The Seal Queen

by Sandra Saidak

  “There’s another truth you carry.”

  “What is it?”

  The voice was silent.

  “Tell me, please! I must know! Kamin, the roane, so much depends on me succeeding here, today!”

  Then the sun rose over the eastern hills, spilling light across the fields and turning the river to molten silver. Gasping, Briah turned away from the blinding glare.

  Then all at once, she knew what truth would get her inside of the stronghold across the river. Something she alone knew; the one thing in all the world that Lir would kill to know.

  Briah walked along the beach until she came to the fording spot. With her clothing tucked safely into her pack, and her pack balanced on her head, Briah crossed the river, letting the water wash her clean of mud, exhaustion and doubt. Then she dried off, dressed, combed her hair, and last of all, looked at herself in the shell-crusted mirror that Taran had given her. Looking back at her was a face she did not recognize. It was the face of powerful woman; a woman who feared nothing. Her deep brown eyes held a quiet strength, tempered by pain and loss and endurance. And in the fleeting smile, she saw a love of all she held dear, and she wondered briefly how so many had come to love her. And Briah knew she would not let them down.

  CHAPTER 27

  Across the river, the forest had been cleared to create farmland—and to allow Lir a clear view of everything around his stronghold. It also allowed everyone approaching a clear view of his fortress.

  A low hill rose out of the mist. Upon it sat a large building of heavy stone and dark wood. A palisade of sharpened logs surrounded it. On a walkway near the top of the wall, eight guards patrolled at all times. The inside of the building was like a rabbit warren. Briah remembered getting lost all the time when she first arrived, yet it was impossible to hide. Lir and his men knew the layout well.

  Briah shivered. Was it her imagination, or was the mist really darker and more sinister on this side of the river? Was the landscape really bleaker than it had been just the day before? It was not her imagination that the few people she saw working in the fields or tending animals bent to their tasks with less joy and more fear than in any other place she had seen. They seemed grayer and smaller and definitely hungrier.

  A few overseers moved among the workers, but none challenged Briah as she passed. She could see the guards on the palisade clearly now, and remembered some of them. That meant they could see her. What if one of them recognized her? Briah lifted her head higher, planted her feet more firmly, and vowed they would not.

  “Halt!” a guard shouted from above as Briah approached.

  She stopped, surprised that she felt only a tingle of excitement and nothing more. She was walking back inside a nightmare that few people ever left alive. Yet no memories called; no ghosts threatened. Briah was here for a purpose, and no matter how slim her chances of success were, that was all that mattered.

  The guard dropped from the wall, nearly on top of her. Briah recognized him as Rand, an intimidating bully. Only he didn’t seem so big to her now. “Who are you? Where is your master?” Rand demanded, clearly startled by the sight of a woman standing alone—and unfettered—at Lir’s gate.

  “I have no master,” said Briah. “But I have business with yours.”

  Rand sneered. “I doubt that.”

  “I know the location of Lir’s son.” Inwardly, Briah cringed at the thought of telling anyone in this place of Kamin's existence. But it was the only weapon she had that could force Lir to confront her.

  “Lir has no son,” said Rand.

  “Are you willing to risk Lir’s... displeasure on that belief?” Briah asked with a slight smile.

  “Tell me what you know and I will tell Lir.”

  “So that you can take the credit?” Briah laughed. “No. I carry information of great value. I will bring it to Lir myself—for a price. And he will pay it.”

  That at least, was a common enough attitude in this place. Rand nodded, but his expression told Briah he thought she was a fool to play so dangerous a game. He called to one of the other guards on the palisade, who hurried down. Rand gave a curt order, and the two men opened the heavy wooden gate.

  “Follow me,” Rand told Briah. He led her into the gloom of Lir’s timber roofed hall. Behind them, the gate slowly swung shut. Briah looked around. Dusty light from arrow slits in the walls showed her familiar furnishings. A large wooden table, dirty from a previous night’s feasting, dominated the room. Benches covered with seal fur surrounded the table. Like Rand, the room seemed smaller, less frightening than the last time she had seen it.

  Soft footsteps sounded behind her. “What have we here?” asked a mocking voice.

  Briah turned to gaze at the man who had made her life a living hell since she was eleven years old.

  Lir was exactly as Briah remembered. Carefully combed black hair; carefully trimmed black beard. His full red lips set in a perpetual snarl. Perhaps his eyes had once been the liquid brown of a roane, but now, as when Briah first saw them, they were the empty black of a deep pit. He wore full flowing robes of fine red wool, and a cape of seal furs, suggesting that he would be entertaining later. Briah knew that he would not have aged, yet as she looked, it seemed he had changed after all, for he too, seemed smaller than she remembered.

  Lir’s gaze swept across Briah’s body and betrayed no hint of recognition.

  “She claims she has information to sell.” Rand shifted uncomfortably, then added, “About your son.”

  Nothing changed in the black depths of Lir’s eyes, but his body went completely still for just a moment. “Get back to your duties,” Lir told Rand. The guard left without a word.

  "Follow me," Lir said with a laugh, then turned his unprotected back to Briah and began walking toward his sleeping chamber.

  He’s toying with me, Briah realized. She kept her hands in plain sight and made no sudden moves. They stopped in front of a large, ornately carved wooden door. Lir opened it, and motioned Briah inside with exaggerated courtesy.

  Lir’s chamber was much as she remembered it. A huge bed covered with the most costly of furs dominated the room. Statues of terrifying gods, worked in gold and silver, guarded the entrance and adorned the walls. For the first time Briah wondered if Lir actually worshiped them, or if their sole purpose was to add fear to his victims.

  It felt strange to be here, fully dressed and carrying weapons. Yet Lir’s very lack of concern for what she might be concealing robbed her of any comfort that knowledge might bring. Still, Briah was not afraid. Very soon, it would all be over: her life, or her nightmare, she wasn’t sure which. Either way, she would not leave here as a victim. And with a little luck, neither would anyone else.

  There was a scuffling sound. Briah looked into an alcove behind the bed and saw too cowering forms. She thought they were both girls, but couldn’t be sure. Would it be better or worse if they stayed? She had a moment’s pleasure at the thought of them witnessing the death of their tormentor at the hands of one of his former victims. Then she shook her head. They would just distract her; worse: Lir might use them as a shield.

  Lir grinned and stood in front of her. “One of the problems of immortality is boredom. From time to time, however, a thief or assassin has come here with a story or technique that is new to me. That pleases me. Have you some new diversion to offer me?”

  “Oh, most assuredly,” said Briah.

  “Excellent. You may begin in a moment. But first—” In an instant, Lir had crossed the space between them, and pulled Briah’s cloak from her. Without any apparent effort, he ripped the tunic from her body. Knives flew in all directions, but Lir ignored them.

  Briah stood naked but for the loin wrap menstruating women wore in these parts.

  Lir drew back in disgust at the sight of the wrap, but recovered quickly. “I never allow a bleeding woman near me,” he said. “And you’re certainly not much to look at. But you can still provide me with entertainment. For a short time.” Again, he turned his back
on Briah, and went to the shelf that held an array of whips, fetters, knives, and other devices.

  “Sorry to disappoint you, Lir,” said Briah. “But that’s not why I’ve come back to you. So leave your toys where they are.”

  For the first time, Lir frowned. His eyes narrowed as he turned to look at Briah again. “Am I supposed to know you?” He tested the flexibility of a small whip, then set it down and picked up one of the knives.

  “Of course you know me, my love.” Briah’s voice had taken on the silken tone Lir had used so often on her, as if she had all the time—and the power—in the world. She walked slowly toward him, without being commanded, and without fear—two things he was not used to.

  “I’m the nightmare you created, come back to take you. I’m every child you’ve mauled and tortured. I am your final judgment.”

  The smile Lir fixed on her at that moment was so frightening that Briah felt her knees ready to buckle. “And do you really think you are the first to come back?” Then he was on her so fast she would have sworn he’d really used magic.

  He slammed her against the wall, cracking her head against it with practiced ease. When Briah could see again, Lir was holding her face with one hand, keeping her head immobilized against the wall. With his other hand he traced the blade of his knife over one cheek. She knew he was raising welts, but not drawing blood—yet.

  “If you really knew so much, oh wise one,” he whispered. “Then you would know that no power on earth can kill me.”

  Briah’s fuzzy senses cleared, and she saw, as she had once before, that both of her enemy’s hands were occupied, while hers hung free. In a heartbeat she freed the coral knife from within her wrap, and slid its sharpened point through Lir’s costly robe and into the skin of his chest. Before he could react, she pushed the blade in and slid it upward, until it reached the top of his collarbone, opening cloth and skin the whole time.

  “No power on earth,” she agreed. “But you forgot about the sea.”

  CHAPTER 28

  For a moment, Lir just stared down at the long, but very shallow wound across his body. Painful, but not fatal under normal circumstances. And for a terrible moment, Briah feared that things were normal.

  Then Lir staggered to his knees, and looked up, with a look of confused betrayal in his eyes that he must have been very familiar with, from the other side.

  “You were promised that you could never be slain, but by blood of your blood, and seed of your seed, and that no weapon forged by mortal man could slay you,” Briah said.

  “I am Briah, and three years ago, you sold me away—with your child planted in my belly. Before I left him with his roane kin, I drew his blood and spilled his seed with this knife—forged by none, but carved from the coral beds of your birth, by one of your faerie kin. The bargain is now complete.”

  “But you couldn’t... It doesn’t work that way...” Lir’s voice faded, and he sagged to the floor. Then he began to change. Decades of not aging fell heavily on him now, and before Briah’s eyes, he grew into a withered old man.

  She never knew if it was blood loss or old age that killed him. But he was dead.

  Briah might have stood there staring at the corpse all day if the terrified screams coming from the alcove hadn’t roused her. She had forgotten the children. She hurried to the alcove, and found them holding each other in a frightened knot in the corner.

  “It’s all right,” Briah said softly. “Lir will never hurt you or anyone else again. You’re free!” She moved closer, but they only cried harder and tried to squirm away.

  Briah moved back, and suddenly understood. No matter how much they might have feared or hated Lir, those two children—and any others here—had depended on him for everything. Watching him die was the same as the death of a god. And the woman who killed him might seem even more of a threat to them than Lir had been.

  As Briah stopped to consider how she looked, she nearly laughed. A naked woman, dripping with blood and her face covered with welts—not a very reassuring picture.

  Unfortunately, none of them had the luxury of time. While it was unlikely that anyone had heard Lir die—guards and servants alike tended to keep away from his chamber, and ignore any sounds they heard—eventually, his absence would be noticed. When his body was discovered, chaos would break loose. Briah wasn’t even sure anyone would seek revenge against her, but the combination of armed men and a power vacuum was not a safe place for her—or the children who had already suffered enough.

  She went to a carved wooden chest by the bed, and found a dark blue robe made of fine linen. It was clean, and she tried not to think about its previous owner as she stepped into it and belted it securely on. She slid a pouch of coins and a couple of small knives up the sleeves in passing, and spoke to the children.

  “My name is Briah,” she said, kneeling down to eye level with them, but still keeping her distance. “Not long ago, I lived here as a slave like you. I escaped, and learned the secret of Lir’s power. He’s not a god or a demon—just an evil man, who is now dead. If you know where your homes are, maybe I can help you get back there.”

  The children looked at each other, then back at Briah. Neither spoke.

  “What are your names?” Briah tried.

  Finally, the larger child spoke. “K-Ketta.”

  Briah smiled. “It’s safe to come out of there now. But we really should leave this place. It might be our only chance.”

  With frightened, jerky moves, the pair came out of the alcove. Ketta was a girl of about ten. The other was a boy of about six.

  “His name’s Drem,” said Ketta. “He doesn’t talk.”

  Briah was going through Lir’s wardrobe and making rags out of cloth that sold for more than she had. She then wrapped the children’s feet in them, and draped them with larger pieces as cloaks. “How many other children live here?” she asked Ketta.

  The girl looked blank, then held up fingers, indicating six or seven; she didn’t seem sure. “Can you help me find them?” Briah picked up the coral knife, while she tried to think of a plan that would get her and all of Lir’s slaves safely to freedom. “We’ll collect as many as we can; I remember the kitchens; maybe we can steal some food and slip away—”

  A cry of alarm erupted from the doorway. A young guard stood staring at Lir’s body, then at Briah and the children. A moment later, the room was filled with armed men.

  Forget stealth,” thought Briah. “Let’s try brazen confidence.”

  “Your master is dead,” she said calmly, looking each man in the eye. “Justly slain for his many crimes by one of his former victims. You thought he was a god.” She pointed with the coral knife. “Take a good look. Slaying him was easy for me. Imagine what I could do to the rest of you.”

  Pandemonium was unleashed as guards rushed in all directions, some fleeing, others grabbing what spoils they could, and a few trying to rally the others. Briah, Ketta and Drem slipped away unnoticed.

  They reached the kitchen, grabbed supplies and invited anyone who wanted to join them. They picked up a withered old woman who was probably no more than thirty summers, another girl about Ketta’s age, who like Drem, did not speak, and a young woman about Briah’s age, who never stopped talking. An older boy, who had learned more from Lir than simply how to give pleasure, set off at a run to the territory of Lir’s nearest rival, hoping for a reward for bringing the news.

  Briah sighed. The fighting would be heavy soon. She led her small party out of the stronghold, and back the way she had come.

  ****

  “Will you take us back to our homes, Lady?” asked Naia, the former kitchen slave, while they rested by the river that afternoon.

  “If you can help me find them, yes,” said Briah.

  “What good will that do?” asked Juni, the older woman. “Will we find welcome there? Husbands?” She laughed bitterly. “Who will want us as we are now?”

  “Perhaps this will make your homecoming sweeter,” said Briah, pouring the gol
d coins she had taken upon the grass.

  Everyone gasped and began grabbing at the coins, even the two who never spoke.

  “You would give us this treasure?” asked Naia. “Oh, you must be the Goddess herself! You must be, truly!”

  Briah shook her head wearily. “No, I’m an ordinary woman, who misses her son. Gold is worthless where I’m bound for, and it’s not mine to give. Think of it as Lir’s compensation to you for all you suffered. He owes us all a lot more, but this is what we have. Let’s divide it equally.”

  After much discussion, numerous maps drawn in the dirt, and several arguments about the best routes, they worked out a travel plan.

  When they set out the next morning, the day was clear and bright. Briah took it as a sign. As she looked east, a range of snow covered mountains set off the blue sky with even greater luster. As she stared, Briah could just make out the one mountain that stood taller than the others.

  “My home,” she breathed. “The village I was born in; I think it’s over there somewhere. I didn’t know we were so close.”

  “Do you want to go there first?” Naia asked fearfully.

  Briah thought long and hard, then shook her head. “No,” she said finally. “Maybe someday. But it hasn’t been my home for some time. My home lies to the west. And all I want now is to get back there.”

  CHAPTER 29

  The journey back to Eirann, although somewhat longer, was much simpler than the journey out. Despite—or perhaps because of—the presence of five former slaves clinging to her, Briah was rarely bothered and often helped by the people she met.

  One by one, Ketta, Naia and Juni bid goodbye as kinsmen were found and gold exchanged. Soon, only Drem and the silent little girl whose name no one knew were left.

  “It may be that they have no family,” the headman of Ketta’s village told Briah as they watched the pair playing in a field. It was early summer; the grain stood tall and golden on the stalks. Perhaps with all the work and festivities, Ketta would be busy enough to forget the recent past. “They might have been born into slavery; or sold by their own parents, in a time of famine.”