The Salamander Prince

by S R Nulton

  “How is this possible? It can’t possibly fit all this space! Not without causing problems when the river is busy and going into port,” Jeshu responded when I showed him everything.

  I shrugged. “My teacher was Fey and helped me bend space a little. The ship takes up the same amount of space as the raft would, but it appears larger when you are standing on it. It’s actually why the mast in the illusion was so large. The same amount of footage is taken up, it just happens to be vertical, both above and below the raft.” I was bending the truth a little, as that didn’t account for the rest of the available space. We actually borrowed space from somewhere else. The Fey did it on a regular basis so that their homes could expand without breaking the trees they were built on. Jeshu didn’t need to know that though. I could tell that the whole explanation would unnerve him.

  He blinked at me before shaking his head. “Somehow I think that there is more to it, but I’ll let your story stand. And people accuse mages of having too much power. Shall we be on our way?”

  I nodded and showed him how to set the system before moving to the bow to watch my craft cut it’s way through the lake and down to the river.

  “So, why do you have such a nice boat?” Jeshu asked as he sat down beside me.

  “My family lives down river. Well, the part of my family that I actually like.” He gave me a quizzical look and I sighed. He did deserve to know this part. “My mother is… well, to put it bluntly she is an evil, sadistic, and manipulative person. She got tired of trying to turn me into her pawn, or in some cases her rook, and abandoned me when I was about eight. She claimed that she had a little bit of business to take care of that was taking her across the continent and I would be a burden. So I was left with my older sister.

  “She was fourteen and we decided at that point that it was high time to move out. My sister has always been a bit selfish, purely out of a sense of self-preservation, but she wasn’t heartless. She loves her family, so she took me in to keep me safe from my mother, who didn’t come back for four years. Deirdre had two children by that point and with her husband missing, I was allowed to stay and help so that my mother didn’t have to deal with her grandchildren.”

  Jeshu frowned. “She didn’t even want her own grandchildren? From what I understand, mothers are normally a bit obsessive about that sort of thing.”

  I snorted. “Yeah, well my mother never saw the point in family without power. She was out of luck with me because enchanters don’t get much power until they hit their 20s. My sister is a witch, but not one who could make my mother proud. She has very little power and a lot of foolishness when it comes to spells and excuses. For instance, she cursed her firstborn to only speak poetry and then claimed some sort of cockamamie story about Joy dropping pearls of wisdom to attract a worthy, wealthy husband. And my mother believed it because it sounded silly enough for Dee to actually try.”

  “Did it work? Has she attracted a good husband?”

  That made me laugh. “Of course not! Joy is quite clever and pretty enough, but she is a very poor poet. In her defense, it would be dreadful to have to say everything in poetry. She manages though. And it’s kept my mother from becoming much of a bother, for the most part. Actually, Mother thinks that Joy has a great destiny, but has yet to realize that my niece is gifted the same way as I am. She should begin getting her powers in the next few years. Hopefully she will have them mastered enough to protect herself before Mother notices,” I mused worriedly.

  “Well, she could always come live with us if she needs protection.”

  “Ha! Really? I suppose so. I can support us perfectly well, if I’m allowed to use magic, but you appear to be a bit low on funds at the moment. Plus, you aren’t exactly human during the day.”

  He stared at me in bewilderment. “I would have thought the magical golden items would clue you in. My family is wealthy. I can’t tell you much more than that though. I wish I could, but I can’t. Just know that we will be able to keep your family safe if they find themselves threatened by your mother.”

  I blinked and looked him over more closely. It was dark, so I couldn’t see much, but I realized that clothes he wore backed up his story. They may have been torn in places and in desperate need of a laundress, but they had obviously been tailored to him at one point in time. The fabric was hardy, meant for backbreaking labor, but even the patches had been applied with a practiced hand and silk thread.

  He looked down as well and smirked. “I’ve had this outfit for years. My brother and I like to go fishing as well as help during harvest time. It seemed like a good idea to go on a quest in clothes that wouldn’t fall apart if I brushed against the wrong plant. Plus, they make me look like anyone else on the road. It will keep us safer.”

  “Fine, fine. Enough talk though. We should sleep while we can. Good night, Jeshu.”

  “Good night my wife. Sleep sweet,” he replied, kissing me gently on the cheek before letting me go. I was becoming more and more impressed with the man I had married, and that seemed like a bit of a dangerous thing. Oh well, only time would tell.

  Chapter 3: The Power of Accessories

  The next morning dawned bright, beautiful, and bringing a not wholly unexpected outcome: my husband was a salamander again. I knew that immediately because I found him in my bed. Laying on my pillow. Right by my head.

  There may or may not have been a little shrieking involved after that. I don’t quite remember. I calmed down quickly enough. Then I threatened to cut off his tail if he used my pillow ever again. It wasn’t like he couldn’t grow a new one, after all. I will admit that he was a perfect gentleman the whole time and it was only the surprise and the early morning that made me so upset.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize that it would frighten you so much,” he said.

  “Well, it did! And why are you in my room anyway? You have your own!” I was still peeved, so my voice was much louder than I’d intended.

  “I was, but I heard you crying. You were having a nightmare. So I came in to wake you up. As soon as I touched your shoulder, you calmed, but when I let go, you started to whimper. I thought it best if I stayed.”

  That shocked me. No one had ever been able to stop the dreams before. Also, I was finally awake enough to realize what a shrew I was being. “Thank you. Sorry I yelled.”

  “No problem. You don’t seem to be very alert first thing in the mornings, so it is understandable. Now, you may want to let me out. I can’t exactly open the door in this form, and I’m sure you’ll want to get changed in privacy.”

  I grimaced and let him out as quickly as I could, appreciative of his thought. We may have been married, but I wasn’t quite ready to show him everything at that point.

  Conceptually, it made perfect sense that he would turn into a creature of fire when the sun rose, but it still meant that conversations were a bit disconcerting at breakfast. Of the many things I’d picked up over the years, table manners with an amphibian were not among them. For one thing, what do you serve? I mean, if he were pure animal, I’d serve him bugs, but he was still a human in his mind. I ended up giving him little pieces of my breakfast and hoping for the best.

  The good news was he could eat most protein, including eggs and bits of sausage. The bad news was he really did want bugs if I could get them. Because that’s what everyone wants to watch first thing in the morning.

  On the bright side, I now knew what it felt like to be suddenly live as an animal. It was one of the first things I asked him that morning.

  “It’s like… all those inhibitions you carry around every day are suddenly unimportant. Instinct is much more intense as a driving force. And colors! Totally different!”

  “Really? How so?” I was extremely curious. It wasn’t often you were given the option of seeing the world through a different set of eyes. At least, not unless you were a shifter of some sort. Or made a spell for it, and I had never felt like researching such a thing before.

  “I don’t see details wel
l, and I can’t see all colors. Some just don’t show up. On the other hand, movement is much more obvious. It’s like when you are in battle and you allow your vision to go slightly fuzzy. At that point, the details don’t matter. All that matters is that a man is coming at you with a knife while you are fighting his friend. I think animals are more naturally aware of movement because their vision is like that all the time.”

  I frowned and thought about it. What he said matched up with what I’d picked up years of wandering various woodland areas. If you felt that there was something dangerous near, you were supposed to freeze until you could identify where it was. At that point you could fight or run, but only after you stopped moving. I’d never considered the bigger implications of how I’d be harder to see if I froze. I’d have to try it out sometime while wearing a garish color.

  I slowly continued to eat and examine my companion at the same time. Salamanders in general come in a variety of colors, most of the ones near my cottage tended toward mud brown, occasionally a muddy green. Jeshu was a magical creature though, so his coloring was expected to be different. It warned predators away.

  Instead of mud, he looked like coal. His skin was black with what looked like pulsing veins of orange and red littered throughout, giving him the appearance of a banked fire. Adding to the image, he had a faint grey sheen that appeared in the sunlight. And his eyes were a blue that slowly faded to orange around the edges and black in the middle. Basically he embodied living flame.

  Oh, and he was huge! At least two or three feet long from nose to tail. I wasn’t exactly sure how to hide him without magic, because there was no way he would do anything but draw attention. I had a feeling that my husband would pitch a fit if I tried to leave him on the ship, so I knew I needed to think of something quickly.

  ~

  Docking in Aurism was always an interesting situation. The capital of Alenia was not originally built against the river. In fact, it had been built around the palace, which backed up to the King’s Forest. Between the acres of royal land devoted to gardens and the royal game preserve itself, northward expansion was completely off the table.

  Around the time that the capital began to grow, more and more people were choosing to settle in the little village on the river. It was a short ride from the capital and perfect for receiving and shipping goods. In other words, it also grew exponentially in a short period of time. Within twenty years, the boundaries of the village and Aurism had met and merged to create one very large city.

  And where large cities exist, so must ridiculous bureaucracy follow.

  “Fifteen silver? To park my raft for a few hours? Are you out of your ever-loving mind Pete?”

  Peter looked down his nose at me. Or attempted to, at least. We were the same height, which always perturbed him. It wasn’t my fault I was rather tall for a woman and he was average for a man.

  “Rates have gone up and I have no guarantee that you will be gone before nightfall. Even if you were, I doubt that anyone else would come in and take over for you, meaning I’d be out of money for an entire night. So, yes, fifteen silver.”

  I growled. “I’m not new to the area. It’s the start of May, for goodness sake! This is prime trading time for the mountain folks, so don’t give me any of that rubbish about no one coming in after I leave. They always do. Now the sooner we get this over with, the sooner I get out of your way so you can extort someone else.”

  He started to pull himself up to try intimidation again when I held out a hand in front of his face.

  “Pete, don’t make me turn you into a toad. I know how and I will do it, even if I have to face that fishwife of yours after.”

  Peter’s face fell as he realized defeat. “Fine. Ten silvers. And don’t call Molly a fishwife again. You know how sensitive she is about that.”

  “Ten is perfectly acceptable,” I told him, pulling the coins out of my pocket. “And Molly deserves that epithet and you know it. She could harangue a lawyer into telling the truth.”

  He laughed, accepting the coins. “True. But she’d look lovely doing it and he’d be grateful afterward.”

  I tossed him another silver and winked. “I never said it was a bad thing, now did I? Send her and the little monsters my love, will you? I would stop in and say hi, but I really do just need some supplies before heading south.”

  “I will, but you be safe. I’ve heard there’s some strange groups wandering around down there. Not the usual highwaymen, you understand? I don’t want my favorite witch to go missing anytime soon.” He called out the last line as I walked away.

  Turning, I called back, “Enchantress, you half-wit! You should know better by now!” I grinned and waved one final time before turning around again, enjoying the sound of his laughter echoing off the docks.

  “Old friend?” asked my newest accessory.

  Just as I’d suspected, Jeshu refused to entertain the idea of me heading into the city on my own. He was convinced that I was in danger and he could protect me. When I pointed out that an enormous lizard-looking thing that talked would draw too much attention, we came up with a compromise. He would pretend to be an enchanted necklace.

  At first he had wanted me to hide my magic. I then pointed out how silly that was while walking into a city where I was well known to be a magician. Using my oddities to our advantage would actually be better camouflage then attempting to look normal. Besides, my friends would wonder if I didn’t show up with something that I obviously wanted them to ask me about. What can I say, I like messing with people. It is probably the only thing I have in common with my mother.

  “Yes,” I said, getting back to Jeshu’s question. “I’ve known him for about eight or nine years now. He always tries to pull that officious nonsense with me and I always push back until things mellow a bit. As a matter of fact, that’s what got his wife’s attention the first time.”

  “What? Your publically haranguing him?”

  I laughed. “Actually, yes. She is a fisherman’s daughter and grew up knowing she would probably end up yelling like her mother when she got married. As a result, she was constantly on the lookout for a man who could take it. She didn’t want to cow her husband or have him rile easily. Pete will clearly state his case and listen to what you have to say, at whatever decibel, without losing his calm.”

  Jeshu hummed. “A perfect match. It’s fortunate that you were there to argue with him that day.”

  “Not really. I overheard her father complaining to a friend that she was expecting too much. Molly heard him too and started explaining exactly what she wanted and how it wasn’t all that much. Loudly. After that it was relatively simple to have her meet me at my boat at the same time that I knew Pete would be by to argue with me about something.”

  Jeshu’s tail curled tighter around my neck as he laughed. And blew smoke at the same time. Strangely enough, the crowd around me seemed to decide all at once that they wanted to be somewhere else. I can’t imagine why.

  I smirked, thinking, I should definitely make a salamander necklace that blows smoke when all this hiding is over. It would make market days so much more fun!

  ~

  Ordering supplies for the trip was quick and painless. It had been about time for me to head to the market anyway, so it didn’t look suspicious to any of my vendors. They all knew to have my order immediately moved to the deck of my ship (without stepping aboard), so I didn’t have to carry anything heavier than my new husband in his smaller form.

  The first stop was fabric. I needed to make more clothes soon, and I figured that Jeshu probably needed a change as well. Canvas was also a must so I could repair the sail if there was a problem. The last of it had been used up the year when a storm came up suddenly and nearly destroyed my ship.

  Next on my list was dry food stuffs. Flour, sugar, oats, lentils, beans, salt, and countless spices found their way onto my order. Smoked meats followed, but not as much. I needed bacon and sausage, but I hunted regularly and had a good supply of elk, veni
son, and chimera dried and hidden in a special cold room in my hold. Finally, perishables and odds and ends. Eggs, milk, fresh meat, vegetables, fruits, butter, and yeast cakes were all priced and tallied. Once boxed, I took a special seal out of my pocket and burned into the side of the crates. It was a preexisting enchantment that automatically preserved whatever was inside for up to three hours. Everything was ready!

  By early evening, there was only one more piece of business to attend. During the day aboard my boat I’d written a letter to my family. It was as simple and nonspecific as I could make it. Jeshu may have been the one on the run, but I wanted to be as quiet about the particulars as possible. One never knew when my mother would become interested in me again.

  Basically, all it said was what I’d told Pete earlier. I was going south to help a friend. No idea how long I’ll be gone. Be good and don’t terrorize the villagers. Oh, and I let Joy know that my cottage was available if she needed a place to hide. My mother had been circling closer to the poor girl and I knew she might have to run soon. Then I sent the note off with the evening post. Had my sister’s family been closer I would have said it all in person, but they lived in a small village just east of the capital, about an hour ride from the palace and nearly three hours from the docks. Aurism was more long than round and it made in-city travel time consuming.

  With that last item checked off my list, we began to head back to the ship. It didn’t go as smoothly as I would have hoped though.

  The market was full of last minute shoppers, hoping to get what they needed before the merchants shut down for the evening. It also contained a handful of men who didn’t fit in with the rest. For one thing, they were all dressed identically, every single one of them wearing brown pants, a grey shirt, and a black belt. The same black belt, brown pants and grey shirt. No one would purposefully dress exactly like the four other men they traveled with unless they had one of two reasons: first, they were up to no good and wanted pretend to be one another to throw off trackers; second, they were a band of military men on a ‘secret’ mission for their king. Judging by their ramrod straight posture and the way they fanned out to protect each other’s backs, it was the latter explanation.