The elf didn’t seem to know what to do with that.
“Now,” Aerlad said as she pulled away, and Firien tried to recompose himself. “Someone please tell me what has been going on up here.”
“You’ve…heard?” I asked.
“Some strange rumors have reached us, lass.”
“They have, have they?” Had I lost track of time? How long had it been since I had fought Adhannor? And how long would it have taken for rumors to reach Port Darad?
“Oh aye,” she replied, and her cheer disappeared entirely. “And from the looks on your faces, I think you need to tell me just what has been happening up here.”
“Aerik, would you like to do the honors?” I asked. “I’ll get you a drink, and hunt down some food.”
I left them too it, and by the time I returned with the fruits of my labor, Aerlad had been directed into a chair and looked as wide-eyed as any did when first first hearing the strange tale of evil spirits, trapped ghosts, and old magic.
“You’ve quite a story,” Aerlad said as I put a bottle of cider down in front of her. Dalandaras claimed the meat, bread, and cheese, and started doling it out.
“And it’s all true,” I replied. “Unfortunately.”
“By all the devils,” Aerlad said after she had taken a good, long swallow. “You’ve all gotten yourselves into a right mess.”
“It could be messier still,” Aerik said. “When Lord Baradan is done with his meeting with the new Lord Governor.”
Dalandaras shoved a thick slice of cured beef and cheese into my hands. “You will eat,” he ordered.
I hadn’t needed to, not with the frequency that a human, or even and elf, needed to, but I humored him and took a bite.
“What do you all intend to do?” Aerlad asked. “Lady Eva, if you’re this Lady of these…these spirit lands…well, we’ve all seen what power attracts, don’t we?”
We paused as we heard footsteps down the hall, but they passed. Dalandaras went to the door and shut it.
“You’ve hit on the problem,” I told Aerlad. “I now rule over a rather large stretch of land that is immense with old magic and perverted by blood magic, and I have precious few citizens who can fight.”
“But…you have these colossi, and ghosts, and foulings—”
“And I’ve promised to release the ghosts from their captivity in that land,” I said. “If I can figure out how to do it. I asked them for help with Adhannor, not help with elves and humans and…baser, selfish fights.”
“You may have to,” Aerlad said.
“It won’t be enough. I’m not Adhannor. I have no desire to keep them chained there. I have a suspicion that if I just wish them released, they will eventually be so, and disappear into the true afterlife and be gone from this world.”
“You are too nice for your own good,” Aerik said.
“Yes,” I agreed. “But I may have an idea.”
From my tunic I pulled out the map that I had pilfered from the Dagnar Queen and unfolded it. We gathered around the table, and held it down.
“I have not seen this before,” Dalandaras murmured.
“Is this Winter’s Crown?” Aerik asked.
“This is, is in the southern corner,” I pointed to the valley between the mountains, and the trade route south.
“And you do not know the rest of these lands?” Aerlad asked.
“We have never been this far north,” Firien said. “It is the forbidden lands. No elf may go there, not even my warriors. We may go only so far as is needed to defend our borders, nothing more.”
“Then your Queen knows much more about this then she has been letting on,” I said.
“I have seen these lands only in the old drawings that belonged to my grandfather,” Dalandaras replied. “But with the degradation of his mind, I never knew when to take his scribbles as truth.”
“This is certainly much more than any human knows about,” Aerik said.
“It’s a vast continent, to be sure,” Aerlad added. “How far north the land goes! And how far the ocean!”
“Have you never sailed this?” I asked Aerlad.
“Others may have,” she replied. “But never I. There’s no trade to be had up here, as far as I know.”
“Aerlad, I must ask you to do something for me,” I said.
“Whatever you need, m’lady,” she replied.
“I need you to return to Port Darad.”
That wasn’t the request she was expecting. “And leave my brother?” Aerlad demanded. “A year ago I might have agreed to what you ask, but with all this going on—!”
“What is it you’re planning?” Aerik interrupted.
I could read the elvish easily enough, but for the humans’ sake, I took an inkpot and quill from the side table and wrote in the names. “Here we are, at Winter’s Crown. Here’s our road south. Over here is Tal Uil, the capital of the Dagnar elves. And this,” I pointed to the mountain where I had defeated Adhannor. “This word means ‘forbidden’, but we might as well call it the Dead Lands, if that’s what everyone at the fort is calling it. That’s where we fought Adhannor, Aerik.”
Aerik pointed to the west of the Dead Lands, where the mountains sloped gently to the ocean. “This would make a nice harbor,” Aerik said. “If the icebreakers are strong enough.”
“And this river here,” I pointed to the river that connected that natural harbor with the river we had taken from the prison fortress and the abandoned town. “Is the only easy access to the Dead Lands. The mountains are too jagged and tough to send men over effectively.”
Aerlad stood tall, and a gleam came into her eyes. It was just the sort of mercenary gleam I was hoping for. “I think I see where you’re leading with this, lass.”
“Ghosts and corpses cannot hold the river,” I said. “Not completely. Not with so much water to cover. But we can bring ships to the harbor, and come back down the river without having to cross in front of Tal Uil.”
“That’s quite good!” Aerlad said. “Aye, I’ll go back to Port Darad, and get the boys and girls.”
“That is how you will get your men,” Dalandaras said. “Not with the Empire’s men, and humans you can’t trust, but with your mother’s people.”
“But I cannot make it an order,” I said. This was the part that I wasn’t so certain about. “An order would mean turning Darad and all its lands against the Emperor. It would mean war. But… but we know enough privateers, don’t we. Privateers that would come for the adventure and glory, and for the new lands, and for us turning a blind eye to their harboring in our ports.”
“That we do, lass.”
“Mother’s mercs,” I murmured to myself. That is how Aerik had first described them to me, and that is how I remembered them still. Mother couldn’t have done business without privateers - pirates - willing to get their hands a little dirty when their were profits to be had, either through dangerous trade or extra protection against enemy raiders. I knew many of them, and many of them respected my mother. Hopefully they would follow me, too.
I must have voiced the thought, for Aerlad said: “They will come to you when they hear that her spirit has been caught up in all of this. I am certain of it.”
“And they have to hear it from you,” I said. “They will believe you.”
“You should draft a request,” Aerik said. “Put your seal to it. State that there is adventure to be had. We’ll have to copy the map.”
“I have a quick hand,” Dalandaras said. “And know some of the waters south of Tal Uil. I will label the shoals and reefs that I know of.”
“I’ll need permission to from you to commission icebreakers,” Aerlad said.
I nodded. There was a lot to do before we could get Aerlad back on the road to Port Darad.
The door thudded as someone tried to enter - Dalandaras had bolted it.
“Let me in,” my father said.
I did so. His face bore no good news. I introduced him to Aerlad. If she had any harsh words f
or the man who had stolen her mistress from her rightful lands and brought her up north to this mess, she kept them to herself.
“I’m not arrested,” my father said. “But we are under orders not to leave, either. And your fears were correct, Eva - the Empire wants the land beyond Tal Uil.”
That as not good. Not good at all. “Did they say that outright?” I asked.
“No,” my father found a bottle of cider and took a long drink from it. “But interrogated me as the shape of the land, and the power behind the magic. I told them that the lands had a mistress already - I’m sorry Eva, but I had to name you. They would have found out soon enough.”
I nodded. I hadn’t expected any better.
“They want to see you now. I am to send you to them.”
CHAPTER THREE
Sir Pirridan was waiting in the hall. Whoever his new master or mistress was, he was respectful enough of my father to not set a guard on him.
“Where am I to go?” I asked him.
“To your father’s old office,” he replied. “I am sure you know the way.”
I did, but Sir Pirridan followed anyway. Though I wanted to like any soldier, I was forced to consider him as a Crowndan - in other words, to consider him to be the lackey of the new Governor.
The door was ajar when we arrived. Now, here had been a true raid. My father’s banner - his family bull - still hung behind the desk, but every drawer had been overturned, every paper scattered about. There had evidently been some sort of cleaning, as there seemed to be several main piles, but the whole place had been well and truly ransacked.
A man in plain clothes knelt by one, scanning each and scribbling a label in the top corner with a pencil. Near the hearth stood a woman, occupied with a leather folio.
“Sir Pirridan,” the woman said without turning. “You’ve returned.”
The tone was hard to pinpoint - somewhere between command and a need for command. At once, I had the impression that she had risen far, but always felt as if she should have risen farther. I found that I vastly preferred the Dagnar Queen.
Sir Pirridan bowed. “Lady Evalandriel fa Carrin,” he said.
“Leave us. Both of you.”
Sir Pirridan and the plainclothes man did as he was told.
“My lady,” the woman said, and she finally turned.
I sized her up: tall, broad, tanned, her clothes dark and serviceable but finely woven. Money, then. Boots were leather and well-polished, the type more for show than traipsing around in this part of the world. She would find much of the town a challenge, if she hadn’t already been through that muck. Her black hair was braided tightly back, and did nothing for the pinched look to her face but to pull the pinched look wider.
“And you are?” I asked.
“Lady Ellsmid. I am Lady Governor of this place.”
“Lord Baradan is Lord Governor,” I replied calmly.
“No longer.”
“On whose authority?”
“The Emperor’s, of course.”
“I would see the writ.”
The woman smiled - it did her no favors. “You are Lord Baradan’s daughter, true enough.” She held out a rolled parchment.
I took it, scanned the words, examined the wax seal on the bottom. It was the Emperor’s orders, true enough, though it said nothing about my father’s supposed abandonment of duties. “I see nothing in here that would require the mess I see around me.”
“It is in my purview to do what must be done to bring order to Winter’s Crown, and to bring murderers to justice.”
“I presume you are referring to Sir Aros?” I asked.
“And to the disappearances of his daughter Zarah, and Captain Crowndan. Their family is anxious for word.”
“I am certain my father told you what happened to them.”
“And yet we have no bodies.”
“They were…obliterated.” Or close to it. I had seen no sign of them on the mountain, but their life had been extinguished all the same, and their souls did not linger in the Dead Lands.
“I would send a force there,” Ellsmid said. “To search for their remains. So that their families may have closure.”
“That would not be wise.”
“And why would that not be wise?” she asked.
She wanted to hear me say it. She wanted to hear me declare myself the Lady of those lands. I wasn’t sure why. Was it because you couldn’t imprison the ruler of a land if that ruler did not exist? “I have done battle there, my lady. We arrived there only through the good graces of the elves who accompanied us. You could send a regiment, and I do not think you would survive for very long.”
“This must be a great and terrible power, Lady Eva.”
I went to the hearth, enjoying the warmth of a human fire playing across my face. I never worried about cold now, or frostbite, but the physical sensation was still something to be savored. Then I saw the window, and had an idea.
“Come to the window, Lady Ellsmid. I would show you something.”
She approached, cautiously. It was then that I noticed she had a sword at her side, and a dagger at the other. She was as cautious as I was nowadays. I seemed to only acknowledge Dauntless’ weight when it was gone from my side.
I opened the window and swung it inward. “In those mountains out there,” I said. “Look carefully. What do you see?”
She looked, and took her time forming an answer. “I see rubble,” she said at last. “Where a mountain should have stood.”
That part was true. Between two peaks, there was an unnaturally wide low. It was not a ravine, but a mountain that had crumbled once Adhannor had broken free from his prison.
“Do you think that part of the tale to be a falsehood?” I asked. “The power that caused that was under no one’s control. It was just barely under control of a creature that had become more spirit than flesh, more monster than elf. If it can do that to an elf, it is best left alone.
Ellsmid’s dark eyes showed nothing. “What I am certain of,” she said. “Was that if Zarah and Crowndan were so corrupted by this power, then this power should not be left to run rampant. The Emperor would rather that it was in our control than left to the elves.”
“The elves have let it be,” I replied. “For they know how dangerous it is. They meddled once, and it cost many their lives.”
“And yet you meddle,” she rounded on me, and I backed up, pretending to want the heat of the hearth, circling around until I was in the heat’s reach. In reality, I wanted room to draw Dauntless if necessary.
“You meddle,” she continued. “And you claim to be the Lady of those lands, and Lady of those powers. You, who is just eighteen, who is hardly more than a green sapling sprouted from the dirt, presume to reach so high as to control these…these monsters,” she scooped up a scrap of parchment and held it up. Someone had sketched a fouling on it, and the colossus that had been bound to Adhannor and had attacked the town. “You presume to have control of these things?”
“You seem to equate age with knowledge,” I said calmly. “So I will impart you wisdom that I have been given by the elves, who have lived thousands of years and not aged. “Old magic will not be tamed. And blood magic will corrupt and twist all who try it. Elves, who are stronger than us humans, have fallen to it. Zarah and Crowndan succumbed easily to the lure. You will fall too.”
“It speaks to your own designs on the lands, that you think I desire this.”
“It speaks to human nature.”
“And now you have that power.”
“I am the Lady,” I said, and saw a gleam come into her eyes. I had a feeling I was probably right. “The Lady of the Dead Lands. But make no mistake in thinking that I hold power over all that is there. I am the guardian of it, nothing more.”
But the gleam was there. The gleam that I saw in Zarah and Crowndan’s eyes, before they met their end. When my father was Lord Governor, he knew better than to meddle. He had actively dissuaded me from going to the mountains, e
xploring the ruins. But by the time he had banned me outright from leaving the Fort or the town, it had been too late - Adhannor had been awakened, and set me on my path.
“I will make it plain to you, Lady Ellsmid,” I said. “You will send your men to their deaths if you attempt to claim the land for the Empire, and the power for yourself. Those that reside in the Dead Lands would not tolerate you, and I would not be able to stop the obliteration. Enough blood has been shed; do not shed any more.”
“Threatening the Emperor’s appointed governor is a treasonable offense.”
Now she was just making me mad. “That was not a threat, Lady Ellsmid. This, however…” I laid my hand on my father’s desk, and called up the well of old magic that lived deep inside me. It swelled and swirled with all the gleefulness of the foulings romping in the snow, ready to be set free. And I let it go free. I let it flow from my fingers and into the wood of the desk, down and around the drawers, and into the stone floor. It welled towards Ellsmid, who it did not like because I did not like her. But before it reached the woman, I pulled it back. Almost as one, the desk and drawers and floor cracked along the lines of old magic. The floor trembled slightly, and then subsided. All that was left was the cracks of the old magic, and my hand print burned into the desk. “This was a threat.”
Ellsmid stared at the cracks where they had ended just before touching her boots. There was a tremor in her hand.
“Good day, Lady Ellsmid.”
I was at the door before she called back. “I suggest you stay, Lady Eva,” she said calmly. “Until the inquiry into the attack on Winter’s Crown is finished, I may have more questions for you.”
I didn’t dignify that with a reply.
When I returned to my father’s rooms, five pairs of eyes stared back at me.
“What did you do?” Dalandaras asked.
I closed the door behind me, and bolted it for good measure.
“What happened?” My father asked.
Dalandaras came to me, and took my hand. “It’s stirring inside you,” he murmured. “The old magic.”
Winter's Sword Page 3
