Book of One 04: A Child of Fire (9 page)

"No doubt you have heard many things," Stavros said. "It no longer matters what has been said, only what must be done."

One of Carlis' legs gave way and he almost fell from his feet, but he caught himself and managed to get his balance again. He took in a deep breath then exhaled and the smell of Aghlar brew filled the air.

"The first thing that must be done is getting Carlis off his feet. I fear that Toren has played a little trick on him by serving him Aghlar strong brew."

"Aghlar strong brew?" Carlis asked.

"Powerful stuff," Stavros said as he watched Carlis swaying on his feet. "It's as strong as sweet water, but goes down like ale. From the looks of things, you've had quite a lot of it. 'Tis wise to go easy with such powerful spirits."

"If Toren wasn't toasting every thought that popped into his head, I surely would not have had so much. I do not regularly imbibe."

"So much the worse, then," Stavros said with a chuckle. "Like a sailor on a ship, it takes some practice to keep one's legs in the frothing sea."

"I do not relish the thought of drinking or being at sea," Carlis said, followed by a hiccup.

"Come, Carlis," Elaine said, taking his arm. As she guided him forward, she looked at her niece and the mage. "We will talk on the morrow."

"Lady Valamyr," Stavros said, bowing his head.

"Good night aunt Elaine," Ehlena said. "Carlis, I hope you feel better."

Stavros turned to Ehlena, shaking his head with a smile.

"With luck he will sleep through most of the cannon fire that will be blasting inside his head, come morning."

"Poor Carlis," Ehlena said. "Toren is always playing tricks. I really should have a talk with him."

"No doubt he will wish to have a talk with you. You did not tell me that you commandeered the Al-Andor."

"There was little time to explain," she said. "I knew what I had to do and the crew understood. Carlis, my aunt, and Toren would have delayed me with their questions. Likely they would have had me performing miracles just to prove myself."

"Perception is often little more than an illusion, though its effects can shape the future."

Ehlena nodded. She knew that Elaine and Carlis were as yet unaware of the changes she had undergone, which was something she would have to explain in a way that would hopefully not cause them alarm. Toren, on the other hand, would require a more direct approach.

"Let us go see my father," she said. "The night is still young so he will not be too drunken with ale."

Behind them, at the far end of the passage, Elaine helped Carlis through the door and down the short flight of steps outside to the palace yard. Carlis breathed deep in the cool night air and he felt his head clear a little, though his vision continued to blur. He glanced at Elaine under the bright, starlit night and felt a melancholy regret growing inside him.

"We should marry," Carlis said.

"What's this?" Elaine asked, a little surprised by such directness.

"I mean, I think it might be something to consider." Carlis sounded less sure.

Elaine smiled at the confounded expression on his face. It was clear that his thoughts were in disarray from the effects of the drink, but she found it amusing to hear him struggle to talk about something that she knew had been on his mind for so long. Always eloquent and sure in his speech on a good many subjects, when it came to matters of the heart, particularly his own, Carlis was always at a loss. It was something that had both frustrated and amused Elaine for many years, but given all that had happened to them both, it was pleasing to hear him bring up the subject of marriage.

"You think we would make suitable match?" she teased.

"I haven't the slightest idea, Elaine," he said as they made their way past the guards at the gate and out into the streets of the city. "Everything I knew about such things has been torn asunder and here we are in a faraway land full of drunken pirates and the only thing I can be sure about is that we are both the same people we always were, though I'm now a ship's captain and you are my partner in this mad venture."

"A most fortunate arrangement," Elaine said. "You would like to formalize this partnership with marriage?"

"Bah," Carlis said. "That's just gold, a ship and a shipyard. Those things are simply a means, like land or cloth and other goods."

"Everything is an arrangement, Carlis."

"I suppose it is," he said, frowning down at the cobbles as he concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other as they neared the inn where they had taken rooms after the ship had gone missing from the harbor. "I just don't like having to think about someone I care about in those kinds of terms."

"Then don't," Elaine said then she pulled open the door to the inn and ushered him through the tavern. A few moments later they passed through another door and into a long, stone hallway that led to their rooms. They stopped in front of the heavy, wooden door of Elaine's room and she held out her hand.

"Yes, right," Carlis remembered that he was carrying both of the keys to their rooms in the pocket of his coat. He fished them out, unlocked Elaine's door for her and pushed it open then bowed with a flourish of his hand. "Your chamber awaits, milady."

Elaine grabbed him by the collar and pulled him inside the room and she pushed the door closed as he stumbled inside. Before Carlis knew what was happening, Elaine had already unbuttoned the front of his shirt and was pulling the leather through the buckle of his belt.

"What are you doing?" Carlis whispered.

"If I am to enter into an arrangement, I wish to inspect the goods," she said. The buckle let go and she slid her hand past his waistband and found what she had long wondered about. Carlis gasped when she took him in a grip that was much more firm than he would have expected. "Things seems to be of quality," she said, drawing in close to him and licking his lips.

"Elaine," Carlis whispered, dizzy and helpless in her grasp. With her free hand, she tugged at the collar of her blouse.

"Aren't you curious?"

"Incredibly," he said.

"Then what are you waiting for?"

"I don't know," he said. "I wanted for things to be proper, for all the things I wanted to accomplish to come to fruition."

"I have lost my land, and we have both lost most of our fortunes. The only thing we truly still have is one another," Elaine told him. "I have waited long enough."

*****

Ehlena and Stavros entered the noisy banquet hall and took the seats that had been left empty by Elaine and Carlis. They made sure that Toren instructed the serving boy to fill their cups with normal ale even though they both knew that even something as strong as the pirate's sweet water would have little effect on them. After a brief greeting, Ehlena immediately took to berating her father over his treatment of Carlis.

"Come, Ehlena," Toren protested. "I was merely having a bit of fun with the man. I hoped he might grow a sense of humor along with that scruff of a beard of his."

"Toren," Ehlena said, calling him by name since she did not often use more familial terms with him. "Not everyone finds it amusing to have their ale switched for strong brew. And Carlis has been trying very hard to learn every Aghlar custom and pleasantry, mostly so he would not offend you."

"Perhaps that is why I feel compelled to gibe him so," Toren said. "Carlis tries too hard and it makes it all too tempting to trip him up."

"As you will," Ehlena said. "Carlis may not be a warrior or have a head for strong brew, but he's a good man, worthy of your respect."

"I will respect him more once his beard is grown," Toren joked, but he could tell that Ehlena was not aboard with him. "All right, my dear princess, I will pay a visit to him on the morrow and bring him some willow and nettle tea. After the quantity of strong brew he imbibed, he will surely need such a cure, though I must admit, I was impressed that he did manage to walk out of here on his own two feet."

Ehlena smiled, pleased that Toren was willing to play a little more nicely with Carlis. She knew it would take some time for both the former Maramyrian magistrate and her aunt Elaine to become accustomed to Aghlar life, and it would be easier if Toren did not aggravate them, especially since they were both still upset about what had happened at Maramyr, even though neither of them wanted to speak about it.

"Tell me, mage," Toren said, turning to Stavros. "How is it that you have eluded these black robed mage priests who have been roaming the lands these many long years gathering up all your brothers and sisters?"

"It is one of my particular talents," he replied. "If I do not wish to be seen, then I simply disappear." Stavros began to fade from view, slowly turning invisible. Toren leaned forward on the table, staring past Ehlena as the mage disappeared. There were very few mages at Aghlar, so it was a rare occasion for even Toren to see magic at work and he was clearly impressed. His laughed when Stavros' cup lifted off the table and the mage took a strong swallow of ale, leaving a foamy moustache floating in the air where the head of the drink had clung to the whiskers on his face.

"Ha!" Toren exclaimed, pounding his fist on the table. "That's a clever thing."

"A mere parlor trick," Stavros said, fading back into view and wiping the foam from his lip. "It takes more than that to hide oneself from the priesthood."

"I know little of the ways of magic," Toren said. "We at Aghlar hold to the Lady and trust in her blessings for our fortune on the seas and in battle."

"The Lady is a powerful force in this world," Stavros said, glancing at Ehlena.

"Is it true, Ehlena," Toren said. "You received the blessing from the Lady, at the temple. You have become a priestess? I heard you disappeared like this mage, and it was witnessed by many people."

Ehlena stared at her father for a moment then she turned and looked at Stavros, who answered for her.

"Toren," Stavros said, leaning in closer. "Ehlena was not merely blessed by the Lady, she is the Lady."

"What's this?" Toren was in the middle of drinking from his cup and he nearly spit his ale.

"It's true," Ehlena said. "The Lady has returned and she is in me."

"You sound like your mother," Toren said. "She said all sorts of things like that when she became a priestess. As much as I revere and thank the Lady for my fortunes, I sometimes wonder if spending too much time in the temple is like being hit on the head one too many times."

"He doesn't believe you," Stavros said with a smile and he sipped from his mug.

"Toren," Ehlena said, her voice becoming more full and the color of her eyes shifting from their usual watery blue to the pale blue-grey of the Aghlar sky. "You have long been faithful to me, and for that I am grateful, but are you blind to the fact that your goddess sits before you?"

Toren's brow furrowed, not sure exactly what Ehlena was saying, but he felt his skin prickle as the hair on his body began to stand on end and though the windows of the banquet hall were not open, a cold breeze began to whistle through the room.

"Your mage is playing tricks," Toren said. "Ehlena, is it not wise to mock the Lady. You would do well not to risk her ire, for she can bring the storm as easily as fair winds."

"It is not I who commands the air," Stavros said as the wind in the room began to whip around the hall. The other guests had noticed and were now becoming alarmed at the gusts of wind that buffeted them and they stood as a whirlwind appeared in the center of the hall in front of the high table.

"Are you doing this, Ehlena?"

"A mere parlor trick," she said as the whirlwind increased in size and began pulling objects from the tables in the hall. Plates of food, cups, knives, all manner of things were pulled into the vortex as it grew larger and more powerful.

"Enough!" Toren shouted and in an instant everything stopped.

The wind disappeared and everything that had been pulled into it, hung in the air, suspended as though frozen. Ehlena turned to Toren and smiled, then every object flew back to where they had been, even the beer and wine that had spilled and mingled in the vortex separated and returned to their appropriate cups, as they landed neatly in place. Everything was returned as though nothing had happened at all, except the entire hall was silent and all eyes were fixated on Ehlena, who appeared to glow.

"Please continue," she said. Even though her voice was calm and relaxed, with the power of the goddess, it filled the room entirely, reverberating like gentle thunder. She realized that the people were either intimidated or awestruck, neither of which were her intention. She had only hoped to impress upon Toren who she had become. Ehlena stood, raised her cup and she let go of the power of the goddess then, in her normal voice, she made a toast. "To fair winds and gentle seas." It was one of the most common Aglar blessings and said by many before they

"I'll drink to that," Toren said, lifting his mug. The many guests began to lift their cups as well, though a few were noticeably hesitant.

"To King Toren!" Ehlena said!

"I'll definitely drink to me!" Toren laughed and the people laughed as well and they drank then settled back into their places.