The Caldera

by John Flanagan

  “Send him in. And close the door after him.”

  Lacrimus bowed and ushered Stig into the room. As ordered, he withdrew again and closed the door.

  Stig looked around the spacious living room that comprised a quarter of Olaf’s suite. He nodded thoughtfully. “You do well for yourself here, don’t you?” he said.

  Olaf smiled and nodded. “It’s a lot better than a pine hut in Hallasholm, isn’t it?”

  There was no answering smile from Stig. He moved around the room, taking stock of the furniture and fine fabrics, the thick rugs and ornate wall hangings. He came to rest by the strongbox, laying a hand idly on its lid.

  “So I take it you won’t be coming home with us?” Stig asked.

  Olaf shrugged. “My future is here. There’s nothing for me in Hallasholm.”

  “Your wife is there,” Stig said bluntly.

  For a moment, Olaf was silent. Then he said, a little awkwardly, “She’s better off without me.”

  “That’s a very convenient attitude for you to take,” Stig replied, his eyes cold. “Particularly since Constantus has no idea that you deserted her and left her behind when you ran.”

  Olaf shifted his feet uncomfortably and said nothing. He watched Stig closely.

  “You never told Constantus that I’m your son, did you?” the younger man asked.

  Olaf went to prevaricate, then realized there was little he could say and replied simply, “No.”

  “No. Neither did I. But he and I did have a long chat when we were sailing back from Santorillos. He told me the story of how you were shipwrecked on the coast west of Byzantos, and all your shipmates were lost. He told me how you had tried to save them, but couldn’t manage it. How you kept your skirl from drowning for three days before you couldn’t help him any further and you had to let him go. Then you were recruited into the palace guard.”

  “I had to tell them something,” Olaf said defensively.

  “And that’s a much better story than the real one,” Stig said mildly. “Constantus was very much taken with your loyalty and sense of duty. He said that was why he selected you as his personal guard commander.”

  “I’ve served him faithfully,” Olaf said, wondering where this conversation was leading. He had an uncomfortable feeling that he knew.

  “So you have. And you’ve been rewarded.” Stig flicked open the strongbox lid and looked down at the gleaming riches inside it, saying nothing for several moments. Then he said in a seeming non sequitur, “My mother is a wonderful woman. She’s brave and faithful and strong. And she never let anyone down in her life. Particularly not me.”

  “No,” Olaf said carefully.

  “When I undertook this quest, it was because I didn’t know you. You were my father, but I didn’t know what sort of man you are. I wanted to see what sort of man would desert such a wonderful woman and leave her to face the music when he absconded with his shipmates’ treasure. What sort of man would subject her to years of shame and misery—and leave her with a young son to bring up alone. I’d hoped there might be some reason that excuses you, that explained your behavior.”

  He looked up from the treasure chest and locked eyes with Olaf. The older man’s gaze held for a few seconds, then dropped away. He couldn’t face the accusation and the disdain he saw in his son’s eyes.

  “Well, I found out. You’re a grasping, self-centered person who is always on the lookout for himself, and no one else. And that’s not the sort of man I want as a father.”

  His words were scathing, but there was nothing Olaf could do to counteract them or argue against them. Stig was right. His motives were always self-centered. He had always looked out for himself before all others.

  “And now you’re a wealthy man,” Stig said, reaching down and riffling his hand through the coins and jewelry in the strongbox. “Ironic, isn’t it? My friends have pulled your chestnuts out of the fire and you walk off with a big reward.”

  “I never asked for it,” Olaf said weakly.

  Stig’s hard eyes transfixed him like two spears. “And you’re not keeping it. You can keep your fair share as a crew member on the Heron. You’ve earned that.”

  Olaf was incredulous. “Why should I . . . ?”

  “Because,” Stig said, riding over his high-pitched query, “if you don’t hand it over, I’ll have a talk with Constantus and tell him the real story of how you left Hallasholm. How you cheated and robbed your shipmates. How you deserted your wife and child. He might change his opinion of his loyal and trustworthy commander then. Odds are, he’ll never trust you again.”

  Olaf realized he was right. He looked once more at the strongbox, seeing his dreams of a life of idle wealth fading away.

  “You’re taking the rest for yourself?”

  Stig shook his head. “No. Half of it we’ll share out among the crew. They have earned it. The other half will go to the men, or their families, who you cheated so long ago.”

  He slammed the lid of the chest shut and stood challenging his father.

  “My mother will finally be able to face those people without the shame she has felt for the past ten years. And that means a lot to me.”

  He took hold of the strongbox by the handle set into its lid and hefted it off the table.

  “But . . . you can’t do this. It’s . . . it’s . . . mine,” said Olaf, his voice almost a whimper.

  Stig shook his head scornfully. “That’s what it always comes down to with you, isn’t it?” he said, and strode toward the door. As he went out, he turned back to the stricken figure in the room behind him.

  “I’ll send you your share in the morning,” he said.

  Epilogue

  The coast of Arrida lay off their port side as Heron bowled along under a stiff breeze, heading west in the Constant Sea.

  “I thought we might sail across the Constant Sea and up past Araluen,” Hal had said as they left Byzantos behind. “I don’t know about the rest of you, but I don’t fancy those portages up the Dan.”

  To sail north up the Dan River entailed several backbreaking portages, where the ship had to be hauled bodily overland to handle the rising ground and the resultant fall of the river—not to mention the constant threat of attack from river rats. The crew agreed heartily.

  “Well, we’re in no rush now that Olaf has had his surprising change of mind over that reward money,” Edvin had said.

  They all looked at Stig, to see if he’d elaborate. But he’d smiled. “As I said, he decided he didn’t deserve all the money. He was just one of the crew. And he wanted to set things right for my mam.”

  “People are full of surprises,” Thorn had commented, with a raised eyebrow. “I’d never have thought he could be so generous. And so unselfish.”

  And they left it at that. Stig never told them about his final conversation with Olaf, and none of them asked again. But he took to spending long hours standing alone by the rail, watching the sea and the wake of the ship as it streamed out behind them.

  On the fifth day, Lydia joined him by the stern rail. Thorn was sitting cross-legged nearby, sewing a new retaining strap onto his hook. He managed the task with remarkable dexterity, considering that he had only one hand.

  “I never knew my father,” she said to Stig, out of the blue. “I was raised by my grandfather until he was killed in Zavac’s raid. I always wondered what sort of man my father might have been.”

  Stig regarded her gratefully. Somehow, Lydia always seemed to know the right thing to say at moments like this, and he did feel the need to unburden himself to someone.

  “Life can be hard,” he said with a sigh. “I’d always hoped my father would turn out to be a better man than he was.”

  “He did save my life,” she said reflectively.

  He nodded agreement. “He was a fine warrior. But, as a person, he had a lot lacking.”


  She said nothing for a moment, realizing how difficult it had been for him to say that.

  They both glanced across to where Thorn had risen from his seat on the deck and Hal was helping him with the final piece of stitching—a tricky piece that required two hands. The shaggy head and the young head bent close together over the task, then Hal said something and Thorn threw back his head and laughed.

  “The old saying is right,” Lydia said eventually. “We can’t choose our parents. But we can choose our friends.”

  Stig slipped a companionable arm around her waist.

  “Thank the gods for that,” he said.

  Turn the page for an exclusive look at

  RANGER'S APPRENTICE

  THE BEAST FROM ANOTHER TIME

  A Short Story

  BY JOHN FLANAGAN

  1

  WILL TOOK A SHIRT FROM THE SMALL HANGING SPACE IN HIS bedroom and held it up to make sure it was clean.

  “Three shirts. That should be enough,” he said, more to himself than to Maddie, who was leaning against the doorjamb watching him. She raised an eyebrow—an expression she had picked up from him, which he in turn had picked up from Halt.

  “How long are you going for?” she asked.

  Will thought for a second. “Two weeks. So three shirts will be enough. I’ll get two days of normal wear out of each one, then I can turn them inside out for another two days. That’ll just about do me.”

  Maddie frowned at him. His calculation was pretty slapdash, she thought. That made twelve days, not a full two weeks.

  “Besides,” he added, stuffing the shirt roughly into the now-bulging saddlebag on the bed, “I don’t have room for any more.”

  “You can’t do it like that!” Maddie protested. She moved to the bed and took the saddlebag from his hands, hauling the bunched-up shirt out again. “It’ll be all crinkled and crumpled when you put it on.”

  Will shrugged. “So it’ll be crumpled. I’m a Ranger, not a court dandy.”

  “You’re getting as bad as Halt,” she said, pulling the other two equally bunched-up shirts from the bag and laying them on the blanket.

  Will grinned at her, and his grim, bearded face was instantly transformed by the expression. “That’s the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me,” he said.

  Maddie tossed her head in mock annoyance. With a few deft movements, she folded the shirts neatly into three flat shapes and slid them into the saddlebag, which was now distinctly un-bulged.

  “Now you have room for another one,” she said. “And if memory serves me, you’ll find there’s a perfectly adequate laundry service at Castle Araluen. Just put them out to be washed each day.”

  “Seems like a waste of soap and water,” Will said mildly.

  She frowned at him. “That’s an excuse you use too often,” she said.

  He grinned once more. “As you implied, I had Halt to teach me all these good habits. Besides, what is it to you? You’re my apprentice. Not my servant.”

  She folded a fourth shirt and slid it into the saddlebag. “Sometimes I wonder,” she said.

  Will dropped a hand fondly on her shoulder. “If you have any problems while I’m gone, ask Halt for help,” he said.

  Maddie nodded, but made a negative gesture with her hand. “I’ll be fine.”

  He smiled, knowing that she would be. She was nearly at the end of her second year now and she was becoming a skillful, capable Ranger. Maddie was a deadly shot with both sling and bow, and her knife throwing was well above average—not that he would tell her that.

  In addition, if any sort of trouble or danger did threaten, she had her horse, Bumper, and his dog, Sable, to help her take care of it.

  “Make sure you keep busy while I’m gone,” he said. “I’ll be testing you on your tracking skills when I get back, and we need at least fifty new arrows each.” He hefted his two saddlebags over his shoulder and led the way out to the small verandah at the front of the house where Tug stood, waiting patiently for his master. Will heaved the saddlebags over the horse’s rump, so that they hung down one on either side. Maddie had brought his bedroll and she boosted it up behind the saddle for him to tie in place. She winced slightly with the movement and he frowned.

  “Hip troubling you?” he asked.

  “A little. Always does when we’ve got a change in the weather coming.” She’d been wounded by a javelin on her first assignment with Will and still walked with a slight limp as a result. “It’ll rain tonight—you should try to find an inn rather than camping out.”

  Will looked at her with some concern. “Don’t suffer in silence,” he said. “If it gets worse, we could let Arald’s healer have a look at it.”

  She waved the suggestion aside. “It’s not a big thing.”

  He held her gaze for a few seconds, making sure she wasn’t just cracking hardy. Satisfied, he nodded and turned to speak to Sable, who had risen from her spot in the sun at the end of the porch and padded quietly toward them, her tail swishing heavily and an expectant look in her eyes.

  “Not this time, Sable,” he told her. “You stay here.”

  He pointed to the ground between them and the dog allowed her front paws to slide out in front of her as she sank to the ground on her belly. She rested her chin on her paws and lay watching him, eyes wide-open and swiveling to match his movements.

  Will placed his foot in the stirrup and swung lightly up onto Tug’s back. The little horse moved a pace or two to settle his weight, then nickered a farewell to Sable and Maddie. Sable thumped her tail once on the ground.

  Maddie raised her hand to wave. “See you in two weeks.”

  Will nodded. “Take care,” he said. He touched Tug’s flank with his heel, and the little horse wheeled around and cantered out of the clearing toward the path through the trees that led to the high road.

  • • • • •

  The following morning, Maddie was sitting on the porch steps in the sunlight, a pot of hot glue and a bundle of unfletched arrow shafts beside her. She slid the fletching jig over the end of a shaft and, dabbing glue onto the spine of a feather vane, put it in position along the guide of the jig, pressing it against the smooth cedar.

  She held it in place for some thirty seconds until she was sure it was secure, then repeated the process with another vane. The jig was designed so that it held the feathers at even intervals around the shaft. When the glue had hardened a little more, she would bind the vanes to the shaft with thin waxed thread.

  She smiled to herself. The thought of Princess Madelyn, heir to the throne of Araluen, doing manual labor with hot, messy glue would have led her old tutors to throw their hands aloft in horror. But she enjoyed doing this work—she had a keen touch for the skill and the dexterity it required. She went to apply glue to the third vane, spilled the hot liquid on her hand and swore a very un-princessly oath. She looked around for a convenient rag, saw none handy and wiped the hot glue from her fingers onto her jerkin.

  “I’m getting as bad as Will,” she muttered.

  “Hello?”

  The voice was querulous and uncertain, with an implicit questioning note to it. She looked up to see an elderly couple emerging from the trees at the edge of the clearing.

  Sable, who had been dozing beside her, raised her head and rumbled a low growl.

  “Oh, now you tell me,” she said. The dog thumped her tail once, then, seeing no apparent danger in the old couple, lowered her head back to the boards.

  Maddie set the half-finished arrow to one side and stood up, smiling a welcome. “Can I help you?”

  “We want to see the Ranger,” the man replied, taking a step farther into the clearing.

  His companion matched the movement. “Will Treaty, the Ranger,” she added.

  Maddie stepped down off the porch and advanced a few paces toward them.

  “I’m afra
id he’s not here,” she said pleasantly. “Can I help you? I’m his apprentice.”

  “You’re a girl,” the woman said, with a slightly accusatory tone to her voice.

  Maddie made sure the smile remained on her face. “I certainly am.”

  “So how can you be an apprentice Ranger?” the woman continued.

  “The usual way. I applied for training and I was accepted. I’m the first girl to be accepted for Ranger training, as a matter of fact.”

  The old pair exchanged a suspicious glance. “Well, I never heard of that,” said the man.

  Maddie continued smiling, although it was becoming an effort to maintain the expression. “And now you have,” she said. “Can I help you? What did you want to see Will about?”

  The man pursed his lips uncertainly. “We wanted to see the Ranger,” he repeated.

  Maddie finally let the smile disappear. “And as I said, he’s not here,” she said brusquely. She put her hands on her hips. “So can I help you—in spite of the fact that I’m a girl? Or would you like to come back in two weeks?”

  “We’ve come all the way from the Spiny Mountains,” the woman said.

  “Walked all the way, we did,” the man elaborated. Maddie tilted her head to one side. The Spiny Mountains were a long way away, on the edge of Redmont Fief.

  “To see the Ranger. Not a girl,” the woman added.

  Maddie treated them both to a scowl. “Well, it’d be a pity to walk all that way for nothing,” she said. “So you can either tell me what your problem might be, or turn around, go home and come back in two weeks. Take it or leave it.”

  The couple exchanged a disgruntled look. Finally, the man shrugged.

  “Might as well tell you,” he said. “Can’t do no harm.”

  “Probably won’t do no good, neither,” the woman grumbled.

  Maddie took a deep breath, let it out in a sigh, and turned away, mounting the low step to the porch. “Then off you go.” She tossed the words back over her shoulder. “I have work to do.”