by Barb Hendee
She knew she was too old to request admittance. Most started training shortly after their name-taking before the ancestors. Although the calling came late for her, it was no less potent and overwhelming—as was despair at Most Aged Father’s denial. But three of the caste had now appeared from nowhere, staying at an inn in Ghoivne Ajhâjhe. Two had even been spotted upon the docks the same evening her ship made harbor.
It was a sign—her fate had to change. If only she could muster the courage to approach the Greimasg’äh, he would see the passion in her eyes and understand. She could not bear any more service aboard ship, and the boredom of inland existence was worse. But if the great Brot’ân’duivé spoke for her before Most Aged Father, the patriarch of the caste could not refuse her again.
The streets were nearly empty. Avranvärd saw no green-gray cloaks. She trudged the avenues back toward the bayside road, passing a tannery and a smokehouse. The savory scent of fish reminded her that she had not eaten supper yet. She passed a darkened cobbler’s shop with a sense of longing. Her own boots were too large. Like her shirt and breeches and tunic, and even her hemmed cloak, they were hand-me-downs from an elder brother. But she had nothing worthy of trade for new ones.
When she was finally accepted as Anmaglâhk, this would change. They wore flat, soft boots for speed and silence, sewn just for them. And they traded for nothing. All their needs were fulfilled just for the asking.
She saw the lanterns hanging over her ship’s deck out in the harbor beyond the beach. She wandered down the road and onto the docks, down to her small skiff tied off at the pier’s end. She rifled one last time through her packages, checking for everything the hkomas had requested, and then crouched to untie her skiff.
“Please wait,” someone called.
Avranvärd jumped in fright and whirled about.
A cloaked figure stood on the shore road to the docks, as if appearing from nowhere. The figure stepped toward the dock and passed beneath a hung lantern, and she saw a man in a gray-green cloak.
“You are Avranvärd?” he asked, and strode down the dock, pointing out into the bay. “The steward from that cargo vessel?”
Avranvärd was struck mute. She had never seen him before, but he was Anmaglâhk. He knew her by name. How? Why? And her thoughts raced to her dearest hope. Had Most Aged Father reconsidered her request?
“Yes . . . I am,” she finally stammered.
He was quite small-boned, his young and plain face glistening with sweat. Loose, white-blond hair stuck to his temples and cheeks. Leaves and wild grass clung to his cloak. He glanced around, as if making sure they were alone, and then took a long, tired breath.
“I come with a request from Most Aged Father.” He stepped close enough that she could smell his earthy scent. “It is not a difficult task but requires discretion. Are you willing to hear me?”
She nodded, and the motion sent a shudder running up her spine and neck.
“You are aware that two humans and a half-blood will board your ship for the next voyage?”
“What . . . no,” she stuttered. “That is not—”
“Yes, as soon as your ship is loaded for departure.”
How could a human be allowed on an an’Cróan ship? Would any anmaglâhk join them, or were her crewmates expected to control these savages?
“Some of our caste will follow from a safe distance on another vessel,” the weary messenger continued. “A Greimasg’äh and several others chosen by him. He must be kept informed of your stops, changes in course, or anything unusual regarding the humans.”
He took a small box from his cloak and held it out.
“This contains a word-wood from the ship that will follow. With it, you will report to the Greimasg’äh. Do you understand?”
Avranvärd hesitated for an instant. Word-wood from ships was only for hkomas—or hkœda, the Shapers who served and cared for a ship’s existence. How had such an item come to the hands of an anmaglâhk?
It did not matter. She had been called to do a service for the Anmaglâhk.
“Yes,” she breathed. “Does this mean I am accepted as an initiate?”
The young-faced anmaglâhk shook his head.
“I am instructed to tell you that if you accept this task . . . this purpose . . . then Most Aged Father may reconsider you.”
Avranvärd snatched the box from him. “When do I begin making reports?”
With pursed lips, he stepped back and turned down the dock.
“At dusk the first day at sea. The Greimasg’äh will expect contact each dawn and dusk, when and if you are able to slip away to privacy. No one must know what you do, not even your hkomas. Simply place the word-wood against your ship and speak. The Greimasg’äh will hear and answer into your thoughts.”
The anmaglâhk stopped briefly as he reached the shore road, his soft voice carrying clearly to her.
“Do not fail,” he called, and then he was gone.
Avranvärd stood shaking, sweat spreading beneath her tight grip upon the box. By now, her hkomas would surely reprimand her for tardiness, but she did not care. She had a mission—a purpose, as it was called among the caste.
Once completed, and upon her return, she would be Anmaglâhk.
CHAPTER FOUR
Nine days had passed since their ship harbored, and to the best of Wynn’s knowledge, no human had ever boarded an an’Cróan vessel. Today they would finally set sail, and it left her emotions tangled as she climbed from the small skiff and up the rope ladder.
Magiere had grown more desperate by the day, and so Wynn did feel glad for her companion’s relief at embarking. But for herself, time in the elven city had been far too short and had left her disheartened, as she might never see this place again. Domin Tilswith would be disappointed with her scant journal entries concerning Ghoivne Ajhâjhe.
Wynn reached the ladder’s top, stepped through the rail-wall’s open gate, and planted her feet firmly on the smooth deck.
Leesil grunted behind her, and she turned.
He climbed with one hand, the other arm wrapped behind to support Chap on his back. Wynn grabbed Leesil’s arm and helped him gain the deck. Before he made it all the way, Chap scrambled over his head. The dog nearly knocked Wynn over and flattened Leesil on the deck’s edge.
“You’re welcome,” Leesil grumbled, clambering up.
Magiere, Brot’an, Sgäile, and Osha followed. Only then did Wynn take her first good look about the ship, instantly wishing she had quill and paper in hand.
The strange sidewall—in place of a rail—with its shallow swoop-and-peak edge had caught her eye as she climbed the ladder. But up on the deck, its most striking aspect was a complete absence of planks.
The deck’s glistening wood was as smooth as the rainwater barrels she had seen in an’Cróan homes—fashioned from inert wood by elven Makers born with an innate gift for thaumaturgy. Longer but narrower than any three-masted vessel she had seen, the entire hull appeared to have been melded into one solid piece, without a single crack or seam in its smooth, tawny surface.
The masts, rigging, and other fixtures were separate pieces, judging by the way weather had aged them. Wynn wondered even more how the deck remained comparatively smooth and richly colored. Halfway between center mast and forecastle was a meshed grate over a large raised opening.
“What is that?” she asked.
“The deck hatch to the cargo bay,” Osha answered in Elvish.
Wynn tilted her head back to see the bulges of furled sails hanging from pale yellow masts. The fabric was almost iridescent white, as if made from shéot’a cloth, the elves’ equivalent to satin. But this did not seem likely, for where would they find enough cocoons to weave so much material?
“Ah, dead deities!” Leesil moaned.
The ship was still anchored in the bay’s calm water, but Leesil already wore a sickly glower.
“Finally,” Magiere sighed under her breath.
Wynn knew that nine days was not an unusual le
ngth of time for cargo ships to harbor at port—and she and the others lived at the whim and charity of these elves. She could not help note how foreign, though lovely, Magiere appeared on an an’Cróan ship.
Her black hair sparked wildly with red from the bright sun glinting off open water. She seemed even paler than usual, surrounded by the vessel’s rich color and the wide blue sky. In black breeches and a white shirt recently tailored within the city, she had donned her studded leather hauberk and strapped on her falchion. And recently, Magiere had taken to constantly wearing gloves.
The crew stared at Magiere as well, but their expressions did not echo Wynn’s appreciation. Neither Leesil nor Magiere seemed to notice these angry looks, and Wynn was reminded of one clear fact.
Magiere had to leave elven lands and never return.
Chap had learned why and passed it through Wynn. Magiere, born in a blood rite, had been made for a purpose.
Unlike an undead or just a normal human, she could enter elven land. Its natural safeguards could not stop her. Worse still, she fed upon the forest by her very presence, as her undead father had fed upon the living. Magiere had been made to breach any place that the undead had not been able to enter during the long-forgotten war. This knowledge left Wynn fearful of what might come in the future. Magiere’s very presence and creation suggested that war—like in the time of the Forgotten—would come again.
A tall, thick-armed elf in a brown head scarf dropped from the aftcastle and plodded toward them. Most likely, this was the hkomas—the “able authority” or ship’s captain. Brot’an met him halfway, and Wynn tried to edge close to catch their words.
A stab of nausea took her by surprise.
Why do Sgäile and Osha remain with us?
Chap’s words flooded Wynn’s head, spoken simultaneously in every language she knew. She had grown accustomed to snatching meaning from the tangle of tongues. Glancing behind, she found Chap eying the two elves suspiciously.
More than a dog, Chap was an eternal Fay, born into the body of a majay-hì—a colloquial term, loosely meaning “hound of the Fay.” The breed had descended from the long-forgotten times when wolves were inhabited by Fay during the war of the Forgotten History. This made Chap doubly unique, and only Wynn could hear him in her head.
This was not supposed to happen.
Two seasons past, she had meddled with a mantic ritual to help Magiere track an undead. The attempt had gone horribly wrong, and over the passing moons Chap had tried more than once to cleanse her. But the taint remained and kept manifesting in new ways.
“I do not know,” she whispered to Chap. “Sgäile said the hkomas would be uncomfortable having humans aboard without an escort.”
No—the an’Cróan council of clan elders requested this ship. Sgäile’s continued presence is something else . . . and too sudden. Something more has happened since the ship’s arrival—and your babbling our plans to Brot’an.
“Oh, drop that already!” Wynn whispered, but her feelings were mixed.
She too wondered why Sgäile chose to continue his guardianship into this voyage, but part of her was glad. A respected member of his caste, when Sgäile spoke, people listened. Osha’s presence was another matter, and left Wynn unsettled in ways she did not understand. Their travels and ordeals in an’Cróan lands had brought out the best and worst in him. In the end, she counted him as a friend. But when they said farewell on the river’s shore at Crijheäiche, she had never expected to see him again.
Osha caught Wynn watching him and raised thick eyebrows, making his horselike face appear even longer. Wynn turned away, but Chap continued studying the young elf.
He is profoundly relieved . . . concerning something to do with Sgäile.
“You see that in his mind?” she whispered, surprised.
Within his line of sight, Chap could pick out surfacing memories from a sentient being’s conscious thoughts, but she was not aware he could sense emotions.
No, it is plain on his face . . . and the way he follows Sgäile about, waiting to fulfill any command in an instant. Osha could not long hide a secret, unless he pulled that cowl over his entire head.
“Stop being so pompous!” Wynn said too loudly.
Slightly raised voices pulled her attention back to Brot’an and the ship’s hkomas, and she tried to decipher their rapid Elvish. From what she could follow, the captain’s inhospitable manner with Brot’an came from the vague instructions concerning the destination of his “passengers.” Wynn had expected this. Moments later, a troubled Brot’an walked past Wynn straight toward Magiere, and Wynn hurried to follow.
“Did he refuse?” Magiere asked.
Brot’an shook his head. “The hkomas will take you south, but the elders did not choose the best ship for you.”
Magiere’s pale brow wrinkled as she crossed her arms.
“Why?” Leesil asked, already gripping the deck’s rail-wall, as if growing more unsteady on his feet by the moment.
“This vessel serves coastal an’Cróan communities,” Brot’an answered. “From here, it sails east around the point before it turns south down the coast.”
“How long?” Magiere asked.
“Five or six days at a run . . . but this is a main cargo vessel. It will stop at every harbor, especially those of other rivers reaching the coast, where the barge clans bring goods from the inlands.”
Leesil’s eyes widened as Magiere’s mouth fell open. Wynn braced herself for the coming storm.
“What?” Magiere growled. “We were promised a ship to take us anywhere we asked to go!”
Osha fidgeted slightly in alarm, glancing about the ship. Several of the crew glared in Magiere’s direction. They might not understand her words, but her rising tone was clear.
“Magiere . . . ,” Sgäile warned softly.
“You led us onto that barge, and all the way to the coast,” she snarled, “promising to get us out of here. But we’ve been trapped in this city, waiting. Now our ship’s stopping at every town along the way? You—you’re—”
Magiere turned away toward the rail-wall beside Leesil.
“We need to go south—now.” Her voice weakened to a whisper as she closed her eyes. “Please . . . now.”
Leesil slid his hand across her back, glancing at Sgäile.
Wynn shared Leesil’s concern over whatever had whispered to Magiere in her dream and showed her the six-towered castle coated in ice. But in their travels, they had uncovered no other clues regarding the whereabouts of the artifact. Wynn felt they should do everything possible to help Magiere, and not continue questioning the lead they had.
“This is the only ship,” Sgäile said, his voice tight, “unless you wish to linger here even longer. The elders arranged passage once—they would not do so again. It is either this vessel, or we travel back across the Broken Range on foot . . . by whatever way you found to reach us. And then head south. What is your choice?”
Magiere slowly turned her head toward him.
Wynn lost sight of her companion’s pale face, but she saw Sgäile’s large eyes narrow. He crossed his own arms. Magiere turned away again, staring out over the bay, and Wynn knew Magiere’s answer.
“Their belongings have arrived,” a crew member called out to Brot’an.
Another skiff pulled in beside the ship, and two elves in the small vessel hoisted up baggage. Wynn hurried to help Osha as he began hauling in their belongings, which had increased during their visit in Ghoivne Ajhâjhe.
