The Child Prince (The Artifactor)

by Honor Raconteur

  “How old do I look now?” he asked hopefully.

  She stopped and really regarded him, as if viewing him with new eyes. “I would say eleven. Perhaps even a year older.”

  He let out a breath of relief. His mirror had said the same thing, but that could have been just wishful thinking on his part. Bellomi had always looked a little young for his age—he doubted that would ever change—but he wouldn’t really care as long as he looked like an adult.

  “Hmmm,” Hana’s eyes narrowed in growing suspicion. “Twenty, eh?”

  He felt pinned in place by that look in her eyes and gave her a trapped smile. “Yes?”

  “I’m just realizing how much you’ve been taking advantage of that innocent-supposedly-eight-years-old appearance of yours.” She gave him a pointed look, one eyebrow arched in silent challenge.

  Blast. She’d put that together faster than he thought she would. Bellomi cleared his throat and looked elsewhere, pulling Baby’s trick of radiating innocence.

  Hana shook her head, eyes briefly on the heavens as if wondering what to do with him now. “You could have told me from the beginning, you know, that you were cursed and what your real age was.”

  “Well—” His defense died unspoken as from the corner of his eye, he caught sight of the gold on white uniform of the palace guard. He turned sharply, carefully keeping his hands away from the swords on his back.

  A full squadron of five men, all of them looking travel worn and a little rough with half-grown beards and dirty uniforms. To see them here, on the other end of the country, meant they had travelled quite some distance. Bellomi knew why: they were searching for their king.

  A cursed prince who couldn’t age being kidnapped from the palace would be one thing. But the king disappearing? Even the Council couldn’t cover that up forever. And with no member of the ruling family in the palace, Windamere must be in a state of martial law. The statutes of this country were quite clear about that. With martial law in place, the Council couldn’t issue any commands that didn’t relate to the recovery of the royal family. With their power abruptly yanked from their hands, they must be beside themselves by now.

  “Hana, have you seen palace guards here before?”

  “No,” she responded slowly, a note of confusion in her voice. “No, I haven’t. Has something happened, I wonder?”

  Oh, something’s happened alright. Bel’s eyes darted about. He needed to get out of the village. Now. He didn’t think that anyone would recognize him, especially since he’d finally grown some, but he didn’t know what their orders were. The Council might be satisfied just getting him back.

  To Hana, he faked a quick smile. “Well, I’ve got everything I was sent to buy, so I’m going back. See you, Miss Hana.” He turned without waiting for her response and started walking as normally as he could for a back street, hoping to avoid the guard’s line of sight.

  “Hey! You! The boy with the two swords on his back!”

  Obviously, he hadn’t moved quickly enough. Swearing mentally, he stopped and turned, doing his best to look surprised and a little confused. “Me, sir?”

  One of the guards, a man in his late forties, with a greying beard strode across the street, eyebrows furrowed deeply. “Yes, you. Who are you?”

  “I’m Bel, Artifactor Warran’s apprentice,” he answered half-truthfully.

  The guard stopped in front of him, looking him over from head to toe in a very thorough scrutiny. “You bear a remarkable resemblance to our prince.”

  Bel blinked, as if in genuine surprise. “Really, sir? First time I’ve heard that.” Bugger and blast, was this guard old enough to remember him pre-curse? It looked like it, although after ten years, the man’s memory must be a little hazy. Or at least he hoped so.

  “How old are you?” The guard still had that look on his face as if he were holding a mental debate with himself.

  Well, Hana had said he looked older than eleven, so… “Twelve, sir.”

  “Really? You look younger than that.”

  His smile became a bit strained. Curse it, so her assurance earlier had been flattery. “Yes, sir.” He made sure his tone was sour as he added, “That I hear all the time.”

  “And the swords?” the guardsman pressed.

  “Oh, these, sir?” Bel lifted one just enough for him to see the engraving on the hilt of the sword. “They’re my Master’s. She said I have to wear them all the time, to get used to them. Says a real Artifactor doesn’t rely on just magic to get through life.”

  The guardsman leaned in for a closer look. “That’s a mighty fancy engraving, son. What’s it do?”

  “Training swords,” Bellomi answered honestly, for the first time in the conversation. “You heard of them before, sir?”

  The guardsman let out a low whistle. “Indeed I have. That’s a mighty pricey toy you’ve got on your back. That Master of yours must be fond of you.”

  Bellomi ducked his head, as if hiding a blush. “Ah, well, thank you. Sir.”

  His feigned embarrassment eased the last of the man’s concerns. The guardsman relaxed slightly, suspicions easing, and his mouth twitched into a smile. “Don’t worry about your height. It won’t last, son. You’ll grow out of it. You may go.”

  “Thank you, sir.” With a bob of the head, he took a stronger hold on the basket handle and headed for the side road. As soon as he turned the corner of the smithy, out of sight of the guard, he broke into a full run.

  His thoughts whirled chaotically as his feet pounded against the cobbled streets. They’re looking for me. Judging from that scene back there, they’re probably looking for me.

  I’ve got to tell Sevana.

  ~ ~ ~

  Sevana took the news with a dissatisfied frown. “They reached Milby faster than I thought they would.”

  “What do we do?” he demanded, worried not only for his own sake but his father’s. “If they catch him now, they’ll drag him right back to the palace and probably send you straight to the dungeons no matter what we say.”

  “Can’t have that,” she agreed with abnormal calm. “Bad for business.”

  “Sevana!” he growled between clenched teeth, slamming both hands against her worktable. “Take this seriously!”

  “Oh, I am, I am.” Fingers drumming against the table, she looked at the ceiling with a faraway expression, completely not worried. “I wanted to take another two weeks or so to give your father a more optimal condition for when he came back to his senses. If he’s anything like you, as soon as his head is clear again, he’ll be running about getting into trouble.”

  Bellomi opened his mouth on a hot protest and paused. Shoulders slumping, he admitted morosely, “I actually did inherit that from him.”

  “Thought as much.” With a shrug, she sat back, laying her tools aside. “I took a look at him yesterday, and I think he’s strong enough for the trip. Well, this just pushes our timetable up a little, is all.” Shoving back from the table, she gained her feet. “Right now, the guards are searching all of the obvious places. When they don’t find the king, they’ll start checking the unusual ones, which will include here. I’d rather it not come to that. Let’s break the king’s curse before his guards find him, shall we?”

  The cloud-skimmer didn’t look anything like what he’d expected. Bellomi had this half-formed notion that it would be similar to a small boat with sails that rode on clouds or some such. This…thing…didn’t look like anything he’d seen before.

  For one thing, it didn’t have the narrow confines he’d thought it would, but instead could be compared to a river barge. The main deck and railing had been made of wood, well-crafted and fitted seamlessly together, with plenty of space for at least three wagons to sit side by side without being crowded. The main deck had tall, thick railing on all sides and a white canopy stretched over the top, supposedly to fend off the sun and any other weather. This all looked logical enough to him…it was just the sides that he needed explained. Those half-sail, half-rudder thin
gs boggled the imagination. Just how did those things work?

  “Bel, will you stop staring at the thing and start loading?” Sevana called from the doorway in exasperation.

  He shot her a look over his shoulder. The only place to really launch this vehicle of hers was on the top of Big, so Sevana had maneuvered it out of whatever storage room it’d been in early this morning and set it up here. Of course, lugging all of the food and supplies that they needed for this trip up two flights of stairs to the top of Big was so much fun.

  Opening the gate, he took two steps up inside and walked around slowly. There were cabinets all along the south end which could be locked shut, but at this moment, they were all cracked slightly. Assuming the supplies would go in there, he opened one up and put his pack inside. While on it, he took a better look around. The craftsmanship was plain, but of a high quality, much like Sevana’s other work. The cloud-skimmer had been made of a pale oak, so the inscriptions burned into the wood stood out in sharp relief. He started hunting around for the name, but couldn’t find it easily. Maybe she’d inscribed that on the outside somewhere?

  Sevana stepped up with a hollow ring of footsteps and put two bundles into the cabinets, casting him a glance as she did so. “What are you looking for?”

  “The name.”

  “Ah. It’s on the outside: Bouncing on Clouds.”

  For a moment, he didn’t know if she was pulling his leg. “…Really? That’s what you christened it as?”

  She shrugged, no defense on her lips, and turned back around. “Come on, we have a lot to load and I want to be gone in an hour.”

  Resigned, Bellomi climbed back down and went for the next load.

  Sevana—fortunately—didn’t choose to bring a lot of magical implements with her. In fact, everything she wanted fit into one medium-sized bag. Most of what Bel lugged to the top was food or the utensils to make food with. After his fifth trip to the kitchen, Sevana stopped him in the doorway and bent an evil eye on Eva, who had been packing everything for them. “I said one week, Eva, not one month. Just how much food do you think we’ll need?”

  Eva bent a motherly smile on Bellomi. In the past month she’d been here, she’d taken him under her wing and smothered him with attention. As odd as that felt, he’d rather enjoyed it, too. “He eats, this boy does,” Eva justified while planting both hands against her substantial hips.

  Sevana’s eyes narrowed and she looked back at Bellomi. “How much has your appetite grown?”

  “Ummm…” he had to stop and think about it for a moment. “I would say doubled, at least. But isn’t that normal when you’re growing?”

  “My, yes!” Eva gave a soft laugh, blue eyes sparkling. “My boys used to eat me out of house and home, they did. Especially at your age.” Wiping her hands off on the checkered apron around her waist, she heaved another carton of vegetables off the table and handed it over to Bellomi, who took it without much effort. “This is the last, and you should be set, I think.”

  Sevana shook her head and turned around, muttering to herself about being able to feed an army. “I’ll get your father, then.”

  ~ ~ ~

  After an hour in the air, Bel decided that travel by cloud-skimmer was the only way to go. The air flowed gently over his skin, the sun kept the air pleasantly warm without it being stifling, and he knew that he wouldn’t have saddle sores at the end of the journey. Better yet, if he felt like having a snack, he could just open a cabinet and get one. He didn’t need to stop, dismount, and rummage through a pack to eat. He found the view up here to be fascinating as well. From this lofty perch in the sky, the world looked diminutive and almost surreal.

  Sevana had once again put his father under the Sleepwalking Spell, so he didn’t have to worry about watching the king. Instead, he usually sat near the head of the skimmer so that he could watch the world pass below. Sevana usually sat in front as well, in a chair specifically made for her comfort. As the name implied, the cloud-skimmer used the energy of the clouds to fuel the weird sails on either side of the ship, but clouds didn’t appear in exact intervals in the sky. When she needed to change directions, Sevana would raise the wand in her hand and give it a flick, creating a trail of clouds to connect her to the next ones in the sky. She did it in a seamless way that spoke of much experience.

  For nearly five days, Bellomi hung about the front of the skimmer, either watching the world pass around him or studying. With no effort, they passed over Noppers Woods, the Standor Mountains, the Stillwater Lake that he had already visited once, and along the outer edge of The Wasteland. That place seemed almost eerie in its emptiness. Bellomi strained his eyes but couldn’t see one speck of vegetation there—just endless waves of sand in all different colors from red-brown to a polished black.

  But at the end of the journey, they came to the Desolate Mountains.

  Far from what the name implied, the mountains didn’t have a barren feel to them at all. They were, in fact, like the other mountains he’d seen—full of green trees and different types of wildlife. He couldn’t see any signs of civilization up here, though, except the one glance of a village nestled into a valley. Of course, the mountains sat on the edge of the Endless Sea, which was famous for being frozen ten months out of the year. He wouldn’t choose to live in this area, either.

  Sevana circled around twice before she found a clearing large enough for them to land in. Judging by the way her mouth twisted up in a displeased frown, this hadn’t been the spot she wanted.

  “How far are we from the waterfalls?” he asked as they started to slowly sink toward the ground.

  “A few minutes’ hike,” she answered absently, standing from her chair to look over the side. “A little further than I wanted, but I’ll put See-me-Not wards up to prevent any mischief.”

  Yes, but a few minutes’ hike also meant he had to cart all of those supplies back and forth. Unless… “We don’t have to actually camp near the waterfalls, do we?”

  “Do you want a water source at hand?” she asked dryly.

  Oh. Good point. He couldn’t hear or smell any water close to this clearing. Shoulders slumping, he resigned himself to being a beast of burden for the next hour or so. “How much do we need?”

  “Just enough to get us through tonight.” With a soft thump, the skimmer set down and settled into the ground. Satisfied, Sevana pushed back upright. “Good enough. Bel, get your father. I’ll choose out what we’ll need for the night.”

  “Alright.” He went to the corner where his father sat, and coaxing the man to his feet, urged him forward and off the skimmer.

  As Sevana swiftly sorted out the supplies they needed, Bellomi turned slowly around and took a better look at the woods around them. Mostly firs and pines, but with this cold climate, that didn’t come as much of a surprise. Kindin, especially the area this far north, never truly got ‘warm.’ He heard the faintest sounds of birdsong, but nothing else. Then again, with their rather flashy arrival, they’d probably scared off the local wildlife.

  Sevana stepped down from the skimmer with a pack on her back and turned to invocate her spell to protect the skimmer. He didn’t pay her much attention aside from making sure that his father didn’t get in her way.

  Bellomi went very still, head turning slowly. Something felt…off. He took in a deep breath. Smoke. There had to be a campfire nearby. Closing his eyes to mere slits, he listened hard. It was faint, but he could hear the clinks of metal and the thumps and thuds that only a human would make.

  “Sevana, stop.”

  She froze in mid-step and gave him a sharp look. “What?”

  “We’ve got company.” His head lifted as he tested the air, trying to pinpoint the source of the smoke. “Either it’s a woodcutter that is very lost, or—”

  “Bandits,” Sevana finished with a grumble, also turning slowly about, trying to discern their location.

  The smell was strongest… “There,” he pointed north-west. “Not far from us. Too close to the waterfall, I
think.”

  Sevana gave a wordless grumble. “If we make any noise or build a fire, we’ll attract their attention. I’d rather not deal with bandits with an incapacitated king in tow.”

  Truly. Bellomi reached over his shoulders and loosened both swords in their sheaths. “I’ll take care of it.”

  She took him in from head to toe, evaluating him openly. Bellomi stood there and let her look. In the four months that he’d been with her, he’d trained daily, usually for five hours or so a day and he had the muscles to prove it. He’d also grown four inches in that time, now looking like a young teenager. He’d learned from one of the best teachers in the world how to stalk an enemy and catch them unawares.

  With a snort, she turned away and caught the king’s hand, leading him forward. “Scream if you need help.”

  If she really thought that he wouldn’t be able to handle a group of mountain bandits, she’d never let him go in the first place. This silent approval of hers acknowledged his hard-won skills. A feeling of pride and satisfaction welled inside his chest and he nodded once before turning on his heel and melting into the shadows of the trees.

  It had been a bit of a struggle to adapt what Baby taught him to work for a human body. Bel still had moments where he fumbled as he experimented and adjusted what Baby showed him. But right now, he had no trouble slinking through the forest. Here, with water all over the place in a fine mist, nothing underfoot had the chance to be truly dry. This worked in his favor. Dry leaves cackled and made noise under pressure. Wet leaves didn’t.

  He avoided the thick brush, which would just slow him down, and found the natural trails that the animals here used. Bellomi moved low to the ground and stopped often to listen intently and smell the air. He didn’t want anyone sneaking up behind him, or to stumble into some local wildlife with a territorial attitude.

  With every step, the sounds of a camp and the smell of burning wood and half-cooked food became stronger. He tracked them easily, although with a great deal of caution. Baby had drilled it into his head to never carelessly approach unknown game.