The Fall of Lostport

by R. J. Vickers

  “Pressed from the only grapes grown in Dardensfell,” Silversmite boasted.

  That night, with the promise of good liquor waiting belowdecks, every member of the company made a simultaneous appearance for the first time Conard had seen. The captain anchored the boat shortly after sundown and put his feet up in one of the most comfortable chairs, and the others clustered nearby, most sitting cross-legged on pillows. Including the children, there were twenty-one in total, more than Conard had guessed. As the wine and sun-brew began to flow, the gypsies grew friendlier and more talkative, and Conard forgot his worries about seeing Laina and evading King Faolan’s attention.

  “Tell him about the baby!” The young woman with the braided hair—Ladybird, he gathered she was called—jumped into Conard’s lap and kissed his nose. “Please, Silversmite? Or I’ll kiss this handsome young man instead of you.”

  A moment too late, Conard leaned away from Ladybird’s second attempted kiss, which landed on the corner of his mouth. If he hadn’t been three mugs into the sun-brew, Conard might have been more worried for his dignity.

  Silversmite chuckled. “That was a real good one, wasn’t it, birdie?” He nodded at Conard, clearly pleased with himself. “See, Ladybird had been hankering for a child a few years back. She thought it’d be the greatest thing to have a cute wee one following her about. Well, I wouldn’t give her one—more trouble than they’re worth, I think!—and back then she wasn’t whore enough to go looking for another man.”

  The little girl came skipping up behind Silversmite and sat on his shoulders. “I’m not trouble, am I?” she asked, wide-eyed.

  Silversmite lifted her over his head and tickled her until she shrieked. “You’re lovely. Ladybird is the real trouble.” When he released the girl, she ran off, giggling, to rejoin the three boys. Taking hold of Ladybird’s braid, he tugged it until she toppled off Conard’s lap and crawled over to his side instead.

  “She kept pretending she’d gotten pregnant somehow, and once I even caught her stuffing her dress. Then one day I got home and was terrified she’d run off with someone’s kid. There was a silk-lined pram by the door, all lined in pink ruffles. This was when we’d stopped for winter in the Twin Cities, of course. I tiptoed over to the pram, ready to run off and abandon Ladybird if she’d truly done it. And what do you think I found?”

  Conard grinned. “What?”

  “A puppy! Well, I can tell you, that puppy was the most annoying little beast I’ve ever seen. It was always yapping and pissing on my nicest shoes—”

  “You never had any nice shoes,” Ladybird said, pouting comically.

  “It was making a mess, in any case. So you know what I went and did? I visited the orphanage and traded the puppy for a squalling infant!”

  “That’s our sweet Melody,” Ladybird said, nodding at the little girl.

  Conard laughed. “And I thought I had a strange childhood!” He followed the little girl’s progress as she skipped over to the largest of the three boys and tackled him onto a mound of cushions. “Where did the others come from, then?”

  “Oh, Silversmite got over his reluctance for children after that, and we had our own darling boy. The other two are Magpie’s, but we don’t know who the father was.” She gestured at the woman talking to Ebony; she was a gorgeous Ruunic woman with midnight-black hair and black eyes.

  Conard grew quiet as a sudden thought hit him. With Doran crippled, he would likely be unable to bear children of his own. Did that mean King Faolan was now desperate to marry Laina off so she could provide him with an heir? In a selfish, unkind way, Conard hoped so. He—a lowborn exile—would never have a chance with a princess of Lostport. Not unless he was her only chance.

  But would Laina be able to forgive him?

  Silversmite had noticed Conard’s sudden sober expression, and passed a newly-filled mug his way. Conard tipped it back and gulped the sweet, acidic Darden wine.

  “You loved her, didn’t you?” Silversmite asked keenly.

  Conard eyed him warily. Though the man had been keeping pace with him drink for drink, he looked dead sober. “Yes,” he muttered. “I did.”

  “You’ll need a few more of those to forget. Here.” He passed Conard another mug, this one laced with cinnamon and orange.

  “Cheers,” Conard said, and drained it along with the first.

  The light looked odd when Conard struggled blearily into wakefulness the next morning with a gnawing headache and a bladder ready to burst. When he stumbled up to the deck to relieve himself, he realized what was wrong with the light. They were floating beneath trees. Trees! Soaring overhead were the dark-leafed branches of the silver beech and emberwood and palm trees he loved best. I’m home!

  Most of the company was already on deck, watching wide-eyed as colorful birds swooped through the canopy overhead and giant lizards curled their tails lazily about their lofty branches. Conard didn’t even care about the town of Lostport, or the manor where he spent his adolescence. This was the home he knew—the trilling, ringing, screeching chorus of birdsong overhead; the humid weight of the air; the damp, pungent smell of decomposing leaves; and the sheer richness of color all about.

  “Good to see you up so early,” Silversmite teased, joining Conard at the rail.

  Conard groaned. “I must have drunk half of that cask of sun-brew myself. Do we have to land in Lostport today, or can we just stay here for a while longer?”

  Silversmite laughed. “It’s another three days before we reach the ocean. Have you never traveled this stretch before?”

  “I was unconscious the last time.”

  Now Conard’s bladder was protesting more fiercely than ever, so he ducked away for a moment’s privacy on the rear deck. When he returned, Ladybird and her two children had joined Silversmite, and the four stood at the front railing of the waddling box of a boat with their arms around each other, a sweet little gypsy family all dressed in bright rags. Conard wondered if it was just for show.

  Three days later, a shout came from deck—the ocean was in sight. When Conard raced to the front of the boat, he could make out a silvery glint in the distance, a flat horizon of water just peeking through the infrequent gaps in the forest. They were swept along by a decent current now, which soon carried them into the middle of the delta and then out to the open sea. Conard spotted a small Whitish sailboat darting about the harbor; he approached Grandfather and said softly, “We might not want to attract their attention.”

  “Fair point,” Grandfather said. “Alert the captain, will you? Unless you wish us to tie up at the main dock, pay an exorbitant fee, and submit ourselves to inspection, you may have to help the captain navigate to a safer mooring. It’s been a good long while since I last paid Lostport a visit.”

  “You’ve been here before?” Conard said, startled.

  “Many times. And Ebony even more. Don’t be startled, boy. For many, this is the first place that comes to mind if you wish to evade capture and earn yourself a comfortable living.”

  “Right,” Conard said. Still vaguely surprised, he made his way over to the captain’s deck at the rear of the ship.

  “Morning,” the captain said shortly, recognizing Conard. “I suppose you’d like to tell me where I ought to tie up?”

  Conard shrugged. “Grandfather thought I might be of use. Did you want to make for the docks, or somewhere a bit less conspicuous?”

  The captain pulled his cuffs into line with his teeth. “Less conspicuous, I think. There are more Whitish vessels around than most of us would care to see.” He raised his voice. “Oarsmen! Below!”

  There was a scuffle on deck as the entire company—women and children included—pushed and shoved their way down to the hold. A row of trapdoors popped open on either side, and oars emerged like tentacles from within. It was the sort of contraption a battle-ship would use, or even a pirate ship; on this wallowing little boat it just looked comical.

  Conard felt a bit lazy to be standing up here instead of pulling his
weight below, but soon enough the captain was asking for advice.

  “There’s a sheltered cove just beyond Lostport,” he said. “Before Mount Taleon—see?” He pointed at the small indentation on the coastline, the last stretch of horizontal shore before the dramatically vertical fjords took over. “Once we round the bend, there should be a bit of a lagoon beneath the trees. If we’re lucky, we’ll be able to tie the ship somewhere inside the trees, where no one will spot us unless they trip over us.”

  “That sounds like my sort of mooring,” the captain said, giving Conard a brief smile.

  Though this cove was too shallow for his sailing ship, Conard had approached it from the sea many times before—when he and Laina had been young, they had befriended the harbormaster, who allowed them to borrow his oldest rowboat whenever they pleased. The best part was that he never told King Faolan what his daughter had been up to.

  As soon as their riverboat rounded the mouth of the cove, Conard could see that the lagoon was exactly as he remembered it. One wide-trunked, sloping tree leaned far over the water, trailing its leaves in the surf. Behind that lay the lagoon, deep enough for a decent-sized boat yet utterly calm, its waters trapped and stilled in the tangle of roots all around.

  “See that?” Conard pointed at the drunken tree. “Aim for its left. There might be a few saplings that have grown over the entrance to the lagoon, but we can row through them.”

  With ease, the captain aimed his ship for the point Conard had specified. Conard clenched his fists behind his back as they entered the cove, eyeing the narrow band of sediment that could catch even a rowboat at low tide, but the riverboat cleared the passage without trouble. As he had predicted, there were six budding young mangroves barring the entrance to the lagoon, but the captain steered through them and flattened them beneath his ship.

  “There,” Conard said, pointing to a patch of dry soil locked in place by a mat of roots. “If we tie up to that tree, we can walk straight into Lostport from here. We’ll be there in no time.”

  This time the captain’s smile was genuine. “We stumbled across a stroke of good luck, that day we dragged you in from the swamp.”

  “We’ll see about that,” Conard said. The fact that he had made it back to Lostport, to the place every force had conspired to keep him from, could mean that his luck was changing. Or it could mean nothing. He still had not seen Laina.

  Belowdecks, the oars were hastily being racked as the captain jumped ashore and tied their boat to a tree. Before long the others were emerging into the light, looking around in surprise at the place they’d found themselves. It must be strange, Conard thought, to put all of your strength into powering a boat if you couldn’t even see where it was headed. The gypsies could have been rowing themselves to certain death.

  “The new city they’re designing lies in that direction,” Conard said, pointing to the valley just before Mount Taleon. “The road should be finished by now; the whole time I was sitting in Bogside, I kept hearing reports of how quickly the work was proceeding. I believe there’s a camp somewhere near the halfway mark, where the other entertainers have set up their tents.”

  “And Lostport?” Silversmite asked.

  “Back there,” Conard said. “There was an old road that followed the shore past Lostport until it nearly reached this lagoon. I assume the new forest road has connected up with that.”

  “Brilliant,” Grandfather said. “It’s all coming back to me now. I think we would be wise to split into two parties—one that travels ahead to stake our claim on a patch of that camp, and the other that visits Lostport to stock up on supplies.”

  Conard nodded.

  “I’ll lead the supply train,” Grandfather said jokingly, “and Silversmite can forge ahead into the depths of the forest.”

  “Why me?” Silversmite said, glowering at Grandfather. “I want to see Lostport.”

  “You can,” Grandfather said. “Just not now. If we left you in charge of the supplies, we wouldn’t see you for another span. You’d have such a good time in the taverns and brothels that we’d have to extract you from the Convict’s Caves before long.”

  Silversmite made a face at Grandfather, but he did not argue further.

  “Which party are you going in?” Ladybird asked, twirling her braid between her fingers.

  Conard blinked. “I’m going back to Lostport.” Had it ever been a choice?

  Grandfather shook his head. “Unwise, my friend. But I hardly expect to talk you out of it.”

  And so it was that Conard plodded to the head of the short line heading back to Lostport, his chest aching with dread. He could not turn back, yet he could not bear to face whatever he would find at the end of the road.

  * * *

  “It will not be enough,” Faolan said. He had just finished going over the architectural plans in conjecture with the funding scheme, while Harrow looked on. “These materials are far too expensive. I thought we were meant to use local woods only!”

  “You can’t build a palace out of wood,” Harrow said with a touch of amusement. “You need stone. Good, clean stone. And we have to import it from Dardensfell. What’s the point of building a city if it won’t impress anyone enough to live there?”

  “This is madness,” Faolan said. “Madness! I cannot sanction such a gamble.”

  “What, then?” Harrow said. “Are we going to abandon the project? Tell all the architects to go home? ‘Thank you, it was nice to have you here. We’ll enjoy the new road to nowhere.’”

  Faolan gave an exasperated sigh. “You are utterly impossible to reason with!”

  “Why thank you,” Harrow said sarcastically.

  Faolan put his head in his hands. This time they were discussing the matter over breakfast, as a nice break from his stuffy office, which was now drowning in papers. Raising his voice, he called, “Mylo, could you please fetch Prince Ronnick?”

  The cook appeared almost at once, untangling his apron from his neck, and gave Faolan a cursory nod before hurrying off to search for the young prince.

  Digging a thumb into his lower back, Faolan leaned back in his seat. He was still recovering from the walk to Port Emerald; he felt like an old man, bent-shouldered and riddled with aches.

  “Are you hoping to dismiss me—replace me with that imbecile, perhaps?” Harrow asked levelly.

  Faolan shook his head. “No. I need your advice, and Prince Ronnick’s as well. We will need to press Whitland for more aid, and soon. But we must make their prize seem more tempting than ever if they are to comply.” At times, Faolan still wondered if Harrow retained any of his loyalty to Whitland.

  Harrow leaned forward. “Even without the foreign materials, the project is beyond our current budget.”

  “I know,” Faolan said. He folded his arms. “No matter how many different ways you tally up the numbers, they still mean the same thing—too little. We have an excess of manpower and nowhere near enough supplies to keep them busy. Once the groundwork is laid out, they will have to start cutting trees if the stones cannot arrive in time. But is that what Port Emerald is meant to be? A quaint little village of log cabins?” He pinched the bridge of his nose in frustration.

  “You’ve given this more thought than I realized,” Harrow said.

  “Of course I have,” Faolan snapped. “It’s my son’s life at stake. And my kingdom.”

  A stiff rap sounded at the door; Faolan knew who it was without asking. “Enter,” he said. Prince Ronnick peered around the corner before marching into the room and sitting at the table. “Do you know why I have summoned you?”

  Prince Ronnick glanced from Faolan to Harrow and back, clearly afraid he was about to be reprimanded for something. He was very much a child in some ways. “No, your highness.”

  Faolan sighed. “How much have you heard from the other architects? Our plans for Port Emerald are devastatingly expensive. Is there some way you can use your influence in Whitland to encourage the High King to invest a bit more?”

&n
bsp; Grimacing, Prince Ronnick wrung his hands. “Well, I—that is to say, I don’t have much influence in Whitland. That would be why I came to Lostport.”

  Faolan had feared as much. “Do you at least have any ideas?”

  “Write out a schedule,” Harrow interjected swiftly. “A project outline detailing exactly what result can be expected after what period of time, given a certain amount of labor and materials. Then send that to King Luistan, along with a fat purse of jewels. If that does not tempt him, nothing will.”

  “Who can I trust with such a crucial message?” Faolan asked. “It has to be someone King Luistan will believe, but also someone I myself trust. Harrow, if not for your family, I would ask you to take on this burden.”

  “Your majesty?” Prince Ronnick said. “May I have the honor?”

  Faolan had known this was coming. He did not trust or particularly like the prince, but he did not have much choice. “How will I hold you to your word?”

  Prince Ronnick crossed his fists over his chest. “I am an honorable man, your highness. You have nothing to fear.”

  Faolan doubted that. “I have a better idea. Take my message to King Luistan with all haste, and once you can be certain of his support, return to Lostport. If the money and materials arrive when they are meant to, I will give you my daughter’s hand in marriage upon your arrival.”

  When he saw Prince Ronnick’s neck turn scarlet, Faolan knew he had guessed correctly. Despite the unlikelihood of Laina’s son growing to maturity in time to inherit the throne, he knew the match would be advantageous for Prince Ronnick. It was perhaps the one prize guaranteed to win the prince to his side.

  “You, my friend, are to draw up the plans,” Faolan told Harrow. “Be as specific as possible. You have my license to bribe or cajole your way to as much wealth as we can bear to part with in exchange for sufficient materials. In return, your family will have quarters in the clifftop palace that our architects have envisioned.”

  “Thank you, my lord,” Harrow said drily, “but we are perfectly satisfied with our present home.”