“What’s that sound?” Amelia asked sleepily.
“It’s just the water we’re passing by,” Theus awkwardly reached a hand to pat the top of the head of the nearby sleeping girl. She murmured acceptance of his answer, then shifted slightly and rested her head on his thigh as her pillow, and settled into an immediate sound sleeping pattern once again.
Theus stroked her hair gently, and thought again about the disaster that had befallen her family and life. He wanted to help deliver her to safety. Even more, he wished he could help her gain revenge on the bloody magician and the king who had delivered so much blood and loss to her city.
Theus recollected Donal’s rantings about Ind’Petro, the ancient, hateful god that Donal claimed was the source of the magician’s great and bloody powers. It would take a god of evil to make such a thing as an invasion happen, he supposed.
“Is that true, voice?” he softly asked the emptiness around him. “Is Ind’Petro causing this evil?”
There was no answer, despite his straining to hear the sounds of the voice that he thought had returned to help advise him and guide him.
“You’re no help,” he mumbled sourly, and he resumed stroking the fine, soft hair of the young princess whose head lay on his lap.
Redford awoke as the sun was breaching the wide horizon, a red ball coming up over the land and the water to the east.
“You’ve done good work” he told Theus. “I’ll cast a fishing line, while you keep us headed north. After we have a catch to eat, we’ll go to shore and stay until tonight,” he explained.
Theus continued to guide the ship north, relying on the bearing of the land to his left instead of the Compass Star to the north. Half an hour later, both the youths were awake, Amelia pretending not to be embarrassed that she’s slept on Theus’s lap.
“Switch spots now; I’ll take us into that cove,” Redford directed Theus. They sailed into an empty cove, where stunted trees and bushes crowded a narrow, sandy beach. They pulled the boat up out of sight, then made a small fire and roasted the fresh fishes.
“We’ll stay here until sunset,” Redford informed the others. “Stay in the shade, out of the sun, so you don’t get burned. Don’t go far away,” he directed.
They spent a restless day under the trees, resting fitfully and swatting at swarms of insects, until the sun was low in the western sky.
“Let’s haul the boat to the water and set sail again,” Redford tapped Theus on the shoulder to set the team into action once again. Their second night on the water was much like the first, an uneventful passage across the warm waters of the southern sea, followed by a day spent hidden in an empty stretch of shoreline.
The third night brought a change in their routine.
Chapter 15
The third evening began with the entry of the boat in the water. Redford had begun to show Amory some of the rudiments of controlling the boat, and the boy was eager to take charge of their navigation again when they set sail in the failing sunlight. Amelia continued to be withdrawn and silent. Theus saw Redford give the girl many long stares, as they both sorrowfully watched her depression.
Amory and Redford steered the boat, while Theus sat comfortably. As the sun set over the western water, he saw that gray clouds obscured the final minutes of the sunset, and he pointed it out to Redford.
“We may have some rain tonight. Let’s hope there’s nothing worse,” the bodyguard sailor said stoically.
By the middle of the evening, the red Compass star was blocked from sight by the racing clouds that covered the sky. Theus tried to steer the boat according to the relative locations of the other stars in the sky, but finally awoke Redford to explain the problem.
“I’d say we ought to take it in to shore. Can you see the shore line?” Redford asked Theus, as a flash of lightning brought a loud clap of thunder. “Let’s at least sail closer to the shoreline,” Redford suggested.
Theus tried to find the shoreline in the darkness, without actually running into any rocks or reefs. He had no stars to navigate by, and relied on his best guess of a slight turn to the left.
“How’s our course?” Redford asked, suspicious of Theus’s seeming uncertainty.
A few rain drops began to fall.
“I can’t tell,” Theus admitted. “I can’t see anything.”
“Here, let me take over,” Redford stepped across the small vessel and assumed control.
The rain began to fall more heavily, and lightning began to flash repeatedly.
Theus saw that Amory was trying to shelter his sister from the rain, leaning over the girl.
“I could see the shoreline with the lightning if the rain wasn’t so heavy,” Redford complained seconds later, speaking in a loud voice to be heard over the noise of the rain.
The wind began to blow even more briskly, and the boat bucked from the action of the waves, even as it gained speed in cutting through the water.
“You children get down in the bottom of the boat,” Redford ordered, seeking to shelter them better.
As soon as the two rose to their feet, a gust of wind tilted the boat dramatically.
Amory! Redford!” Amelia cried, as she flew off her feet sideways, right past Theus. He grabbed for her, and his fingers gained a loose hold on the hem of her dress for a moment, but then she was gone into the water.
Without thinking, he flipped his body around and dove over the side of the boat after her, afraid for the little girl.
The water was thankfully still lukewarm in temperature, so there was no shock, but it was dark, and it was turbulent. He was underwater, then rose, felt a wave break over his head, then heard a scream from off to his right. He stroked in that direction without seeing, and his hand struck a sodden mass of material.
He lifted his head out of the water and pulled the mass closer. It started to writhe and struggle.
“Amelia? Amelia! It’s Theus,” he shouted.
“Help! Help! Help me,” she shouted in panic.
“Can you swim?” he asked.
“No, help me!” she replied, as he held her with one arm, his other arm and legs working to keep them afloat.
“Don’t panic,” he advised. He had pulled her in close, and her arms closed vise-like around his neck. Another wave broke over both their heads, and they both swallowed water.
“Don’t choke me,” he said as he coughed. “Let go of my neck; I can’t breathe.
“I’ll hold onto you. Trust me,” he urged. “I need you to let go and let me swim for us.”
The girl released her grip, and Theus held his, as he treaded water and tried to guess what direction to head in. He was lost in the water, too low to see to the shore, which wouldn’t have been visible in the rain and the darkness in any event. And he knew the boat would have been driven far away by the raging wind in its sails.
He guessed that he was facing the land, and he began swimming slowly in that direction. The going was challenging. He felt heavy, and Amelia felt heavier. He needed to discard his boots, he realized.
“Don’t worry, just relax,” he told Amelia. “I’m going to let go for a second to take my boots off.” He released her and hurriedly slipped the heavy leather off his feet, then found Amelia and grabbed hold of her, lifting her higher so that she could take a breath. She was still very heavy though, a sodden mass of heavy gown material.
There was only one answer. He pulled his sword free, and began to slice at the dress, slitting it carefully from the bottom. He placed the sword back in his belt; he’d jettison it next if he had to, but he wanted to keep it for the potential future needs. His hands fumbled across the girl’s dress until he found where a few inches remained intact, and he tore it, then pulled the material free.
“You’re lighter now,” he explained. “We’ll get to land quicker,” he predicted, not having any idea if that was true or not. But she was easier to drag through the water, and his feet were much easier to flutter as he headed in a random direction.
He sw
am for several minutes, then rested. Amelia held on to him as he trod water.
“Are you doing okay?” he asked her, feeling her head on his shoulder.
“I think so. I’m scared,” she told him.
“We’re doing fine so far,” he told her. “I think the storm is passing,” he tried to encourage her, though he felt the words were true. The waves were lower, the rain didn’t drive so hard, and he held onto a kernel of hope that they could find their way to land.
He started swimming again, then rested after a while, then swam again and rested again.
It was long, painfully tiring, work. He lost count of the number of times he stopped to rest. He continued on, as the spans of swimming between rests became shorter. But he continued to swim.
After an unknown length of time, he thought the sounds around him began to change. There was no more rain falling, and the winds had died down. Then he realized he was hearing something rhythmic, every few seconds. He paused to rest, and as he did, his feet touched a sandy bottom below him.
They had reached shallow water! He was listening to waves break on a beach!
He felt a new surge of energy, and he started swimming again, then stopped, and his feet settled on the bottom again, the water only up to the middle of his chest!
“We did it Amelia! We made it to land!” he told her. He let her settle down so that her feet were on the ground, and her head was out of the water as well.
“Theus! We’re going to live!” she shouted. They held hands as they ran up to shore, and waded through the surf.
The night was still dark, but they were on land!
Chapter 16
Theus and Amelia staggered up the beach until they quickly came to scrubby trees and bushes. They cast themselves down on the sand. Amelia was clothed in a white shift that had survived Theus’s desperate undressing of the girl in the ocean, while he was barefoot and wearing only pants and a shirt, and the sword that he had never discarded. And he still wore his slave’s necklet, though he had forgotten it.
They both fell quickly into deep slumber after the terror and the exhaustion of the long journey to shore, and they slept until long after sunrise, despite the myriad of insects that settled upon and bit them.
“Theus, are you alive?” Amelia poked him to awaken him.
He sat up silently, and looked around. The shoreline was unremarkable, without any signs of other humans.
“Do you think Amory and Redford will find us soon?” the girl asked.
Theus looked at her, then looked out at the open sea.
“No,” he said softly, “I don’t think so.”
He saw the crestfallen expression on her face. He couldn’t share with her his doubts about whether the small boat would have even survived the night on the ocean’s surface in the storm. “We’ll probably meet them in Exlive, when we get there to see your uncle,” he improvised a happy ending.
“What should I wear?” she asked. “I can’t be seen in just this shift. I really shouldn’t allow you to look at me this way, but since you saved my life last night, I think it’s forgivable.
“When will you provide me with better things?” she asked.
The shift she wore was nicer than many of the dresses that Theus’s sisters had worn growing up on the farm, but he refrained from telling her that.
“When we get to a village, perhaps we can find better,” he advised.
“I expect so,” she said sternly.
“I know you do, sweetie,” he grinned at her tone.
“And it is improper for you to call me sweetie,” she upbraided him. “You should address me as your highness, or my princess.”
“My apologies,” he told her.
“And I’m hungry too, Theus,” she told him without any rancor or tone of dissatisfaction over her clothing or title.
“We need to work on that,” Theus agreed. “Let’s start walking north to see what we can find.”
“I can’t walk fast. I don’t have any shoes. I lost them in the ocean,” Amelia warned him.
“I don’t have any either,” Theus told her. “We’ll have to be patient with each other.”
And so they began to pick their way north along the beach front. Just a few minutes after they began, the habitat had switched from the scrubby trees to dunes and grasses, where Theus’s eyes were drawn to a leafy plant growing in the spaces between clumps of tall grasses.
He knew what the plants were – turtle shells, they were called. The large, cupped leaves could be broken open and their exteriors peeled back to provide a tasty crisp snack, and one that was moist too.
Theus turned the path to the right and stopped at a turtle shell, then experimentally snapped one of the leaves off. He broke the leave down the center vein, and looked at the thick interior flesh.
“What are you doing, playing with that plant?” Amelia asked with an air of annoyance at his divergence.
Theus carefully pulled the top, green layer off the leave, as though it were a film, then pulled away a portion of the bottom of the leave, and looked at the thin, pale interior sheet he had exposed.
“Just bury me here if I die from eating this,” he joked with Amelia, then he bit into the peeled turtle shell. The taste and texture of the leaf immediately pleased him. It was lightly crunchy, very moist, and slightly sweet.
“Are you eating a poisonous plant?” Amelia’s eyes widened, as she saw him chew and swallow the leaf.
“I can’t take the pressure anymore!” Theus gasped dramatically, then he pretended to collapse from eating the leaf, and closed his eyes.
“Theus!” Amelia shrieked. He felt her kneel next to her, and place her hands upon his cheeks.
“Boo!” he called as he opened his eyes, then laughed.
“That was mean!” she protested.
“I’m sorry,” he told her. “Here, try a bite of this. It’s good.”
She reached out and took the leaf, then gingerly nibbled on the exposed flesh of the leaf while looking at his face. Her expression turned to delight, and she took a bite that consumed the rest of the peeled leaf.
Theus prepared several more leaves for them to eat, before they started walking again.
“How did you know that was so good?” Amelia asked as they strolled north.
“I’m not sure,” he said. Her question was a good one. He thought for a moment, and realized that the memory of the plant had felt just like the memories he had about healing and medicine. And then he remembered the second ancient memory stone he had digested in Falstaff’s shop, the stone that the voice had told him to learn so many weeks ago.
The stone had been an endless catalog of information about plants. It had been boring and yet compellingly fascinating too. It had been a small stone, without the massive amount of information the healing stone had contained. Yet it had provided the valuable information that had given the two shipwreck survivors their first meal in hours.
He looked around, aware of the wealth of knowledge that resided in his brain, and he studied the plants that were scattered up the sides of the dunes on the beach. Each one was suddenly different and most were useful in their own ways, he realized, as he let the stored cache of knowledge come blossoming forth.
After that, as he realized the valuable potential application that the knowledge could be put to, the pair had no shortage of foods during their journey. As they walked north, he would furnish surprising items to eat, or he’d provide unexpected medical treatments for bug bites, sunburn, or cuts and scrapes.
He also taught the girl songs as they walked. After a long spell of silent walking on their second day of the journey, Theus found himself humming one of the ancient simple songs that he had learned from listening to his father. During the long days of plowing a field, or planting seeds, or tending the growing crops, a multitude of songs had helped to pass the time spent on the mindless work.
And so it was that the exiled princess of Steep Rise learned the humorous songs about a five-legged mule, about t
he talking dog, and about the earthworms in love among many others.
And in turn, Theus learned all about the court that had existed in Steep Rise, as seen by an eleven-year-old girl. He learned of the holidays and ceremonies and different parts of the city that had been invaded and overthrown.
Together, the pair traveled for over a week along the beachfront, before they came to a small village. The village was a small collection of fishermen’s homes; the village was so small that there was not even a tavern or a public house. As a result, the arrival of two strangers who walked in was a remarkable event.
“We were shipwrecked in a storm a few days ago,” Theus explained to the quartet of men who came to greet the visitors. “We’ve been walking up the coast to get to Exlive.”
“You’re still four days away from the city,” one of the men said. “What have you been living on? Did some supplies from your boat wash up on shore with you?”
“No, Theus has been finding food for us everywhere,” Amelia pipped up. “He can find plants that are good to eat, or good for curing pain. He’s done the most amazing things!
“Do you have a dress I could borrow?” she immediately switched subjects and asked with aplomb. “I haven’t worn anything but this for days,” she waved her hand over the tattered shift, less self-conscious than she had been at the beginning of their walk.
“I’ve got a daughter a little larger than you,” one fisherman answered. “Come to my house and we’ll see if her old dress can fit you.”
An hour later, the pair left the village after acquiring a new dress for Amelia and a nice meal of freshly broiled fish, the first meat Theus had eaten since he’d left the kitchen in the palace at Southsand. It was astonishing to think that in less than a month he’d gone from being a palace slave to being a traveler living off the land in the wilderness, accompanied by a bright and pert young girl, one who was really only a few years younger than him.
Amelia was innocent to the ways of the world in some senses, but more worldly than him in others, he had discovered. The pair had developed a close bond, and asked one another questions freely as they walked. Amelia’s questions had come to focus particularly on Coriae, once Theus had mentioned her as the girl he longed to return to.
The Deadly Magician (The Memory Stones Series Book 2) Page 21
