The Inner Seas Kingdoms: 04 - A Foreign Heart

by Jeffrey Quyle

  “You’re mighty thirsty, aren’t you?” the clerk asked.

  “I’ll use them all,” Kestrel assured the clerk. Chion silently excused himself from the depot and returned to Silvan’s office.

  “Canyon, Canyon, Canyon,” Kestrel called for one of his imp companions.

  “Kestrel friend, I would not have thought to look for you here,” the imp spoke upon his arrival.

  “I’ll need you and a couple of others to carry me to the healing spring,” Kestrel explained, as he heard the clerk rummaging in the back of the supply storage area.

  “I am sure I will find many volunteers,” the imp immediately responded.

  “There will be some work required before we soak in the water,” Kestrel warned.

  As he finished the sentence, four more arrived, and the stock clerk carried the large pile of water skins out to the counter, then unknowingly dropped them all as he caught sight of the imps waiting in the front of the depot.

  “Thank you. We’ll take them from here,” Kestrel assured the unsteady clerk, whose eyes had a wild look to them as he backed towards the stock rooms behind him. Kestrel and the imps gathered up the skins, and then traveled to the spring, where it was raining.

  “No one can get in the spring until all these water skins are filled and taken back to the elf palace,” Kestrel announced sternly.

  “The imps groaned in consternation, as Kestrel removed his boots and stepped into the water, then began filling the skins with water, corking them, and tossing them up onto the ground.

  “You can start taking them now,” Kestrel pointedly said to the pouting imps. “Take them to Wren, and tell her to give each arriving elf a drink, then pour some of the water on any significant wounds or injuries.

  “When we have all the skins filled, then you can rest in the waters and dream, I promise,” Kestrel assured the imps of their expected reward, delayed but assured, and he saw them begin to carry out their duty with relative diligence.

  The sun moved across the western sky, hidden by the rain clouds, as Kestrel worked and the imps worked. As soon as the last water bag was on its way to the palace, his companions began to disrobe, and waited for Kestrel to immerse them in the waters of the spring. No sooner had he finished than a half dozen other imps arrived.

  “Canyon said that when the work was done we could get in the water, and we’ve finished carrying all the elves from the human place to the elf place,” one of them explained. Kestrel felt appreciative of the imps’ help in implementing the freedom of the former slaves – it had paid no direct or even indirect benefits to the imps for the elves to go home, but they had done the task anyway, so he gladly submerged the new arrivals, and then the two groups that came after that. By the time the sun set, it was a warm, wet summer night, and Kestrel was sitting alone on the bank of the spring-fed pool looking at the numerous resting imps who filled the shallow portion of the spring.

  “You’re going places I didn’t envision,” Kere’s voice floated to his ears. He turned around, and saw the elven goddess, faintly glowing, walking towards him. She appeared as she had the first time he had seen her, as a grandmotherly figure. “And that’s not something easy to accomplish. I wonder if it’s because you left our world and went to a different place,” she seemed to speak to herself for a moment.

  “Kere, my goddess,” Kestrel was surprised, pleased, and slightly frightened to see the elven goddess again. It felt as though he had not seen her in a very long time.

  “I hope you are pleased with what I am doing,” he told her.

  “For the most part, my sweet, I am pleased. I’m also puzzled, and concerned,” she told him as she came up next to him.

  “What concerns you my goddess?” he asked her. Kere was not as imposing or frightening a figure as Growelf or Kai; she represented a comfortable aspect of godhood that Kestrel felt he could ask questions of.

  “Kestrel there are two things. One, the simpler of the two, is the fact that you are not yet searching for Moorin, and without searching for the girl, you will never find her,” the goddess said.

  “But I haven’t had time!” Kestrel protested.

  “You’ve been busy, I grant you that,” Kere conceded, “but your busy-ness factor is about to plummet, and you need to turn your attention to what’s important.

  “And the second thing is this business with Kai siphoning some of the great energy off to you. No one has any idea how that is going to turn out – you don’t know, she doesn’t know, even I don’t know, and that worries me,” the goddess told him.

  “But it’s worked well so far!” Kestrel assured her. “It helped in the battle with the Viathins; it helped to let Picco’s mother come visit and talk,” he explained.

  “And how exactly does it work?” Kere asked.

  “I, I don’t know,” Kestrel stuttered his admission.

  “And so you don’t know if you’ll be able to channel its use when you need it in the future, or even worse, you don’t know if you might accidently use it the wrong way, to make matters worse,” Kere said. “No mortal has had this before Kestrel; it worries me. It worries me less because it’s you than any other mortal’s potential would worry me, but it is still an unpredictable element that could lead to worse instead of better.”

  They were each silent for several long seconds after that, listening to the rain fall upon the water.

  “Oh Kestrel, you are such a good boy,” Kere said at last, fondly. “Be careful. You’ve got big things coming up in your future.”

  “I will be careful, my goddess,” Kestrel answered her, wondering if there would ever be a time when he wouldn’t have big things coming up. He longed to know that more peaceful days were coming.

  “Goddess,” he suddenly asked, “is Wren really my cousin?”

  “She is,” Kere confirmed.

  Kestrel felt no elation. He didn’t find any warmth in his heart for the prickly girl, and realized that he had secretly hoped her story might be false. “Thank you, goddess,” he muttered.

  “I’ll leave you now Kestrel, but I will continue to watch over you. Go out, soon, very soon, and find Moorin,” the goddess said. “When you find her, you’ll find the way to provide many answers,” she added mysteriously, and then she was gone.

  The rain stopped falling. The sound of the drops hitting the water was suddenly ended, and only the random drops falling from the leaves of the overhanging trees continued to break the silence with their musical notes. Kestrel dropped his head and closed his eyes as he thought about all that Kere had told him, and unknowingly, he fell asleep, and slept in that posture all night long.

  Chapter 9 – The Channelport Campaign

  When Kestrel awoke the next morning he was curled up on the wet ground, cold. He saw the approaching morning light limning the horizon, and stretched himself out, then stood slowly. He’d spent the night in neither Graylee nor Center Trunk. Although he was cold and stiff, he was satisfied that he’d not been in close proximity with Princess Elwean in one case, or Wren and Picco in the other. Being with the princess might have led to another discussion about an engagement he didn’t seek, while being with Picco would have reminded him that he had discovered that he wanted the girl who he had recently been told he could not have. And being with Wren would have been annoying.

  He began to haul the imps from the water, laying them in crooked rows across the grass as he tried to hurry them all out of the spring water. He wanted to return to the palace in Graylee, and he wanted to take a hot bath, then put on dry clothes, in preparation for the beginning of the campaign against Channelport. The outcome of the battle was difficult to predict; it was difficult to think about even, Kestrel thought – a city of innocent residents were being occupied by Prince Namber’s forces, and many of those residents were likely to be unhappy victims of the battle that would occur around their city.

  He had his imp friends ferry him to the palace, where he found Alicia already at work administering early morning care to the numero
us elves who were temporarily bunked there. Upon his arrival there was a buzz of notice in the room, and Alicia turned from where she was crouched over a cot. She saw Kestrel standing in a corner, unloading water skins surrounded by the imps, and she temporarily excused herself from her patient to stride hastily through the maze of impediments that filled the recently created triage center.

  Kestrel turned from a brief comment to Odare, and saw that Alicia was only steps away. He looked at her and grinned, realizing that he was pleased to see her, and held his arms out wide.

  Despite the pair of water skins and other items hanging around own neck and shoulders, and the weapons upon his belt, Alicia flowed into a hug that caused a shifting of the skins and cargo and weapons Kestrel carried. They looked at one another, then separated, holding one another’s hands at arm’s length for a pair of moments, until Alicia broke the grip to help start relieving Kestrel of some of his load.

  When the last item was lying on the ground, she reached over and grabbed his collar with one hand. “You were here yesterday and didn’t come see me?” she spoke through her teeth in a low voice.

  “When I came back to your office yesterday, you weren’t there,” Kestrel replied quickly. “So I went and saw Silvan.”

  “He appreciated your visit,” Alicia seemed mollified by his answer, as she loosened her grip on his shirt. “He seemed genuinely pleased that you came to talk to him. I know things were tense because you helped Giardell.

  “It’s so wonderful, what you’ve done here Kestrel,” she told him. “So many lives improved, and so many families back here made whole again.”

  Others in the room began to gather around them then as Kestrel was recognized and news of his return spread through the room. Numerous former slaves began expressing their gratitude, and Kestrel finally had to beg off, to tell them all that he had to return to his duties elsewhere, to go back to the palace in Graylee and help the good humans battle the evil ones.

  He said farewell to Alicia, “I’m sorry we didn’t have time to talk,” he told her, and then he summoned the imps to take him back to the great human city.

  At the last second, Kestrel decided to return to Creata and Picco’s house, instead of the palace. It would be a more familiar place and a quieter one, he told himself. The imps carried him to his old room, which was in good shape, looking organized and tidy, a sign that the staff had worked to restore the home.

  Kestrel dismissed his imp carriers, then went downstairs to tell Treybon he had arrived and was going to bathe.

  “Oh sir, let me find some dry clothes for you,” the butler kindly said. “And we’ll set a place at breakfast for you to join the others.”

  “Which others?” Kestrel asked, puzzled.

  “Lord Creata and Lady Picco, of course, and their guest, Miss Wren,” Treybon replied matter of factly.

  Kestrel smiled. “Thank you, that will be fine,” he told the head of the household staff, then climbed back upstairs. Suddenly, the thought of breakfast with the others in the bright morning light seemed less oppressive than dinner the night before had threatened to be.

  Kestrel soaked in a warm bath, and when he stepped out he found a pile of dry clothes left on his bed by Treybon, and Picco sitting in a chair.

  “Kestrel!” she said cheerily, standing up and giving him a warm hug as he held his robe closed. “It’s good to see you this morning; we missed you at dinner last night. Wren said you disappeared and no one could find you.”

  “I was at the healing spring with the imps last night,” he told her as they drew apart. “Now turn around,” he spoke insistently, as he dropped his robe and pulled on the dry clothes that awaited him.

  “Shall we go to breakfast?” he then asked, and they walked downstairs to find Wren and Creata already at the table. Together, they all had a pleasant time chatting around the table. Picco announced her intention to ride part of the way with the army, and then cut off to go back to the seaside estate.

  “Don’t worry, I’ll take Treybon with me for protection this time,” she pointedly told Kestrel.

  Soon they were all on their way to the palace, Kestrel and Wren traveling primarily with weapons, Creata and Picco carrying a more varied collection of goods and clothes. Shortly after lunch, the newly constituted army of Graylee, serving under Philip, began to move out. The army was larger than Kestrel had expected, and included many more of the trained regular army members than he had hoped for. The combination of dosing the guards and soldiers with the water from Kestrel’s ever-flowing skin, as well as the death of all the Viathins in the city, plus Philip’s victory in the battle at the palace gate, and the city population’s rejoicing in his victory, had turned many of the members of the Graylee City garrison to become supporters of Philip. The story of his father’s murder made him a sympathetic figure. And even the emancipation of the elven slaves proved to be positive; while most of the city residents had little sympathy for the plight of the slaves, the use of the imps to carry them away, after having delivered the Hydrotaz army to the palace previously, wrapped a mantle of otherworldly power around Philip.

  Kestrel traveled with Picco and Treybon, in the front of the Graylee section of the marching force, while Wren and Creata marched along with Philip amidst the rebel forces that gave their allegiance to him. Ferris led the forces from Hydrotaz that served as allies with the Graylee army, an irony that Ferris remarked upon to Kestrel as the army set up camp that night.

  “About two years ago, I was marching in an army of Graylee and Hydrotaz forces, crossing Hydrotaz to fight against the elves,” he told Kestrel. “Now here I am in an army of Hydrotaz and Graylee forces marching across Graylee, with an elf, to attack other Graylee forces!”

  They each shook their head at the unpredictable turn of fate. The next day they reached the traditional border between the lands of Channelport and the Graylee nation, and soon after that, Picco and Treybon began to move away from the army, taking a road that led southeast while the army continued to travel southwest.

  Kestrel excused himself from the army as well, so that he could ride with the two for a short distance out of earshot of the army.

  “Killcen,” Kestrel called for the arrival of one of his assigned imps, “you would put my heart at ease if you would accompany Picco and Treybon to their home on the shore. Come fetch me if anything happens to them,” he told his floating blue companion, “and return when you see them settled in safely.”

  “It will be as you wish, Warden Kestrel,” the imp contentedly said.

  “Kestrel! You don’t have to watch over us like that,” Picco protested. “We’re adults; we can take care of ourselves.”

  “I’m not asking Killcen to protect you from the world, I’m asking him to protect the world from you!” Kestrel pretended to correct her. “Goodness knows what you’ll stir up.”

  The girl stuck her tongue out at him, until he pressed his horse against hers, and then pressed his lips against hers, leaving them both breathless.

  “Why don’t you send Killcen with the army and you come with us?” Picco suggested.

  Kestrel gave a sad smile. “That sounds so tempting, but I need to be with Philip in case he needs my help.”

  “Kestrel, be careful,” Picco told him, gripping his hand with hers. “I have a premonition, a feeling that I’m not going to see you again for a long time, and things will never be like this again.”

  “I’ll be careful, I promise. And you be careful too. Treybon, I know she’s in good hands with you to watch over her,” Kestrel gently loosened his hand from hers, and waved at the silent servant, who sat several strides away. The army had continued to move on, and Kestrel saw that his unit was far ahead of his location. “Goodbye, Picco,” he said gently, then turned his horse back towards the army, and urged the animal to take him away, as his eyesight grew misty.

  Picco’s last words had resonated with him, and he knew that she had spoken a true prophecy, that the two of them would not see one another for a long ti
me, if ever; things were going to happen – things were going to change. The thought of separation from the girl grew more painful than he had expected, and he was silent for the rest of the day as he rode his horse and brooded.

  Shortly before evening came they met the Hydrotaz army that had traveled across the entire length of Graylee. Kestrel was disappointed to find out that Greysen had not come to war, but learned that the young leader had stayed behind as commander of Yulia’s bodyguard at the palace. Kestrel listened quietly that night as the leaders of the two armies held a long staff meeting. He was known and accepted by all as the elf they knew and trusted; his reputation prevented any prejudices or slurs from being raised.

  The next day the invading army ran into the first line of Namber’s defenses, located several miles outside of the Channelport city walls. Philip’s army gained easy victories, and many of the captured soldiers came over to become supporters of Philip, accepting drinks of the water from Decimindion, and joining the ranks. By nightfall Philip was camped outside the walls of Channelport, and had a larger army than when he started, a larger army than Namber had inside the walls to defend the city.

  That evening, as Philip’s generals arranged their forces for an attack upon the city of Channelport, Namber and Poma and all the men they could carry climbed aboard their ships in the city’s harbor and sailed away from their doomed refuge in the city, on their way to some other city conquered and held by Uniontown’s forces. When the morning arrived and the sun dawned, the people of the city opened the gates and peacefully surrendered. Together, Philip and Yulia, with the assistance of Kestrel and the imps, had set free all the lands from the edge of the Mountain Sea to the Eastern Forest.

  Chapter 10 – A Journey to the North

  In a matter of a couple of days, Philip appointed a governing council of local residents to begin governance of Channelport. At Kestrel’s request, they found the last, hidden priests of Kai, and re-consecrated her temple, and then the victorious armies left; they went their separate ways to travel home to their respective cities; Ferris and the Hydrotaz forces marched east, while Philip’s enlarged army headed northeast. After a day of travel, Creata announced that he and Wren were going to leave the army to go visit Picco at the seaside estate.