The Rose of Sarifal (forgotten realms:moonshae isles)

by Paulina Claiborne

  But the lovers had run away, and after a series of hair s breadth escapes had found their way up to the surface, following a seam of some precious, glinting mineral up from the Underdark and into the deepest cellars of Citadel Umbra in Winterglen forest, the palace of Lady Ordalf s son and heir, the leShay Prince Araithe. Initially welcoming, he had betrayed them like the scum-sucking piece of dragon shit he was, selling Marabaldia s lover to their pursuers while keeping her hostage for the sake of some scheme she had never known or understood. Araithe had shipped her here, as far away from Umbra as he could manage, where she d languished in captivity for a long, long time. She imagined the leShay had forgotten all about her.

  Hidden by the flickering lamplight, Suka had squirmed and rolled her eyes for the first part of this story. At the beginning it was hard for her to feel much sympathy for someone she had been afraid might rip her arms out of her sockets later in the month, and maybe snack on her dead body. Her father had always told her the fomorians ate people like her, though as the narrative went on, Suka found herself less and less sure. It s not as if anything else her father had told her had turned out to be true. Perhaps that was just lore left over from when fomorians used to keep gnomes as slaves down in the Feywild. But surely it was just as possible that they ate mushrooms and other nocturnal vegetables, bulging white tubers harvested in the dark. And at the end, when the sense of the story was dissolved in tears, Suka moved to the other side of her cell and sat beside the giantess as she wept, for comfort s sake.

  And your wedding feast, what was it going to be? Suka wanted to ask but didn t, not just because it might be awkward if the giantess had described a roast gnome with a tuber in her mouth, but also because it might be unkind to remind her, when she was crying so hard.

  The new gap in the bars was too small for the giantess s hand, but she could slip hers through, and did, because of a general feeling that it is harder for someone to devour a friend than an enemy. She found herself patting the giantess s enormous shoulder, picking at the threadbare and ruined brocade of her blue dress, while at the same time examining as best she could the iron and leather headdress Marabaldia wore clasped over her right eye, a simple mechanism as it turned out, though impossible to unlock with her big fingers. For Suka it would be a snap, and immediately she glimpsed the possibility of a plan.

  A fomorian s evil eye is a peculiar thing with a distinctive yellowish cast and unusual properties. Chief among them is the ability to affect the perception and the will of anyone who looked at her, to freeze or slow his thoughts, reflexes, and responses. It was because of this capacity that all those gnomes had been imprisoned and/or (maybe!) eaten, all those years ago. Stupid fomorians, Suka had heard, could barely slow you down. Clever ones could stop you in your tracks. She wondered if this was one of the clever ones. So far it was hard to tell, though Suka had a well-worn prejudice against the females of any race who boasted of their beauty. Particularly if they had purple skin, and warts.

  But already she was wondering if, when Marabaldia described her family s power and influence, instead of boasting she was being tactful and discreet this sounded more like a dynastic dispute, in which case Prince Araithe s interest was easier to understand.

  Don t cry, Suka said. Let s get you out of here.

  Her plan was pretty hazy, and it was already morning, which, again, you couldn t tell by looking. No windows. But the Ffolk wardens came in with their half bowls of gruel actual gruel, Suka thought. How exotic. She d heard of it for years, but never tried it before she was imprisoned here. But now she was lucky enough to eat it twice a day. And the recipe was obviously a success, at least in the cook s mind, because it never varied: dirty warm water with white blobs in it.

  The next night it was the lycanthrope s turn, after the ceremonial incantation of Oh, Father Dear. The giantess, hesitantly, sang a few verses. And then the pig-woman, lying up against the bars, told her story, which was mostly about the Lady Amaranth, the Rose of Sarifal, who had come to the island of Moray ten years ago. She had fallen from the sky, out of the east, on the back of a wounded hippogriff a young girl who had blossomed into a queen, and who had changed the lives of every creature who touched her, or even touched the creatures who had touched her, the child of the goddess, the anointed one.

  In the darkness, Suka rolled her eyes.

  How beautiful she was, standing on the ancient battlements at Caer Moray, her red hair down her back, shining in the morning light Suka had a low tolerance for this kind of thing. Already she imagined that the Rose of Sarifal was probably a moron or a charlatan, chased out of Gwynneth because of some genetic or moral abnormality that the lycanthrope was too dim to register. But then she remembered that the rest of the girl s family around here were her half sister the High Lady Ordalf and her nephew, Marabaldia s friend and mentor Prince Araithe, whose rabid degeneracy was probably hard to beat, even by other members of the same family. So maybe Lady Amaranth wasn t so bad, and surely it was impressive for a young girl to carve out a kingdom among wild beasts in the wilderness and (apparently) to give everyone tattoos, the first sign of an advanced civilization.

  And it was indeed a sophisticated tattoo: a climbing yellow rose along the belly of the beast, inked in several colors under the light yellow fur. Suka studied it in the half light, willing to concede a small amount of admiration until the lycanthrope described her mission, and what she was doing in this place. She, like Aldon Kendrick, had been an emissary to the Winterglen Claw, had built a boat with several others of her kind to sail the straits between Kork Head and Gwynneth and find Captain Rurik and his band of doughty rebels whatever. Just because you found yourself locked up in faerieland didn t mean you had to believe in faerie tales. The Ffolk were beaten here. Whipped. Ground down. Nothing left. One glance at the slaves who brought your gruel would tell you that. Hunchbacked, eyes low, dressed in yellow rags, they dragged themselves across the floor.

  What happened to your boat? she asked the lycanthrope.

  Lost. Lost with all hands.

  Well, that was retarded, Suka thought. The straits were less than ten miles across. It wasn t exactly the Trackless Sea, where she had sailed with Captain Lukas all the way to Ruathym suddenly, as she remembered, she found herself swamped by a wave of apprehension and regret. I am so reamed, she thought to herself. But still, if she could unseal the mask of the fomorian, unclose her evil eye

  How did Lady Amaranth make contact with the Claw of Winterglen? she whispered in the dark.

  Chapter Five — Mistakes

  You make it with separated egg whites, recommended the genasi in his curious, airless voice. It is called meringue.

  That s great.

  You need a binding agent, though, depending on the weather. Otherwise it is not crisp.

  I ll just keep that in mind.

  A little bit of fat will wreck it. A trace of egg yolk.

  Duly noted.

  These conversations with Gaspar-shen, who had no sense of humor when it came to pastry, were always a little irritating, Lukas thought, but never more so than in circumstances like these, miles from anywhere.

  It wasn t as if they were starving. They had some biscuits from the wreck of the skiff, and a rabbit Lukas had shot, which he had shaken out of its skin and cooked over the campfire. It was a thin and meatless animal, but it still smelled good as it roasted on its spit. But nothing would ever satisfy you if your head was full of pudding, imaginary or remembered this was a well-known fact.

  Lukas squatted over the fire, warming his hands. It was a chilly afternoon, near sunset on the third day after they had left the wreck of the Sphinx, following the track of the lycanthropes. They had camped in a dry upland hollow among the gorse bushes, which gave them shelter from the wind and further shelter if it rained. Lukas thought it might. Impassive, the genasi stood above him. He didn t feel the cold. But on a clear day, no binding is necessary

  Shut up.

  The genasi stopped talking, as requested. But his comple
x nasal passages gave out a little whistle of interrogation, and the energy lines gleamed on his bare skin. Please shut up, Lukas amended. It s just I don t want to talk about it anymore. I think I ve made a mistake.

  Again that small interrogatory noise. Lukas was the tracker, at least on land, which was an alien environment for the genasi. So this was a confession: I think I ve gone the wrong way.

  Which was stupid, because the lycanthropes hadn t required any tracking. A blind man could have followed their sloppy trail. But three nights before, only a couple of hours after the wreck, the trail had divided in the fen, and a portion of them had split away to the west into the mountains. Lukas had chosen to follow what he d thought was the main trail north. Even at the time he d known he was rolling the dice.

  For the first two days their quarry had traveled fast, trampling the bushes and then, later, spreading out across the heaths. Crossing streams, Lukas could see on the banks the mixed tracks of many different animals, which had convinced him he d made the right choice. But now, today, he d seen the main track dwindle as more and more of the lycanthropes had split away in all directions, in ones and twos. Now they were following a group of no more than five or six remaining animals, all wolves.

  But in the swamp that first night he had seen hooves as well, heavy prints in the mud, and now he cursed himself. What was the likelihood that these six wolves were carrying the Savage, Marikke, and Kip across their backs? And even if they were, could they have moved as fast as these animals were moving? This trail now was almost a day old.

  Tonight would be another cold night, a few hours of restless sleep wrapped in the coat he had taken from the skiff. The genasi would be fine. He didn t require comfort, was tireless on the trail, would stand watch most of the night a good companion, apart from the meringues.

  And in the morning, then what? Go back and try to pick up the right trail, now stone cold? Lukas could not bear the thought of Marikke and Kip in captivity. And he had so little information. One thing he knew: It was obvious they d been set up, that the fire they d seen burning on the Gwynneth hills when they had crossed the straits had been a signal to alert the lycanthropes on the other side.

  But why? Lady Ordalf was the only person who knew about their mission. She had hired them to kill her sister, whom she suspected was alive somewhere on Moray. She had paid them real gold thalers why, if she had wanted them to fail? The fey loved gold, hated to part with it, and though it was possible to imagine this whole expedition as part of an elaborate and cruel practical joke, it was harder to image it was worth the expense. The gold, delivered to their boat the morning they had sailed from Caer Corwell, was real. Lukas was no judge, but the Savage had tested it.

  No, if this had been a joke, the equivalent of a spoiled child drowning his pets in an effort to distract himself, then the lycanthropes would have killed them on the beach at Kork Head, when the Savage and the others had brought the skiff ashore. Instead, they or whatever mage or power had wielded the white sword he had seen that night had captured them alive, abandoned the slain and carried their prisoners inland for a purpose. And if Lady Ordalf had invented the entire story of the lost leShay princess then what? Or if the story was partly real, except for the detail that the sisters were in close communication, and Lady Ordalf had delivered them to Moray for some obscure shared purpose then what? Or if the story was entirely real, and it was possible that Lady Amaranth had spies at Caer Corwell who had lit the signal fire at the straits, and that she was the one who had waited for them on the beach at Kork Head then what?

  It was impossible to know the truth. In the meantime Suka languished in her fey prison. Doubtless by this time her jailers had removed one pair of bars. Even though Lady Ordalf might have lied about the threat, Lukas had to assume she told the truth, which meant any goal he set himself had to be accomplished quickly. Although if the leShay queen had sent the gold in payment to her sister, or under the assumption that it be returned, then the little gnome was already as good as dead. It made him miserable to think so.

  So the choice was to concentrate on Suka, find Lady Amaranth, deliver her to Gwynneth, and hope the queen would honor her side of the bargain a wan hope and a difficult task, particularly since the Sphinx was at the bottom of the sea. Or else to concentrate on the other captives and retrace their steps.

  Three lives against one. First light, we go back, he said.

  They had camped at the bottom of a steep, shallow gully out of the wind. Above them the dry ridge was covered with coarse grass.

  The genasi, standing beside the fire, was impassive. Lukas listened to his high, soft voice speaking as if to himself: Often it is possible to stuff a meringue with custard or fruit confiture

  He stopped, turned his head. Lukas watched his nostrils flare. But he himself was already moving, because he had heard something above them on the crest of the hill. He had chosen this place for the campfire because the light could not be seen. But now as he reached for his bow he kicked over the small pyramid of sticks, while the genasi extinguished them, scattering sparks over the chalky ground. He drew his scimitar, and both of them crouched in the gorse bushes, waiting.

  Orc, whispered Lukas.

  He had grabbed the rabbit from its stick and flung it away into the heather. Perhaps they could retrieve it later. Wiping his hands, he strung his bow and waited for the orc to show itself on the ridgeline. He could smell it up there, a sour, fecal smell. His own senses eyes, ears, nose were sharper than the orc s. He worried about the rabbit, though. With one hand, he grasped the bag of supplies he had taken from the skiff and slung it over his shoulder, then he and Gaspar-shen crawled backward, deeper into the bracken. Down below them at the bottom of the dell there was a tiny watercourse, and beyond it the land opened up.

  Then Lukas saw the creature on the ridge about a hundred feet above them, a stocky orc taller than a man, with a long torso and long arms, and short, bandy legs. The night was too dark to see clearly, and so Lukas supplied the details out of his knowledge and prejudices so he could see clearly the long fingers and toes, the predatory teeth, the face like a plate of stones, the thin black hair gathered in pigtails, the wool or leather clothes, looted from some Northlander settlement, the turquoise and coral jewelry, mined in Trollclaw. In all things they were slovenly and dirty, except for the care of their axes and knives, which were always greased and sharp. In embossed leather pouches the males carried the dried penises of enemies killed in battle so Lukas had heard.

  The creature moved his heavy head from side to side. Some orcs were half blind because they d gouged out one of their eyes in ritual homage to their god. This was proof of their foolishness, Lukas thought as he nocked an arrow. The purpose of divinity is to raise us up, not cripple us.

  But he hoped he was dealing with a zealot, and that was the reason for the uncertain, bobbing movement of the creature s head. Another possibility was that he smelled the meat but couldn t find the direction because of the wind. It was unlikely, though, that he was alone.

  Ware, said the genasi, next to his ear.

  He meant beware. Lukas didn t feel like it. Frustrated with his mistakes, he felt like killing this orc. The genasi must have guessed it, because he put his hand on Lukas s bow. The lines shone muted, blue and silver on his greenish skin.

  The evening was gathering in. Lukas waited for the orc to move away, but he did not. He looked as if he were waiting too, surveying the countryside from his high point, peering in every direction like a scout or a ranger, though oblivious to the enemy that lurked so close. He grunted loudly, then raised his arm, and in a few minutes he was joined by others of his kind, a dozen or so warriors.

  Soon the darkness would come, and Gaspar-shen and Lukas would slip away. In the meantime his thighs were killing him as he crouched down. The orcs were in no hurry. They were setting up camp there on the ridgetop. They didn t care if their fire lit up the night. Some of them had carried wood from the other side, furze bushes ripped up by the roots with th
e needles still on. Piled high, they made a smoky, inefficient bonfire, and by its light Lukas could see the flag they d erected at the top of a long pole, a forked banneret hanging from a crossbar, bellying in the breeze, a silver seahorse on a black ground. Even their devices and insignia they had stolen from their enemies this one was Northlander work, surely. Lukas guessed, as the evening drew in, that he and Gaspar-shen were witnessing the celebration of a successful raid. The orcs had broached a barrel of liquor on the ridge, and one, probably the leader, one of the so-called eyes of Gruumsh, was distributing the drinking cups out of a leather sack, a collection of mismatched crania, the skulls of defeated enemies, some of them chased with silver. He was a gigantic, hairy, shambling brute, who cut a clumsy caper along the edge of the fire, his black figure silhouetted. The others brought up captives.

  Ware, said Gaspar-shen.

  It was dark enough now for them to creep away, but they did not. The orcs had captured women from some village or outlying farm, a common event. They were not so far split from human beings that they could not interbreed, and Lukas had seen in all the towns of the Moonshaes and the cities of the Sword Coast their half-caste offspring, drunk and homeless in the streets, orphaned or else abandoned by their unfortunate mothers.

  Too few, warned Gaspar-shen.

  They couldn t see much of what was going on above them, but they could hear the screams, the pleas for mercy in the Common tongue. Wisps of prayers, borne on the wind. The orcs were shouting out some kind of music while Lukas counted them: two dozen, now. Out of frustration, he held his bow out flat and drew an arrow to his ear then what? Maybe he could pick off six or seven. But what would happen to Suka then? What would happen to Marikke?