The Coming Storm

by Valerie Douglas

  “Certainly,” Ailith said. “I heard you hired an assistant.”

  His fingers toying with the tally sticks, Geric seemed preoccupied. “What? Assistant? Oh. Tolan. Yes. It seemed a good notion, with all this borderlands activity, to free you up to ride with the Hunters or go on circuit for me.”

  That seemed reasonable enough but Ailith still felt unsettled. There was something odd about her father but she couldn’t put her finger on it.

  “Are you all right?,” she asked, suddenly.

  With an absentminded nod, he said, “Oh, yes, I’m fine. Just a little tired for some reason. We’ll talk at dinner, all right?”

  “Fine,” she said, as he gave her a quick kiss.

  As she left she looked back, to find her normally energetic father staring off into space.

  Her mother would figure it out. She also had to remember to ask if it would be all right if she took some time to visit her grandmother. It had been a while since she’d visited.

  The sky above Jareth was a clear vault of blue, untouched by clouds. Warm, the sun beat down on his shoulders but the cool breeze chased away the sweat. A nearly perfect day, without a doubt. Except, of course, for the river. The winter had been mild and the spring even milder. There had been snow in the mountains which had begun melting in great quantities. The river was high and wild.

  Jareth looked down at the little ferry bouncing on its lines at the mooring. He didn’t mind water. He didn’t mind swimming. He did mind if it was cold and this water was quite likely to be frigid, coming as it did from melting ice and snow. With the way the ferry bounced around, it was quite likely he might find out for certain just how cold the water was. Once more, he was likely to make Avila unhappy if she learned of his actions. Perhaps she wouldn’t hear of it but his luck never seemed to run like that.

  In some odd way it seemed as if every time he broke one of her myriad rules, she would learn of it. A thousand things he could do right and hear no word. One oddness, one bending of her limitless protocols and regulations and he was in for another lecture.

  What was the use of magic if you couldn’t use it? Except for official reasons, under official auspices, under official rules. He chafed beneath those restrictions. Like this one, not to use magic for personal motives. While he might argue he wasn’t, he was doing so at the request of the Elves – one in particular – Elon hadn’t ‘officially’ asked. So, he wasn’t acting under proper protocols. Elon would’ve backed him on it but he didn’t want to put Elon in that position.

  He sighed resignedly as he approached the bouncing boat and the ferryman’s little cottage.

  That man sat before his door, smoking a pipe.

  “No passage today, milord,” he said, taking a long pull on the pipe and letting the smoke curl from his nose. The thought of that made Jareth’s eyes water. He liked a pipe himself now and then but that would’ve made him cough and sneeze. “River’s too high.”

  Since he wasn’t dressed in ‘official’ robes, Jareth couldn’t fault the man for not knowing him for what he was. No, he was only wearing basic trews, a common shirt and vest and his everyday cloak.

  He sighed again and fished a coin from his pocket. “This for the effort and a touch of magic will get me across.”

  If he was to make any time, he had to cross here. The next ford or ferry was leagues out of his way for where he needed to go. A bridge was even farther.

  The ferryman scoffed, “Wizard, eh? You’re no wizard. Where’s them fancy robes those folk wear these days? Eh?”

  Those robes were stifling, a new affliction from Avila, that mandatory garment.

  Provoking Avila even more, Jareth avoided wearing them as much as possible.

  Wearing them, though, actually seemed to cause her more distress. For some reason he couldn’t discern, he could never keep them looking proper. Or any of his other clothes for that matter. His foster mother had despaired of him on the same point. No matter what he wore, within a short time it looked badly in need of washing and pressing. He cared little but it had mattered to her who had taken him in and it mattered to Avila. Not for the first time he wished his people were more like Elves. Those folk didn’t care how you were dressed, it was who you were and what you did that mattered. Sadly, though, he’d never met a badly dressed Elf. They always looked immaculate.

  “I don’t like them,” Jareth said, honestly. “Uncomfortable, those are.”

  Removing his pipe from between his teeth, the ferryman gave him a sharp look and then laughed sharply.

  “Well, they would be with them high collars and all that stiffening. They’re a stiff-necked breed anyways and that collar just puts their nose a little higher in the air is all.”

  Jareth gestured and the water around the little ferry became as still as a duck pond. Just around the ferry and across to the other side. In that narrow area not even a riffle of breeze marred the smooth surface. On the upstream side the river leaped and splashed all the more violently for not being able to pass and for a little ways downstream it flowed a little more calmly.

  The ferryman looked at the river and then at him for a moment. He slapped his knee and laughed again.

  “Well, ahn’t you a one? Welladay, the jest’s on me. I shoulda known better’n to judge by appearances alone. Welladay, milord, I guess I need to get you across the river. Although why you don’t just spell yourself across I don’t know.”

  As a matter of fact, Jareth couldn’t, no wizard could. You could spell the things around you but not yourself so well. It wasn’t that he couldn’t float, rather it was keeping himself upright and moving forward both at the same time that was difficult. Nothing to push away from. There was the weight of the horse as well. The energy it would take to get it over would’ve left him weary for hours.

  “The horse,” Jareth explained, “doesn’t like it much.”

  They didn’t either. Not having all four legs on the ground tended to make them unhappy. Especially elven-bred, although Zo had gotten somewhat used to it.

  It was still easier to take the ferry.

  “Well enough, milord, well enough.”

  The ferryman got up, caught the coin neatly and walked across to unhook the rope that barred access to the boards.

  A little push undocked them from the shore and two quick pulls on the rope sent them far enough out that the ferryman could make use of the oar. With steady strokes back and forth, the man drove them across the river.

  “Heard tell of anything odd hereabouts?” Jareth asked.

  With the pipe clenched between his teeth, the ferryman cocked his head.

  “Odd, you say?”

  He gave it due consideration.

  “Odd as in two fisherman going missing a few miles up the river, or odd as in sommat that what killed half a brace of old Stugarn’s geese?”

  Cocking his head, Jareth raised a brow. “Odd as either, I guess. Any idea what happened to the fishermen?”

  “Naw,” the man said, around the pipe. “Odd it was though. Both good people, not the layabouts who sometimes put lines in water to make it look like they is doing sommat. Naw. They found their poles, four or five of them and a string of et fish. Naught else. Now, old Stugarn’s geese? They was sommat else. What a mess that were. Heard tell there was parts of them geese – their feathers and feet and bills – all over the place. Old Stugarn was in a right fury.”

  “Where was this?”

  “The fishermen, they be upriver two three leagues or so. Mebbe more. Wilder country up thereabouts. Not too many folks up that way. More on this side of the river we’re goin’ to than what we left. Puts the river twixt them and the far side. Now that’s wilderness up that far above the big bend and a branch of the borderlands comes down that way between us ’n some of them Elves. Those ones that live way far up in the mountains, you see. Now, King Daran, he sent ‘round an edict some time ago telling people they shouldna go so far into the wildernesses, there were plenty of unsettled lands about the interior. Which is tr
ue enough. ‘Twasn’t fair to the Hunters, he said, who should be the only folks up that way, to have to watch for them while trying to do the duty what they was paid for. Nor would he send the Woodsmen. Nor should anyone look to the Elves for such, ‘twasn’t the duty of Elves to look after foolish men. But you know some folks just haveta be different.”

  “So, he set markers. But you know some folks, being told they can’t just makes ‘em want to do it the more. Others just don’t like being around their own kind much.”

  “Old Stugarn? He’s up that way, mebbe a little less far. Above the bend in the river but just. Tole me about it when he came through to market. Why you ask?”

  Jareth remembered when the boundary markers had been set. That had been a good twenty years or more ago.

  He had good reason to remember. It was before Avila.

  Dorcet had been Master then and he’d been a good one. He’d thought it good experience to send his young wizards with the marking parties, so they’d get to know the land better. Jareth had been one of them and counted himself lucky.

  Wizards were fairly long lived, not quite as long as Elves or Dwarves but longer than most men. It was the magic. As men reckoned such things though, he hadn’t been young, he’d been a wizard nearly ten years by then. He’d been a witness to the negotiations of those boundaries as part of Dorcet’s coterie. That was where he’d first seen Elon, negotiator for the Elves. That had been something to watch. It was on that boundary expedition that he, Elon and Colath had become friends.

  They’d had a few adventures back then. And a few since.

  Jareth said, in answer to the ferryman’s question, “Heard tell of a few odd things here and there. I thought I’d see if any such were hereabouts as well.”

  The ferryman shrugged. “Such things happen. Like as not ‘twasn’t anything but them nodding off. Dangerous thing to do when the river is high. Or a slip. They was great friends, them two. If one went in, the other woulda gone after. Like as not it was a fox or a wild dog got those geese, though neither one would’ve been apt to make such a mess or take so many. Such things happen.”

  A touch of weariness washed through Jareth once the ferry had reached the other side and he could release the spell. Such was the price of magic, even for so small a thing as that. The river was quite high and the magical expense the greater for it.

  With the ferryman’s words echoing in his ear, Jareth headed downriver for a bit, grateful for the speed of the horse beneath him. Not a cull from the Elven herds as some thought, Zo was a purebred but a little small for most Elves. Silvery gray, his name meant fog in Elven. Although Jareth was nearly as tall as most Elves and taller than most men, he and Zo suited each other well.

  A gift from Elon and a welcome one. Still, Zo was a sore point with Avila. No Elven horse for her, nor would one be offered. She used spurs on horses the way she used words on people, too often and with too much point.

  He smiled at the comparison and turned his thoughts to a different one.

  As it happened he did run into Hunters, making speed themselves to answer a call from some Woodsmen. They’d chased a firbolg back up into the borderlands, although it had led them on a hard pursuit by all appearances. Firbolgs were nasty creatures, stood as like and as high as man but as quick and lithe like a cat. As furry as a cat and more canny. Not one of the Hunters didn’t look tired already, from days of tracking the thing around the hills with little chance of sleep.

  They took a moment to stop to talk to him, a small break before continuing and he had a chance to tell them of the encounter with the kobolds. Without naming names.

  In some ways, telling them the Elves were involved would’ve made more of an impression.

  The reputation Elves had of being fearless and unmoved would lend the story more gravity for some. Not for all. There were those who envied, hated and feared Elves. The reasons were many. Some resented the Elves their long lives. Others saw them as cold, distant and superior.

  Unfortunately, there were some Elves who were all of those things. Not all but a fair number. Those Elves felt that Men were a lesser race as shown by their lack of a true concept of Honor. The honor men held so highly was too fluid a thing for Elves. That long-lived people had seen too often and how easily men could deceive and dissemble, they’d paid for it and they remembered.

  Others among men feared the Elves for their greater strength and speed, their skill with bow and sword, as well as their longevity. A tale that proved that Elves weren’t the invincible race some thought they were would go far to substantiate those beliefs.

  The fact that kobolds didn’t hunt in pairs was an accepted truth. Jareth knew Elon and Colath hadn’t lied, they wouldn’t dishonor themselves that way. That wouldn’t be proof enough for his folk, though. Even among Hunters who benefited so much from training with the Elves.

  Those thoughts chased him down through the highlands into more settled lands. He could find no way of reconciling his people and Elves. Or Dwarves for that matter. Though they needed the ores and metal tools Dwarves provided, his people hadn’t much love for them. Or the Dwarves for men for that matter.

  Nor was there any love lost between Dwarves and Elves. It was simply a difference in cultures.

  Jareth did wish sometimes that each race would see more of what they had in common than where they were different. He smiled wryly to himself. Elon would chide him gently and call him a dreamer.

  While dreaming the same dream.

  These were more settled lands, yet still far from the heartland with its towns and villages nestled in valleys or spreading like skirts around the bend of a river. Above the bigger towns would stand the castles of the lesser Kings, perched on their hills with their rings of walls around them.

  It would take some time to make the circuit south as far as Doncerric, the King’s city, the seat of the High King.

  He wouldn’t stop there nor make report. That wasn’t his duty, that was for Elon to do. Daran was High King only among Men, not among Elves but he was First of the Three, the Three which sat over the Council that ruled over all.

  The Alliance.

  It was Daran’s highest glory but he hadn’t achieved it alone – though in truth, you wouldn’t know it if you spoke to him. The boundaries they’d set had helped but setting the Alliance hadn’t been Daran’s achievement alone. Some had favored it while others hadn’t but by force of will and expert negotiation, it had been achieved. Those negotiations and the treaties that resulted from them had been largely the work of Elon. Daran was too impatient and too volatile to have accomplished it. That drive had pushed the lesser Kings into bowing to his will but it was Elon who’d convinced the Elves and Dwarves to sign.

  No, Jareth wouldn’t be speaking to Daran High King. He would gather information, collect the proof Elon would need to lay beneath his Foresight as foundation. It had to grate on Elon sometimes that he needed such. Among his own people, his word would be enough, his gifts accepted. For the High King, for Men, he must have proof.

  Therefore, Jareth would help supply it. There would be little need for him to spend much time in the southwest in any case. It was too far away from the borderlands where the troubles were.

  The stories Jareth heard as he traveled only increased his concern. Hunters and Woodsmen told much the same tales everywhere he went. Forays by all manner of fell creature, chases that went on for days. Quarry that disappeared back into the borderlands where no sane man would follow. Livestock going missing, dogs as well. A few times, people had gone missing, too. Those hardy folk who lived in the outer reaches were becoming frightened and edgy. Increasingly as he traveled, the Hunters and Woodsmen he met looked tired and worn. In only a few weeks.

  Most Dwarves had little to do with men but there were one or two who would speak with him and they, too, spoke of things, odd little things.

  The entrances to the caverns, caves and mines of Dwarves were warded by their Lore Masters with invisible magical Walls, like the Elven Veils, ag
ainst intrusion by man or beast. Something tested those wards, but what it was not even the Lore Masters were certain. Some had grown uneasy in the deeper caverns, although none would speak of it openly. One or two, more daring or troubled, had spoken carefully of noises where none should be heard. Dwarves were masters in their domain, lords in their places of stone and rock. The idea they might not be unsettled them.

  That was the problem, though, it was all little things, a veritable mountain of little things. The fishermen who disappeared, a solitary hunter and her pack of dogs, a hermit in his cave in the hills, a traveler who never reached his destination. More deaths in a few short months than were normally seen in a year but not so many as to seem too alarming. Everyone knew the borders were dangerous.

  The longer he traveled the more the Hunters and Woodsmen spoke of exhaustion, of asking assistance and more recruiting from their local Kings, of seeking local hunters and villagers for aid.

  All little things. No one thing, no one place where it was worse or better. Except that it was all along the borderlands.

  Was it enough? Or Would Colath and his people have found that one convincing piece of evidence that, added to his observations, would be sufficient? He didn’t know.

  He did know he traveled more carefully where the borderlands were close, frequently joining other travelers. He wasn’t the only one. Some made nervous jokes of it but others didn’t. If a group had to camp in the open, guards were set and folk slept uneasily where once they hadn’t. More than once, someone having a nightmare startled everyone awake.

  Only briefly did Jareth take a detour down into the heartlands and it was a shock to see folk going about their business so cheerfully and calmly. It took that to make him realize how tense he’d been. It was only for a day or two but as he prepared to leave for the reaches he realized how much he dreaded going back.

  It was with that heaviness weighing on him that he turned north and west. The last quadrant. Summer was just coming into full bloom, the leaves turning lushly green on all the trees, the crops growing taller in the fields. A spate of truly fine days with no rain and moderate temperatures should have raised his spirits but seeing the thin, drawn faces and watchful eyes of those around him took much of the pleasure from it. He longed for Aerilann and the peace he would find there.