The Immortal Prince

by Jennifer Fallon

  “Before Clyden Bell spoke of the events at his inn to the duke, my lord, he was required to relate his tale to the Crasii doorman to gain entry to the palace. It was common knowledge even before you arrived at the village to select your escort that you would be seeking to find the Immortal Prince and bring him to justice.”

  Jaxyn snorted at that. Bring Cayal to justice? Chance would be a fine thing.

  “So, where do you think he’s headed?” he asked, curious how much lore of the Crasii the canine knew. If he’d been well-schooled by his dam, Chelby would know the legends. He might even be smart enough to put two and two together and come up with the right answer.

  The Crasii dropped his eyes and lowered his tail and refused to answer.

  Jaxyn grasped the young male’s shoulder reassuringly. “You can tell me, Chelby. I promise, I won’t be angry with you.”

  The Crasii hesitated for a moment longer before he spoke. “I was just thinking, sire…if this man we pursue…if he really is the Immortal Prince…might not he be headed for Maralyce’s Mine?”

  Jaxyn frowned. So the legends are still told among the Crasii. That was both a good and a bad thing, he mused, and not altogether convenient.

  “And do you know where to find it?” Jaxyn asked, curiously. “This legendary mine of Crasii lore?”

  The young canine shook his head, looking very disappointed. “No, my lord. Our legends tell of the mine’s existence; of the fabulous treasure buried within. But other than the mine being hidden in the Shevron Mountains east of the Great Lakes, they do not speak of a specific location. I thought perhaps…you…” The canine’s voice trailed off, as if he feared the consequences of his presumptuousness.

  Jaxyn let the silence draw out, enjoying the Crasii’s discomfort.

  “You thought I might, what, gemang?” he asked eventually.

  “I thought you might know…my lord…” Chelby looked ready to chew his own foot off out of mortification.

  “You think I should know?”

  “I’m sorry, my lord…I should not have presumed…”

  Chelby’s fawning was starting to irritate Jaxyn. “You’re right, gemang. You should not presume. Still, you’re not incorrect in your assumption. I do know where Maralyce’s Mine is.”

  Around him, Jaxyn could feel the feline Crasii go still, even those behind him he couldn’t see. “You seemed surprised, gemang? Why? Did you think I would forget?”

  “Of course not, my lord,” one of the felines assured him. “You are omnipotent.”

  He smiled. “That’s a big word for a little cat. Stellan really does overeducate you lot, doesn’t he?”

  The feline bowed. “If you say so, my lord.”

  Satisfied the Crasii were still his to command, he turned his back on them, lifting his face to the sky so he could feel the setting sun on his face, the bite of the wind, the icy chill of the oncoming night. The air was thin and smelled of rain and old snow at this altitude and he was feeling a little light-headed as his body adjusted to the change.

  But it wasn’t just the air making him feel strange. Underneath the tingling of the brittle atmosphere against his skin, there was something else, he realised. Something tickling at his awareness, something pulling at him, like an indefinable itch.

  A slow smile crept over Jaxyn’s face. A score of times he’d felt this. A score of times he’d welcomed it. Jaxyn forgot about the Crasii and closed his eyes. He held his arms out wide, letting the sensation whisper over him like the tender kiss of a secret lover.

  Jaxyn knew what it was.

  It was power. Life. Eternity. There…on the very edge of his awareness, something he hadn’t felt for a thousand years.

  The Tide was coming in.

  Part II

  Low Tide

  I must go down to the seas again,

  for the call of the running tide

  is a wild call and a clear call

  that may not be denied.

  —JOHN MASEFIELD (1878–1967)

  Chapter 45

  It was dark by the time the City Watch let Warlock leave the Watch-house, located at the entrance to the older, walled part of the city, and it was clear he would not be permitted entry at this hour. Not that he had any business in the city proper. Now he was free again—at least until the next time the City Watch thought up a reason to arrest him—Warlock really only had one purpose in mind.

  Find Shalimar. Get out of this place and find Shalimar. He will lead you home.

  The sky was low and overcast, the night misty, although the rain had finally stopped. Warlock turned away from the gates and the suspicious stares of the Watchmen on duty and headed back into the slums outside the walls, where he’d been arrested earlier. His stomach growled with hunger as he walked, wondering if he could find the street he’d been looking for again. Shalimar, according to what little Warlock knew of him, was some sort of healer. The logical place to look for him then, the Crasii figured, was down Curing Street where most of the healers working the slums had their shops. It was hardly the most scientific approach to finding a person who might well be a figment of the collective Crasii imagination, but he had nothing better to go on.

  Warlock was two or three streets from the Watch-house when he realised he was being followed. At the next corner, where the soft yellow light and cheerful music of a pub spilled out into the street, illuminating pockets of the muddy road while plunging other parts of it into shadow, he stepped back against the wall and waited. Holding his breath, his pulse pounding in his ears, Warlock flattened himself against the rough weatherboards. The music from the pub continued unabated, the place smelling of beer and overcooked meat, making his hunger that much sharper.

  He forced himself to concentrate on the creature following him. Sure enough, a few moments after Warlock vanished from sight, his pursuer stepped cautiously into the lane. He was small for a canine, although unmistakably that’s what he was. Shadowed by the irregular light from the pub, Warlock could make out little more than the silhouette of a small canine with a thick bushy tail. Warlock held himself still, waiting for his pursuer to get closer. Unaware he had turned from hunter to prey, the canine walked deeper into the alley.

  The beast was two steps past Warlock when the big Crasii struck, crashing into him, forcing him to the ground. Instinctively, he bit down on the creature’s throat, ready to rip it out if the canine gave him any trouble, but to his surprise, the creature went limp beneath him and made no effort to fight back.

  Warily, he let go of the throat and, still astride the beast, Warlock knelt back on his heels, growling. The young canine rolled on his back and raised his shift, exposing his belly to his enemy in a gesture of submission.

  It was then Warlock realised that his pursuer wasn’t male at all.

  It was the female who’d watched him being arrested. The one who’d gasped in horror when he answered back.

  “Why are you following me?” he growled.

  She glared up at him, her dark eyes full of suspicion, but she wasn’t afraid of him. “Why did they let you go?”

  “Who are you?”

  “Your worst nightmare, farm dog, if you harm a single hair on my tail and expect to get out of Lebec City afterwards.” Her complete lack of fear surprised Warlock a little. He was twice her size and she was in a very vulnerable position, but he couldn’t smell anything that reeked of fear. If anything, her scent was musky. And enticing. As if she was about to come on heat and was oblivious to the fact. It made their current position all the more dangerous. For both of them.

  He leaned back and studied her more closely in the fitful light. She was ginger-haired and well-formed, long lashes framing large dewy eyes so brown they were almost black. And her scent was beginning to drive him crazy.

  Conscious of the risk of staying so close to a female who smelt like that, Warlock slowly climbed off her and stood up warily. She didn’t move, her submissive stance at odds with her fearless demeanour.

  Warlock held his ha
nd out to her. The female stared at his outstretched arm for a moment, and then, with some reluctance, accepted his aid. He pulled her to her feet, surprised to discover she was taller than she’d seemed when she’d been tracking him.

  “Why are you following me?” he asked, in a much less threatening tone.

  “We saw your arrest.”

  “It was a misunderstanding,” Warlock informed her. “Who is we?”

  She shrugged. “Just some concerned citizens who want to know what a canine Crasii is doing roaming the streets of the Lebec slums without a collar or a shift, or any sign of a master. And why the City Watch would arrest him, and then let him go a few hours later after a visit from the Duke of Lebec.”

  They’d been watching him the whole time, he realised. “I have no master.”

  “You’re a freed Crasii?” she asked sceptically.

  “I just got out of prison,” he told her, figuring there was no benefit in lying. It was not a skill that came easily to canines, anyway. “I came here to look for someone.”

  “Who?”

  “A healer named Shalimar.”

  The girl didn’t react, or give any indication she knew anybody by that name. He was a little disappointed, even though he understood the unlikelihood of the first canine he spoke to in Lebec being in any way connected with the male he was looking for.

  “Did you find this Shalimar?”

  “I was arrested before I could find anything.”

  “Which brings us back to why you got arrested, farm dog. And why they let you go.”

  “The City Watch thought there was something amiss with my pardon,” he explained. “The duke came down to verify it was legitimate and then they let me go. There’s nothing suspicious about it.”

  The girl seemed unconvinced. “If you know the Duke of Lebec well enough to score a pardon from him, farm dog,” she informed Warlock, as she straightened her shift and brushed off the dust and debris of the laneway that had attached itself to her ginger tail, “then suspicious doesn’t even begin to describe you.”

  He shook his head. “I don’t know the duke at all. I was able to perform a service for his wife and she rewarded me by arranging a pardon.” The story Duke Stellan had told the City Watch was plausible enough. Better yet, it sounded like the truth because he didn’t have to hesitate before offering an explanation.

  “What sort of service?”

  “Excuse me?”

  Her eyes narrowed. “What sort of service did you perform for the duchess?”

  It took him a moment to realise what she was implying. Warlock was shocked. “You think I…and the duchess…that’s disgusting!”

  The young canine seemed anything but shocked by the notion. “Happens more often than you’d think, farm dog. There’re whole brothels down here in the slums dedicated to selling dog meat to the masters who like to play a bit rough.”

  Warlock couldn’t believe any canine could be so blasé about such a thing. “I have never done anything of the kind!” He squared his shoulders proudly. “I am Warlock, out of Bella, by Segura, and I would never shame my line!”

  Unaccountably, the girl smiled. “My name is Boots,” she said.

  He glanced down at her, waiting for her to offer her lineage, but she seemed disinclined to reveal her family names.

  “Where are you staying?” she asked, instead.

  “Nowhere, really,” he told her, a little puzzled why she hadn’t volunteered the information about her sire and dam. Where Warlock came from, such a thing was considered the height of bad manners.

  “I suppose you’d better come with me, then,” she suggested, turning for the entrance of the lane. “You can stay at my place. Did you want something to eat? I could hear that stomach of yours rumbling from across the street.”

  Given how hungry he was and the musky scent of her, Warlock couldn’t think of anything else he wanted more, but the offer was too casually offered to be genuine. Or maybe they just did things differently here in the city. The peaceful order of Lord Ordry’s estate seemed very far from this alien place.

  When she realised he wasn’t following her, she stopped and looked at him over her shoulder. “What? My place not good enough for you, farm dog?”

  “Why do you keep calling me that?”

  “Because it sticks out a mile.” She grinned suddenly. “And I don’t just mean your rather impressive stud tackle, farm dog.”

  Warlock glanced down at his pelt in confusion. “What?”

  “You’re not wearing clothes.” Boots rolled her eyes at his ignorance. “It might be all right to strut around his lordship’s country estate in nothing but the coat the Mother gave you, but here in the big city, my naive friend, our masters aren’t nearly so accommodating. To be honest, that’s why we thought you were arrested.”

  “You followed me because I don’t dress as you do?”

  “You don’t actually dress at all,” she reminded him. “And for the record, I followed you because I was told to.”

  “By whom?”

  “Someone who wants to meet the Crasii with the ear of the Duke of Lebec.”

  “I told you, I don’t know him. I never met him before today.”

  “Which, at the very least, makes you one up on the rest of us, farm dog.”

  He frowned. “My name is Warlock.”

  “Out of Bella, by Segura,” she finished for him with a smile. “I know. I heard you the first time. A word of advice, my friend. Around here, we’re not so enamoured of our pedigrees as you are.”

  “It is who I am.”

  “Which is all well and good if you know who you are. Some of us don’t have that luxury.”

  Warlock stared at her, shocked to realise she hadn’t offered her line when she introduced herself because perhaps she didn’t know it.

  “I’m sorry…,” he stammered awkwardly. “I…I…didn’t mean to draw attention to your…misfortune…”

  Boots laughed. “Misfortune? Oh boy, they are just going to love you at the Kennel.”

  “What’s the Kennel?”

  “It’s where I live,” she told him. “Me and the other strays in the city.”

  “You have no master?”

  “I’d hardly be roaming the streets of Lebec at this hour following you if I did, would I? You coming or not?”

  Warlock hesitated, not at all sure if he could afford such a detour. He wanted to find Shalimar. He wanted a way out of Lebec City, not a home here. A slum kennel full of strays was about as far from that ambition as he could get.

  Still, Boots was right. He was hungry and homeless and knew so little about the city he had left his clothes lying on the side of the road.

  Besides, the smell of her was almost enough to make him forget any other purpose he might have. It irked Warlock a little to think that no matter how much education or breeding he had, he was still a canine Crasii and this female offering to take him back to her place was only days away from coming on heat.

  Slowly, almost reluctantly, Warlock nodded. She turned toward the entrance of the lane again, glancing down the street each way before stepping out of the shadows. Warlock followed her, telling himself that going with Boots wasn’t a bad idea.

  Maybe someone at the Kennel had heard of Shalimar.

  Chapter 46

  The Kennel of the Lebec City slums proved to be to an old warehouse, originally intended as overflow grain storage, which had fallen into disuse when the northern part of the city had been expanded about eighty years ago to include a newer industrial sector. The building smelled musty and even now the cracks in the floorboards were filled with ancient mouldy grain dust. Warlock could hear rats scurrying out of their path as Boots led him through the darkness to the main hall, where the majority of the strays had made their home.

  The hall reeked of other canines, gathered in small groups scattered all across the large warehouse in no discernable order. Suspicious stares followed them through the dim hall, and more than one male bared his teeth in Warl
ock’s direction as they passed.

  Finally they reached the centre of the warehouse where a large group of Crasii were gathered. At first, Warlock wondered if there was some sort of meeting going on, then he noticed the pups and the large number of nursing females in the group and realised this was a just another family pack, although a remarkably large one.

  “Rex?” Boots called, when they stopped on the edge of the pack. “I’ve someone I want you to meet.”

  A head appeared out of the gloom, looking around with bright, curious eyes. He spotted Boots and smiled, rising to his feet. The Crasii was small for a canine, not much bigger than a feline, and ugly, too. Warlock tried not to stare. He came from a world where short hair was preferred, pelts so smooth that from a distance humans couldn’t tell if you had skin or fur. Rex was quite the opposite. Brown and black with no obvious pattern, he was shaggy to the point of being disreputable. His tail was stubby and almost hairless. It was no wonder he was living here in the slums as a stray. No human household would have kept on a Crasii with such an obvious deformity.

  “Whoa!” he chuckled when he spied Warlock. “Boots has found herself a big new bone to play with!”

  “He’s the one you sent me to follow,” she told Rex patiently.

  “So you brought him here?” the Crasii asked as he disentangled himself from several pups clinging to his shins and stepped out of the circle of canines. “He’s probably a plant sent here by the Watch to spy on us.”

  “I am no spy,” Warlock objected, baring his teeth.

  Rex smiled up at him. “Settle down, big fella. If Boots thinks you’re all right, then you probably are. Although,” he added thoughtfully, turning his attention to the young female, “given the way she smells at the moment, it might be the wrong end of her doing the thinking.”

  “He has a ducal pardon,” Boots informed Rex, ignoring his crude suggestion. “He says the Watch pulled him in and called the duke down to the Watch-house to verify it.”

  “And how is his grace?” Rex enquired with a raised brow. “Been a while since he and I have had a chance to catch up.”