The Prince of Exiles (The Exile Series)

by Hal Emerson

  Raven grabbed for the man’s hand to stop him and ask him what was going on; Henri Perci looked at him in surprise. When Raven opened his mouth, but found he couldn’t talk, that surprise turned into a smile – a cruel, petulant smile – and Perci spoke up loud enough for the whole room to hear:

  “Okay there, friend,” he said, “I think you’ve had far too much to drink. I’m going home – try to be a bit more courteous the next time I offer to drink a health.”

  Henri Perci got up to leave, but then bent down to whisper into Raven’s ear.

  “Drink what’s in that cup. Do not stop until all the liquid is gone.”

  And then Henri Perci left in a swirl of a green and black laced with gold, and Raven was left alone. He looked down into the cup, and saw the water there, looking oddly pale and opaque. He raised it to his lips, not knowing what else to do. Perci had made a very simple request, it was the least he could do to honor it.

  But as he raised the cup, he suddenly went off-balance. He stumbled to the side, and his fingers slipped on the handle; the cup broke against the floor with a very loud, very embarrassing crash that seemed to enter and rattle around his head, shaking his teeth and making his eyes water.

  Every Kindred in the room turned to look at him with reproach, and he felt himself growing red as he stood there, not knowing what to do. In the Fortress if something like this had happened, a servant would appear in a matter of seconds to take the broken shards away and bring him a new cup, but that’s not how it worked among the Kindred, there were no servants, you were supposed to do things for yourself. Wait … was he supposed to pick it up?

  The expressions on the faces of the Kindred were suddenly starting to look very ugly, and so, not knowing what else to do, he bent down and began to mop up what he could of the spilled drink with a dirty gray rag pulled out from behind the bar. He started picking up the shards of the clay mug, cutting his fingers carelessly on the jagged edges, trying to make haste, trying to get at least a sip of the drink that Perci had told him to finish every last drop of. But too much of the spill was gone now, soaked into the old, weathered boards at this end of the bar. Raven looked around nervously as he stopped again. He didn’t like the way everyone was looking at him – particularly that fellow in the corner. He could teach ugliness to a donkey’s butt.

  “Raven?”

  He turned and looked around wildly. Who had called his name? There – it was a young man with black hair and eyes that had red irises – wait, that was … that was …

  “DAVYDD!” Cried Raven in excitement, dropping all the pieces of mug he’d managed to pick up in a huge, crashing heap.

  “It is so great to see you!” He said, far too loudly, crossing the room and clapping an arm about the man, completely oblivious to anything else that was happening.

  Wasn’t there someone else here with me who had been saying that I was supposed to … and the… the other thing … and … what?

  “Hi there … buddy?” Davydd asked, looking him up and down. “What’s going on with you?”

  “Oh,” Raven said, his mind suddenly a blank slate. Anything seemed possible and everything seemed exciting – how could it be confined to a single answer to a single question?

  “It doesn’t matter,” Davydd said, dismissively. “I don’t really wanna know anyway. Keep your secrets, don’t ask for mine.”

  Raven nodded very seriously at this, and Davydd turned back to the woman, from whom he ordered a drink.

  “To be honest,” Davydd said to him, not looking in his direction, “I didn’t think I’d ever see you here. You seem much too uptight to let loose and get a drink at the end of the day.”

  “HAHA!”

  Davydd looked around sharply, startled.

  “Good one Davydd,” Raven said, “I guess that’s true. Indubitably.”

  He smiled very widely.

  And then Davydd’s red eyes narrowed and he looked Raven up and down, took in the empty glasses at the end of the bar, and then looked at him again as if simple drunkenness didn’t quite explain such behavior.

  “Hey Raven,” said Davydd slowly, watching him with a very sly look. “I have something really important I need to tell you … something that I think may really improve your quality of life and help you fit in among the Kindred. Come close.”

  Noting the other man’s obvious sincerity, Raven leaned in close – so close in fact that Davydd had to pull back.

  “Right,” Davydd said, “this is it ...”

  Raven waited with bated breath. This was fascinating – what was Davydd going to say?!

  “Water … is clear … when the sky … is blue.”

  Raven slowly pulled back and stood up straight. He nodded, feeling suddenly very at peace. It was so simple and yet … so profound. He felt tears start to form at the corners of his eyes, and though he tried to hold himself back a lump began to form in the back of his throat. Within moments, he knew he’d be bawling. How had he ever lived life without thinking that thought? HOW HAD HE DONE IT?!

  SLAP!

  Raven spun around in a full circle, looking for whoever had just hit him. Who was it – there was someone here who was trying to attack him, someone who –

  There was a man at the bar watching him. This man had black hair and eyes with red irises, and –

  “DAVYDD!” Raven screamed out, stepping forward and clapping him on the shoulder. “It’s so great to see you!”

  “By the seven hells, someone slipped you dopalin,” Davydd said, horrified.

  Raven found himself shaking his head in reply, confused and a little disgusted. Dopalin. It sounded like a bad word. He didn’t like it.

  “Who were you here with just now?” Davydd asked him, looking around. He must not have seen anyone he knew though, because he turned to the bar and hailed the cute, blonde bartender.

  “My friend here may have had a little too much to drink,” Davydd said, suddenly all charm and charisma. “He’s new to Vale and I want to … thank … whoever it was that brought him here and then left him on my hands.”

  The barmaid smiled knowingly.

  “It was a tall man,” she said, “long golden hair, blue eyes. Great smile. Officer or something I’d guess by the uniform.”

  Davydd gave her a great smile of his own, and she looked him up and down appraisingly. She smiled back.

  “Did his name happen to be Henri?”

  She shrugged, after a moment, grimacing to show she couldn’t really remember.

  Raven let out a huge gasp and they both spun to look at him in alarm.

  “His hair was gold,” said Raven. “Yes. That’s the woman I was here with.”

  “Man,” Davydd said calmly.

  “Man I was here with,” Raven confirmed.

  “Are you sure he’s only had too much to drink?” The barmaid asked, suddenly watching him with narrowed eyes. “He looks as if …”

  Her eyes grew wide and she leaned toward Davydd – placing her chest on the bar, a motion that caught and held Raven’s eye.

  “Woooooow,” he said in wonder.

  “You need to get him out of here,” she said, flirtatious manner gone. “If Rosaline comes back and sees him, she’ll report it, and that’s no good for anyone.”

  “He didn’t do it on purpose,” Davydd said quickly, “I bet he doesn’t even know what’s happening to him. The guy who brought him in here – they’re not friends.”

  “I figured as much,” she said. “But you need to get him out. Now.”

  Raven reached out a hand and touched her.

  Her eyes widened. She looked down, gave a long, heavy sigh, and calmly removed his hand, holding him tightly by the wrist.

  “Aaaaaand that’s our cue,” Davydd said, standing up and hoisting Raven onto his feet. “Come on now little buddy.”

  They made it to the door without incident, though the world around Raven was spinning … spinning and blurring all the colors together … the colors were so beautiful … all the colors, a
ll the scents, all the sounds! He reached out through the Talisman, eager to experience it all. He felt himself become one with all the life around them, feeling utterly transcendent.

  He could feel the life of the Kindred as they passed him; he could reach out and touch all of the swirling shapes and colors that their lives conjured in his mind. One of them was a blacksmith, his life smelled of smoke and a smelting furnace and was shot through with flashes of gray and black and burning white; a woman they passed was a mother, covered in the scent of a newborn, downy soft and white.

  “Mother’s are a strange thing,” he said suddenly to Davydd, fascinated by a thought he’d just had. “And just imagine – if one of us had had a different Mother we’d never have even been born. Think about it – they’re the most important person in the whole world to us.”

  “I certainly hope you of all people don’t think that,” Davydd said as he half-walked half-carried Raven down the street, trying to keep him from tripping over the cobblestones. Unlike the paved main city road that ran straight through Vale from one end of the valley to the other, many of the side streets were cobblestone or flagstone. It made for easier maintenance, but was much harder to navigate when you were … when you were …

  “What am I right now?” Raven asked Davydd, peering closely at him.

  “Uh, well … I suppose you’re an Exiled Kindred, like one of us. But, I guess you’re also an Imperial by birth, and a Prince by right, so that’s bound to be confusing, but in the end I think you’re just someone whose got to be taken down a peg or two. Not that I hold any kind of personal grudge against you myself –”

  “Noooooo,” Raven said, realizing Davydd hadn’t understood the question. He stopped walking and pulled himself back, standing under his own power. Well, he had to reach out a hand to steady himself on Davydd, but that was all right.

  “Why is the world all fuzzy?” He clarified.

  “Because … because you … well, see Henri Perci …”

  Davydd pursed his lips and shook his head.

  “It’s a secret,” he said, pulling him along, “I’ll tell you sometime later.”

  “Okay,” Raven said cheerfully.

  They kept walking, going somewhere, passing lots of people. One of those people was a woman – a beautiful woman, who had short hair and was quite well endowed.

  “My brother Rikard would have had her here in the street,” Raven said seriously, pointing to the woman. “That’s his type.”

  “Well,” Davydd said, a look on his face that Raven dimly thought might be disgust, “that was something I never needed to know.”

  “That man is ugly,” Raven said as they passed an older Kindred, hobbling by them quite nimbly with a walking stick.

  The man looked up, startled.

  “Yep,” Raven concluded, “he couldn’t get any uglier, not even if I beat him every day for an hour and then shat on his head.”

  “Raven!” Davydd hissed. There was a warning note in his voice now. The man looked seriously offended, though Raven couldn’t tell why. He was just speaking his mind – what was the problem?

  “Mr. Davydd?” Said a voice. “Is your friend okay?”

  “Tym! Ah – perfect! Hey, go get me some water, my friend is really … thirsty.”

  Raven looked down and saw a small boy, maybe seven or eight, standing near them; he was a shy and timid looking thing, with hair as black as pitch and blue eyes so light they were almost transparent, giving him a strangely mystical look.

  “Hey!” Raven said, pushing himself off Davydd and shambling toward the small child. “It’s a real life fairy, like from the stories!”

  Tym took three quick steps back and a hand slipped beneath the long, dirty shirt he was wearing. But before Raven could get there, a firm hand closed on his shoulder, turned him around, and slapped him.

  His head rang like a bell and his vision went funny, kind of sideways. Suddenly he felt he couldn’t stand up anymore, so he decided to fall down. Finding himself splayed out on the cobblestone road in a heap, he looked up at the gray autumn sky. Not the gray of rain – just the gray of wind and cold.

  “Yes, it is the Prince of Ravens,” a baritone voice was saying somewhere above him. “But we need to keep that quiet Tym. Please.”

  “Well what’s happened to him?”

  “Someone … someone slipped him dopalin.”

  “Dopalin?” The boy asked incredulously.

  “Yes. Do you know what that does?”

  “My dad … yes. It makes people say anything that comes to their mind and do anything they feel like doing. And makes them feel really good about it.”

  “That’s about the gist of it,” Davydd said grimly. “So, for the next few hours, we’ve got a former Prince of the Empire on our hands who might take it into his head to say or do anything. Can you help me make sure he doesn’t get out of hand?”

  “Of course! I’m your helper remember?”

  “Right,” Davydd said with real fondness in his voice. “I’d forgotten. Well, as my helper, I really need you to run and get him some water. We need to keep him hydrated … and we need to keep him somewhere public.”

  “Shouldn’t we take him inside somewhere?”

  “No,” Davydd said darkly, “as hard as the mania is to manage it’s better than hallucinations and depression. We need to keep him in the light, and out in the fresh air. Happy is better than sad. But first we need him hydrated, so get the water Tym.”

  “Yes Mr. Davydd!”

  There was a soft pattering of feet on the cobblestones, and Raven, from his very nice place on the ground, saw two skinny legs run off, passing through a crowd – a crowd that was gathering around him.

  Davydd turned back from looking at Tym and then did a double-take. He looked around wildly for a minute, and then looked down and saw Raven.

  “You are going to owe me such a big favor for this,” Davydd said, hoisting Raven up once more and towing him away from the people, while silencing the voices of concern and inquiry that came from the crowd.

  “Where are we going?” Raven asked, very curious. He’d been feeling just fine lying on the ground like that, but it seemed that Davydd wanted to go somewhere else. He didn’t really mind – as long as he was around these people, with their swirling, pulsing lives that he could reach out and touch, he was content.

  “A park,” Davydd said. “I think you’ll like it.”

  “A park?” Raven asked. “Is that the place where they grow the trees inside the city?”

  “Yes.”

  “What a strange custom. Does the tree have a specific function in this park?”

  “No … it’s just a tree. It’s there to be pretty. And … I dunno, give shade.”

  “Ah, that’s a good function,” said Raven sagely, thinking of all the things one could do with a good patch of shade. Indeed, very clever of these Kindred to think of keeping such a thing nearby. Ingenious, dastardly devils.

  Whispers had begun to follow them now – it appeared that Tym wasn’t the only one to recognize him as the former Prince of Ravens. But Davydd quelled the worst of it, and Raven was so caught up in the lives and sensory impressions of the people they passed that he didn’t think to make any more rude outbursts.

  “It would be much easier if you weren’t wearing that shadow-cursed sword at your side,” Davydd said through smiling teeth as he waved more people past them. “Do you have to wear it everywhere you go?”

  “Well the last time I left it somewhere a kid got thrown into a tree. So yes, I have to keep it with me. It’s a safety predicate.”

  “Precaution,” Davydd corrected.

  “Predilection,” Raven confirmed.

  “All right,” Davydd said, eyeing the Blade distrustfully, careful not to let even the plain leather sheath touch him. “No need to go into details.”

  “But the details are the way to the truth of all things – and I just want to tell the truth about everything,” Raven said. “Why do people keep secr
ets inside, they’re … they’re like poison that kills fun! Yes. Like that.”

  “In Vionot Verailitas,” Davydd muttered.

  “What does that mean?” Asked Raven.

  “It means you tell the truth when you’re inebriated,” Davydd answered. “I heard it somewhere and I liked the ‘v’s.”

  Raven laughed and clapped his hands. Davydd smiled broadly, mocking Raven with his sardonic smirk in an elder-brotherly sort of way.

  “I used to play that game with Geofred,” Raven said loudly, and Davydd tensed, though through the haze of the dopalin Raven didn’t really notice. “We’d try to use as many ‘v’ words or ‘p’ words or ‘s’ words or ‘l’ words or –”