The Immortal Prince (42 page)

We left the palace—Fliss and I—in the early hours of the morning, taking the ferry across the mist-shrouded waters of the river. The walls surrounding the royal palace were little more than a pale blur in the predawn greyness as we slipped through the fog, creeping across the meandering river like thieves escaping in the night.

She was a good-looking child, long-limbed and tall for her age, with dark hair tucked carelessly behind her ears and eyes the colour of polished sapphires. Other than the fact she had wielded Tide magic and lived to tell about it—despite what Arryl claimed about her parentage—there was nothing about her physically that separated Fliss from the rest of her kind, no strong family resemblance to any of her “uncles” which might indicate whose child she was.

Our departure was arranged with indecent haste. Arryl made certain Fliss barely had time to say goodbye to her cousins, or farewell to the Crasii who had attended her since she was born, before she found herself shivering on the pier, Arryl fussing over her anxiously as we waited for the ferryman to load her baggage.

Fliss looked up at me as the ferry slid across the fog-bound water toward Libeth on the eastern side of the river. The world felt still. Paused on the brink. Only the rhythmic suck and splash of the ferryman's pole disturbed the silence.

“Where are we going, Uncle Cayal?” she asked.

Aware that anything I said might be reported to Syrolee by the ferryman, I avoided the question. “Away.”

“Are we going away so you can teach me, Uncle Cayal?”

I looked at her in surprise.
“What?”

“Isn't that why we're going away? So you can teach me all about the Tide so I don't hurt anybody again? How to do stuff.”

“How to do
stuff
?” I repeated, glancing across at the ferryman. Did he know I was escorting this child to her death?

I forced a smile I didn't feel and looked down at the little girl, wondering if Arryl was right. Was Fliss my own flesh and blood, or was Arryl simply lying to elicit my cooperation? I didn't know. I had no inkling of what it might be like to feel paternal, and no way of knowing if that's what I was feeling now. My unease might simply be a reaction to the inclement weather.

But whatever the ferryman reported back to Syrolee, I wasn't going to frighten the child unnecessarily. “Yes, Fliss, I suppose I'll have to teach you how to do
stuff.
”

“Will it be hard?”

“That depends on you,” I told her.

“Will you teach me Crasii magic?”

I frowned. “You should learn how the Crasii are made before you decide you want to follow that particular line of study.”

“Will you show me a Crasii farm?” she asked eagerly.

I debated the matter for a moment and then nodded, realising it made little difference what the child believed at this point. “Perhaps we can take a detour on our way.”

Fliss slipped her small hand into mine. “This is going to be so much more fun than living in the palace.”

I looked down at her with a dubious frown. She had dark hair like mine and the same blue eyes, but then so did half the population of Tenacia. It proved nothing. “I hope you still think that in a few days' time, Fliss.”

“I have to keeping thinking it, Uncle Cayal,” she replied solemnly. “Otherwise I'll cry.”

 

By the time the ferry reached the dock on the other side of the river, the fog had lifted, revealing a crisp blue morning and the towering white walls of Libeth, a town famous for its tapestries and fine linen. Shivering in the cool air, Fliss stared up in wonder as we approached.

“Don't gape,” I ordered, as the ferry bumped against the long pier. “You're a Tide Lord, remember? You need to cultivate an air of jaded cynicism.”

“What's that, Uncle Cayal?”

“The worst advice you're ever likely to get,” an amused voice answered from above us.

We looked up to find someone waiting for us on the pier. He was young, barely twenty, in fact, although he was hundreds of years older than me, with dark hair braided back in the fashion of the day, dressed in leather breeches and a linen shirt, with a finely embroidered jacket over it. I frowned when I saw him, wondering how he'd known where we would be this morning.

“Uncle Jaxyn!” Fliss exclaimed happily. “What are you doing here?”

“Exactly what I was going to ask,” I remarked with a scowl, as the ferryman tied the barge to the pylons.

Jaxyn looked down at Fliss and offered her his hand. “Heard you were going on a little trip, Fliss. Thought I'd invite myself along.”

“That's so wonderful!” she cried, allowing him to help her up onto the dock. I followed them up, carrying Fliss's smallest bag and my own pack. I turned and tossed a coin to the ferryman.

“Take the rest of the baggage back to the palace,” I ordered, pointing to the towering pile of “essentials” that Fliss's nanny had sent along with her charge. “Tell them it wasn't required.”

“But that's all my things!” Fliss protested.

“You won't need them where you're going, Fliss,” Jaxyn assured her, looking over her head at me. “Isn't that right, Uncle Cayal?”

I refused to be baited by him. Instead, I turned my back on the ferry and Fliss's possessions and fell in beside Jaxyn as he headed back along the jetty, our boots sounding hollow on the damp, slatted wood.

Probably afraid we planned to abandon her with the same ease I'd disposed of her luggage, Fliss hurried after us, squeezing her way in between the two of us. The white walls of Libeth loomed over us, but there was no sign of a welcoming party. I was mightily relieved, having chosen this early hour to leave the palace for just that reason.

“Why has nobody come to greet us, Uncle Cayal?”

“Because I didn't tell them we were coming.”

“You told Uncle Jaxyn we were coming, didn't you?”

I glanced across at Jaxyn with a frown. “Apparently.”

“You don't seem pleased to see him, Uncle Cayal.”

“Oh, my!” Jaxyn chuckled. “I almost wish I was going to have a chance to watch this one grow up.”

“Are you leaving, Uncle Jaxyn?” Fliss asked.

“In a while.” He shrugged. “I've got things to do. In other places. But don't be too upset, precious. I doubt your Uncle Cayal will miss me.”

“Why?”

“Fliss, are you actually capable of uttering a sentence that doesn't start with ‘why'?”

“I think so, Uncle Cayal. Why?”

I rolled my eyes, but Jaxyn laughed and took her small hand in his. “Fliss, I think I'm really going to enjoy having you around until Uncle Cayal…takes care of you.”

“Will you show me stuff, too, Uncle Jaxyn?”

“Stuff?”

“That's Fliss's all-encompassing word for the mysteries of Tide magic,” I explained.

“I suppose I'd better show you something, Fliss. You'll not learn much otherwise with Uncle Cayal as your instructor.”

“Will you teach me Crasii magic? Uncle Cayal's already promised to show me a Crasii farm, but I don't think he wants to show me anything else.”

“He
has
?” Jaxyn asked, looking over her head at me.

“I thought Fliss might want to see how the Crasii are made before she decides she really wants to have anything to do with them.”

“Does she really need to know, though?” he asked with an ingenuous smile. “I mean, given your…um…
plans
…for Fliss, do you even have the time for such a detour?”

I glared at him, wondering if Jaxyn had invited himself along because Syrolee had sent him—which is what I'd first assumed—or if he was here because he was actually entertained by the idea Fliss was to be killed and wanted to be around to watch.

 

We travelled south-west, avoiding Libeth and the inevitable pomp and ceremony that accompanied any of our kind appearing at the city gates. It was just on sunset when we reached the village of Marivale, located about halfway between Libeth and Lorenvale. A pall of wood smoke choked the air, trapped in the small stony hollow where the village was located on the very edge of the flax farms bordering the river. We could see warm yellow lamplight illuminating the crackled glass windows of the shops as we rode into the village.

I dismounted in the paved courtyard of the village's only inn. Fliss yawned, rubbing her eyes. The little girl had chattered happily to us for most of the afternoon, asking question after question about life in the world outside the palace, finally falling asleep slumped in my arms about an hour ago. I'd slowed our pace and held her while she slept, a remarkably paternal act that I never imagined myself capable of.

“You're planning to stay
here
tonight?” Jaxyn asked in surprise.

“I don't think Fliss is quite ready for a night in the open. Not at this time of year.”

“Good plan,” Jaxyn agreed as he dismounted. “I mean, we wouldn't want to risk our girl catching pneumonia and dying, would we? That'd be tragic.” Before I could respond, Jaxyn glanced around and added, “It's going to cause a riot, you know, a couple of Tide Lords arriving in a village this size without warning, demanding rooms.”

“Can't be helped.” I shrugged.

As Jaxyn predicted, the unannounced arrival of two Tide Lords in the small village precipitated something akin to a riot. We were well known in Tenacia, so within moments of our appearance, the courtyard was swarming with people, most of them prostrating themselves at our feet, gushing with the need to serve their gods' every desire.

Their devotion didn't surprise me. The Tide had been up for several hundred years by then and Engarhod and Syrolee are very good at what they do. All mortals living in the shadow of the Emperor and Empress of the Five Realms reacted the same way to our kind. At least they did in Tenacia. Daresay with the Tide out as long as it has been this time, they're left with little more than your wretched Tarot cards to remember us by, these days.

“To serve you is the reason I breathe, my lord!” a woman blubbered, falling to her knees before me as I emerged from the inn after speaking with the owner. I stepped back before she could kiss my feet—that's a really disgusting sensation, you know, having a perfect stranger slobber all over your feet. She was an older woman, the innkeeper's wife, I guessed. In her wake several other young women pushed through the crowd, no doubt the daughters of the house. They fell to their knees beside their mother, too afraid to look us in the eye. Behind them were even more people, unwashed and uncivilised, all wanting to gape and grovel at the feet of their gods.

Fliss pulled her cloak a little closer, clinging to Jaxyn for security in the face of the swarming humans who had increased in numbers so quickly I figured the whole village must be here by now. A few of them carried torches, their flickering light poking holes in the rapidly falling darkness. They looked more like a mob than a congregation.

“Clear this place!” I ordered.

The crowd hurried to comply until only the innkeeper's wife and her daughters remained. The rest of them gathered in the street, straining to see what was happening inside the courtyard walls.

“Are you deaf, woman?” I snapped at the prostrate mortal and her daughters.

“My husband…this is his…our inn,” the older woman mumbled into the paving stones.

“Then stand up, for the Tide's sake!”

The woman scrambled to her feet, followed by her three daughters. They ranged in age from about fifteen to the eldest, who looked to be about twenty. She was a pretty girl with wavy dark hair and clear blue eyes lined with thick dark lashes.

“You! What's your name?” I asked her.

“Amaleta, my lord,” she replied, blushing crimson at being singled out. She was nervous, but I could sense no fear in her—unlike her mother and sisters, who radiated their terror like an open fire.

“This is Fliss, favourite of Syrolee, Empress of the Five Realms. You will take care of her.”

Fliss glanced up at me in confusion. “Am I Syrolee's favourite, Uncle Cayal?”

“You are tonight, Fliss.”

She accepted that and turned to Amaleta. “Can you show me where the latrines are? I'm busting.”

I bit back a smile as Amaleta shyly approached the little girl and held out her hand. “Come with me, my lady. They're not the golden ones you're used to, I'll be bound, but I reckon they'll do the trick.”

The call of nature overriding any other concerns the child had about being handed into the care of a complete stranger, Fliss let Amaleta lead her into the inn. Relieved of that responsibility, I turned my attention back to the innkeeper's wife.

“Our horses require food and stabling.”

Expecting nothing less than her blind obedience to my orders—I might find being worshipped irritating, but that doesn't meant it isn't useful at times—I turned on my heel leaving the woman staring nervously after us and headed in the direction that Fliss and Amaleta had disappeared.

 

Jaxyn was one step ahead of me. I found him inside, warming his hands at an iron brazier of glowing coals where it was obvious he'd already ordered our dinner. The younger daughters of the house were hurriedly laying out our meal on the table set up between the couches, glancing fearfully over their shoulders at us watching them work.

The inn was quite grand for such a small village. Built in a poor imitation of Magrethan architecture, it was constructed of the local grey stone, its windowless walls offering protection from the outside world. There was a small and rather paltry atrium in the centre of the building with a broken fountain. Surrounding the atrium were a number of small alcoves, as I recall, the sort you find in far more salubrious establishments, offering couches and low tables for patrons to relax and drink their dark warm Tenacian beer, which I have always thought tastes much the same as horse piss would taste. I guess the tavern had been hastily emptied of all its mortal patrons to make way for us.