Return of the Guardian-King

by Karen Hancock

  “You’re saying this tree grows solid gold fruit?” Maddie asked skeptically.

  “Indeed, my lovely queen.” Tiris reached up to pluck one from beneath the foliage and handed it to her. As she turned it in her hands, Tiris gestured at the stem. “See, it’s obviously a plant . . . but the fruit . . . well, you can feel it for yourself.”

  “Do they sting?” asked one of the Thilosian ladies. “The wasps?”

  He chuckled. “Certainly not, my lady.”

  “You think he would have stinging wasps in his salon?” her friend asked of her.

  “Well, it’s all very odd to me,” the first lady admitted.

  “It is a wonder,” Tiris agreed. “Brought all the way from Chena’ag Tor, I’m told. As was the amber.”

  “That cannot be possible, sir,” declared one of the Sorites. “No man has ever gone to Chena’ag Tor. If it even exists.”

  “No man has ever gone and returned. . . .” Tiris corrected. “Or so they say.”

  The other man snorted. “What’s the difference, Draek? If no man can return, how could anyone bring this tree with him? If no man can return, how could anyone know if any of the stories are even true?”

  Maddie kept her attention on Tiris, wondering if he was going to tell them of his own journey to the city.

  Instead he only smiled at his guests and said, “Indeed, how can one know? The stories are fantastic. They say there are dragons there. A whole colony of them.” His dark eyes found Maddie’s, laughing at her.

  She took the bait, replaying the discussion they’d had months ago when first he’d told her of the place. “Dragons in the middle of the Great Sand Sea, you say?”

  “Trapped now for millennia.”

  “What, then, do they eat?” she asked. “Next you will tell me that in addition to guarding their treasure they keep great flocks of sheep on which to dine.”

  He cocked a brow at her. “Maybe they don’t need to eat.”

  “Or maybe they eat each other!” one of the Thilosians suggested.

  The Sorite remained disgruntled. “How can you trap a dragon in a city?” he sneered. “Does it have a great lid on it, then?”

  The others laughed, and Tiris received their amusement with a sheepish spreading of his hands. “I tell you only what I have heard.”

  After that they returned to the middle tier, and after sufficient time for all the guests to have examined his tree, Tiris began his introduction to the special performance he had promised them. As they assembled on the circle of large floor pillows, he drew all eyes again to the golden tree standing at the head of the waterfall above them and recited an ancient Sorite poem extolling the tree’s fruit, which was believed to have once imparted wisdom and understanding beyond the realm of any normal man’s abilities—if you could find it in the moments before it turned to solid gold.

  As he spoke, Maddie watched the fig wasps flying about the tree, little motes of golden light, and thought what a strange thing it all was. But then, she’d seen many strange things in the gallery. Her thoughts returned to the amber and the strong sense of Abramm sitting behind her on the river. Tiris said she was the one who must determine the time, and she thought perhaps it was today or tomorrow. In any case, he was on the Ankrill, close to Obla. Which meant he truly would be in Fannath Rill before the month was out. Her heart leapt with joy . . . and then a sudden silence intruded into her thoughts, and she realized the group’s attention had shifted off of Tiris and onto herself.

  He had introduced her, and she’d heard not a word of what he’d said. Perhaps that was just as well. The time had come for her to sing. She took up the lirret, half expecting it to slip from her suddenly trembling fingers, and set it in her lap, careful not to pay too much attention to her audience just yet. Drawing a deep breath, she closed her eyes, sought Eidon’s strength, and began. Her fingers danced over the strings in the ballad’s opening arpeggio, and she hit the first note perfectly. From there on, as always, the song itself swept her away.

  It wasn’t long before she knew she was delivering the performance of her life. Her audience sat enrapt. Unshed tears glittered in the most unlikely eyes. But just before the new part, just before the best part, the crescendo when the story took its turn from tragedy to victory, some note brought the wasps fluttering down upon them. Swirling motes of gold flashed above the heads of those gathered, though at first only Maddie seemed to notice. They buzzed around, adding their tiny voices to the song in a distracting dissonance.

  Focused as she was on her music, she ignored them for the most part, though when at the end they actually came to rest upon her audience, she felt a chill crawl up her spine and came in on the last chorus half a beat too late. Determinedly she closed her eyes and focused on the song, on bringing out these last notes with perfect pitch and intensity.

  Then it was done. He had returned, the battle was won, the people rejoiced.

  The last chord faded, and only then did she open her eyes again.

  Her audience sat spellbound, covered with tiny golden wasps. She could not tell from their faces what they had thought, but the wasps unnerved her. It got worse the longer no one moved or spoke.

  Then Tiris said, “Well, that was a most lovely performance, Your Highness.”

  Suddenly the wasps lifted off the gathering, a great cloud of them, which at last the people noticed. They leaped up, exclaiming in alarm, and fell to brushing the wasps off one another’s backs, knocking them from hair and mustache and shaking out their skirts.

  “Please,” Tiris called out to them. “Your alarm is unfounded. They are harmless, merely entranced, as we all were, by the lady’s performance. Do not hurt them. They will return to the tree in a few moments.”

  And so they did.

  Then, slowly, the gathering returned their focus to Maddie and her performance. Inexplicably concerned that the wasps had negatively impacted their perception of it, she was thrilled to find it was actually the opposite. As on the night when she’d performed the “Legend of the White Pretender” for Abramm and his Kiriathan court, when the people had mobbed her, raving in astonishment over her talent and the beauty of her song, so they did tonight. The Kiriathans came to her with shining eyes, thanking her for restoring their self-respect and asking again and again if she really believed Abramm was coming back. And again and again she assured them that she did.

  Afterward she heard them talking amongst themselves. Darnley claimed he’d almost seen Abramm himself when Maddie was singing; and Nott said that her vision in the amber was most convincing, as well. He wanted to return and have a look into it himself in a day or so. Even Minister Garival confessed to being strongly swayed by her obvious confidence in her husband’s return, though he seemed more troubled by that prospect than the others.

  Alone of them, Carissa remained unconvinced. She never said it blatantly, but Maddie could tell from her reserve and the sad look in her eyes that she considered it all a delusion, born of Maddie’s battle with the spore while in the midst of a difficult labor. She’d already warned against proceeding with this course, as had her husband from jail—the two of them unaware they were echoing each other. Both feared the ridicule and censure that would descend on Maddie for daring to make such claims publicly. But even the fact that had not occurred did not mollify Carissa’s disapproval.

  Overall, though, the evening was a stunning success, and Maddie was almost giddy by the end of it. She, Carissa, and the Kiriathan leaders were just leaving when one of Tiris’s servants hurried into the salon and came to speak softly into the draek’s ear. He sobered immediately, his dark eyes tracking to Maddie as he listened.

  He asked a few quiet questions, then finally turned to his remaining guests and said, “I have just received the grim news that King Leyton has been captured by the Esurhites. He and both his sons.”

  There followed a shocked silence, then an outpouring of gasping denials and questions.

  “And what of our regalia?” demanded Oswain Nott. “D
id he lose them, too, along with himself?”

  Tiris met his gaze grimly. “I’m afraid so, Lord Oswain. He was caught and all the pieces with him. The queen has closeted herself to seek Eidon’s mercy and guidance, and asks us all to do likewise.”

  Janner’s Sandpiper glided out of Ru’geruk just as the early morning river mist was lifting—some two hours behind Dugla’is’s three yellow-trimmed vessels. The small boat’s passengers—the Kemps, the Ashvelts, and Marta— huddled on the thwarts, silent and shivering under their cloaks as they pressed together for warmth. Abramm sat at the prow, oar in hand, ready to do as Janner commanded, while Janner himself, sober but miserable, manned the steering oar at the stern.

  Because of their later start, they didn’t have to suffer long in the chill of the morning, and soon the sun shone in their eyes and warmed their faces. Janner asked Rolland if he wanted them to overtake the other party. “ ’Cause we could do it, easy. This boat is lighter and slimmer—faster through the water than his clunkers.”

  Rolland looked to Abramm for an answer, and Abramm shook his head. “Just catch up enough for us to keep track of them. I don’t want to join them, but I would like to be available if our suspicions prove true.”

  Janner had scowled and muttered something about not being part of some half-brained rescue operation, and Abramm shared another glance with Rolland. The three of them had been up late last night, discussing the grim possibility that Dugla’is really was in league with the slavers of the eastern deserts. Abramm and Rolland had no idea what they might do should that be the case. There seemed precious little chance of success, especially without Janner’s help—and he had declared his resistance very firmly—but Abramm was confident Eidon would help them if and when the time came.

  Janner was as testy and arrogant sober as he’d been when drunk, but his skill on the river was all they had been told it was. He knew the Ankrill well, even at flood stage, and guided their craft expertly through the channels and safe lanes, taking the rapids they encountered at just the right angle, avoiding shoals, guessing almost the exact spot where the new buildups of silt would occur and where the old would be eaten away. Though Abramm was supposedly positioned to help him, the man never asked him to do a thing.

  They caught up with Dugla’is before noon the first day, then had to deliberately hang back to avoid being spotted. Which meant they could make a leisurely departure each morning, and even stop on the banks occasionally to relieve themselves or stretch their legs. They routinely stopped for lunch, though the same could not be said for the party they followed.

  On the third night, Janner—aided by the liberating influence of the spirits he still imbibed every evening—once again talked of the things he’d observed and heard and suspected regarding Dugla’is’s involvement in the trading of slaves. Abramm, Cedric, and Rolland sat with him around their small campfire— the children tucked away with Daesi and Marta in the tent, old Totten asleep in his bedroll nearby, lulled by the river’s rush and the myriad calls of the frogs and insects that came out at night.

  “Never had it proved to my satisfaction,” Janner said, his eyes on the tin cup he held in scarred and callused hands. “Never seen anything, never caught him at anything . . . I’ve talked to some he’s transported. Met up with them in Trakas and even Deveren Dol. But I also saw at least two parties leave Ru’geruk with him that no one after the Trakas bend ever heard of.” He looked up and met Abramm’s eyes. “He claimed the people wanted off upriver at one of the garrisons, intending to head toward Caer’akila. I asked up and down the river and turned up nothing, but that doesn’t mean a lot. Folk don’t stay there long, even the locals. And folk not planning to stay at all could well have been there only an hour at most.”

  “Wouldn’t they have had to make arrangements for their travel?” Rolland asked. “Get directions, hire a guide, buy some horses or a cart?”

  “Could you folk buy horses and a cart if I dropped you off along here?”

  The big man frowned but said nothing, nor did Cedric, who appeared shocked by everything the riverman was revealing.

  “As for the other,” Janner went on, “they’d not need directions because the road is plain. And Dugla’is said they had some Chesedhans among them.”

  “But you think they never made it,” said Abramm.

  Janner shook his head and emptied his cup. “Don’t think yer friends will make it, either.”

  Abramm exchanged a glance with Rolland, then asked Janner why he thought that.

  “Timing’s perfect. No one will be coming upriver on account of the flooding, so he needn’t worry about being caught that way. I think he stops at Obla—an old Ophiran ruin. The mist is always thick there, so most think it’s cursed and avoid it. But with the mist and all the walls, it’s a good place to do bad things. And the landing’s on the east bank, so it’d be a good spot to meet up with the Fermikians.”

  “Fermikians?”

  “Men who know the routes through the Great Sand Sea.”

  “But how would they know he was coming?”

  Janner snorted. “He probably sent out his birds the night before we left.” When Abramm looked surprised, he added, “If Dugla’is is involved in the trade, he’s not the only one. Locals don’t like all you Kiriathans swarming into our lands. They’re inclined to look away should ill befall you. And there are innkeepers and river runners both who wouldn’t bat an eye at taking advantage of people like you all.”

  Again Abramm met Rolland’s eyes, but neither of them spoke. Cedric stood from the fire first—without a word—and stooped to spread out his bedroll. Since there wasn’t much more to say, the others soon followed his lead.

  As they traveled downriver over the next few days, they passed beacon towers, an occasional small garrison, and more and more often, signs of recently raided farms and villages off in the fields to the northeast. Finally, five nights along and only two-thirds of the way to Trakas according to Janner—which effectively nullified Dugla’is’s time estimate of reaching Deveren Dol within a week—Abramm first saw the signal lights. They flashed red off the cloud of smoke that hung over a nearby ridge and presumably the neighboring camp. If he had not been away from his own group’s campfire seeing to his business, he wouldn’t have seen it, but the moment he did, he knew what it was. With the night silence broken only by the sounds of the insects and the night birds and the frogs at the river, he crept over to the ridgetop and settled himself in a good position to see Dugla’is’s camp, but by then no one was stirring, and the fire was dying down enough he wondered if he’d imagined it. Or else had seen the fire’s reflection and made it something it wasn’t.

  But when the light show was repeated the next night, and Abramm pointed it out, Janner immediately agreed with his assessment, though he expressed surprise at the acuity of Abramm’s sight. “I’ve never seen ’em myself before,” he said, “though now you point it out, it’s clear.”

  Rolland wanted to confront Dugla’is the moment he saw them, but the others talked him out of it. For one thing, Dugla’is would never admit to having generated the signals. “And you think Trinley would believe us over him?” Abramm asked.

  “Worse,” Janner added, “is that he’ll know we’re on to him.”

  “Surely he must know we’re behind him.”

  “He does. In fact, I think he’s been deliberately making poor time, hoping we’ll go past. Probably even wondering why we don’t.” Janner squinted up into the night sky, dark now, the scarlet light having long-since vanished.

  “We should overtake them, then,” Abramm said, “find a place to hide downriver, then let them pass us again without their knowing it.”

  “The mists in Obla are thick,” Janner said, nodding. “And the ruins offer plenty of inlets to hide, especially now with the river so high.”

  Abramm shook his head. “No. If you think he meets with the slavers in Obla, I want to be behind him again before we get there.”

  Janner frowned. “There
may be a couple of places downstream we might tuck into, but . . .” He trailed off, looking doubtful.

  “We’ll make it work,” Abramm said.

  CHAPTER

  20

  They passed Dugla’is’s three vessels the next morning, coming up on them slowly, then tracking alongside them, the two groups exchanging playful jibes for a time until the current picked up and Janner’s Sandpiper swiftly outdistanced the other boats. Abramm left them with the image of the gaunt blue-vested boatman burned into his memory, his white eyes staring at Abramm with an unnerving intensity that seemed somehow familiar.

  The remainder of the day they played with the other group, making frequent rest stops so they might wait for Dugla’is’s slower vessels to catch up, then sprinting ahead again when they did. That night they estimated the location of the other group’s camp, now not far behind them, by the scarlet lights flickering on the campfire smoke again. The next morning they headed down the river early to find a place to hide. And a good thing, too, for Janner was right to be concerned. They had to tuck the Sandpiper deep into a flooded willow stand, to the point of running her aground, and even then they were visible from the main current in the river if one knew what to look for.

  But Eidon was with them, and Dugla’is’s vessels sailed right past without a hint that anyone had seen them. After that it was a matter of keeping far enough back to avoid being spotted, but close enough they’d still get there in time when Dugla’is made his trade.

  By midafternoon, they had reached the outskirts of Obla, where as Janner had predicted, the high waters submerged the river grasses that normally lined its banks and stood halfway up the trunks of the trees beyond them, or reached in long fingers through the outlying cotton fields. A thin mist overhung water and field and drifted between trees and the old columns and shards of ancient walls thrusting up from the weeds here and there. The farther south they traveled, the thicker it became, until by day’s end it had completely veiled their surroundings.