by Ted Neill
“He is not yours to trade,” Gabriella challenged in poisonous tones.
“Do I need warn you of your place, Gabriella Carlyle?”
“Need I remind you I just bought the tower lands back for you?” Her mother ran up beside her now, begging her to restrain herself.
Gabriella turned to Sade. She hated that painted smile, those lips that pressed against one another so they were pale as forest grubs. “I have a dozen other trunks of treasure in the Elawn. I will trade them all for the elk.”
“That is indeed a great fortune for a dumb animal. Surely Chief Salinger would prefer such riches to remain here in Harkness.”
Dumb. Sade had said it and revealed everything. For in that one word, dumb—as in not speaking—he revealed that he knew. He was teasing her. He knew what Adamantus was.
Salinger attempted to soften his own words with Gabriella. “Gabriella, he is just an animal. Like a cow or a pig. There are dozens of others you can tame in the woods.”
“He is nothing like those creatures,” she shouted, then stopped, fearful that she would confirm something for Sade and the other wicked Servior.
“Gabriella,” Salinger said. “Think of the good of the island.” Then he added, standing up taller and looking down his nose. “I don’t want to have to order you.”
His posturing did not move her. “You will have to, and if you do, you will never have my allegiance again.”
Gabriella would have spat if her mother had not slapped her mouth from the side. The blow surprised Gabriella so much that she fell to the ground. Tears of frustration and embarrassment were blurring her vision.
Salinger, finished with her, ordered his men to tie up the elk. Gabriella ran towards Adamantus as her mother grabbed at her. Her shirt tore as she wrestled free of her grip.
Salinger’s men at arms approached Adamantus cautiously, but Gabriella’s father stood in their way and raised his sword. He gave no indication of backing down. Instead he set his feet into a wide stance and prepared to duel. It was Adamantus who suddenly wandered out from behind him. Gabriella thought he would run for the woods, but the elk stopped short.
Salinger’s men threw ropes over Adamantus’ back. He leapt, as a startled wild elk might, but soon he let the men make a loop around his neck. Gabriella’s father moved to tear away a net the men threw, but Adamantus backed right under it. Three more men came from behind and grabbed her father’s arms. His sword was knocked from his grasp, but he still fought them. His size and strength were too much for them to overcome. He tossed one attacker over his shoulder. Another he lifted up and threw at a third man. Only when a larger number, more than eight men, came at him, did he fall to the ground with a yell of protest.
Gabriella pushed through the melee to Adamantus. Dameon followed her. He rushed headlong into the legs of the man holding the rope around the elk. Dameon’s tackle caught him off guard and he tumbled over. Her brother struck at him and clawed, howling, spitting, grunting.
“Run,” Gabriella hissed to Adamants as she tried to untie the knot around his neck.
Adamantus bucked and twisted as if trying to escape, but it was a show so he could bring his mouth close to her ear.
“It is the only way,” he said. “The Servior must not come back for the tower. I will fend for myself.”
The full weight of his words struck Gabriella, and she collapsed. After so many leagues, so many trials, she was defeated by her own people. Was this how she was repaid for all the dangers she had faced? Was this how the people honored Omanuju’s sacrifice?
The men of Harkness led Adamantus at spear-point towards the Servior. The Servior elders were radiant, their eyes glowing with triumph, their hands raised over their heads. The scarred man with the tattoos on his scalp, the one who looked so much like Sade that he could have been his brother, appeared among them, a chain and harness dangling from his hands.
Gabriella screamed with rage, pounding anyone near her with her fists, twisting her legs to escape the arms that tried to hold her. Her trousers tore against the cobblestones. She cursed the Servior, and she cursed Chief Salinger. The chief looked away from her—as one would from a child embarrassing her parents. The withering look Salinger’s wife shot Gabriella was not lost on her though. Villagers were staring at her and her family with disdain.
His father’s battle with the men of Harkness, his sister’s screams of rage, and the capture of Adamantus were all too much for Dameon. He drew his legs up to his chest and began to rock. His eyes were shut tight, and he let out a loud wail. Strangers tried to comfort him, but he clawed at them with his fingernails. They did not understand him like Gabriella did. He did not want comforting. She knew he wanted to scream and clamp his eyes shut until he could not hear or see what was unfolding around him.
But oddly enough, through the confusion, she heard the same words usually used to describe her brother now used to describe her: “They are both unwell.” “Mad.” “Cursed.” “Clearly the whole family shares the same malady.” “Such a tragedy, both children are ill.”
Someone tried to force Gabriella to drink a vile of dark liquid. She knocked it away and listened to the glass shatter with bitter satisfaction. Her mother brought another vial to her mouth.
“Please, Gabriella, this will calm you.”
Something about the pleading sound of her voice reached through Gabriella’s rage. She would follow her mother’s pleas. At worst her mother would stop badgering her; at best perhaps she would come to see things from Gabriella’s side.
She gulped down the potion but immediately regretted it. It was bitter and she remembered the taste from her time in the house of healing. It was for sleep. Her vision already blurring, Gabriella saw Madam Treacle, the medicine woman, hovering at her mother’s shoulder. Gabriella knew how powerful her concoctions were. She fought to stand up, to reach down her throat with her finger to make herself vomit. But her legs gave out beneath her. The last thing she remembered was her knees hitting cobblestones.
Chapter 24
The Market Square
The scene was chaos. A destroyed ship—obviously endowed but now ruined—a king’s ransom in treasure, angry villagers, and Sade’s mark—Miller—on his knees, his eyes aflame with avarice. Sade knew that they did not have enough resources to counter the offer from the girl called Gabriella. It crossed his mind that they could try fighting the Harkenites, but even with his sorcerers and warriors, the Harkenites were too many.
The girl, where had she come from?
Sade was quickly losing hope of ever accessing the tower and finding out what connections it might hold to their masters the Kryen, but low and behold, out of the wreckage stepped a living breathing treasure.
A Stygorn elk.
This one did not look as fierce as the ones he had seen years before in the folios on Raven’s desk. This one lacked fangs, but the metallic antlers were unmistakable. Sade performed a quick calculation in his mind. The tower was still an unknown quantity, whether it could offer a route to the Ring of Dormain and break the bonds that held their masters were still unanswered questions. But here, before them, stepping right out of the pages of lore was a link to the past that was without price.
A hero among us . . . .
Sade moved into action. He signaled the others to close in on the elk while he made his way through the pressing crowd to the chief. Salinger had proven to be a shrewd negotiator and he enjoyed the support of his people, but no leader could afford lasting strife and disruption. Sade knew Salinger would not turn down an offer that could return harmony to his community. Better even was the fact that Sade’s offer—to leave the Harkenites forever—cost him nothing. It was a decision he had come to already, for he was done with the uncouth northerners and their stubborn ways.
He had to compete with all the distractions that had ensued from the dramatic arrival of the girl and her brother—who appeared to be an imbecile of some sort by the scattered and confused look on his face—but Sade was still a guest
and a negotiator and for that reason he was able to command a moment of Chief Salinger’s attention. Sade sweetened the offer with the addition of the gold meant for Miller. Salinger would have been a fool not to take it. Like the competent leader he was, after some discussion, which would have gone more smoothly if the girl did not keep interrupting, Salinger finally accepted.
Moments before she had been moon-eyed for the chief, but in an instance she challenged him with more fire than even Sade would have reckoned. Sade decided she was too dangerous. She was no orator but she had already proven articulate and confident, and she still had the force of her entrance on her side. Given enough time, she might turn her people against the deal. He could not have that. He had to leave this backwards island with something to show for all their efforts.
He readied an enchantment in his mind to drop the girl into a deep fainting spell, but lo-and-behold an old medicine woman and the girl’s mother forced a drink into her mouth that did the job for him.
This development was all they needed to turn the crowd’s attention away from the elk, which was resisting, but Vondales and his men had already taken the elk from the Harkenites and muzzled the beast with a belt. The girl’s brother, whom Sade was certain was an imbecile now—had turned violent, striking uselessly at the elder Servior and warriors. Vondales brushed him aside with a laugh and the boy was reduced to a rocking, blubbering idiot. His men tightened the ropes and Vondales struck the elk on its face so that it collapsed onto its side.
“Shall we carry it to the ship?” Vondales asked him.
“Yes, and get the men working on buying some lumber from the islanders. We will need to build a cage.”
Chapter 25
The Ship of Red Sails
The creak of the back door, the ringing of the fireplace tools on the hearth, the scraping of the kitchen chairs on the wood floor—these familiar sounds crept through the drug-induced fog that enveloped Gabriella’s brain. She could smell the hickory wood rafters, the bitterroot tea, the cinnamon her mother used for baking. Her senses told Gabriella she was home. She was, but something was wrong. Doors slammed. The bed creaked with Dameon’s rocking, and he counted primes under his breath.
Accusatory voices came from the next room. Her mother’s. Her father’s.
“How could you attack our own people?”
“How could you allow them to give him over to the Servior? Don’t you know what he was?”
“No, it’s not true!”
Then her parents were silent. The rocking under her bed stopped. So had Dameon’s counting. Gabriella knew her brother was standing in the doorway staring at their parents.
“Dameon, you should be in bed,” her mother said.
“No wait, listen to the boy,” her father said.
Then her brother’s voice began to drone on, relaying their story in his own matter-of-fact way. Emotionless, factual, and most importantly, true. Dameon, who was incapable of lying, was telling the story of their quest.
Gabriella was helpless to leave her bed as Dameon’s voice continued. She could not even open her eyes. The sleeping potion had been strong. She listened to Dameon’s voice as he methodically told their story. Then he spoke more quickly, which meant he was excited, as excited as Dameon could be. But Gabriella was unable to concentrate on the words. Her eyelids fluttered, feeling like leaden curtains. Her body was limp and unresponsive. Then Dameon stopped.
How much time had passed? How much had he been able to explain?
Gabriella heard her father’s voice. She did not hear her mother, but she knew she was there.
Trying to concentrate was too much for her, and Gabriella drifted again, aboard the Elawn, floating in the night sky. No, she thought, the Elawn is gone. But she saw Ghede smiling, the halyard in his hand, his foot on the gunwale, the stars hanging about him. Behind him stood a second figure, Brigitte, blue, benevolent, beautiful.
Gabriella felt her mother’s touch and heard her weeping beside her bed.
“I’m so sorry,” her mother repeated. “I’m so sorry.”
Then she was gone. Gabriella tried to focus, in hopes she would not drift back into unconsciousness. Hours slipped past, and the room grew colder. Gabriella heard the bedroom door open. Through her haze, she knew Dameon’s steps. He climbed the ladder to her bunk. She could imagine him looking at her, staring intently, his rocking and nervous ticks fewer now that he was in a familiar environment.
But she also could sense his concern, sympathy, love. That had been the gift the wyvern’s mage fire had given her. If Gabriella could have reached out to him, she would have, but her arms were limp. As if he read her thoughts clearly, he touched her hand. It was a brief, perfunctory touch, and he quickly withdrew and descended the ladder, but it spoke volumes to her now. She would have wept if she could have. Instead she slept.
When Gabriella next woke, her limbs were heavy, but she could move them. She sat up slowly, still dizzy from the drugged drink. She steadied herself by holding onto the rafter above her head. She knew the ladder would be difficult to negotiate, but she managed to climb from her bunk by taking a single step at a time, gripping the sides of the ladder so tightly her knuckles turned white. She faltered on the second to last rung and dropped down to the floor with a thud.
Dameon, sound asleep in his bottom bunk, did not stir. He had certainly slept through worse recently. Gabriella staggered to the bedroom door. Her father, wrapped in his thick outer coat, sat before the hearth in the main room. He had let the fire burn low into a pile of red and yellow embers. Lost in thought, he stared at the glowing ashes. Gabriella was surprised to see that his sword was buckled around his waist.
“Hello, pumpkin.” He turned to look at her, his soft brown eyes sad.
“Pa.”
He dropped his head into his hands and sighed. “Can you ever forgive us?”
“For what?” Which betrayal would her parents own, for she counted many.
“Dameon told us everything. We couldn’t believe him at first, but he is our son. For all the difficulties with him, we know he does not lie.” Her father rubbed his forehead, causing his skin to wrinkle and furrow. “What a journey,” he said half to Gabriella, half to the darkness that enveloped them.
Gabriella nodded. Her parents had never apologized to her before. It was unexpected and she felt uncomfortable.
“Did Dameon tell you about his gift?” she said.
“What gift?”
“Dameon is different, we all know, but he is different in amazing ways, too. Father, he is a genius at arithmetic.”
She went on to explain the calculations he had performed in the maze, the patterns he had seen on the number table, and how he could count hundreds of coins at a glance.
“He said nothing about that.” Her father ran his hands through his gray-flecked hair.
“Of course not, it is too ordinary to him to mention. We’ve always known he was good with numbers, but it goes so much further than that.” She was overcome with pride for her brother, the child everyone thought was good for nothing.
Her father wiped his eyes. “Gabriella, I’m so sorry. This is all my fault.”
“Pa, I know you tried to help Adamantus.” Gabriella said the elk’s name now, certain that Dameon had already told her parents. Her father gestured to his sword.
“I tried to go down there again to free him, but there are too many of them.”
“Father, the Servior could have killed you!”
“I had to. I have so much to make up for.”
“Pa, I’m not angry. I know you tried.”
He shook his head. “No, there is something else.”
He reached under his coat to an inner pocket of his tunic, then removed something. He opened his hand. It was Gabriella’s whistle, broken in two.
Her hand went to her breast, where she felt her own whistle. Could there have been two? She pulled hers out, the intact whistle gleaming on her palm.
“Pa, where did you get it?”
/> “I knew Omanuju as a boy, remember? I knew Adamantus, too. He has a deep voice like thunder in the hills, doesn’t he?”
All Gabriella could do was nod.
“I remember hearing him speak when I was a small, small boy. I stumbled upon him and Omanuju in the forest. I could move very quietly through the forest back then.” He smiled at the memory.
He held up the two pieces of his whistle in his calloused fingers. “Omanuju gave me this whistle. Told me I must keep the secret, but if I were ever in danger I was to blow it. I never did. I was called off to sea as a deck boy shortly after. I found that I did not think of him and the elk as much. It was as if a spell had been broken. Maybe it was. I began to think the elk had just been a dream, a childhood fancy, my own imagination run amok. Or some trick of ventriloquism on the part of Omanuju. I had been very young after all. I never spoke of Adamantus to anyone.” Her father sighed.
“Decades later I saw Omanuju, and I avoided him. I was afraid to ask him, afraid to find out that I had been fooled or, worse, afraid that it had been real. The whistle broke many years ago, but I always kept it close.” He balled his fists around the whistle pieces and hung his head. “What wonders have I squandered?”
Gabriella put her hand on her father’s shoulder. She had never seen him so vulnerable. She felt unmoored, as if she were the parent as she comforted her father.
“Your mother feels terrible. I feel terrible. That is why I went down to the docks.”
It occurred to Gabriella that it was still dark outside. The tide would not change until around dawn.
“Are the Servior still there?”
“Yes.”
Gabriella turned to run into her room. A figure sleeping on a straw mat in the corner caught her eye. It was too small to be her mother. As Gabriella bent down close, she recognized the soft brown hair and the freckled cheeks. Her voice caught in her throat. “Eloise?”
