The Inner Seas Kingdoms: 03 - Road of Shadows

by Jeffrey Quyle

  “That was quite a lengthy visit you had with the princess,” Miskel observed. “Is there anything I need to know?”

  “No, nothing at the moment,” Kestrel remained mum. The topic of the princess’s love life deserved his respect and discretion, he felt.

  “Well, in that case, there’s something I want to ask you to do. I need a favor, and you are the best person in the kingdom to solve a problem,” Miskel replied. Kestrel stood attentively waiting for Miskel to explain.

  “There’s a very well-regarded member of the guard who is at loose ends, and who questions his own motives these days. He would make a perfect second-in-command for your expeditionary force, and I’d like for you to take him with you,” Miskel pronounced.

  “I need to know that I can have full faith in my people in this trip,” Kestrel replied.

  “That won’t be a problem, unless you have less faith in Giardell than I think,” Miskel told Kestrel, whose head snapped up to look at the officer in surprise.

  “Is Giardell available? Does he need an assignment? There’s no question I’ll accept him in a split second,” Kestrel replied.

  “Giardell is lost, and doesn’t have a sense of his own value since he lost his position with Silvan. I know he thinks highly of you, and if you can take him as your reliable second-in-command, he will finally have found his new purpose,” Miskel advised.

  “Send him,” Kestrel said. “Send him to me. I can’t ask for better.”

  “Very well,” Miskel answered. “We’ll put a battalion together and send it to Oaktown while you go on your ambassadorial duties to the imps in the swamp.”

  Kestrel left the palace after the last details of the conversation about the battalion that he would meet in Oaktown, and he returned to Silvan’s office late in the afternoon.

  “I’m going to leave immediately,” Kestrel told the colonel when he arrived. He said nothing about the conversation with the princess, and nothing about Giardell. After promises to send communications by whatever means were available, Kestrel left and walked down the stairs, then stopped at Alicia’s office and waited. She finished her consultation with a patient, then came to see Kestrel.

  “You’ll do well I know, and I expect you to send imps and sprites back here with messages once you’ve settled this problem in the Morass,” Alicia told him.

  “I’ve sent a message to Lucretia, asking if she’ll join me in Hydrotaz,” Kestrel told her. Alicia and Lucretia had been friends with one another, and Alicia had accompanied Kestrel when he had taken Lucretia back to her home village in search of tranquility and healing.

  “I hope she does Kestrel, for the sake of both of you,” Alicia responded. “And I hope you’ll keep yourself safe. I don’t think I’ve ever been so busy as when you had sprites bringing you in for emergency treatment every other day!”

  “It wasn’t every other day,” Kestrel protested. “It only seemed that often for a while.”

  They hugged one another farewell, and then Kestrel was on his way to the armory for new weapons to replace the bow and arrows he had lost in Hydrotaz. He found no replacement swords or staffs at the Center Trunk armory, nor had he expected to find such typically human weapons there, so with his bow and his knife, Lucretia, no longer enchanted to always deliver a fatal attack but still a sentimental favorite, Kestrel went out the gate of the base and set off through the streets of the city.

  He began running at full speed before he even left the city. The sun was past its zenith, and Kestrel wanted to arrive in Oaktown as soon as possible. He wanted to reacquaint the staff with him, the absentee lord they hardly knew, and he wanted to prepare them for the arrival of the battalion that would take up residence there until he returned from the Swampy Morass.

  Kestrel spent the night in a tree. He ran throughout the next day, and spent the night in a small village inn, where he ate and kept to himself; the third day was similar. On the long fourth day of his journey he arrived at the manor house of Oaktown late in the spring evening, and waited for several minutes at the gates before they opened to allow him to enter. He regretted the consternation of the staff as he tried to quietly slip into bed, and he promised to address all their issues the following day.

  The next morning Kestrel awoke to a tray of breakfast foods delivered to his bedroom by a servant, and a list of those who wished to speak with him, and what topics they wished to discuss. He delighted in the breakfast tray, and lounged in his bed sampling the many delicacies he found there before he finally cleaned himself up and left his room. The steward in charge of his estates was with him within five minutes, and they began going over a lengthy discussion about many topics as the steward led him on a tour of the closest grounds. Afterward, the head housekeeper insisted that she needed his attention, after lunch.

  The whole day devolved into a series of meetings to satisfy the needs and questions of his own household, and the following day the community asked for his attention to questions that were his responsibility as the warden of the marches – roads, drainage, property transfers, tax rates, and other duties that he governed over. Finally, on the third day of his arrival at Oaktown, Kestrel was outfitted by his housekeeper with clothing that she said was traditionally appropriate for dealing with the neighboring imp kingdom, and he left his manor, promising to return as quickly as possible, and traveled to the edge of his lands, where the ground was wet and cattails grew in profusion, and there were no elves in evidence except during mushroom hunting season.

  Chapter 21—Betrayal Among the Imps

  Kestrel climbed into a swamp oak as the sun began to set, and settled into a nice fork high in the tree, then took off the jacket and the boots that he had worn, and called for Dewberry.

  “Dewberry, Dewberry, Dewberry,” he softly chanted, and then added, “Jonson, Jonson, Jonson,” for good measure.

  Moments later the two small blue bodies appeared, sitting on a tree branch just above him.

  “Friend Kestrel! How good to see you, and you’re so close to our own home!” Jonson greeted him cheerfully.

  “Kestrel dearest,” Dewberry floated down to sit on his knee and stare at him fondly. “I have missed you so much! I’m sure you missed me and needed me desperately these past few weeks.”

  “As attentive to my love life as you have been Dewberry, I could have used your sage advice at the start of the past fortnight,” he replied. “I was nearly seduced by a Viathin, one that was able to take the form of a beautiful elven woman, the one you saw in Graylee.”

  “Oh Kestrel dear!” Dewberry wailed. “Is your heart broken?”

  “It is bruised,” he admitted.

  “The Viathin took the form of an elf?” Jonson asked. “How is that possible, Kestrel friend? None of the monsters did such in the past, nor in Albanu, or apparently not in the land they occupied before that either.”

  “I do not understand the why of it Jonson; once I understood the seriousness of my situation I had to slay the monster to save myself, and did not ask questions, so I know little more,” Kestrel answered.

  “And you could not tell the difference between this monster and an elf?” the imp asked,

  “Not until it revealed itself, when it thought it had me captured and at its mercy,” Kestrel agreed. “And I’m not even sure, but I think it was able to influence my feelings to some degree.

  “I thought that the goddesses’ blessings protected me from having my thoughts controlled, but the monster made me start to fall in love with it,” Kestrel said.

  “There is a difference between thoughts and feelings, Kestrel dearest,” Dewberry perceptively noted. “Perhaps it couldn’t influence your brain, but it could influence your heart.”

  “Could such a monster take on other forms besides elves? Could they look like humans, or gnomes, or even imps?” Jonson asked another question.

  “Dear heart, why do you ask? What are you saying?” Dewberry asked in alarm.

  “I am thinking of my own father, and the many strange decisio
ns he has made in recent weeks,” Jonson answered, his voice dropping conspiratorially, even though they were all alone in the tree branches. “Even before your rescue allowed us to return to the Swampy Morass, my father had started to make decisions that do not seem to be in the best interest of the imps. And then, after you rescued us, he grew even more irrational it seems, such as prohibiting us from aiding you.”

  “Is there someone who is influencing him, do you think?” Kestrel asked.

  “I do not know; I have not thought of it in these terms,” Jonson answered. “Hopefully, by the time you reach our city, Blackfriars, I will be able to observe more and have some idea of whether his advisors are false imps.

  “You do still plan to come see us, don’t you Kestrel dearest?” Dewberry asked.

  “As fast as I can,” Kestrel agreed. “How long will it take me to reach your palace from here?”

  “Perhaps a day and a half – and you must beware of the monster lizards. They continue to inhabit our swamp,” Jonson warned.

  “I wish I had a good staff,” Kestrel said regretfully. “But with a bow and arrow, and some advance notice, I should be safe.”

  “I will bring some companions to you tomorrow morning to accompany you on your journey, so that you are not alone,” Jonson assured Kestrel. “We must return,” he told Dewberry, looking down at where she was snuggled into Kestrel’s lap. “Tell our friend good night,” he urged his wife. “Good night Kestrel,” he saluted Kestrel himself, and then vanished.

  “Good bye, broken-hearted one. Fortune will favor you soon, I feel it,” Dewberry said as she rose and gave Kestrel a tight hug, and then disappeared.

  Kestrel settled in to his resting place, relaxed in the humid, warm environment on the fringe of the Swampy Morass, and thought about whether the imps could be subject to influence by a Viathin that had changed its shape. He tried to remember something that he had heard before, a claim about the imps and sprites’ having immunity to the monsters, but his sleepy mind could not recall, and so he fell asleep without the information.

  The next morning Kestrel rose and ate some of the food that the manor staff had carefully packed for him, before he climbed down out of his tree. He kept his jacket off, and decided to remove his shirt as well in the heat; he rolled the garments up and strapped them with his pack that he carried, as he started the day’s journey, following the narrowing road that was the only link between the elven kingdom and the imps.

  His manor servants in Oaktown had been pleased to learn of his destination; they told of the traditional claims that the Warden of the Marshes did go visit the land of the imps to assure good relations between the two peoples, though none of them knew the last time such a gesture occurred. Without such diplomacy, the imps were believed to invisibly poach and steal and play pranks upon the elves that were closest to the border of the two lands. The previous short-time Warden, Chandel, had not paid obeisance to the custom, and so Kestrel was the first Warden in many years to go, and his servants had wanted everything to be right for him.

  He journeyed without problem through the morning. The wide path he had followed dwindled over time to a smaller, meandering trail that sought to find and connect the decreasingly common solid land that existed among the wet spots, ponds, and sluggish streams of the Morass. He ate his lunch as he jogged along the trail while it ran atop the banks of a sizable river, a tributary to the River Criese, Kestrel assumed.

  As he stopped to rest and eat the last bite of his lunch, he stood right at the edge of the bank and looked down at the sluggishly moving water below. As he watched, the water seemed to turn darker, and he realized at the last second that a Viathin was rising from the depths of the river. He flung himself backwards and upward just as a pair of the monsters rose out of the water and snapped their jaws on empty air where he had stood. Kestrel clambered up a tree, jerked his bow from his shoulder, and fired a series of arrows at the two monsters; one of the Viathins slithered back into the murky river water after an arrow bounced off its skull, but the other received two arrows, one in its mouth and one in its eye socket, that caused it to jerk and heave for several long moments before it lay dead on the roadway.

  The monster’s bulky body stretched across the width of the path, and there was a startling chorus of groans and bellows that arose along the river in response to its death, frightening Kestrel in their numbers, as an indication of the high population of the Viathins that resided in the Morass. Kestrel cautiously descended from his tree branch, his knife in his hand, and he leapt high over the dead Viathin, then began running along the path again, his eyes darting all around him, trying to spot more of the monsters that might lie in wait for his passage.

  When he saw a monster lizard lazily floating in the river not far from the edge of the bank, he climbed a tree and pulled his bow free, then fired numerous arrows at the animal, killing it before it knew it was under attack, and leaving a foul, black slick of the Viathin’s blood floating atop the surface of the water. There was another round of bellows from other monsters aware of their companion’s death, and Kestrel proceeded with more caution as he resumed his journey towards the heart of the imp’s civilization in the swamp, a civilization that Kestrel realized was effectively under siege.

  Thereafter, he saw an occasional Viathin dive into the depths of the river when Kestrel came in the vicinity, and he kept a close watch for any that might lurk close to the path. In the evening he climbed high into a stout tree, and listened to the grunts and noises of the Viathins and other occupants of the swamp as the evening fell. The next morning he waited for full sunlight before he climbed down, and then resumed his trip, hoping that the journey wouldn’t be far.

  When he climbed down from the tree he was delighted to find that the trail turned away from the river, and penetrated into the inland swamps, where every third step seemed to squelch mud and moisture. Late in the morning the ground seemed to rise slightly, growing firmer and drier, and shortly after noon Kestrel rounded a bend in the forest path and suddenly saw the city of the imps for the first time.

  It was Blackfriars, a city of spires. Large, tall spires and skinny foundations that rose in the air made a skyline that was not wide, but was extraordinarily high. The imps did not have to climb stairs, he realized. They could simply translocate themselves from one room, or one floor, or one building, to another, thus making multiple flights of stairs no impediment to the height of a building. Kestrel slowed from a jog to a walk, then stopped completely to cool down and rest before he began his official visit to the court of the king of the Swampy Morass.

  “Dewberry, Dewberry, Dewberry,” he called as he stood in the shade, and waited for the sprite to arrive.

  “Elf lover friend,” he heard Dewberry’s voice behind him and turned to see the sprite standing on the ground, “I must ask you not to undress for me when we are so close to my husband’s family home. There’s no telling what rumors they will start!” she laughed, then rose from the ground and floated through the air to give him a friendly kiss on the cheek.

  “You are practically here,” she observed.

  “I am,” Kestrel agreed. “And as soon as I cool down, I’ll put on the fancy jacket I have to wear at court, and come on in. Is there anything in particular I should know?”

  “I have never been a part of these types of ceremonies before, so I cannot tell you myself,” Dewberry answered. “Let me go find my chamberlain for my staff at court,” she suggested. “She’ll know what to do.” With that the blue princess smilingly disappeared, leaving Kestrel to lean back against the closest tree trunk and wait.

  Kestrel stood resting with his eyes closed for only five minutes before Dewberry returned with an imp who was the largest blue being Kestrel had ever seen. Her chamberlain was tall, and stouter in build than any other imp or sprite, almost sizeable enough to pass as a small elf, Kestrel thought.

  “Please sir, make yourself presentable in her highness’s presence,” the chamberlain spoke indignantly, placing a
fan in front of Dewberry’s merry eyes to block her view of Kestrel’s exposed torso, though she continued to stare at Kestrel herself.

  “I shall, my lady,” Kestrel replied, working to stifle his smile as he thought of the numerous times he and Dewberry had seen each other unclothed while at the healing spring in the Eastern Forest. He pulled his shirt back on, and buttoned up a pair of the buttons.

  “My apologies,” he told the two blue ladies as the chamberlain folded her fan and tucked it into her waist pocket, barely satisfied that Kestrel was adequately clothed to be seen by her employer.

  “Kestrel is the elf noble who rules the lands next to the Swampy Morass,” Dewberry began to explain. “And he wishes to come to introduce himself to his neighbors.”

  “I am serving as an ambassador from the king of the elves in the Eastern Forest,” Kestrel agreed, “and I want to do all that I can to assure that we have peaceful relations between our lands.

  “I have known Dewberry and Jonson, the prince and princess,” he corrected himself as he saw a scowl developing on the chamberlain’s face in response to his easy familiarity, “for a long time, and we have been companions and partners in many efforts.”

  “Kestrel rescued us when we were caught in the far-land,” Dewberry chimed in, “and he was the one who helped Jonson the time that a monster lizard bit his legs off.”

  The chamberlain’s face grew less rigid as Dewberry spoke, and Kestrel began to have a first glimmer of hope for some success in convincing the imposing figure to help.

  “So you’re no ordinary member of the nobility, irresponsible and idle?” the stout woman asked, “present company excepted of course, ma’am,” she added to Dewberry.

  “No, oh no. I’ve only been elevated to the seat less than a year ago,” Kestrel assured her. “I was working before that. I still am, trying to help defeat these monsters.”

  “Very admirable,” the chamberlain answered.