the great ocean-sea.”
“Perhaps this will help,” Shaananca murmured, holding out her hand.
There was a shiny steel bracelet just above her wrist. In the space of a single second, the glimmer of the metal seemed to deepen, became like that of a mirror seen through a great depth of pure mountain water. The reflections in it were crisp, lifelike, moved with perfect fluidity…
As did the bracelet itself. It swiftly unfurled itself from around her wrist, the loop flowing into a new shape: a startlingly lifelike image of a dragon. Or, maybe it was…?
Ahearn leaned away from it, almost toppling backward. “Ai! Now what is that? Living jewelry?”
“No,” Shaananca explained patiently, “it is a velene.”
“A what, now?”
“A Restorer,” S’ythreni supplied, almost warily. “Or, at least that is one way to interpret the word.” She studied Shaananca from beneath straight, cautious brows. “It’s Uulamantrene,” she said. Druadaen wasn’t sure if she was talking about the word or the velene itself.
“Well,” Shaananca said through a chuckle, “there are some abroad in the world who might debate that.”
“Oh?” Ahearn asked guilelessly. “And who would those be?”
“The velene,” Shaananca explained as if she hadn’t heard that question either, “should be able to help your canine companion travel the waves in reasonable comfort. He can drowse through much of the unpleasant motion, if you will permit the assistance.”
Ahearn frowned. “What kind of assistance? Or, more to the point, how is it rendered? Will this vermine, er, vermeen, stick my poor pup with a barb? Poison it with a sleeping potion?”
Shaananca shook her head and put her hand down toward the dog.
The velene was a serpentine stream of liquid mirror-steel as it ran from the back of Shaananca’s weathered hand onto Raun’s nose.
The dog was either too surprised or amazed to react. Until, that is, the velene started to hum. Not in its narrow throat, but through its entire body.
Raun’s eyes widened, then returned to normal, then became heavy-lidded. He lay down at Ahearn’s feet. In less than ten seconds, he was emitting the wheezing grunts that were the canine equivalent of light snoring.
“By damn,” breathed the swordsman.
Shaananca nodded. “Velene are quite helpful.” She lowered her hand; the shining dracoform ran back up along its strong cords and age-swollen veins but did not revert into a bracelet.
Ahearn stared at it, then looked uncertainly at Shaananca. “It’s a great kindness, ma’am, you giving us this metal beastie as—”
“Understand: a velene is not a gift.” It ran up her arm and perched on her shoulder. Its head and neck strained toward Druadaen. “Ah,” she said, and edged closer; it leaped up and in one smooth motion, was not merely perched but coiled upon Druadaen’s shoulder.
It was surprisingly light and had no discernible smell: just a hint of the odor that lingers in the moment after a lightning strike. He turned his head to meet its gaze, but it only had the shape of eyes, like the face of a statue. It flowed down his arm, swept its tail once around his wrist—and suddenly was a bracelet again.
Ahearn shook his head and scoffed, but there was genuine jocularity in it. “Ah, so it chooses…although I wager that choice was never in doubt, eh?”
Shaananca shrugged, smiled at S’ythreni. “I believe there is an ironic aphorism in ancient Uulamantre: ‘as predictable as a velene.’ But it is much more beautiful in that tongue.”
“Fey-hethre sha velene sotu,” S’ythreni almost whispered. “I never thought to witness the source of the saying.” She bowed her head slightly; Druadaen was not certain whether she meant it for Shaananca or the velene.
Ahearn’s calculating gaze bounced between the two of them and then Druadaen. “Ah. So, magistra, you thought the silvery serpent might cozy up to high-ears, here.”
Shaananca shrugged. “I did not speculate. As the axiom implies, it is as futile as trying to guess where any given raindrop may fall. However,” she said with a smile and more animated tone, “we may safely predict at least two things. First, that I must make my way to my home and my supper. And second, that you must finish the spirited discussion I interrupted.”
Umkhira shook her head. “I am quite glad to be done comparing the ways of our peoples.”
Shaananca nodded slowly, smiled. “Yes…although that was not what you were actually discussing.”
She firmly embraced a surprised Druadaen and turned quickly, departing with a quick step behind the crates which had shielded her approach.
“Now what do you s’pose she meant by that?” wondered Ahearn, staring after her with an expression of both perplexity and admiration.
Elweyr looked up. “She means that we were determining if we could actually work together.”
“Ah,” Ahearn nodded. “You mean, instead of killing each other?”
S’ythreni’s smile was small but genuine. “Who wants to give me odds?”
Umkhira’s frown could have been because she disapproved of wagering or didn’t understand the reference. “The Dunarran sorceress spoke both truth and wisdom. If we remain a company, it shall be in spite of great differences. Both in our traditions and what we each hope to achieve.”
Ahearn’s frown was anxious. “Now, now; let’s not predict doom because of a single contentious conversation.”
“Single?” S’ythreni repeated, incredulous. “Either your memory or mine has been scrambled by mancery or malady, because as I recall it, contention has been the rule, not the exception.”
Ahearn waved away what Druadaen considered to be her very sound point. Instead, he spread wide his hands in appeal. “Besides, our purposes aren’t so askew, are they? We could all do with a little more coin in our pockets, and we’ve fewer worries to pull us away from that, now.” He leaned toward Elweyr. “Thanks to inquiries by Druadaen’s magic auntie, at least you’re free of the charge of finding your parents.”
“For now. And only if I believe her.”
Druadaen bristled and didn’t care that he did. “Shaananca does not lie.”
Elweyr reconsidered. “No, perhaps not. But when she speaks, the words are vague enough to conceal a mountain of unspoken truths.”
I would disagree, if I could, Druadaen thought ruefully.
Ahearn jumped into that moment of relative social calm with a sweeping gesture and triumphantly pleased declaration. “And so then here we are: Elweyr, High-Ears and me, with two new partners.
Druadaen raised a bemused eyebrow.
But Umkhira frowned. “I am not your partner. I am oath-bound in your service.”
Ahearn rubbed his chin. “And what would you choose to do if I released you of that oath?”
The Lightstrider’s frown deepened, but it had changed from dubiousness to pondering an uncertainty.
“Well,” Ahearn continued, “take a moment if you must, but don’t keep me waiting on that. Druadaen, what say you?”
“I say what I did at the outset: my path is already set. But I appreciate the offer.”
“Well, see, and here’s where I’m conceiving a fine marriage of our respective interests. You have your further voyages and investigations, yeh? Well, here we are, fresh, rested, and hoping for wider horizons in which to seek our fortune.”
“Did you not in fact leave Gur Grehar with a fortune?”
“Well, in a manner of speaking. But when all is said and done, it wasn’t much of fortune, now was it?”
Druadaen frowned. “I cannot help but notice that you used the past tense: ‘wasn’t much of a fortune’?”
S’ythreni rolled her eyes. “The only thing Ahearn does better than finding riches is spending them.”
“Now, see here, High-Ears, I resembl—er, resent that remark! But truth be told, Ar Navir is expensive wherever you go. And while it is a very fine place indeed, all the ruins and remains of its old empires—and their treasures—are either long since restored as new seats of power or have been picked through many times over.
“But as I hear it, most of the other continents are not so thoroughly reclaimed.” His tone picked up a hint of understated—and wholly feigned—praise. “I suspect that’s because they lacked the organizing presence of a Dunarran Empire.”
“Dunarran Consentium,” Druadaen corrected and could not believe what he was about to add. “And you needn’t sprain your tongue and integrity with rhetorical contortions. Yes, I suppose it might be best that we travel together. I know you are no great champion of Dunarra or its ways. Still, that does not make you any less of a fine companion when it comes to facing dangers and uncertainties.”
Ahearn blinked. “Well, I can’t remember a speech that started so hard, and then finished so fine and fair. Well. Well. So it shall be, then.”
Umkhira looked between them. “So, who is the leader now? Whose orders have precedence?”
Druadaen sighed. It was the question they had avoided addressing since the first combat against Bannef in Truce or Consequences. And it was probably the further point of discussion to which Shaananca had been alluding. But now it was out in the open and would have to be answered. He folded his arms and glanced at Ahearn. “Well?”
“Now, this is a tricky question, isn’t it?” the swordsman mused uncomfortably. “We have agreed to travel with you, but all the others are here because of me. How would one make that work?”
Druadaen shrugged. “As on a ship. On a merchantman, the owner, or Master, is rarely the captain.”
Elweyr nodded. “Yes. That makes sense.”
Druadaen nodded back but thought: And of course you’ll make encouraging noises…because this is the only way you and Ahearn will ever reach more promising places for fortune-hunting.
“So,” Ahearn mused, rubbing his chin, “you tell us where the ship goes—”
“—and what agreements and alliances and enemies it makes along the way—”
“—and I run the ship. Choose the best course, fight off boarders, decide when and where we must provision, or even—gods forbid—dive overboard.”
“We will need to work out the details,” Druadaen answered, “and hopefully without further strained nautical analogies, but yes: that is the gist of it.”
“And that is something I can live with.” Ahearn looked past Elweyr who was exchanging small nods with S’ythreni. “And what of you, High-Ears? Fancy seeing the world?”
“The world,” she sighed, “is overrated.” Worried frowns sprang up. “But that also means that one place is pretty much as good as the next. Besides, someone has to keep a level head in this band.”
“Hey-ah, because I’m certainly the tempestuous type,” Elweyr observed drily.
She actually smiled at that, as if the curve leaped to her lips before she could control them. “Especially you,” she retorted broadly.
Elweyr smiled back.
Umkhira was looking hard at Ahearn. “If you dissolve my oath, I will not follow you. You have the bounty-blood of my people on your hands. I do not claim vengeance against you, but I would dishonor any Lightstriders you slew were I to follow you willingly. But I will promise you this, Ahearn: if you free me of my oath”—she turned toward Druadaen—“I will follow him.”
Druadaen nodded deeply toward her, surprised and silent—because he didn’t trust he’d find the right words and because they would only sully the moment, anyhow.
But Ahearn was as voluble as ever, smiling broadly. “Well, then, my fine not-green lass, your bond is no more, and we are quit of tangly oaths and debts! We are now a company bound only by the free choice of free beings! Now, where’s a suitable libation with which to toast the beginning of a beautiful fellowship?”
* * *
With the lights of Tlulanxu about to dip beneath the dusk-darkened horizon, Druadaen mounted the quarterdeck to watch them disappear. He discovered he would not be the only audience for that silent leave-taking; Ahearn was already at the center of the taffrail. The swordsman shifted slightly to make room.
Druadaen nodded his thanks, noticed that Ahearn’s gaze was not directly aft, but toward the starboard quarter. There was nothing but mostly unlit coastline in that direction. Well, Druadaen amended silently, nothing visible. Even though it was almost two hundred leagues to the northwest, he asked, “Looking toward Menara?”
Ahearn nodded. “It’s strange to think of being so far away from it.” His tone matched the faraway look in his dark eyes.
Druadaen leaned his elbows on the rail. “But it’s not your home, is it?”
Ahearn shook his head without taking his eyes off the compass point to which he’d affixed them. “No, not my home.” His brief smile had a hint of melancholy. “Not sure where that would be.”
Druadaen nodded. Despite the vast differences in the lives they had lived, he had the same feeling. Dunarra might be where he had grown up, but every time he returned, it felt less like home. Instead, he had the sensation that it was drifting further and further behind him, just like the lights of Tlulanxu.
Ahearn’s louder, more conversational tone startled him. “I’ve no desire to live on the sea, but I do like living close to it. Funny thing, that.”
Druadaen heard an oblique invitation in his seemingly random observation. “Is that where you met her? Near the sea, in Menara?”
Ahearn’s smile was almost gentle. “It’s that obvious, is it?”
Druadaen smiled back. “That comment about your living by the sea: it certainly sounded to me like you were, well, fishing.”
Ahearn’s smile became sly. “Ah, so all that library learning didn’t make you dull.” He nodded. “That’s good. You never know how it’s going to be with bookish folk.” He sighed.
Druadaen glanced at the dark spot on the coast that still held his gaze. “So: the sea.”
Ahearn shrugged. “It reminds me of her. She could be just as changeable, and just as deep. And though you could never be sure what the next moment might bring, you knew she was always there and always would be.” He paused. “Until she wasn’t.”
Druadaen had the strange sensation that, despite having spent months with Ahearn, he hadn’t really met him until now.
“She was wonderful,” he whispered. “At everything. She sang like an angel but had a tongue as bright and sharp as a silver whip. And handy! She made her living on the water, y’see. No task she wasn’t up to.”
Druadaen managed not to blink. And this from the same fellow who railed against women doing men’s work?
“And so cunning with numbers!” Ahearn continued, his eyes drifting up to the first bright pinpricks that shone through the gloaming as Tlulanxu’s lights sank beneath the black horizon. “Knew all the stars, she did: both the parts played by their namesakes in the Sagas of Serdarong, and their place on the charts by which captains navigate. By the gods, she was a natural when it came to using that fiddly bit of nautical equipment navigators call an astral—er, austral, em—”
“Astrolabe?”
“Aye, that’s it!” He shot a mock-suspicious glance at Druadaen. “And from that careful look on your puss, I’m guessing you know how to use one, too.”
“Well, I did spend three years on Courier ships like this one.” Druadaen let a few moments pass. “She sounds like an extraordinary woman.”
“Aye, that she was.” Ahearn’s eyes were bright with more than reflected stars. “And hey-ah, you can ask what you will. We’re mates, now.”
Druadaen nodded, waited a few more seconds. “What happened?”
“Life. Death. Just the natural cycle of things, I s’pose.” Ahearn shrugged, his smile crooked and painful to see. “If we’d had all the time ever unspooled by the great clockwork of the heavens, it still wouldn’t have been enough. So by any definition, ours was brief.” He looked back down to the lightless coast. “Maybe that’s the way of things, too. That the more beautiful a thing is, the shorter it seems to last. People no less than flowers.”
“And that cottage outside Menara?”
He nodded. “Where she lived. With her family. I…I look in on ’em. From time to time.”
Druadaen returned his nod, and wondered: Did he go there because it also reminded him of her? Because he somehow felt responsible for their loss? Or perhaps because they, too, had come to care for the rootless sell-sword who had fallen in love with their daughter? Which made them the closest thing he had to family.
Together they watched the night deepen and the stars emerge from it, as sharp and bright as polished sword tips.