Five Kingdoms (4 page)

“Master Xu Liang!” Yvain greeted when she emerged onto the icy deck of her ship.

Xu Liang bowed his head from the pier below.

Yvain made her way down. She explained that as soon as the snow had let up she’d given her crew the task of clearing the deck with anything that could scoop snow, down to and including their hands. It was evident that they had tried, however the slush created from the men’s activity quickly refroze in the frigid northern air and left a sheet of ice beneath snow that had been dusted across the vessel by the wind. Now her men had reverted to throwing down what appeared to be sand.

“As soon as we lighten our load and give everything a twice-over, we’ll be off,” the captain said. “I’ve already been in this town four days past my scheduled stay. Another minute and I’ll go mad.” She was speaking Fanese, and as she finished her explanations, she bowed in the traditional fashion. “It’s good to have you aboard again.”

Xu Liang returned the gesture. “I am grateful for your generosity, Captain, and it is good to see you again.”

Yvain straightened, smiling warmly. Then she looked over the rest of his party. “You’ve acquired a few new faces to your entourage.”

“I was able to acquire what I was looking for, and beyond,” Xu Liang replied.

Yvain gave a nod. “Yes, keep it cryptic. I trust my men, as far as it’s smart to trust sailors; it’s far less hassle to let them think that no one onboard is in possession of anything particularly valuable. I always tell my men and my passengers: If you carry on any treasures, keep them to yourself.”

“I understand,” Xu Liang answered. He stepped aside while the others were invited to board.

“You weren’t followed, were you?” Yvain asked next. “Where’s that frosty elf who was playing at watchdog last night?”

Xu Liang recalled the way the mountain elf volunteered to, once again, ‘clear the litter from their path’, just as he had upon first joining with them. However, he doubted Alere would come back with friends or allies this time. He said to Yvain, “Alere will be along after his own fashion.”

“Alere,” the Aeran woman echoed thoughtfully. “That’s a pretty name.”

“Don’t let it fool you,” Fu Ran said, stomping snow off his boots while he crested the gangplank. “He’s a lot colder on the inside, even than he looks on the outside.”

Yvain folded her arms across her chest and peered at the giant through mildly glaring green eyes. “That seems appropriate, since his name happens to mean ‘winter’s soul’. But, then, I wouldn’t expect you to know that—a man who can’t even count ten days from fifty!”

“Has it been that long?” Fu Ran wondered while his captain made her way up to him. He lifted his large hands to begin ticking off the days, or weeks, as it were.

Yvain smacked his hands apart. “Don’t embarrass yourself! You count about as well as you read!” She stepped closer and poked him in the chest with one finger. “You said you were only going to handle the rats on Xu Liang’s trail and meet us in Tavannach!”

“Well,” Fu Ran murmured, scratching the back of his bald head. “Things got...complicated. We—”

“Complicated? Complicated is trying to think of new ways to put off the miserly dock masters at Tavannach for a week! Do you have any idea how much they charge a ship to be in their port beyond a simple loading or off-loading?”

“Well…I…no—” Try as he might, Fu Ran couldn’t get a word in that Yvain didn’t abruptly cut off.

“And where is that snake-eyed gypsy?”

“There’s something you should know about him,” Fu Ran put in quickly, but Yvain didn’t seem interested.

The fiery Aeran captain grabbed Fu Ran by the collar of his cloak and improbably dragged him down to her height. “I thought we had an agreement!”

“We…I—” The large man’s entire head seemed to have turned red. When Yvain let him go and stomped off, Fu Ran could scarcely glance at his friends, all of whom stared with interest equal to their—and his—embarrassment. The giant tried to put on a casual grin, too late. He said in Yvarian, “Well, what are you people standing around looking dumbstruck for? We’ve got a ship to get out of the harbor. You’re passengers, so...go be passengers somewhere.”

“We don’t actually know where to go about doing that,” Tristus said. “And what of the horses?”

“
Pride’s
got ample cargo space, even for beasts, though I doubt that most of them are going to be pleased with it.”

The ensuing conversation amongst the others drifted away from Xu Liang while he turned back toward Willenthurn in search of Alere. He also would have liked to have a glimpse of just who the elf had decided to confront. If truth be told, he disliked any of them venturing from the group for long. His quest for the Swords had been long and arduous, and had nearly ended in failure. They could not—and would not—set sail without Alere.

It was in the midst of such thoughts, that Xu Liang reminded himself that Alere had always returned, even when it seemed that he would not. A gust of icy wind pressed his hair and robes against his back and legs, threatening to push him from where he stood. An aeromancer especially understood the strength of the Spirit of the Wind, and not to provoke such a power by disregarding its demonstration. He turned from the view of the town and carried himself carefully over the slick surface of the plank, onto the main deck of the Aeran ship.

“Head below decks,” Fu Ran was saying to the others, though he appeared somewhat distracted. “Leave the horses. I’ll get someone to take care of them. I’ll...see you later, Xu Liang.” And then he stalked off in the direction his captain had gone.

“I feel as if the lass might be more than merely his employer,” Tarfan blurted after the large man had gone. His expression was of a suspicious individual who thought to rally his fellows to a movement against evident transgression.

Thankfully, they had all learned not to observe the dwarf’s blustering in a light greater than what it illuminated. In this instance, it shone on a fact of little importance beyond what was of personal value to Fu Ran.

The silence of the others seemed to concur with Xu Liang’s thoughts, and inspired Tarfan to throw his arms out in a display of frustrated surrender.

Xu Liang led the others below by following the path in his memory. Knowing that
The Pride of Celestia
had very little passenger space, and not knowing how much of it may already have been occupied, he brought his party to the ship’s long, but narrow dining room, which was the only place out of the cold where all of them could sit together and await Yvain’s instructions as to who would be taking up residence where for the duration of the voyage once it got underway.

“I’ve never been on a ship before,” Tristus said, seating himself at one of three tables that were aligned in a row, one directly beside the next. “I’m not ashamed to admit that I’m a little nervous, particularly since we’re about to cross what is also known as the Sea of a Thousand Winters.”

“I’ve heard tales of ships run into islets of ice, finding themselves abruptly sunk or stranded,” Tarfan mentioned, clapping his hands against his arms as he tried to warm himself. It seemed he was determined to be an alarmist this morning.

Xu Liang decided not to let the conversation carry too far, and said quietly, “You needn’t fear. I have found Madame Yvain to be a very capable sea captain.”

No one argued, and Xu Liang eventually found a chair to sit in. He folded his hands on the table in front of him, and tried to clear his mind as the task of waiting began. At least, he no longer had to be concerned with attempting to negotiate with unfamiliar ship captains, who may have been unwilling or unable to take on passengers.

Alere had told Xu Liang that Yvain stated that she had dreamed of the break in the weather. It seemed possible that she had experienced such a dream before the weather had become extreme enough to delay all ships in Willenthurn. And in that event, it had been fortunate that Yvain had been willing to trust her visions, the first of which it seemed had been told to Xu Liang ages ago.

Strangely enough, he hadn’t thought of her dream of a desolate landscape with a sad, lonely figure slumped along the horizon until now, when he realized that he had seen her dream come true. That landscape had been the Flatlands of Lower Yvaria, after the snow had melted off during the day and the minor plant life had been revealed, making the long dead trees more apparent. He would never forget how that dismal terrain affected him, and he knew now, finally, that the sad character Yvain had envisioned in advance was Tristus Edainien. Why she should have foreseen his coming, over Alere’s or Shirisae’s was unclear, but there was no one else who suited the description she’d given at the time. And if there was, he was not of a mind to draw the proper parallels.

Even now, the knight seemed to bleed grief onto the table he currently slumped over. He looked like he would sleep with his head nestled in his folded arms, but his blue eyes were open, taking in everything and nothing. When he caught Xu Liang looking at him, he sat up, like a student that had been caught napping through a lesson, and stared glumly at the table.

Xu Liang took his eyes away from Tristus and glanced over the others. Gai Ping, Guang Ci, Shi Dian, Cai Zheng Rui, and Wan Yun sat on the floor just behind him, lined up along the wall that was very near. Shirisae and the dwarves occupied the first table coming in. They were sitting quietly, looking as if they were anticipating danger even as they seemed to be safe. Xu Liang had the center table to himself and at the third table, also alone, sat the knight.

That changed when Alere came in, looking as impassive as ever, in spite of the fact that he may have recently been involved in a brawl somewhere in the city behind them. The elf took a chair at the end of Tristus’ table, on the opposite side, leaving no one out of his view, as if he still didn’t trust any of them.

Xu Liang knew better, but it was weariness giving him such thoughts. It was weariness and a lingering fear that he may yet fail in his quest. There were still many miles between the Swords and Sheng Fan.

When the silence became an almost physical presence in the room, it was Tristus who spoke. “Who were they?” he asked the elf.

“They would not say,” Alere replied. “At least, I could not understand what they said. The few words they spoke were in your tongue, mystic.”

Xu Liang looked to the elf, frowning as his suspicions were finally confirmed. “The pyromancer lives, then.”

“How...would he know to find us here?” Tristus asked with evident concern, perhaps recalling the man’s potent fire spells, and the events they might have inspired.

“He has been aided by a pirate known as Zhen Yu,” Xu Liang explained. “A common thief and murderer, who has outreached himself, I believe. I would not think him or his ship capable of navigating the seas we are about to face. Also, I have not found my fellow mystic to be a man of recklessness, but more a man of reason. I suspect he has been following this ship, hoping that Fu Ran would lead us back to it.”

“Which the great ox did,” Tarfan said.

Xu Liang nodded. It was an obvious course of logic for the pyromancer to have taken. The man was not unintelligent. Still, “I would not expect too much trouble from him at this time. It is likely that his objective now is to watch, knowing what he would be up against if he were to attack us here.”

“I think the lad helped to scare him a bit,” Tarfan said, jerking a thumb at Tristus.

“Please, I’d prefer not to be reminded,” Tristus replied.

Taya changed the subject on his behalf. “There’s no point worrying about him now. Let’s think about what lies ahead. I can’t believe I’m actually going to Sheng Fan; a place I’ve never even heard of before last season. What’s it like?”

Xu Liang looked at the young dwarf, frowning while it occurred to him just what he was doing; bringing outsiders into Sheng Fan, daring to believe that they would be given the respect due to them, not only for their roles as the bearers of the Celestial Swords, but for their deeds as men and women of honor.

He said quietly, “Know only that it is nothing at all like any place you have ever known. Now, please, I am presently not in the mood for such a discussion.”

And with that, silence again fell over the companions.

The Weight of Truth

F
our days into
their journey, Alere felt the silence Xu Liang had cast over them in his refusal to discuss Sheng Fan beginning to weigh and to smother.

Xu Liang had been given a cabin to himself. His guards posted themselves constantly outside of it and the mystic rarely emerged. In the lack of space provided by the ship’s tight compartments, Taya and Shirisae were permitted to share the captain’s quarters while Alere, Tristus, and Tarfan occupied a cabin with four bunks that had apparently been vacated by men who had decided against signing on for another term aboard a trade vessel. Alere couldn’t say that he blamed them. Such a life could only be tedious. A ship was not conducive to the type of roaming that satisfied an elf of the Verressi Mountains, nor it would seem, a dwarf of the Stormbright Caverns. Alere and Tarfan had come across one another frequently while wandering their confined space and seemed to silently share a sense of dissatisfaction. While they were inclined to explore the other regions of the ship from time to time, Tristus had become as anonymous as Xu Liang. Unlike the mystic, who was probably only taking advantage of the rare privacy found in time spent away from the unlikely troupe of foreigners he’d assembled, the knight spent much of his time huddled in his bed, pressed into a corner with a blanket wrapped around him, shuddering in the chill and over illness, and speaking to no one.

‘Seasickness’, the old dwarf called it. Depression was the label Alere felt inclined to give it, and it was beginning to worry him.

He entered the cabin while Tarfan was leaving it, after another failed attempt on the dwarf’s part to convince Tristus to eat. The room was insufferably small, providing only a narrow space of floor between the beds that were stacked in pairs. Alere had to back out into the hall to let the dwarf by.

“The pup won’t eat,” Tarfan informed irritably when Alere snatched the bowl of stew he carried. The dwarf grabbed vainly for the dish while Alere held it calmly out of his reach. “And I doubt there’s anything you can do to make him eat, elf!”

“I am not in the habit of force feeding others, dwarf. However, it seems to me that the food should be left here, in case the knight is inclined to change his mind.”

Tarfan glared, then murmured something of a reluctant agreement before deciding to be on his way. “Mind you, just set it on the stand between the bunks and be gone. That soup’s cold enough already.”

Alere retreated into the room and closed the door before Tarfan was finished speaking. A lamp swung on a chain low overhead. Alere was forced to duck to get past it on his way to the short stand between the bunks. “You must eat,” he said while he placed the wooden bowl down.

“I’ll only throw it over the side,” a weak voice replied. “Please...just let me die.”

Alere was glad to hear the knight say something after days of wordless silence, something that may have held at least a little humor, since humor tended to allude to a more pleasant disposition in humans. When they were truly unwell, they would have none of their own delights, which often included irrelevant comments.

“Let you die?” Alere said to him. “Of misery? I’d kill you myself first.”

“You probably mean that,” Tristus answered, perhaps recalling that Verressi elves did not typically delight in irrelevant comments. The knight didn’t wait for Alere to confirm or deny his statement. “I don’t blame you. I’m certain I appear even weaker than you must have imagined me.”

“What makes you think that I imagined you weak?” Alere sat down on the lower bunk to look in at his friend. The man was pale and shivering, his blue eyes clouded with pain and exhaustion. Tucked beneath a blanket, Tristus sat sagging to one side with his head leaned against the wall. He looked very weakened at the moment, but still Alere said, “You are not weak.”

Tristus scarcely lifted his gaze to meet Alere’s. “I wish I knew whether or not you’d say something like that just to make me feel better.”

“Do you feel better?” Alere asked him.

“No,” Tristus admitted.

“Then, I suppose it was accurate for my mother to have once said to me that the truth is not always uplifting.”

Tristus lifted his head just a little, “Why did she say something like that to you?”

Alere, who typically had no taste for relating anecdotes, hesitated before answering. He soon decided that he had already begun just by mentioning his mother, and he may as well finish. He gave an abbreviated version of the memory. “When I was much younger, I took something of my father’s without permission. I broke it unintentionally, and before that day had ended I got around to telling my father what I had done. I had always been taught that there was no virtue in a lie, even the smallest of them. This would have been more than a little lie, and I wanted to be as virtuous as my parents, so I told the truth. My father was furious and after all was done, I didn’t feel virtuous in the least. I only felt guiltier. That was when my mother explained to me that simply telling the truth wouldn’t always make anyone feel better about anything. It was simply the necessary thing to do.”

Tristus let his head fall gently back in place against the wall. His lips, that had gone somewhat colorless, formed a weary smile. “Alere, that’s the first time you’ve told me anything about yourself.”

“Is it?” Alere considered, recalling rather vividly how he had in the recent past revealed something of himself that even he was surprised to discover.

That night in the Deepwood, when his revenge fell literally out of his grasp and into the swamp, where Guang Ci finally finished off the twisted, piteous individual who had been so transformed by his curse and the Night Blade’s grip on his mind that he probably felt an instant of relief when his head was finally severed from the rest of him. At that point Alere felt that he wanted to be done with all of it. Why should he care about Xu Liang’s quest—or anyone else’s—when his own had been stolen from him? The keeper of the shadows being dead wasn’t good enough. He had waited too long. It had been his right to claim Vorhaven’s demon head, and no one else’s. That had been his point of view at the time. He meant to walk away from all of them.

Since then, he had recalled what he’d said to Kailel, how he had promised his cousin that he did not leave them for revenge alone. But in that moment, when he was determined to be done with all humans and everything else outside of his home in the Verres Mountains, Tristus reached out to stop him. The knight had no reason to. Alere’s decision could only effect the mystic, if he had been alive—which Alere didn’t believe he was at the time. Tristus’ effort then, as so many times before, amazed and frustrated Alere. Humans could not be so virtuous. It was not possible.

Even Xu Liang acted first and foremost for his own land—his own people—just as Alere did. Tristus had nothing. He was in exile. What mattered to him so much that he would be so willing to carry out this quest? Some might have said it was Xu Liang, whom Tristus had clearly been attracted to from the start. Alere knew from observing the knight from a perspective that had once been clear that, above everything, Tristus Edainien wanted to do what was right, for all Dryth and all the people he loved, ally and enemy alike. It was astounding, even if naïve.

The man should have been a cleric of his kind, and then for once there would have been one in the world who lived up to their reputation as tolerant, merciful, and loving individuals. It was for all those things that Alere grew to care for him as deeply as he did now—as he never would have imagined he could. He’d been granted Tristus’ tolerance and his mercy. It suddenly came to him that he wanted his love as well. He would have wanted the love of anyone so strong, not only in spirit, but in heart.

So, it had turned out that the person he loved happened to be not only a member of another race, but a member of the same gender. Such was the will of Ysis, transformed by Ceren’s mischief. One could cope with the gods’ dealings, or they could fight them and lead a miserable life, victimized by their own fears, if not by the gods themselves. Alere had already set upon that path just in hunting the keirveshen. He might have chosen to fight the gods in this as well, but he didn’t, and he had no regrets about his decision now that he’d made it.

“I’m sorry if I’ve worried you, Alere,” Tristus said, bringing him back from his thoughts. “I can’t help the way being on this ship makes me feel.”

“Illness is common among people who have never sailed before, I am told.”

“You’ve never sailed before,” Tristus guessed accurately. Then he pushed his curling brown hair out of his face and sighed. “But it’s not only the queasiness that’s bothering me, my friend. Even though I’ve been away from Andaria for some time now, it seems somehow as if I’m just now leaving it. As if I’m leaving it so far behind...that I’ll never see it again. Maybe I shouldn’t want to.” He closed his eyes. “I don’t know really what I’m saying.”

Alere crawled into the bunk and sat beside the knight. Tristus allowed it, so Alere coaxed him closer with an arm around his shoulders. Tristus allowed that as well. Within several moments, he began to cry quietly.

Alere rested his chin on the man’s head and spoke to him gently, a poem he recalled from his childhood, something he had heard his mother recite to them many times…to all of them, including his father.

Rest, my beloved,

You have carried the world far enough today.

Sleep, my beloved,

Let your dreams carry you to me.

Be at peace, my beloved.

I will be your home while the world drifts away.

He spoke the verses in elvish. He did not think Tristus understood, but perhaps he did. He relaxed against Alere, and eventually drifted to sleep.

Tristus awoke to
the sound of someone humming to themselves. It was a woman. He opened his eyes to discover that it was Taya. He sat up slowly, pushing his hair out of his face while he looked around for a body that wasn’t there. Clearly, Alere had gone, but how long ago? How long had the elf stayed to console him?

“It’s about time you decided to wake up,” the dwarf maiden said pleasantly. She was seated on the opposite bunk, stirring a bowl of...something, in her lap.

“Please, don’t make me eat,” Tristus mumbled while his stomach protested to even the smell of food.

“You like my cooking, remember?” Taya hopped down from one bunk and approached the other. “Anyway, if I can make Xu Liang eat—like I did back in Vilciel, by the way—then I can sure as the Heartstone of the Stormbright Caverns get something inside of you.”

Tristus made a doubtful noise. “Taya…”

She cheerily offered him the spoon. “Now, eat up. It’s got some herbs in it that will settle your stomach. My uncle tells me you haven’t been feeling well. I wondered, since I hadn’t seen you much. But this is my first sea voyage and, if you’ll forgive me, love, I’ve been a little distracted by things up top. I didn’t know a sea that was this cold could be so beautiful.”

“Is it?” Tristus asked weakly, disliking the way his hand shook as he took hold of the spoon.

Taya smiled wistfully. “I’ve only seen a blue so vivid one other place in this world.”

Tristus carefully sipped a spoonful of broth when Taya held the bowl up to him. He tried not to grimace as his dry, tacky mouth gave the warm, pungently spiced fluid an acrid aftertaste. In response to Taya’s statement, he asked, “Where?”

The dwarf maiden’s hazel eyes looked directly at him. “I’m staring at it right now.”

For an instant, Tristus was confused. And then he recalled that his own eyes happened to be blue. He made himself smile through his illness. “Taya, you flatter me. And needlessly, too. I know I must look dreadful right now.”