The Golden Orb

by Doug Niles

  “I am the king of Suderhold,” he reminded her. “You have achieved exalted status of your own—because you are my wife! If you choose to retain that status, you will do as I tell you. This is a fact you should, you will, remember.”

  “It is a fact that is never far from my mind, Sire,” she replied, her tone neutral.

  He drew a breath. “Now I wish to talk about Thraid Dimmarkull.”

  Stariz waited, eyes narrowed now, upper lip curled in disapproval, showing her short, blunt tusks.

  “I give you a warning,” Grimwar declared bluntly. Stariz’s eyes widened. “Should any harm come to the Lady Thraid, I will be displeased. Exceptionally displeased. My displeasure shall be such that your station, your rank—indeed, Queen, your very life—will be in some jeopardy. Do I make myself clear?”

  The ogress managed to inject a great deal of scorn into one small shrug of her broad shoulders. “You have too many your father’s weaknesses. I had hoped that the passing years would move you beyond such trite concerns.”

  “I am serious,” the king replied.

  “Very well,” declared the queen, with an air of great boredom. “I give you my word. No harm shall come to the, er, lady at my hand.”

  “Neither at your hand, nor at your bidding,” Grimwar pressed. “You must swear upon the Willful One.”

  “You test my patience, husband,” snapped the queen. She shrugged again, apparently unconcerned. “But suspicion is not a bad thing in a king. Perhaps it is even a sign of the strength, the maturity, I seek to cultivate in you. So I agree. I swear upon the sacred name of Gonnas the Mighty that I shall neither command nor commit any assault against the person of Thraid Dimmarkull.”

  “Very well,” he said, although he felt the vow had come too easy. However, he believed Stariz was not likely to abrogate a vow sworn on the god she served.

  “My lord,” the queen said, in a more deferential tone, “I acknowledge your mastery of your realm, and indeed, of myself. I ask for one small consideration. You have made your decision about Brackenrock—you will not go there this year—and I, as your wife, must be content with that. However, are you certain, absolutely certain, that the Lord of Us All, Gonnas the Mighty, the Willful One, is pleased with your decision? Should you not seek some guidance from our god?”

  “I obey the will of Gonnas,” Grimwar said guardedly, “but you are the voice of that will, and there are times when you discuss prophecies and visions, when I suspect that I am hearing your desires, and not those of our god.” He glared at her challengingly, expecting her to react with fury. He was surprised when she nodded in apparent understanding.

  “That is a fair assessment, Sire,” she said, as meekly as he had ever heard her say anything. “But what if you speak directly to the god, without using me as an intermediary?”

  “How could I do this?” Grimwar wondered, still suspicious.

  “The Ceremony of the Midnight Sun is but a few weeks away,” the priestess-queen reminded him. “You will be on the King’s Roost, atop our mountain, as is your right and duty as king of Suderhold. There you will address Gonnas directly. I merely suggest that you ask him for a sign of pleasure or displeasure with your choice.”

  The monarch scowled. It was some kind of trap. Everything had been going so well, up to this point. “If there is no sign?” he asked warily.

  “Why, that would certainly be proof that he is pleased with your rule and that your mandates are right and correct for Suderhold.”

  Grimwar nodded, pondering her words. “If Gonnas shows his displeasure,” he continued hesitantly, “that will be an indication that you are right, that I should pursue the campaign against Brackenrock at once?”

  “I could not have stated it better myself,” she declared, surprising him again by dropping her face and clasping her hands before herself, a gesture he could only interpret as a sign of her respect, and obedience. He left her chamber rubbing his palms together and whistling, thinking the Ceremony of the Midnight Sun held no fear for him.

  he sun climbed higher into the sky with each day, and the nights became shorter, marked by extended twilight. The harbor boom was completed with the cheerful assistance of more than fifty Highlanders, with Bruni and many Arktos also contributing. When it was installed, it became a barrier that could be floated across the narrow mouth of Brackenrock Harbor, secured with iron chains, and studded with steel spikes. Any ship that tried to pass would at the very least become stuck and would very likely have great holes ripped in the hull.

  Kerrick concentrated on his boat, preparing for the transoceanic crossing. He caulked the hull carefully, repaired his lines where they showed signs of fraying or wear, and mended the few tears in his three sails. A week after the harbor boom was done, the day of his departure dawned clear, with fair winds. These were good omens to start a voyage, but as he went around the fortress and down to the waterfront, making his farewells, Kerrick found himself feeling strangely hesitant and melancholy.

  “You have a care out there—it’s a big ocean! So I hear, anyway,” sniffed Dinekki, peering up into Kerrick’s face with her watery, yet penetrating, eyes. The stooped, elderly woman shook her head firmly. “Not that I have any intention of going out there for a look, myself. That one trip across the strait with the Highlanders on our heels and your boat underneath was all the sailin’ I’ll ever want.”

  The elf looked back at the ancient shaman, knew the mighty power lurking within that deceptively frail frame, but all he saw was a tender, caring heart. He felt a lump grow in his throat.

  “I have a feeling you could tame those waves if you wanted,” Kerrick said, “and I will have a care.”

  She pressed something into his hand, a small circle made of interlocking bones. Fish bones, he saw, the frail slivers barely thicker than coarse hair. “This may help you in a time of danger … throw it on the water, if you want to hide your boat and yourself. Everything else, for that matter,” she said. “Chislev Wilder will watch over you, but you’ll still have to take care of yourself.”

  “Thank you, Grandmother,” he replied, using the honorific the Arktos used for their most esteemed elders. He was truly moved. He gave her a hug, conscious of her skinny frame and careful not to hurt her, then was surprised when she pulled him close with a crush that almost expelled the air from his lungs.

  “We’ll miss you,” she said, sniffing. “Damned pollen! Never could keep my sinuses clean this time of year.” She turned away, dabbing her eyes with a cloth, and Kerrick took a moment to catch his breath. The emotions of these humans, so obviously displayed, were affecting his normally reserved elven nature. There were so many here to see him off, and this evidence of their fondness touched him deeply.

  He looked at Cutter and was instantly reassured. The teak deck shone, the sails were neatly furled but ready to snap upward and snare the ocean wind. The locker was full of smoked and salted fish fillets and his two barrels topped with pure spring water. He had fashioned a new pair of oars, sturdy paddles that might be useful in an emergency, and these were strapped, one on each side, to the gunwales. Two of his three chests of gold were already stowed below deck, secured in the hold. He knew the third strongbox would be coming along shortly.

  He turned to look along the dock, noticing that more Arktos were coming down the road from the citadel or following the mountainside trails leading down to the harbor. A few Highlanders—tall, bearded, distinguished by their buckskin kilts—were also coming from the boatyard. A pretty young woman, her long hair bound into a black plume and her eyes, like Dinekki’s, swimming with tears, came forward and grasped Kerrick’s hands.

  “Do you have to go?” Feathertail asked. “Will you come back?”

  “Someday,” he promised, believing it to be the truth. “Meantime, keep an eye on Mouse for me, will you?”

  She smiled through her tears. “Oh, you can count on that. If he gets too careless, I just remind him that it wasn’t so many years ago that we used to call him ‘Little Mouse.’
He blushes then and usually forgets what he was talking about!”

  “I’m sure he does,” the elf said. “He’s lucky to have you—take good care of him.” He embraced this girl who had become a young woman seemingly overnight. He had to remind himself that it had been a process lasting the whole eight years of his time here. To an elf, that time might be a mere eyeblink, but not to humans.

  “Here’s the last chest,” Bruni said, genial as ever as she rolled up the wheelbarrow with the third of his treasure boxes. The other two had required Kerrick and two strong men to cart down from the fortress. Bruni had brought this one by herself. “Do you want me to throw it onto the deck?” she asked, joking.

  “I appreciate the help,” he replied hastily, “but I think it would crash through the floorboards, and I’d like to have it stowed it a little more carefully than that!”

  “Well, you’re the sailor,” she said with a grin. She looked around at the boatyard, the nascent fleet of boats bobbing in the harbor. “At least, the first sailor. It’s nice to see this legacy of yours, floating all over the place. We’re a seafaring people now, and that will forever change our lives.” She turned her moonlike gaze upon him, very serious for a moment. “It’s going to be different, though, with you not here.”

  He drew a breath and it came out a sigh. Second thoughts assailed him. He hadn’t realized how much he was going to miss these people. The big woman drew him into a smothering hug, and though he couldn’t lock his arms around her massive waist he clutched her as tightly as he could.

  “You’re someone very special,” Kerrick told her. “If you lived in Ansalon, I think the bards would be singing about you from Tarsis to Istar. As it is, you’ll have to be sure to keep an eye on your chiefwoman and all these people, won’t you? They rely on you more than you know.”

  “Oh, I help out when I can,” she said, shrugging dismissively. “You come back sometime, and see for yourself how we’re getting along? Okay?”

  He nodded wordlessly. More of the Arktos came to bid him farewell, friends he had made over the years, and the sense of uncertainty only grew stronger. The Highlander berserker called Mad Randall—always a genial and gentle fellow, except in the midst of battle—shared several sips of warqat with the elf, then cried lustily as he clutched the departing sailor to his breast. Mouse came hurrying along, and he gave Kerrick a gift: a splendid long harpoon, with a polished shaft, a coil of supple line, and a head of shining steel.

  “That’s the metal Hawkworth is smelting now, thanks to you,” the young man declared proudly. “He says that you could shave with that edge—if you had a beard, that is.”

  Kerrick rubbed his smooth elven face and shook his head. He was moved by the gift but even more moved by the all the people crowding around. Many times he had embarked from the Silvanesti docks, sometimes for voyages that would last more than a year, and never had he entertained this kind of farewell. His friends had been too casual to depart from their comfortable routines. On those occasions when he left a lover behind, she was inevitably petulant about his trip and likely as not would fail to see him off or send him away with angry words ringing in his ears.

  He thought of Moreen for some reason and was startled to look up and see her standing all alone on the dockside. The rest of the Arktos had melted away all of a sudden, and were now busily watching the boat builders or fishers, leaving the chiefwoman and the elf with a circle of privacy. He heard the waves lapping against the stone wharf, punctuated by the keening cry of a gull. The bird, he thought, articulated his feelings far better than Kerrick himself could.

  She came toward him dry-eyed, serious. He found himself drawing up straight, standing as tall as he could, feeling strangely vulnerable. Wondering what he would say, he was taken by surprise by the first words out of her mouth.

  “That boom,” she said, gesturing to the long construct of chain-wrapped timbers. “Are you sure it is going to work right?”

  He felt a familiar flash of irritation. “Yes, of course it will work,” he snapped. “That is, if the watchmen get it pulled across the harbor mouth in time. It won’t work if the ogre galley is already in the harbor!”

  “No, I suppose not,” she commented, taking no visible offence at his harsh tone. Instead, she made a show of studying the length of the boom and the large winch attached to the Signpost rock. The boom itself lay in the water, opposite the spire, attached by a submerged cable. The winch, they had learned through testing, was strong enough to pull it across the harbor mouth, if ten or a dozen strong people could gather to crank the device. There was a rickety framework of scaffolding leading up the Signpost and a sturdier, more permanent-looking platform on top. A lanky Highlander leaned on the railing of that platform, momentarily noticing their eyes on him, so he quickly turned his gaze back to the sea.

  “I will have to make sure that we put only the most alert people, whether Arktos or Highlander, on that duty.”

  “Yes,” he agreed, his ill temper quickly fading. “You will.” You will have to do lots of things, he thought, feeling for an instant the leadership pressures weighing upon Moreen every day. She would have to look out for all of these people, leading them against a harsh environment, protecting them from the onslaughts of an even harsher enemy. She was strong—unbelievably strong—but he was terribly glad that he did not have her responsibilities.

  “That boom … it’s a nice piece of work. One of many nice things that you leave us,” Moreen said, her voice surprisingly soft and nervous. “I cannot dispel the feeling that we have not changed you in such a … so many fundamental ways, as you have done for us.”

  Kerrick blinked, surprised at the moisture that burned in his eyes. “I think, perhaps, that I have been very much changed by my time among the Arktos. Changed for the better.”

  She smiled wanly, then nodded to the chest in Bruni’s wheelbarrow. “I see you’ve had the gold brought down. Do you think that will make a difference to your king?” She didn’t know the full story of his exile—none of these humans did—but she had gleaned enough of his past to know that he had departed his homeland under something of an shadow.

  “I know it will, at least in these modern times. Centuries ago, in the time of Silvanos and the great houses, who knows—I’d like to think the elves had loftier pursuits. Now we might as well be Istarans, dwarves even—we are as enthralled with gold as any people on Krynn.”

  “You know …” Moreen hesitated, choosing her words. “I … that is, we, will miss you very much.”

  He almost winced. That was how it was with her—everything was about the tribe, nothing about herself. “You should know that I will miss all of you. I’m only starting to realize how much,” he responded levelly. He would miss her the most of all, Kerrick knew, but he lacked the words, the human brashness, to articulate that sentiment.

  “You are welcome to return, any time you want to come back,” Moreen continued. “In fact, I do hope we—I—will see you again.” She gazed across the harbor, out the narrow gap onto the sea beyond. “Perhaps it won’t be during my lifetime,” she mused ruefully. “You could still be a young man, and come back to find our grandchildren as the new masters of Brackenrock.”

  “I … I want to be back before then,” he said awkwardly. The difference in their life spans—he had centuries of adulthood waiting before him, a trackless road ahead of him, while she would become an old woman in forty, fifty, or some other finite number of years—had always yawned like a gulf between them. Now he felt an irrational tickle of guilt.

  “Know that if you don’t come back for a hundred years, the Arktos will remember you and make you welcome,” she said quietly. For the first time ever he saw a tear shimmer in her eye.

  “For all those years, and longer, I will carry the memory of this place, of your people—and of you—close to my heart,” he said somberly.

  Kerrick held Moreen for several heartbeats, feeling the fierce strength of her embrace, the wiry muscle of her body, and he found himself wi
shing it could be forever. But it was she who broke the embrace, blinked, and said, “May Zivilyn Greentree ride with you across the waters! And Chislev Wilder wait for you in the forests on the other side!”

  The blessing of their two gods was like a benediction around his shoulders. Kerrick could think of nothing else to say, so he climbed aboard his boat, raised the mainsail, and started toward the beckoning sea.

  Cutter burst from the Bluewater Strait like a cork exploding from a bottle. A cold south wind gusted from the direction of Winterheim and the Icewall, a reminder of winter so lately departed. Still, Kerrick welcomed the breeze, for it had strength and would bear him in the direction he wanted to go.

  The sky was cloudy now, a slate color perfectly matched by the sea. The hue matched the elven sailor’s mood. Playing out the jib, riding straight before the wind, he flew northward until the bulwark of land that was Brackenrock vanished from his view. Even then he continued, reckoning by compass, imagining the miles … twenty, fifty … eighty and more … passing under his keel.

  Only when the sun angled into the western sea did he haul in the jib and turn the mainsail to lessen his headlong speed. He watched the long, slow sunset, realized that it was prolonged by his northern position. Within a week the sun itself would remain visible, low on the southern horizon, throughout every night, and many weeks would pass before it again set below Brackenrock’s horizon. He chuckled as he thought of the phenomenon that the Arktos called the midnight sun. Certainly he would describe it to the elves of Silvanesti, but he didn’t expect that they would believe him.

  Setting the tiller and boom with ropes tied to hold a steady course, Kerrick went into his cabin and opened his sea chest. From there he took out a delicate tube, a container shaped by Dinekki from a whale’s tusk. Carefully he extracted the scroll of sheepskin and spread the supple cloth across his table, where he could see clearly in the daylight spilling through the porthole.