Dreamwielder (19 page)

“There is an inn I know of on the far side of the city,” Talitha said. “We will stop there for the night, and you can decide then which way you will go in the morning.”

Caile nodded silently and they continued on. Arnsfeld was unremarkable after having been in Col Sargoth, and Caile paid little attention to the layout of the city and the people inhabiting it. It was not unlike the cities in Valaróz or Pyrthinia, except that even the largest buildings were predominantly made of wood rather than stone. The roads were laid out in the same grid-like pattern, and the people moved about with the same busyness as people in any city. There were no steam-powered carts, no smelting factories, no tar paved streets, and no gas lit street lamps. In fact the city was rather small, and they passed through it unimpeded and soon found themselves at the The Lonely Pine, the inn Talitha had spoken of.

The stablehands at The Lonely Pine promptly took their horse and cart, and after a few brief words with the innkeeper, Talitha acquired a private room and a warm supper to be brought up for the two of them. Before retiring to the room, however, she insisted that Caile visit the bathhouse at the back of the inn.

“You reek of turnips and feces,” she remarked.

“Hardly surprising considering I've crawled through the sewers and been buried in turnips,” Caile said with a shrug, but he did not protest. In fact, the thought of a bath sounded almost better than a meal and strong ale did to him at that moment.

The bathhouse was hardly elegant—the water in the wooden tub was lukewarm and far from clean—but Caile emerged feeling like a new man. The innkeeper's wife took his feculent clothes to wash, promising to deliver them to his room dry and clean in the morning, and in the meantime she gave him a spare set of baggy britches and a ridiculously large tunic to wear for the night. The tunic hung nearly to his knees and looked like a dress on him. “Some fat man forgot ‘em behind several months back,” the woman said. “Not pretty, but they'll keep you from having to run around bare-skinned.”

When Caile was finished in the bathhouse and finally retired to their room, he found Talitha waiting and their food already delivered. They ate the barley and lamb porridge ravenously, and when the two of them were done, Talitha for the first time looked Caile in the eye and regarded him from where they sat facing each other across the small end table between their two beds.

“Well, Prince Caile, you are not the pampered boy I expected you to be,” she said. “You work hard and do not complain.”

Caile shrugged and pulled the loose tunic tighter around his shoulders. “I don't see what I have to complain about. My men I left behind to die in Col Sargoth, and my father waits execution. They are the ones who have reason to complain.”

Talitha smiled, though with little joy. “You mean to make for Kal Pyrthin then and save your father? Or try at least?”

“What else am I to do?”

“Did it ever occur to you that I might have rescued you for a reason?”

Caile shrugged. “I suppose. What reason?”

Talitha sighed and closed her eyes. “I know you think you've already made up your mind, that you have no choice but to head for Kal Pyrthin, but that is not the case. You sit at a fork in the road and you can choose one of many directions. In one direction, yes, you can make haste southward and try to save your father, but that is not the only path before you.”

“You see a better path, I take it?” Caile asked.

“Yes, you could continue with me.”

“And what is there for me along your path?”

Talitha leaned her head back in deep concentration. “Your sister, and perhaps much more.”

“Taera? Where?” Caile edged forward on his bed, a brief glimmer of hope in his heart for the first time in days.

“I see the caverns of ice from my childhood, and my instincts tell me I must return and that I will need your help if I am to succeed.”

Caile narrowed his eyes. “Who are you, really? And why do you insist on speaking in riddles?”

Talitha opened her eyes and smiled. “I am who I said I am, and I am sorry if I speak in riddles. I have great strength in many areas but seeing the future is not one of them. All I can see are images shrouded in fog and doubt. It is left to me to interpret their meaning. But this I am sure about, for I have seen it clearer than any other image in my life. Your sister is captive in the Caverns of Issborg, or will be soon, I am certain.”

“And what does she mean to you?”

“Everything,” Talitha said, “for her fate is tied to mine. Few things are clear to me, but your sister is—or protects—the key to defeating Guderian. That I am certain.”

Caile nodded. “Roanna spoke of a prophecy. She said my sister was foretold to defeat the Emperor. Is it true?”

“Whether your sister is the one, I cannot say. But Roanna is there in the caverns with your sister, and the prophecy she spoke of is no lie. It was foretold by the mightiest seer in Khail Sanctu on Thedric Guderian's tenth birthday.”

Caile leaned back onto the straw mattress of his bed and rubbed one hand over his face. He had been so certain of himself when he'd left his sister and father in Kal Pyrthin, but now he was certain of nothing. He had thought Stephen and Roanna allies at first, but they had tried to kill him.
How do I know I can trust her?
he asked himself of Talitha.

“I cannot give you any better token of trust than to beg you for your help,” Talitha said.

“You read my thoughts,” Caile accused, but Talitha shook her head.

“I do not need to read your thoughts, Prince Caile. Your concern is written plainly on your face, and it is not unfounded. There are few you can trust, but I will tell you in all sincerity that I am one who you can trust. I am an enemy of the Emperor. I am a worshiper of Tel Mathir, and I dream of a day when the Sargothian Empire is gone and once again the Five Kingdoms are intact. I dream of a day when those with the capacity to wield magic are not feared and hunted.”

Caile was silent for a long moment as he weighed his thoughts. “I think you are being honest with me, so I will be honest with you. My heart tells me to follow you and help my sister, for I have little love for my father. But still, loyalty drives me to Kal Pyrthin. Casstian is my king and sire. What sort of prince would I be if I let the Emperor kill him without a fight?”

“What if I were to tell you that you could not help your father?” Talitha asked. “What if I told you help was already on the way?”

Parmo woke with a start. “What? What is it?”

Rufous was standing over him shaking his shoulders, and at the bow of the small skiff Gaetan, the other man Parmo had rescued, stood waiving his arms frantically.

“A ship has spotted us,” Rufous said. “We're saved.”

Parmo pushed himself up from where he lay curled up in the stern of the skiff and looked in the direction his two shipmates were pointing. There was indeed a ship heading right toward them, rising over the ten-foot swells with ease. It flew no colors at its mast and appeared to be a merchant ship.
Probably for the best,
Parmo surmised. They had spotted land earlier that morning and while Parmo guessed it was the shores of Pyrthinia they saw, he could not be certain, and it was safer to be picked up by a merchant ship than one from the Valarion navy.

It had been six days since
Pyrthin's Flame
had burned and sunk into the Esterian Ocean. Parmo and the two sailors he saved had set a course due west, but they had with them only a makeshift sail and none of Parmo's navigation equipment, so they were relegated to navigating by the sun and stars, which was sufficient for the first two days, but then the winds came and the formless gray clouds blotted out the sky above. To make matters worse, they had been rammed on the third night by a whale or a shark—it had been too dark for them to be sure—and the tiller was ruined beyond all repair. That left them with nothing to do but steer with their oars, no easy task with the strong south-blowing wind filling their sail. It was wearying, imprecise work, and they took turns at using an oar as a rudder and slept when their shift was through. All they were certain of was that they were exhausted and bearing in a somewhat westerly direction, and so they had no idea from where this new ship was approaching them or where it was going.

The ship lowered her sails as she approached, and after a few exchanged shouts back and forth, Parmo informed them they were indeed stranded. The sailors on the larger ship threw down tethering lines, and after securing the skiff in tow Parmo, Rufous, and Gaetan climbed up to the main deck of the larger ship.

“Thank you,” Parmo said to the sailor who helped him over the rail. “Where are you bound for?”

“Kal Pyrthin,” the man replied, but before Parmo could pry further, the captain of the ship pushed his way forward.

“I'll be the one asking questions,” the captain said. “Where are you from and where are
you
bound?”

Parmo looked the men over silently for a moment before responding. By their accents and the look of them, he was confident they were Pyrthinian, not Valarion. Valarions were of darker complexion and tended to roll their r's slightly.

“We are the only survivors of
Pyrthin's Flame
,” Parmo said finally. “She went down six nights ago, sabotaged by pirates and put to flame.”

The captain eyed Parmo, unconvinced. “
Pyrthin's Flame
is the King's flagship, and I'll be a porpoise's teat if you're a Pyrthin naval man. You're a Valarion if I've ever seen one.”

“You're quite right,” Parmo conceded. “I was but a passenger on the ship, but these men are Pyrthin naval men and can vouch to the truth of my statement.”

“Aye,” Gaetan said. “Able Seaman, Gaetan Sodonia at your service.”

“Third Mate, Rufous Delphinos,” Rufous followed. “It is as he says. Someone killed the night crew, barricaded the main hold, and set the ship aflame. It was Parmo here who saved the two us and cut loose the skiff before
Pyrthin's Flame
went down.”

“I tried to save the captain first, but the captain's quarters were the first to go up in flames,” Parmo explained, somewhat by apology.

“This is disturbing news,” the captain said. “Did you see your attackers?”

“They were already fled by time we were awoken,” Rufous said. “All we saw was the shadow of a… a ship of some sort.”

“You seem uncertain,” the captain probed.

“It was night, and we were all half-choked and blind with smoke,” Parmo explained, not wanting to reveal too much. “We saw the silhouette of something retreating to the west. That is all we can say for certain.”

“
Something
, eh? Perhaps it was the same flying ship people say passed over Kal Pyrthin almost a fortnight ago?” the captain probed.

Rufous shot Parmo a glance but said nothing.

“It was certainly strange, whatever it was,” Parmo answered. “Captain, if I may, I suggest we set off for Kal Pyrthin with all due haste. The King needs to know what happened immediately. There was valuable cargo on that ship.”

“I'm afraid we have more strange news for you, friends,” the captain said. “We have been told that King Casstian has been dethroned. For high treason the Emperor's dogs are saying. Word has spread to Tyrna even, where we are bound from. The entire Kingdom is in disarray.”

“This is dire news,” Parmo replied. “What do we do now?”

Natarios Rhodas stood silently in the courtyard of Castle Pyrthin watching Wulfram inspect the crowd of women who had been brought up from the dungeons. Since putting out a bounty on sorceresses several weeks prior, mercenaries, cut purses, and all sorts of unsavory characters had been dragging in women in droves. Natarios had kept them locked up in his own scent-hound tower at first, but once King Casstian had been taken captive, he moved them to the dungeon beneath the castle in order to accommodate the sheer number of them. There were forty-seven of them according to his records. Most were harmless, he was sure: old spinsters who gossiped too much, homeless orphan girls, street trollops, and other such guttersnipe. They were a bedraggled and pathetic lot, but Natarios's orders had been clear; he was to pay the bounties on all of them and let Wulfram sort them out.

They all stood now huddled together in the center of the courtyard, wrists tied behind their backs. Wulfram stalked amongst them, giving most of them no more than a glance. A few he examined carefully, touching their temples with his taloned fingers or sniffing their heads. Some of the younger women were no more than children, and they balled in fear when Wulfram regarded them. Around the perimeter of the courtyard, twenty Pyrthinian archers stood at the ready should any of the women actually turn out to have power of any sort. Their captain stood rigidly at Natarios's side.

A minor commotion at the main gate distracted Natarios from Wulfram's inspection, and he turned to see one of his henchmen hurrying his way across the courtyard.

“A raven came from Col Sargoth,” the man said between heavy breaths, thrusting a scroll into Natarios's hands.

Natarios started to break the wax seal but saw that the scroll was addressed to Wulfram and thought better of it. He instead dismissed the man back to his tower and tucked the message into his robes to await Wulfram.
I can't say that I miss that dank tower,
Natarios thought to himself as he watched his courier scurry off. He had assigned the three most trustworthy of his men to stay in the tower and attend to the scent-hound and for himself had appropriated King Casstian's private quarters. It certainly made it easier for him to attend to daily matters concerning the governing of the city and kingdom in Casstian's stead, and the comforts were the least he could ask for in reward as far as he was concerned. Wulfram, for his part, stayed in Casstian's study high up in the tower.
Probably so he can fly off in the night to prowl around,
Natarios mused.