by Pedro Urvi
“It’d be great to have Egil with us here,” Gerd said. There was longing on his round face.
“That’s true,” Ingrid said. “He’d be sure to think of a good plan, but we can’t rely on him, so we’ll have to sort this one out by ourselves.”
“Something tells me it’s not going to be by force,” said Viggo, who was looking out of the hut. “I can see more than a hundred turquoise savages, just here around us.”
“Escape by night?” Nilsa suggested. She indicated the sun, which was beginning to set.
“Now that we could manage,” Astrid said confidently.
“How would we cross the waterfall?” Gerd asked.
“That is a problem,” Ingrid admitted.
“We’d have to dive, to avoid being caught,” said Astrid. “Dive long and deep. The savages do it.”
“It might be managed …” Lasgol said optimistically.
“I can’t see it,” Viggo objected. “Let’s say we manage to pass the waterfall without being seen and without drowning, which is a lot to ask. Once we’re out, then what? Do we swim all the way back to Norghana? Not to mention that we wouldn’t be taking the wretched Star with us.”
“It pains me to have to agree with this numskull,” Ingrid said, “but this time he’s right. That plan wouldn’t work.”
Viggo batted his eyelashes at her. “Thanks, Blondie.”
“I’m going to …!”
“So, let’s think of something else,” said Astrid. “Something that includes stealing the Turquoise Queen’s Star and escaping by ship.”
Nilsa made agitated gestures. “But we don’t even know where it is!”
“Well then, we find out.”
“She must have it,” Gerd put in.
“The sorceress queen, you mean?” Viggo asked.
“Of course.”
“Well, then it’ll be easy as pie to steal it, and while we’re at it, we steal a ship too.”
“Great idea.”
“I see you didn’t pick up my touch of sarcasm.”
“Aren’t you the best of the Natural Assassins in Norghana?” Gerd asked.
Viggo’s chest swelled. “So I am,” he said.
“Well then, stealing a jewel must be like falling off a log for you.”
“Well … Astrid’s better than I am at that kind of thing. What I do best is murdering, killing and that sort of thing.”
Astrid smiled. “Thanks for the compliment. What we need to do is find out where she keeps it, and start from there.”
“That sounds terrible.” Gerd objected.
“Don’t be a whiner,” Viggo said. “We’ve been in worse messes.”
“And we came out victorious,” Ingrid added enthusiastically.
“And we can’t count on Eicewald’s help either,” Gerd pointed out. “Why have they put him in another hut?”
“Probably because he’s a Mage,” said Viggo, who was looking out curiously. “He’s being watched by the Shamans.”
“And he knows these people,” Astrid pointed out. “The Queen doesn’t want him to start plotting anything with us.”
“Quite honestly, a bit more information would come in very handy,” Lasgol said. He had sat down on the floor of the hut and was petting Camu and Ona.
Ingrid too was looking out of the hut in the direction of Uragh’s dwelling. “What’s clear is that the Queen was going to put an end to us, and changed her mind at the last moment. That’s sure to be for some reason.”
“Something about Camu interested her a lot,” Astrid commented. “I’d say she’s thought she can use him for something, and that’s why she hasn’t killed us.”
“If that’s so, we might be able to negotiate with her,” said Ingrid.
“I don’t see the Turquoise Queen as much of a negotiator,” Viggo objected. “It’s one thing to have caught her by surprise with Camu’s power, so that she’s had to rethink. It’s quite another to say what she’s going to do when she’s decided. I don’t think she’s going to negotiate anything. She didn’t give me the impression of someone you could make deals with.”
“And she doesn’t take any notice of pleas either,” Astrid added. “Look how she treated Eicewald, and he’s supposed to be her friend …”
“Exactly,” Viggo agreed.
Ingrid was looking thoughtful. “At the moment we know she might need Camu for something. That gives us a chance.”
Queen wants what? Camu asked Lasgol.
I’ve no idea, pal. Wish I knew.
Bad?
Let’s hope not …
Suddenly they saw a group of girls approaching, carrying baskets. They got to their feet uneasily. The girls came as far as the fireside, where the guards were standing, and left the baskets on the ground. It seemed that they were being brought food and drink. Viggo smiled at them at once and beckoned them to come closer. The girls smiled back. One or two of them gave a playful giggle, to which Viggo replied with a greeting and a small bow.
“Will you please stop flirting with turquoise savages the moment you get the slightest chance?” Ingrid snapped.
“Why would I stop doing that? They’re charming and exquisite, not like certain others …”
“Because we’re in a life-or-death situation!”
“Right now, we aren’t. Maybe in a short while,” he replied. Turning back toward the departing girls, he began to blow kisses at them.
“I’m going to kill him!”
Astrid laughed out loud. “That Viggo! He’s hopeless!”
The others smiled, and the tension they were feeling dissipated a little.
The following day they were allowed to take a short walk along the beach. They were grateful for this, even though they spent all the time closely guarded. They were able to see the natives fishing in the middle of the great salt lake in canoes, while others dived into the water and searched the sea-bed. Viggo thought that they were searching for pearls, Nilsa, that it was corals which the women would later fashion into ornaments, Astrid, that they were searching for seaweed to make into clothes. As they discussed the question, they enjoyed the landscape and managed to relax a little. Viggo tried to approach a group of girls who were swimming nearby, but the guards stopped him, and of course he was immediately scolded by Ingrid.
At noon Eicewald was allowed to join the team. Four Shamans came with the Mage, and never took their eyes off him.
“Put this on,” he said, and gave them each an empty coconut shell in which was a turquoise-green ointment of some kind.
“What is it?” Ingrid asked distrustfully.
“It’s an ointment, to protect you from the sun. The Norghanian skin is too sensitive to this sun. You’ll soon be completely burned, and it’s a most painful experience, believe me.”
“I’m beginning to experience it already,” said Gerd. His forehead and neck were red, and the skin on his arms was beginning to peel.
Nilsa showed them her own arms. “My hands are in a terrible state.”
“Put this on. It’ll protect you from the sun and stop you burning.”
“Are you sure it’s not poisoned?” Ingrid asked.
Astrid sniffed it, then tested a bit with the tip of her tongue. “Not with anything I know.”
In the end, reluctantly, they accepted the ointment. It smelt terrible and painted their limbs and faces turquoise green, leaving them looking very strange.
Viggo chuckled. “You all look disgusting.”
Astrid pointed at his own face. “We all.”
Gerd too chuckled. “Yeah, we look … I don’t know, like the cousins of these savages.”
“I think you look very nice,” Nilsa said with a laugh.
Very ugly, Camu said to Lasgol.
Thanks for being so truthful!
I truthful.
Oh, sure … don’t you need some yourself?
Skin bears. Ona too.
How strange. Our skins can’t bear this strong sun, and yet yours can?
Our skin to
ugh. Good. Your skin very bad.
Lasgol snorted. Oh well … I guess so.
Ingrid turned to Eicewald with an inquisitorial air. “You need to tell us what happened when you were first here,” she demanded.
The Mage sighed, which was unusual in him, and nodded. He seemed prepared to tell them what had really happened, although his dark eyes always gave the impression that he was hiding something.
“I was shipwrecked in this realm. The Turquoise Savages found me on a nearby island and took me to the Queen. Uragh is no friend of foreigners, as you’ve all seen. She guards her lands and her people jealously. She does it for a perfectly good reason, because she wants to protect her people and their way of life, even though her methods might not be the most peaceful and civilized. I thought she’d get rid of me, as she’d done with others who’d come to the islands with the intention of exploring them, or conquering them. Thinking I wasn’t going to survive, I resorted to magic to defend myself. I created a protective sphere of ice, and fought against various of her warriors and a couple of her Shamans. I defeated them. Uragh was interested at once. The kind of magic I used wasn’t the kind that she or her Shamans possess. Hers is of water – of the sea, to be precise – and mine is of ice. They didn’t even know what ice was. That impressed her and stirred her curiosity. She wanted me to explain my magic to her, together with everything else I knew about other kinds of magic. Everything to do with power and its different varieties interested her greatly. She allowed me to live and stay here.”
“How good of her,” Viggo said with deliberate irony.
“Her people had suffered from attacks by pirates, slave traders, conquerors from other realms, and so on. It’s natural that she should be wary of foreigners. This place is a paradise, and the kingdoms of Tremia would set their greedy claws on it if they knew of its existence, or knew how to get here. That’s why Uragh protects it with measures that might appear drastic to us.”
“Killing those who get lost and get here by chance seems more than drastic to me,” Nilsa said.
“She doesn’t kill all foreigners.”
Ingrid raised an eyebrow. “She doesn’t?”
“There’s an island where she allows people to live, if she doesn’t consider they pose a threat to her.”
Gerd too raised an eyebrow. “But they can’t go back to their homes.”
Eicewald nodded. “That’s right. I’m not saying I share her extreme methods of protecting her people, but nor would it be fair to say she kills everyone who comes to these islands.”
“What else did you teach her?” Astrid asked.
“Before I could teach her anything I had much to learn. I spent time studying her language, and once I’d managed to learn it, I began to teach her everything I knew about magic. During that time, I also taught her our language. Not only her, but also some of her Shamans, like Arrain. They were good times, I won’t pretend otherwise.”
“Good times?” Nilsa asked. “Weren’t you a prisoner?”
“Yes, but after a while they stopped treating me as that, and began to show more respect to me, as to any other Shaman of the tribe, only with a different appearance, and a different magic to their own. Uragh allowed me to live here, on this island, and it was an experience I treasure.”
“Did you become good friends?” Gerd asked.
“Yes. We spent a lot of time together, studying, learning and experimenting with our magics.”
“Friends, and something more than that …” Astrid added. She glared at the Mage like an inquisitor.
“What are you suggesting?” asked Ingrid, who had not caught on.
“Well, it’s clear enough,” Viggo pointed out. “They were lovers.”
“Lovers?” Nilsa repeated in surprise.
Eicewald was silent for a moment, looking up at the sky. “That was a very long time ago. I was young …” Then he nodded. “It’s true, Uragh and I … had a sentimental relationship.”
Lasgol wanted to be shocked by the fact, but for some reason he was not. It made sense.
“And you’re telling us about it now?” Ingrid demanded indignantly. “Didn’t you think that little detail was something we might need to know before we set off on this mission?”
“I didn’t think it was a significant detail.”
“Well, it’s about as significant as it can be!”
“For once I agree with Blondie here,” Viggo said. “It would’ve come in handy to know that trivial detail before we got into this mess.”
“It wouldn’t have changed what happened,” the Mage assured them.
“But it would’ve put us on our guard.”
Eicewald said nothing more.
Gerd was rubbing his chin in puzzlement. “But … I don’t get it. How can that be possible? The Queen’s still young. She can’t be older than twenty-five.”
“That’s true,” Nilsa said, and turned to Eicewald. “While you must be around sixty.”
“Uragh is no young woman of twenty-five, even though she might look like one. She’s like your friend.” He waved his hand at Camu. “She’s a special creature, with a special power. She must be more than five hundred years old.”
“By all the Ice Gods!” Nilsa exclaimed. “I’d never have imagined!”
Viggo nodded, with a lecherous look in his eyes. “Well, I find her most attractive, for her age,” he said ironically.
“You’d find a sea urchin attractive!” Ingrid retorted.
Viggo gave her his most charming smile.
“And as for secrets, we’re even. Nobody warned me that a Creature of Power from the Frozen Continent was traveling with us. And yes, it would have come in handy to know that beforehand.”
“We don’t reveal his presence, because he’s a special creature and attracts too much interest,” Lasgol explained.
“Of course, he attracts interest. He’s exceptional, and what he did was extremely interesting and worthy of study. If I had the time, and we weren’t in this complicated situation, I’d love to study him. Perhaps when we get back …”
“Perhaps,” Lasgol said. “But this isn’t either the time or the place.” He had no intention of letting anybody study Camu, least of all the King’s Ice Magi.
“If we get back,” said Gerd.
“We will get back,” Ingrid assured him.
Astrid was staring at the Mage. “Maybe the reason why Queen Uragh didn’t want to help us wasn’t lack of interest, but spite.”
“That’s right,” said Viggo. “When you parted, did you do it by mutual accord and on good terms? Or the opposite?”
Eicewald stared ahead, apparently lost in memory.
“It took me a long time to persuade the Queen to let me go back, to go on with my studies.”
“She might not have wanted you to leave,” Astrid said, “and when you did it, you broke her heart. And now she doesn’t want to help you because of that.”
“I don’t think so … Uragh is a very strong woman. Our parting left no mark on her. I’m convinced of that.”
“But you could be wrong,” Ingrid insisted.
“The heart of a woman is a mystery,” Viggo said. He was looking aside at Ingrid as he said this.
“And a jilted woman might have room for plenty of spite in it,” Astrid added.
Eicewald shook his head. “I don’t think that’s the case.”
“Let’s hope not,” Ingrid said. “Things are bad enough as they are without adding a jilted woman’s spite.”
“I don’t see our Mage as very … seductive, shall we say,” Viggo commented. “The opposite, if anything, however young and attractive he might have been then. No, I’m with him, I don’t believe we have this extra problem.”
Nilsa sighed. “Let’s hope not.”
“There are things you never forget,” said Astrid, who did not seem too convinced. “And one of them is a love story.”
Lasgol saw things more clearly now. “Do we understand that you parted on good terms?” he asked Ei
cewald, staring into his eyes, trying to resolve the question. “And the fact that Uragh doesn’t want to help us has nothing to do with what happened?”
“That’s how I understand it,” the Mage said, and Lasgol thought he was sincere.
“Well then,” Viggo said, “let’s accept that. Now what?”
“Now we wait for the Queen to decide,” Eicewald replied.
“How long?” Gerd asked, looking worried.
“Not long,” Eicewald said. He pointed ahead.
Arrain was coming toward them, and with him were several warriors.
Chapter 29
The group followed Arrain in silence, tense and worried about what the Queen might say, with Shamans and warriors surrounding them. Ona and Camu walked beside Lasgol, who was trying to reassure them, without much success.
When they arrived at the throne hall inside the Queen’s marine palace-cavern, Uragh was waiting for them on her strange watery throne. Beneath her feet they could see shoals of colorful fish which they had never seen before.
“Welcome,” the Queen said, as if all of a sudden, they were her guests instead of her prisoners. “I hope you’ve enjoyed the rest and my people’s attention.”
Eicewald bowed deeply and respectfully. “We have indeed, your Majesty. A thousand thanks.”
Uragh turned to the Mage. “Mercy is not one of my virtues, as you know well …”
Lasgol tensed. The conversation was already taking a wrong turn.
“… but one thing I am is fair. I’ve thought deeply about your situation, and I think we can come to an understanding.”
They were all utterly taken aback, not having expected the situation to take that particular turn. Ingrid and Viggo exchanged glances of disbelief, Nilsa and Gerd of surprise, and Astrid and Lasgol of hope.
“This creature has a deeply significant power,” Uragh said, indicating Camu, who stretched out his head and tail when he heard himself mentioned. “A power that can help both me and my people, and therefore can help you out of the situation you find yourselves in.”
“How can we help the Turquoise Queen?” Eicewald asked, sounding very interested.
