by John Booth
“Do you think we should go and talk to Hala?” he asked. Jalia spun around, looking for Hala as she realized that hadn’t seen her since they dispatched the assassins. Daniel had to point her in the right direction.
Hala stood with Nin, half in and out of the forest. Nin had his back to them and Hala was bent over behind him.
“I think she’s being sick,” Daniel remarked. He moved closer to Jalia.
“She killed one of the men,” Jalia said. “I didn’t think anything of it at the time, but it was the first time she has ever killed up close.”
“I didn’t know she had killed anyone,” Daniel admitted. “We should go to her. She is bound to be in shock.”
Jalia put her arm out to hold Daniel where he was.
“Leave her with Nin for now. She has a decision to make as to whether to come with us or stay with him and this will help her decide.”
“By making us out to be unfeeling bastards?” Daniel enquired, more than a little annoyed at Jalia’s attitude.
“Neither of us even gave a thought about her after the fight, Daniel. We are what we are.”
“But I want to go to her now.”
“Give them another ten minutes and then we will go to them.”
Nin had held Hala up as they walked into the Greenhouse. She was crying and shaking like a leaf. They were a long way behind the others and he edged them over to the side as they went through the massive inner doors; knowing she wouldn’t want Jalia or Daniel to see her in this state.
Hala clung tight to him and he had to suppress a scream as her fingers dug into the wound on his back. Daniel’s ointment had helped the healing process but it was still less than a week old and Hala’s fingernails tore the scab. Nin said nothing though as he helped her move into the Greenhouse.
They ended up at the edge of the forest. Hala let go to Nin’s enormous relief and then she vomited into the undergrowth.
“Are you all right?” Nin asked with some concern. He had no real understanding of what was wrong with her.
“When I stabbed him, his guts poured out over my hand,” Hala explained. “It was so warm and it steamed, Nin, it steamed.” At this point Hala bent over and was sick again.
“Didn’t you kill a guard for Jalia at Boathaven?” Nin asked. Hala had told him she had killed a guard, so he had assumed she was used to that sort of thing.
“It isn’t the same. He was a long way away and I never really saw him after I threw the knife.” Hala’s voice shook along with her body. Her face was white and she felt she was going to faint.
“Why not?”
“It was dark,” Hala improvised. She was not about to tell Nin that a crossbow bolt through her guts had put an end to her watching. If she did that, she would have to explain to him why she wasn’t dead.
“But isn’t it the same in any case? Both of them ended up dead.”
“It is not the same,” Hala said and vomited violently. “I saw his eyes cloud over and I saw I’d taken his life. I knew it in my guts.”
“Well, you’ll soon have forgotten it the way your guts are being emptied,” Nin said. Hala tried to smile and vomited again.
“That man was going to kill Daniel wasn’t he?” Nin asked. He had deduced this as nobody had bothered to explain to him what had been going on.
“Yes,” Hala admitted and paused for a moment in thought. “If I hadn’t killed him he might well have succeeded. Jalia was busy dealing with one of the other assassins. We knew they were going to try it while Daniel was busy fighting, so our job was to get them before they got him.”
“How did you and Jalia know any of this? You never said anything to me,” Nin asked in an aggrieved voice. He had felt left out when Hala disappeared without warning. It was as if she was part of a team with Jalia and Daniel that he wasn’t allowed to join.
“Jalia told me just before we entered the Greenhouse, while Daniel was spouting all that nonsense about that midget. The step ladder bit I can believe, but three times in a row? Yours gets as limp as a worm if I do it to you twice.”
“Keep your voice down,” Nin urged as he looked around to check that no one was listening. There are some things you don’t want broadcast to the world and his personal capacity in that particular area was one of them.
“Anyway,” Hala continued, oblivious to his concerns. “Jalia said we were walking into a trap and to look for people with their hands in their jackets or at their belts, anywhere they might keep a knife. I knew this man was one of them as soon as I saw him; he had this shifty mean look about him. So I sidled up to him and when I saw the flash of his blade, I stuck my knife into him. I thought that I would have to push hard but the knife went into him as though cutting through butter. Then there was blood and other sticky stuff over my hands and it stank, Nin. It stank something awful.”
Hala looked as though she was going to throw up again, but she managed to prevent herself. She attempted to calm her breathing, and concentrating on that made her feel a little better.
“You did what you had to do,” Nin said calmly. “I’m not sure that I could do it. I admire you, Hala. You are much stronger than me.”
Hala smiled at the unexpected compliment and put her hand out. Nin reached over and held her hand tightly.
“Well, I can see that Daniel was quite wrong to worry about you,” Jalia said, startling the children as she and Daniel had approached so quietly.
“It’s a terrible thing, the first time you have to kill someone up close,” Daniel said, looking deep into Hala’s eyes. “The point to remember is, you saved my life doing it, and the world is undoubtedly a better place without him.”
Hala smiled wanly at Daniel, who smiled back reassuringly.
“I see that now, Daniel. It was just the closeness of it that bothered me.”
“Killing someone should never be a remote thing. It is not a thing to be taken lightly.”
“I still think you should have killed at least some of those bastards you were fighting,” Jalia said indignantly, “Especially the one that called me a whore.”
“You did sell your body when you were twelve,” Daniel pointed out, a grin on his face.
“Not for money though,” Jalia pointed out. “I swapped sex for information,” she told him, a little too firmly. “And I got the better of the deal, because Marco was quite good at it, which is more than I can say for some young traders I know.”
“You’ve had sex with traders?” Daniel asked in outrage. “I bet it was that Tonas or maybe it was the Denger brothers…” Daniel paused and then his mouth formed a big O, “It wasn’t all three of them at once, was it?”
He turned and ran into the forest as Jalia drew her sword and then gave chase. Both of them disappeared up one of the paths. Daniel laughed loudly as he ran.
“What was all that about?” Don asked as he and Cara joined them.
“I think Daniel wanted to lighten the mood by teasing Jalia,” Hala said with a broad smile on her face.
“I just hope he survives it,” Cara said. “An angry Jalia is pretty dangerous.”
“I think he has more to worry about with the forest,” Nin said, looking worried as he tried to see through the dense foliage. “I’ve never seen one like this. Who knows what they might run into?”
“Just so long as it isn’t Jalia’s sword,” Cara opined. “They call the forest in the Greenhouse a jungle. Fruit ripens all year round because there aren’t any seasons in here; it’s always as warm as it is now.”
“Jalia in the jungle,” Don said rolling the words around his tongue with evident satisfaction. “Shall we go and join them before they have all the fun without us?”
“Why not,” Hala agreed. She led the way confidently along the path Daniel and Jalia had taken, with the others following closely behind her.
Hala caught up with them a few hundred yards into the jungle. Daniel had used a vine to climb up a dozen feet into a tree and found a branch strong enough to stand on. Jalia was jumping up at him s
winging her sword, just failing to reach him.
Jalia could have thrown one of her knives and skewered Daniel, but that was not the point of the game they were playing.
“Come down here and fight like the skulking rat you are!” Jalia called.
“Rats don’t climb trees, Jalia,” Daniel shouted down to her.
“That just proves you’re a pervert, even for a rat.”
“Can you even remember why you chased me up here?”
Daniel gave Hala a cheerful wave when he saw her approach.
“I don’t need a reason,” Jalia said. She was gasping for breath from her exertions, “Because you are always guilty of something.”
“We have guests,” Daniel pointed out. “Put the sword away and I’ll come down”
Jalia looked and saw Hala, Cara, Don and Nin staring at her while trying not to laugh.
“All right.” Jalia slid her sword back into its scabbard. “I can always kill you later.”
“Fair enough.”
Daniel used the vine he had climbed the tree with to swing down to the ground.
“Those things could be really useful if they grew in ordinary forests,” Don remarked.
“Then we’d get thieves swinging down on us, no doubt shouting out something silly as they came,” Cara replied. “I think we are better off without them.”
“Some of the fruit grows on these vines,” Daniel said as he brushed dust off his trousers. “And there are bridges made of vines up near the top of the trees. There must be ladders where the locals can get to them so they can pick the fruit.”
“They must have bought in the animals and birds when they created this place. How could they have done that?” Don asked, looking upwards at the vast steel framed dome above them.
“By using magic of staggering power, I would imagine,” Daniel said. “I don’t think they brought this forest in tree by tree, I think they moved a section of it with all its animals and insects to the Greenhouse in one go. The Greenhouse is alive with wildlife. I saw a black snake up in the trees; it must have been at least twelve feet long.”
Hala and Cara surreptitiously stepped to the middle of the path.
“So there’s bound to be dangerous creatures of all shapes and sizes in here,” Jalia stated.
“I would bet money on it,” Daniel agreed.
“Let’s go back, shall we?” Nin suggested as he looked around him more than a little nervously.
“It would probably be wise to ask the locals about possible dangers before we venture any further,” Daniel said.
Jalia snorted in disgust and kicked at the piles of leaf mold at her feet. A hairy spider much bigger that anything any of them had ever seen in their lives scuttled away out of sight.
“Perhaps you’re right,” Jalia said as she too moved to the middle of the path. She took her time about it and did it much more casually than Cara and Hala had managed, but she still ended up in the middle with the other women.
To take her mind off large insects, Cara engaged Jalia in conversation as they walked back, asking questions about their latest fight.
“Why would Gally Sorn want you dead when she was singing your praises the day after we left Wegnar?”
“I might be able to answer that if you can tell me who two men called Oto and Maximus might be,” Jalia replied.
“You two are really ignorant about Slarn, aren’t you?” Don said from behind her. “Mother insisted we learn about the key people in Slarn’s politics from an early age.”
“Don always paid more attention to mother’s lectures than I did,” Cara said and sighed. “You tell Jalia about them. If I do it, you’ll start correcting me before I’m halfway through.”
Don grinned at the opportunity to impress his friends with his knowledge and started to lecture them as though he was a teacher.
“The city of Slarn is split into three equal kingdoms called Triums. The Triums are known as Tallis, Dalk and Jenver. A king of Slarn is selected in the order of rotation Dalk, Tallis, Jenver whenever the current king dies. The last king was Grissom the Tenth and he was the father of Oto the Ninth, who is current king of Tallis. Maximus Tallis is Oto’s younger and more dangerous brother. As a Tallis born king was the incumbent, the next king is to be selected should come from Jenver.”
“Gally Sorn’s father is Derren Sorn and he is a supporter of Oto as the Sorn family lives in Tallis. The Sorn family are power brokers and occasional traders, sometimes in things far from legal. There are claims they do darker things than trade illegally. Some people hold Derren responsible for the assassination of Prince Jared of Dalk a few years ago, though nothing was proved. Jared was the eldest son and heir to the current King of Dalk, Gillan the Twenty Third.”
“Where does Lady Sala Rotiln fit into this?” Jalia asked.
“Her family are longtime supporters of the royal house of Tallis and King Oto. They give money to the royal house and are highly regarded as diplomats.”
“It must be awfully confusing though, having four kings in one city at the same time,” Daniel said.
“They have been doing it in Slarn for more than a thousand years, so I expect the locals have got used to it,” Don replied.
“This Maximus Tallis, what’s he like?” Jalia asked.
“Mother says he was born to cause trouble and has been doing it his whole life. He’s an ambitious man with nowhere to go and is reputed to be very cunning, especially in his alliances. He doesn’t get on well with his older brother, who is a more cautious and statesmanlike. There have been public fights between the two and I believe Maximus was once banned from the Tallis Court for over a year.”
“You have to understand that despite the rivalry between them, the royal houses of Slarn are all one big family, as are the people of Slarn. People from different Triums have been marrying for centuries and no one could be considered to be of pure blood. Much of the rivalry between the royal families is just to please the people of their Trium.” Don paused for breath before he continued.
“It was Jenver’s turn to nominate a king and there is no male heir for them to choose. Kalenda is a very effective Queen and is liked by everyone, including, as I understand it the kings of Dalk and Tallis. But tradition says that only a man can be raised to the throne of Slarn and powerful people have been pushing the royal houses into a war.”
“Tonas’s swords are likely to tip the balance?” Daniel asked.
“So long as whoever gets them has enough swordsmen, then I think they will,” Don replied thoughtfully. “But there are players with other motives. Have you wondered why the Boat Company has set the price so high for travel to Slarn?”
“Because they are damned profiteers who saw a good excuse?” Jalia offered.
“It took me a while to figure out the real reason,” Don told them. “The Boat Company is a unifying force in Slarn. They never take sides and have harbors in all the Triums. They are a major reason for the prosperity that Slarn enjoys and there is no profit for them in a war between the Triums.”
“They have stopped the royal families from bringing in mercenaries by setting the price so high. The roads along the river Jalon are virtually impassable and their boats take all the traffic. You have already seen for yourself the risks sailing boats take when they attempt the journey.”
“Now you know who Maximus and Oto are, can you explain why Gally Sorn wanted you dead?” Cara asked Jalia.
“Gally Sorn thinks we might take a hand in deciding where the swords end up. I overheard her talking to Sala Rotiln, who suspects Gally of working for Maximus. Sala is working with Gally, so that’s a deep crack in their team.”
“If Gally’s allies are squabbling with her, then people like us who are wild cards become more of a threat,” Daniel said thoughtfully. “I think you’re right. Jalia; especially if Gally plans to give the swords to Maximus.”
“Her father would kill her if she tried,” Don protested. “Deren Sorn would not tolerate a traitor in his family.”
“You don’t know Deren Sorn,” Don said and shuddered. “Unless she is under the protection of Maximus he will certainly punish her, if not kill her outright. Even with Maximus’s protection she might not be safe from her father’s retribution.”
“Then our plan is clear,” Jalia said with a smirk on her face. “We must take a hand in the delivery of these swords and ruin Gally’s plans while ensuring that her father finds out exactly who she plans to deliver them too.”
“That’s a pretty nasty plan,” Cara said.
“She tried to kill us, Cara. If you had come to our aid, you might have found a knife in your back. Simply killing Gally Sorn won’t be half as satisfying as wrecking her plans and letting her father take care of her. That’s my kind of justice.”
“Aren’t you glad that Jalia is on our side,” Daniel said in a whisper that carried across the entire group.
14. Recovered
Jalia insisted on buying fruit before they returned to the Steam Dragon. She sampled all the different types on offer and Daniel was surprised when she bought several small round green fruit that was exceptionally bitter.
She also bought other types of fruits. She even bought a basket to put them in, which was unusually domestic of her. Daniel half expected her to skip back to the boat like a little child and was a little disappointed when she stomped down the streets of Bratin, as she normally walked. When they arrived back in the cabin Daniel decided to raise the matter.
“This is a little fancy for you,” he said, giving the basket a knock with his hand as he spoke.
“Camouflage, just in case Gally Sorn was watching,” Jalia explained. She tipped the basket over and collected the small bitter fruits.
“Would you care to explain?”
“Do you remember I trained as an alchemist?”
