The Inner Seas Kingdoms: 02 - The Yellow Palace

by Jeffrey Quyle

  “Wait!” Greysen said, putting his hand over the vial the princess held. “How do we know this isn’t poison?”

  “You’ll have to trust me,” Kestrel told him. “I just killed these two men for you, and we don’t have much time,” he added urgently.

  “Let me go first, in case it is poison,” the boy said. “The princess shouldn’t put herself in jeopardy,” he explained as he took the vial.

  “Only take a small sip,” Kestrel urged as the boy put the container to his lips.

  He swallowed a few drops, then lowered the vial, and suddenly turned invisible.

  The princess screamed in shock, and Kestrel reached out to take the vial before the boy dropped it. His clothes were still visible, and Kestrel could see that he was holding his hands up in front of himself.

  “What have you done?” the princess asked.

  “I’ve made him invisible for a short time, so that he can escape the palace, and I want to do the same for you. We have to hurry though,” Kestrel urged. “Greysen, take off your clothes so that you won’t be seen.”

  The princess looked at Kestrel with a steadiness that he found admirable. “Who sent you here, and where did this come from?”

  “I was sent by the goddess, and she gave me the potion,” Kestrel answered. He was desperate to get moving, fearful that they would be discovered and trapped in the office. He set the vial down and suddenly lifted his shirt to display the shield that had been placed there by Kai. He wasn’t going to admit that it was Kere, an elven goddess, who had directed him to set them free. “The goddess also gave me this sign of the responsibility she has given me.”

  Yulia came around the table and leaned in close to look at the mark on his body. She looked up at his face, then reached for the vial and took a sip. Moments later her flesh also became invisible, and she began to remove her clothes.

  “Here, give me your clothes,” Kestrel told them both as he pulled his knife from the dead guard. He stoppered the vial, and put it back in his pocket, wondering how much was left, then took the bundle of Greysen’s clothes that floated in from of him, and stuffed it in his shirt. Yulia handed him her clothes, and he stuffed them in his pants.

  “That looks wrong. Let me fix it,” the princess said, then he felt his clothing being rearranged, as lumps of cloth were redistributed. “That’s better,” her voice told him.

  “Okay. I’m going to walk out of here, and walk out of this palace. I want the two of you to follow as close to me as possible. Don’t say anything, don’t bump into anyone, don’t pick up anything. Don’t give any clue that you exist,” Kestrel told them. “I was allowed to enter, so I should be allowed to leave. Just watch me and go where I go,” he reiterated.

  He opened the door of the steward’s office, and found that there were two more guards posted outside. He quickly closed the door.

  “What’s wrong?” Greysen asked.

  “There are guards out there. They’ll want to know where the lieutenant is,” Kestrel said.

  “Do something; invite them in here,” Yulia suggested.

  “I’ll invite them in, they’ll see the empty room, and you attack the second one in. I’ll take the first,” he said. There was a knocking on the door.

  “Is everything okay in there?” a guard asked.

  “Move those bodies behind the desk, thenget ready,” Kestrel hissed. He watched the dead bodies slide across the floor, leaving bloody smears as they passed over the smooth stone.

  “Come in,” Kestrel said. “We’ve got a problem.” He opened the door wide. “The lieutenant has taken the prisoners and left.”

  “No one’s left,” the guard said as he entered the room, his sword drawn. “Hey, where are they?” he asked as he looked around and saw no one else.

  The second guard followed him in with drawn sword as well. Suddenly the second guard bent over violently after being struck by an invisible opponent, then flailed with his sword. There was a sharp cry of pain, and Kestrel stabbed his own knife in the back of the first guard, who turned to see what was happening.

  The man cried and went down, as the second guard stood up, swinging his sword. “What’s in here?” he called angrily.

  “Yulia! Greysen! Stay away from him!” Kestrel shouted, pulling his knife back, and flinging it at the guard.

  The knife flew at the guard and struck him true, without hurting anyone else.

  “Who’s hurt? What happened?” Kestrel asked.

  “I’m okay,” Greysen responded.

  “Yulia? Are you okay, princess?” Kestrel called, and waited for an answer that did not come.

  “Greysen, we need to find her,” he stated the obvious. “Carefully start feeling around on the floor. He crossed to the other side of the room, got down on his knees and began to search.

  “Here she is,” Greysen called.

  “Stay there,” Kestrel said, then inched in the direction of the voice, and bumped into the boy.

  He felt a hand take his. “Here, right here,” the hand guided him to the feel of warm flesh.

  “Back up; let me try to find the wound,” Kestrel said. He let his hands roam over the invisible body, and found nothing, then began to examine the girl’s head, and found a sticky gash on her skull.

  “Greysen,” he instructed as he pulled his water skin of the healing water over hishead. “I want you to cup your hands, then I’ll pour this water into your hands. You take it and rub it on her head, where the wound is, on the back of her skull, here,” he placed his own hand on the site of the injury.

  “Why don’t you do it?” Greysen continued to be suspicious of Kestrel.

  “The water heals people, but it affects me differently,” Kestrel answered. “Listen, we don’t have time to argue, just do this.”

  “No, not until I see you touch this water,” Greysen’s voice replied.

  Kestrel rubbed his forehead. He would begin to grow his pointed ears back in a matter of days or weeks instead of months if he touched the water, and would be identifiable as an elf before long. But he needed to get them all moving fast, or there would be no future for them to worry about if they were trapped and caught in the palace.

  He pulled the stopper out of the skin, then cupped his hand at the wound site and poured the water onto Yulia’s scalp, letting it soak into the wound before he spread some around. He adjusted her head and found her lips; he pried them open and gently trickled a small amount of water into her mouth, then put the stopper into the skin and put it over his shoulder again.

  “Nothing’s happening to you,” Greysen observed.

  “It won’t for a while,” Kestrel grunted in annoyance as he ran his hands down Yulia’s torso, then pulled her up to a sitting position. She sputtered and coughed as the healing water ran down her throat. For Kestrel it was a good sign, a sign that she was still breathing.

  “I’m going to carry this body,” Kestrel said to Greysen. “And I’m going to look funny doing it; I’ll be walking lopsided because of the weight. You need to go ahead of me, and don’t get caught,” he stopped to repeat those words with emphasis, “don’t get caught, but make distractions so that the guards don’t pay attention to me.”

  “What kinds of distractions?” Greysen asked, as Kestrel pulled the unconscious princess’s body over his shoulder and then grunted as he stood.

  “Make doors slam open or closed when no one’s around. Knock vases off of tables, throw a boot against a wall. Just make them look away from me, and don’t get lost. Stay close to me, and we’ll go out the gate and across the bridge, then head into a small wood lot down the road, where I’ve got a horse,” Kestrel explained. “Let’s get going.”

  The door opened in front of him, and Kestrel walked through and into the empty kitchen. He was glad that Yulia was not a large girl, he thought to himself as he went down the short hall, then into the main hall he had followed the dead lieutenant through. There were a pair of guards standing outside a door on his left, looking down the hallway towards him,
but as he approached there was a sudden banging on the walls behind them and their heads swiveled in search of the source of the sound.

  “Good boy Greysen,” Kestrel said softly under his breath. He continued on, and heard the faint sound of feet pass him rapidly. As he reached a position even with the guards, they turned to look at him, but then there was a crashing sound behind him. Kestrel turned his head as the guards turned theirs, and he saw that a vase had fallen off a table, and then as he watched, the table flipped over.

  The two guards abandoned their post to go investigate, and Kestrel continued to walk his lopsided stride along the hall. A patrol came out of an intersecting hall and started walking towards Kestrel, until a voice yelled from the hall they had just left, an unearthly scream that spun the patrol in its tracks and sent it back towards the strange noise.

  Kestrel continued on through the palace interior and exited through a small side door, pleased with the ease of the rescue mission, until he came to the gate on the palace side of the bridge. The stars overhead reflected off the water in the surrounding lake, while six guards attended to their duty.

  “I’ve finished here. I’ll be going now,” Kestrel waved as he stepped onto the bridge.

  “May we see your pass?” one guard asked.

  “I left the lieutenant a little bit ago and he didn’t mention a pass,” Kestrel said.

  “No one’s allowed to leave the palace on the nightthere’s an execution, sir,” another guard said. He stepped into the middle of the way, and stopped Kestrel in his tracks. “Are you feeling okay, sir?” he asked. “You’re standing like your back hurts.”

  “It does hurt,” Kestrel agreed. “I’ll go find the lieutenant and get a pass.” He said, then turned and walked away from the gate, and found a spot in the darkness where he could rest one shoulder against the wall.

  “Greysen, are you here?” he called.

  “I am,” the voice said from in front of him. “What’s your name?” the boy asked in the darkness, his eyes unable to penetrate the night as well as Kestrel’s elven vision did.

  “I’m Kestrel,” he answered. “Here’s what we’re going to do. You go on across the bridge, and go down the road out of sight of the palace. If you get all the way to a woods on the right side of the road, stop there and wait for me. That’s where my horse is. I’ll come join you in a few minutes.”

  “How are you going to cross the bridge?” Greysen asked.

  “I’m not,” Kestrel replied. “I’m going to cross the lake.”

  “You can’t swim in that lake,” Greysen said matter-of-factly. “They have monsters in there – giant lizards that will eat you. “I’ve seen them.”

  “I’ll get across the water, don’t worry. Now you need to get going, before your invisibility wears off and you’re walking around naked as a jaybird, caught by the guards. Now get going Greysen – I need you to cooperate at least once tonight,” he said curtly. “And be careful. When you get to the other side of the bridge, throw a rock in the water so I know you’ve made it.” He felt his chest suddenly momentarily burn with a brief warning, as the crest the goddess had imprinted on him turned painfully warm for just a second, a warning that something related to Uniontown was about to cross his path.

  Kestrel heard the soft sound of bare feet on the stony walk, and then he carefully climbed down the embankment, still balancing the unconscious princess over his shoulder, trying to evaluate how quickly he would tire with her added weight when he started to run across the water. He stood at the shoreline and looked at the quiet water he was about to cross.

  He hadn’t gone water-running since he had rescued Merilla’s son Marco up in the Estonian wilderness, many months ago, he realized. There was the sound of a plop, as something fell into the water, and he realized that Greysen was across the bridge.

  It was time to get moving. He needed to be ready to break into a sprint with his first step on the water, for there was no flat land adjacent to the water where he could start the sprint to build up speed as was the typical means of running atop the water. He took a deep breath, then hunched up and threw himself forward towards the water, his legs already churning.

  Water running was a sport among the elves, whose great sprinting speeds and lightweight body structure allowed them to run with such speed that they could actually run atop the surface of a body of water for a short distance. The best of them could run a few hundred yards. Kestrel was not one of the best; his partially human body gave him more heft than the full elves, making a heavier load for his legs to have to propel at great speed. And now he was running with an unconscious woman slung over his shoulder. His first step landed on the water, and propelled him forward. His second step also stayed on top of the water, and after that, every step was a powerful thrust by his calves and his thighs to shoot him forward, to keep him atop the surface of the water, as he sent out a series of small ripples that disturbed thedark water’s reflections of the stars above.

  At the halfway point across the lake he felt his legs starting to tire, and at the same time he saw distant ripples in the water from something swimming along the surface, swimming towards him. He continued to run, and watched the distant shore grow closer by slow, small increments, as his legs began to tire, throbbing pain in his thighs became burning pain, and he knew he was running out of energy.

  The movements in the water could only be the giant lizards, he knew, the lizards that had invaded the Swampy Morass where the water imps lived, the monsters that had come to the Inner Seas from Uniontown. He pulled his knife from its sheath and threw it at the closest monster. He saw the flashing blade fly through the air for just a second, and then he lost sight of it. His speed was slowing down now; with each step he took his feet sank into the water almost up to his ankles, and there were still fifty yards to go. “Please help me cross this water, goddess,” he panted a brief, desperate prayer to Kere as he began to doubt his prospects for success.

  “Lucretia, return,” he called, hoping that the blade would respond quickly, and that it had killed one of the monsters. He felt the handle bounce into his hand, and he immediately threw it again at the next closest threat in the water, for multiple monsters were closing upon him. There was a sulfurous smell in the air, and he knew that somehow the stench must be connected to the lizards.

  He was only twenty yards from shore, but he had no energy reserves left. He was floundering across the water, each step sinking up to his knees now, though he continued to slog ahead. “Lucretia, return,” he pleaded with heavy gasps, out of breath, out of energy, out of everything he needed. There was a groaning sound from the girl on his shoulder. The shore, he was glad to see, was only five yards away. He felt the knife return to his hand, and then he was only two yards away from land, and his feet were hitting the muddy bottom of the lake, just as the smell of sulfur became an overwhelming odor, one that made him want to gag. And then there was a chilling roar that seemed to come from his very heels, and something grabbed his calf with strong, sharp teeth that pressed powerfully against one another, painfully engulfing one of his legs.

  Kestrel shouted in shock as he threw the knife again, and then he fell forward onto the ground, hitting the solid surface of the soggy shore. His leg was an excruciating mass of agony. The princess flew off his shoulder, onto the ground, and Kestrel cried out in pain. He reached for his leg, and felt the snout of the great monster still loosely engulfing his leg, and he cried out again.

  “What?” he heard the princess groggily ask behind him, as he jerked his leg away from the lizard, and saw that it wasn’t moving.

  “Lucretia, return,” he called, and there was a small fountain of water beside the lizard as the knife rose from where it had stabbed into the reptile’s heart, and flew back to Kestrel’s hand.

  He put the knife away, then reached inside his pants and pulled out an article of cloth, which he hastily wrapped around his leg as an impromptu tourniquet to quell the flowing blood.

  “Princess, are you t
here?” he asked in the darkness. He reached his hand around and started to turn to try to find the invisible body. He made contact with soft flesh, and realized where his hand had landed just a second before a hard slap knocked his cheek so hard his face swiveled away.

  “How dare you?” Yulia said imperiously.

  “Stop!” Kestrel shouted. “Stop! I’m just trying to find where you are! You’re invisible, you know. And it’s dark, and I just had a monster from the lake take a bite out of my leg, and I’m exhausted, so just hold on!”

  “Who’s there?” came a challenge from one of the sentries at the gate at the end of the bridge, sounding much closer than Kestrel expected, apparently drawn by the sound of the lizard’s chase and bellow, as well as Kestrel’s own outburst at the princess.

  “Princess Yulia, there’s a Graylee guard up there,” Kestrel whispered. “We’re across the lake from the palace. We’re almost free. You were cut on the head inside the palace and knocked unconscious, so I’ve carried you this far. You’re still invisible from the potion you took in the palace. The lake monster just bit my leg, and,” he took a breath, “I won’t be able to move very well.

  “We need to stay calm, and stay quiet, and hope that the sentry doesn’t come looking for us,” he said. “Do you understand?”

  “I understand,” she replied.

  “Will you work with me? Because Greysen has been less than a model collaborator in this,” he said with grim humor.

  “Yes, I’ll work with you. What is your name? What should I call you?” she asked. “And may I have my clothes back?”

  “My name is Kestrel,” he answered. He reached into his pants and turned over the loose clothes he found there. As soon as that was done he lay back and closed his eyes, listening to the rustle of clothes.

  “Kestrel? Where is my blouse?” Yulia asked.