by Rob Scott
‘ The nigger coach from Idaho Springs. I hear great things about him.’
‘Hey Southie, can I come up now?’
Mark homed in on the voice. It was Rodler Varn, the Falkan drug smuggler. He was here in the stands somewhere. There, beside that guy, whatshisname, the bigot in the green Fort Collins sweatshirt. Smiling, the racist waved and offered Mark an ironic thumbs-up.
‘That’s just great,’ Mark said, ‘smile and wave. No one heard you, asshole, but this ought to get your attention.’ He exhaled slowly and released the bowstring.
The man in the green sweatshirt took the arrow in the chest, just above the second L in Collins. Two more followed with muted thuds. One dotted the I; the other found its way inside the tiny hillock of the N. Garec’s coaching was paying off.
‘I warned you,’ Mark snapped, nocking another arrow. ‘My family has been putting up with that bullshit for generations and the appropriate thing for me to do right now is to express my outrage at your narrow-mindedness. Well, I’m expressing it this way, asshole.’ A fourth arrow pierced the man’s throat. ‘That’ll shut him up,’ Mark said with satisfaction.
‘Hey Southie,’ Rodler called from his seat beside the body. He reached over to finger the fletching on one of Mark’s arrows. The other parents and coaches chatted, sharing swimming gossip. No one seemed to notice that Mark Jenkins, the talented young coach from Idaho Springs, had just fired arrows into a spectator’s chest.
‘Southie, can I come up now?’
‘I’m going to kill you, asshole.’ Now Mark started loosing arrows aimlessly into the humid air of the aquatics centre; most found their way into the man in the green sweatshirt until the body tumbled off the bleachers and rolled to a stop behind the girls’ bench.
Frustrated, Mark turned to Bridget. ‘Did you hear what they were saying about me?’
The girl smiled up at him, her dirty-blonde tresses tied back in a utilitarian ponytail, soon to be coiled up, snakelike, and tucked inside her swimming cap. Holding two ends of the rolled towel she had draped over her shoulder, Bridget said, ‘Maybe I’ll carry your bag then, sire? Maybe carry it for you? What do you think, sire? Maybe for a copper Marek or two?’
‘What?’ It was noisy in the arena and he shouted over the din, ‘Bridget, I didn’t hear you.’
Grinning to expose her teeth, two perfect rows of white, ortho-dontically sculpted masterpieces, Bridget said, ‘The water’s cold in here today, but they have warm water at the Bowman, my prince.’
‘I’m not a prince, Bridget,’ Mark said. ‘Go swim, will you? You need to get warmed up if the water’s cold.’
‘They have warm water at the Bowman, my prince,’ she repeated and moved towards the starting blocks at the end of the pool.
Mark watched her walk away, then called after, ‘I’m not a prince.’
Bridget turned and mouthed a few words Mark couldn’t hear. Tossing her towel onto the blue-and-white bench running the length of the pool, she climbed onto the third starting block. A large number 3 had been painted on the front of the block; Mark wondered if it were important for the swimmers to know which lane they were in during the race. He glanced down at the water and whispered, ‘I’m not a prince.’
He saw it move, a flash of something opaque and indistinct. Was it a trick of the light? Then he saw it again, this time rushing towards the other end of the pool, and he knew what it was. He started towards Bridget Kenyon at a run, screaming, though the noise had grown so loud, he couldn’t hear his own voice.
Bridget didn’t hear him either. She had tucked her ponytail under the rubber swimming cap and was ready to dive in for a few warm-up laps. ‘Bridget!’ Mark shouted again, ‘No! Don’t go in the water!’
His heart stopped as the young girl dived lazily into the pool. Bridget Kenyon never hit the water.
The almor burst through the surface and took the girl in mid-air. She was dead in an instant; as the demon carried her to the bottom of the deepest part of the pool, Mark could already see her muscular back and powerful thighs thinning to leather and bone in the creature’s unholy grasp. A moment later the almor released her body and a wet sack of bones drifted to rest against the far wall beneath the three-metre diving board.
Mark stood at the side of the pool, waiting for the almor to surface, certain that it would: it had come for him and he was ready to die if necessary, whatever it took to rid the world of this monster.
He expected the demon to explode from the pool like a tidal wave, but instead, the almor bobbed above the surface, a nearly translucent, shapeless creature. He fired arrows into it as quickly as he could draw and release, but they passed through the demon and ended up on the bottom of the pool where they lay together: an underwater game of pick-up sticks.
The water is cold today, but they have warm water at the Bowman, my prince. The almor’s laughter came from inside his own head. Mark thought he might pass out from the pounding reverberation.
Panting, he managed, ‘I’m not the prince.’ He couldn’t bear to look down at what was left of Bridget’s body. ‘I’m not the prince.’
As the almor disappeared through the filtering system and out into the Colorado Springs water supply, Mark heard its words: Not yet. That was what Bridget Kenyon had mouthed to him, he now realised.
Not yet.
Mark awakened and was on his feet before he realised it had been a dream. His cheeks were damp: he had been crying in his sleep. Gilmour, stirring the coals in their small campfire, leaned over and whispered, ‘Are you all right?’
Mark rubbed his hands over his face and across the back of his neck. He felt like he was having a breakdown; his heart was racing, and he was panting and sweating now, as if he had just finished a strenuous workout. He couldn’t even see clearly. He crossed to where Steven was lying, wrapped up tightly in his coat and a blanket, and kicked his roommate firmly on the soles of his boots. ‘Wake up,’ he muttered.
‘What?’ Steven groaned, rolling onto his back, then his eyes adjusted to the firelight and he could see Mark standing over him. He sat bolt upright and reached for the hickory staff. ‘What is it?’ he asked urgently. ‘What’s happened?’
Gilmour crouched beside Steven. ‘You look terrible, Mark. Are you sick?’
‘It was Lessek. I’m sure of it,’ he gasped, still trying to slow his breathing.
‘What did you see?’ Steven’s grip tightened on the wooden staff. He looked over at Rodler and Garec, but both appeared to be sleeping still.
‘Steven, that moment before you hacked that tramp in half, what did he say?’
Steven’s brow furrowed. ‘I wasn’t really listening – he was so irritating, calling me sire all the time, prattling on and on about five hundred different things. I kind of tuned him out as soon as I suspected it was Nerak. I was concentrating on sniffing for any hint of tobacco on his breath.’ Steven smoothed his blanket over his legs while he thought. ‘Sorry, I can’t remember.’
‘Was it something about the water?’
Steven’s eyes widened. ‘That’s it!’ he started to shout, then, lowering his voice again, he said, ‘He was talking about getting cleaned up, or getting clean clothes- no, it was a bath. He’d said something when he disappeared into the trees and I hadn’t really heard him because you and I were talking about the Bowman and whether or not they would have hot and cold running water. It was obviously a joke, but then-’ Steven paused. ‘You know what? He was talking to you. Right before I decided to use the staff, that little bastard was talking to you. He said, they have warm water at the Bowman, sire.’
‘Was it sire? Did he say sire? Or was it something else?’ Mark glanced over at Gilmour, who was shaking his head.
‘He said, my prince,’ Gilmour muttered, ‘I’m sure of it. I remember thinking exactly what you were thinking: what did he mean by that? Mark, you stopped to look up at him – that was just a breath before Steven sent him to the Northern Forest.’
‘I just needed to be sure I wasn’t los
ing my mind,’ Mark said.
‘Did you dream? Was it Traver’s Notch?’
‘Yes and no – not here, but the state swimming championships last year. You remember, Steven? Down at the Air Force Academy?’
‘With that girl Kenyon?’
‘Bridget, right,’ Mark answered. ‘I have no idea why – if it was Lessek talking to me – he chose that day. Or it may be just a bad memory sparked by our new friend over there.’ He gestured towards Rodler, who was curled in his cloak.
‘How was that a bad memory? I thought she swam brilliantly that day.’ Steven uncorked a wineskin and offered it round.
‘It wasn’t her. It was this guy from Fort Collins – I don’t remember his name, but his daughter was swimming against Bridget. When we walked in, I heard him say something rude about me. I don’t know that he meant it to be cruel, and at the time I dismissed it because I just figured he didn’t think anything of calling me a nigger.’
‘So what did you do?’
‘Nothing.’ Mark shook his head. ‘Oh, well, I did the usual thing all intellectuals do when met with that kind of situation: I frowned, acted displeased, expressed my outrage at his narrow-mindedness and blah, blah, blah, bullshit, bullshit, bullshit, but I didn’t kick him in the teeth or call him a white trash asshole or anything like that.’
‘But you wanted to,’ Gilmour said.
‘Of course I wanted to,’ Mark said. ‘I always want to.’
‘And today, when Rodler called you a Southie and you almost filled his chest with arrows-’
‘I guess it woke up the fury I felt that day at the pool.’ Mark looked over at the Falkan drug smuggler again. ‘But, Gilmour, there was more to it. The girl I was coaching, she called me my prince, just like Nerak did. And there was an almor, a big mother, right in the pool, and it called me prince as well. It said, “There is warm water at the Bowman, my prince”.’
‘That’s it – the last thing Nerak said before I clubbed him,’ Steven added.
Mark sighed. Everything that had been on his mind the past weeks came back in a rush – now he needed a few moments to sit by himself and sort them out. The process would go more smoothly if he could take a break from the conversation to determine if he was actually prepared to pursue this particular uncomfortable notion further, but from the look on Steven and Gilmour’s faces, he knew there was no chance of putting them on hold while he wandered about the copse arranging puzzle pieces.
‘What are you thinking, Mark?’ Gilmour asked.
‘Is it that obvious?’
‘I can smell the smoke,’ Steven joked, and the three men laughed softly together.
‘This may be nothing, but I need Garec to confirm a nasty suspicion I’m having.’ There was no going back.
Steven nodded and poked at Garec with the hickory staff. ‘Hey, Garec, wake up,’ he whispered.
The young Ronan rolled over, quickly lucid, and demanded, ‘Why? What’s happening?’
‘Lessek may be visiting again tonight,’ Mark said.
‘Grand,’ Garec groaned. ‘The last time he showed up we got attacked by a demon.’ He sat up and sniffed noisily. ‘What are we doing?’
Mark said, ‘I need you to think back to your dream at Seer’s Peak.’
‘My dream? How can I forget? First I have to stand and watch as the most beautiful woman in Eldarn has sex with a frothing freak while a bunch of guards and soldiers wait around in case she needs assistance. Then as if that wasn’t bad enough, I get to see Rona devastated by some kind of plague and my favourite woods haunted by an army of wraiths. And afterward, for everyone’s enjoyment, I am forced to repeat my dream over and over and over again until the details become so firmly lodged in my memory that I will probably be able to recall every moment on my deathbed three hundred Twinmoons from now. That, of course, was thanks to Gilmour – so anything you need from my particular vision is well preserved right up here.’ He tapped a knuckle on the side of his head.
Mark grinned. ‘All I need to know is if the woman that Doctor-’ He paused, trying to remember the name.
‘Tenner,’ Gilmour supplied.
‘Yes, that’s it, Doctor Tenner. The woman he chose to carry on Eldarn’s line, the woman having sex with the crazy, crippled prince, was she black?’
‘What do you mean, black?’
‘Did she have black skin? I don’t mean black, like shadow-black, but did she have dark skin, like mine?’
Garec nodded. ‘She did. When she came in she looked like a servant – there’s no difference once we all get out of our clothes, but from what she was wearing when I first saw her, I would guess she had been a servant at Riverend Palace.’
‘A South Coaster?’ Mark was on eggshells.
‘Yes, definitely,’ Garec said. ‘What are you trying to work out? That was a long time ago, and even if they did succeed in getting that woman pregnant – well, you read Doctor Tenner’s letter: she went off to live in Randel with someone named Weslox Thervan. If Tenner died in the fire, there was no one to produce that baby as Prince or Princess of Rona.’
‘But that baby would have been Eldarn’s true monarch, Rona’s prince.’
Gilmour nodded.
‘Mark,’ Steven said, ‘where are you going with this? Nerak might have been jerking your chain – he called you prince, but he called me sire about sixty-three times.’
‘But not in my dream,’ Mark said. ‘If my dreams are coming from Lessek, then it’s Lessek trying to draw my attention back to those words from Nerak, “There is warm water at the Bowman, my prince.” Did you notice that was the only thing Nerak said to me then? He asked the rest of us – once – if he could carry anything else, but apart from that, he mostly talked with you, Steven.’
‘So Lessek wants you to remember that comment. Why?’ Garec asked, ‘is it because you come from the South Coast?’
‘I don’t, Garec. My family comes from New York. Before that, we were lost in the confusion surrounding the American Civil War. No one has been able to trace back far enough to know what my origins were. Educated guesswork invariably leads to a slave ship that arrived somewhere in the American south after 1619.’
‘So South Coasters in your world are slaves?’
‘Were, Garec,’ Steven said. ‘It was long ago, a grim time for our world.’ Turning back to Mark, he asked, ‘Are you thinking that the servant girl-’
‘Regona Carvic,’ Garec said, ‘remember, from Tenner’s letter?’
‘Are you thinking that Regona somehow came through the portal to your world? That she’s related to you?’
Mark shrugged. ‘Why else would Nerak and then Lessek draw my attention to that comment, my prince?’
‘Holy shit, buddy, but that’s assuming a lot,’ Steven said. ‘I don’t see how it would be possible – the far portals have been in Nerak’s control ever since Sandcliff Palace fell, and Regona was taken to Prince Danmark’s chambers at least a Twinmoon after that. If Nerak had the portals, how could she have got through?’
Mark turned to Gilmour. ‘When Nerak was in Estrad, busying himself with Doctor Tenner and the fire at Riverend, where was the portal?’
‘I don’t know. All I can work out is that Nerak had it hidden somewhere in the city where no one would find it; he most likely did the same thing the day he took Prince Marek in Pellia. He probably hid the portal at Welstar Palace, made the trip downriver to the capital and took the prince right there at his father’s side.’
‘But the portal wouldn’t have been in his control when he was out causing havoc or taking souls?’ Mark felt another piece slip into place.
‘No. Theoretically, the portal would have been available, if not open, for someone else to use.’
Mark wished he had some time to himself, to draw a diagram or a crude timeline. He drank from the wineskin, then wiped his mouth and asked, ‘Steven, why do we live in Idaho Springs?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘What are we doing there? I love it there, but I fre
ely admit I don’t fit in as well as I might someplace else. And you, you’re worse than me. How many decent jobs did you pass up after finishing your MBA? Three? Four?’
‘What’s your point?’
‘Maybe we don’t have a choice. Maybe we were supposed to find Lessek’s key and we couldn’t leave. Look at you: you do magic with no spells or potions. You just think of things you want to happen; you will them to happen and they happen. Is that the staff, Steven, or is that you? Are you a real sorcerer, or are you a guy who found a magic stick that somehow got into his bones? I’m asking because I don’t know. But then I couple that with the fact that I left Fort Collins to come to the foothills and take a teaching job that pays less than just about any job I could have found down in Denver or in one of the suburbs. So I wonder what we’re doing there, and if we are there by choice.’
‘No one is forcing me to live in Idaho Springs, Mark,’ Steven said with a degree of uncertainty. ‘My parents live there.’
‘But why? Do you think they had a choice?’ Steven was about to respond when Mark pressed on, ‘Think about the communication I have allegedly had from Lessek. He quiets my fears moments after I arrive in Eldarn. It’s a memory from a day at the beach with my family. My dad is drinking beer. I had been drinking beer; I’m comforted by the memory and it takes me weeks to realise I’m supposed to be thinking about my dad. Lessek didn’t give a pinch of shit whether I was comfortable or not. He hit me with a memory of home, because he needed me thinking about why my dad was such an anomaly: he’s the only guy on the beach facing west; he has three hundred pictures of a family vacation that spanned thirty-seven states and almost all of them were taken within one hundred miles of Idaho Springs. He was drawn there, Steven, just like us.’
Steven was shaking his head. ‘You aren’t the prince of Eldarn, Mark.’
‘You’re right,’ he answered, hearing the almor’s cavernous voice echo in his head, ‘I’m not – not yet – because I believe my dad is Rona’s prince, Eldarn’s king. I won’t be until he dies, and that’s fine with me, I hope he lives to be a hundred and six.’
