by Resa Nelson
Before letting the door slam shut, the tavern keeper said, “And good luck finding your sword.”
My sword!
Flooded with panic, Skallagrim reached over his shoulder to make sure his sword was still sheathed in place, only to find it missing.
Skallagrim snapped wide awake. He then remembered what happened the night before. He remembered how his fellow dragonslayers—including his closest friend and ally, Bruni—had confronted him and demanded that he give his sword to them.
How could I have been so stupid?
At the same time, Skallagrim remembered how close he’d come to getting his revenge for his wife’s death when Frandulane had arrived in Gott, only to see him slip away.
I have to find Frandulane. I can’t let him get away again. I can’t let him live.
Skallagrim stood in front of the tavern and watched the city bustling all around him.
Merchants walked toward the city center, where they’d set up their wares to sell. Sleepy-eyed crewmen wandered the streets in search of some fun before leaving on their next voyage. Teenage apprentices for blacksmiths—identifiable by the black smudges on their hands and faces—delivered small items to locals.
The cry of a gull perched on the thatched roof of the tavern made Skallagrim wince in pain. Even from this far away, Skallagrim imagined he could smell the tainted scent of rancid shellfish on the bird’s breath.
In a port city like this one, tavern keepers were the best sources of information. Skallagrim knew he’d already antagonized at least two tavern keepers: the one from last night where his fellow dragonslayers confronted him and the one who had just kicked him out. He decided he wouldn’t risk antagonizing a third.
Skallagrim made his way to the city center and questioned every merchant that would tolerate him. He grew more frustrated by the moment because no merchant remembered seeing anyone who looked like Frandulane.
Or maybe they’re all protecting him. Maybe they’re lying.
“What good are you?” Skallagrim shouted at a cloth merchant.
“No need for that kind of talk,” an old woman standing behind Skallagrim said.
Two large men who resembled her grabbed Skallagrim by the shoulders and pushed him away. Eager customers filled in the gap he left behind.
“I don’t need any of your stupid cloth,” Skallagrim muttered. He cradled his pounding head. Awash with the hopelessness of defeat, he stumbled to the next merchant.
Two women puttered behind wooden crates displaying bundles of herbs and weeds tied with ribbon. Similar in appearance, they appeared to be sisters. They kept arranging and rearranging their wares, even though it didn’t seem to make any difference that Skallagrim could see.
“There, there,” the taller woman said to Skallagrim. “You’re looking in the wrong place, my dear. Asking all the wrong questions. There’s an easier way, you know.”
Skallagrim squinted at the bundled herbs and weeds. “I don’t need any of your potions.”
“You don’t know what you need,” the shorter woman said.
Skallagrim felt as if he’d just been poked in a sore spot. “You’re one to talk. You don’t know what I need!”
The sisters giggled. “I’m Fee,” the shorter one said. “She’s Glee.”
Skallagrim hesitated, feeling as if he should know them.
“You’ve met our sister,” Glee said. “Bee. She’s gone to Tower Island to wait for you.”
Of course. The alchemist.
Although Skallagrim had pushed aside everything Bee had told him, her warning burned at the back of his mind.
Bee said that chasing Frandulane will put the world at risk. She said I’ll die if I keep hunting Frandulane.
He tried to push away those memories, but they persisted.
Bee saw a danger that will infiltrate the Northlands first and then the rest of the world.
Skallagrim tried to ignore those thoughts and changed the subject. “My family knew your parents. Your father was a weapon merchant. Your mother was an alchemist.” A bit of his recent conversation with Bee popped into his head. “I thought you were supposed to be in the Southlands right now.”
“Midlands. Southlands.” Glee shrugged. “Not that much of a difference between the two.”
Fee said, “We’re needed more here, so here we came.”
They’re talking about me. Why does every alchemist think I need help?
“What I need is a drink of mead,” Skallagrim said. “I’ll be seeing you around.”
But when he turned to walk away, he found Glee blocking his path. Confounded, he looked around to see Fee still standing behind the crate that displayed their herbs and weeds. He didn’t understand how Glee could have moved with such speed.
“Mead,” Glee said, “is the last thing you need. “Your fellow dragonslayers have rejected you.”
Skallagrim drew himself up. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“It’s not so difficult to detect,” Fee said. “Your dragonslayer sword is gone. That only happens to a dragonslayer when his peers deem that he’s not fit for duty.”
“It’s not like that,” Skallagrim insisted. “That’s not what happened.”
“There’s no shame in failure,” Glee said, “as long as you’re willing to own up to what you did and strive to do better.”
Skallagrim tried to back away from the alchemists, but the crowd behind him had thickened so much that it blocked him. “I did what any normal man would do. I vowed to avenge the murder of my wife and father. I’m striving to find Frandulane. Why does everyone insist on getting in my way?”
With a start, Skallagrim realized Fee stood on his other side.
With the crowd at his back, the crate in front of him, and the alchemists flanking him, Skallagrim found it impossible to move.
Glee leaned in and lowered her voice. “Because the world isn’t about you, Skallagrim. The world is full of people, and everyone has their own hopes and dreams and disappointments. Everyone strives. From time to time, everyone fails.”
Fee leaned in from the other side. “But once in a blood moon, a chance for true greatness comes along. A chance to help all of the people in the world keep living so they can continue with their hopes and dreams, their failures and successes.”
Her words resonated with Skallagrim. He wanted to be great. He wanted to help people.
But he saw only one way to do it.
“Why won’t you listen to me?” Skallagrim said. “I’m trying to tell you how I’m taking that chance for greatness. I’ll be great if I kill Frandulane, because he’ll never be able to kill any of those people you’re talking about.”
The alchemists eased back and exchanged glances.
“Is it time?” Glee asked her sister.
Fee nodded. “I think so.”
In unison, the alchemists slapped Skallagrim upside the head.
“Ow!” he protested.
“Stop lying to us,” Glee said. “We don’t believe any of that nonsense.”
“And neither should you,” Fee said. “Stop lying to yourself.”
Clutching his head to protect it from being struck again, Skallagrim felt his certainty dissolve.
They’re right.
“I don’t know what to do,” Skallagrim said. “If I fail to kill Frandulane, I’ll fail my wife.” Startled when tears leaked from his eyes, he said, “I failed her once. I couldn’t save her. I can’t fail her again.”
Fee tilted her head back and looked down the bridge of her nose at Skallagrim. “Now we’re getting somewhere.”
“He should speak to her,” Glee said to her sister. “That could straighten him out.”
“Speak to her?” Distress shredded Skallagrim’s voice. “Speak to who?”
Glee gave Skallagrim’s shoulder a comforting pat. “Your wife, of course.”
CHAPTER 24
“My wife?” Skallagrim said. “I can’t speak to her. She’s dead.”
Fee eased back
around the crate and puttered with some of the displayed herbs. “No one is dead.”
“Their bodies might be gone,” Glee added. “But their spirits are not.” She patted Skallagrim’s shoulder and then bustled to join her sister’s side.
Skallagrim saw how they’d manipulated him to draw his attention, but he didn’t care. “I’m not an alchemist. I can’t see portents. How can I possibly speak to my wife when I can’t see her spirit?”
“There are ways to see spirits.” Fee glanced up at Skallagrim. “For those who are willing to consider potions.”
The alchemist’s words shook Skallagrim.
He wanted to see Lumara again with a desperation so fierce that he thought it would make his heart burst apart.
At the same time, he dreaded facing his wife. He dreaded the look of disappointment he was bound to see on her face.
Disappointment that he didn’t prevent her death.
Disappointment that she wasn’t alive to take care of their children.
Disappointment that Skallagrim had abandoned them.
He hastened to find an excuse to refuse the alchemists’ help. “Lumara wasn’t mortal. She’s the sister of a dragon goddess.”
Glee replied in a firm voice. “That makes no difference.”
Skallagrim’s fear of being able to see his wife again deepened. “But if a dragon goddess can’t help me see my wife again, how can you?”
Fee drummed her fingers against the top of the crate. Her nails made a wooden, hollow sound. “Did you ask the dragon goddess for help?”
No.
Feeling cornered by his own lies, Skallagrim looked away.
“How do you think your wife will feel,” Glee said, “when she finds out that you could have seen her one more time and chose not to?”
Broken hearted. If Lumara knew, it would tear her apart.
“She will know,” Fee said. “Those spirits, they have their ways of finding out these things.”
Glee said, “But if you’d rather go on about your business of finding your brother so you can kill him instead of accepting the gift of seeing your wife again, that’s your business, not ours.”
Skallagrim felt defeated and yet the weight on his shoulders seemed lighter. “I want to see my wife. Tell me what to do.”
Fee selected a bundle of a dark green and leafy herb and a small cloth pouch. She stuffed the herb inside the pouch until it would hold no more. “This is all you can ingest. Once the pouch is empty, you must never eat this herb again. Always take care to chew it well to tap into what it offers. Take no more than a pinch on any given day.” She held the pouch in her hand but showed it to Skallagrim.
He sniffed at it. “A pinch? What good will that do?”
“Plenty,” Glee said. “This herb is poisonous. Unless you’ve eaten it all your life and become acclimated, it will kill you.” Glee then busied herself by searching through containers kept behind the crate, placing pinches of herbs into a small bowl, and then mixing it with water from her drinking skin to create a tonic.
In that moment, Skallagrim saw a way to take a leap of faith and comply with the alchemists while at the same time having an alternate plan in case he needed it.
I can see Lumara again. And then I can find and kill Frandulane.
“I see,” Skallagrim said. “I’ll do what you say. But what is this stuff?”
“Night’s Bane,” Fee said, still keeping hold of the pouch that held it. Her gaze sharpened with suspicion.
“And I can use it right here? Right now?”
“That would be pointless,” Fee said. “You won’t find your wife here.”
Perplexed, Skallagrim frowned. “In this city?”
“In the Midlands.”
“Then where am I supposed to find her?”
“Where you’d expect,” Glee said. She stirred the tonic in the small bowl, where its colors shimmered and darkened. “Back in the Northlands.”
“The village of Heatherbloom, to be precise,” Fee said.
Skallagrim felt as if the air had been punched out of his lungs. “That’s in the southern part of the Northlands. It’s when Benzel of the Wolf once lived. It’s the village the Scaldings attacked. They killed everyone except Benzel, and that’s only because they couldn’t find him. Why would I find her there?”
The alchemists looked at him with pity in their eyes.
“When you married Lumara,” Glee said, “Benzel became her family. We know he was your blood father. Lumara is bound to keep his spirit company in the place he loves the most.”
Skallagrim reached for the pouch of Night’s Bane in Fee’s hand, but she withdrew it.
“Not so fast,” Fee cautioned.
“Payment first,” Glee said.
Skallagrim held out his arms, but he wore few silver rings and bracelets.
Like all dragonslayers, he depended on the support from every village he protected. But that support came in two ways. First, all the villages on his route pooled their resources to supply him with the weapons he needed. They traded with the Boglands to acquire blooms of iron. Village blacksmiths then forged those weapons. And whenever Skallagrim traveled through a village on his route, they gave him a place to sleep, good meals, and food to take with him when he left.
Dragonslayers, unlike most people, had little need for silver and most tended to wear a small amount, if any.
Looking up at the alchemists, he said, “Do I have enough?”
Fee shook her head. “It’s not silver we want.”
Her response made him nervous. Other than the silver he wore, all he had of value were the few weapons remaining after his peers took away his dragonslayer sword. Skallagrim now had nothing more than a dagger and a small ax. He needed both. They were pitiful help if he encountered a dragon, but they were enough to give him a fighting chance against brigands or any other mortal that might try to harm him. “I can’t give up my weapons.”
“It’s not your weapons we want either,” Glee said. She gave the bowl containing the elixir a final swirl. “You can pay by drinking this.” She offered the bowl to Skallagrim.
He looked at it in dismay. “What is it?”
“Insurance,” Glee said.
“For you?”
Fee wrapped her fingers around the small pouch of Night’s Bane and crossed her arms, keeping it next to her body. “Not just us. For all Northlanders.”
The coy nature of the alchemists irritated Skallagrim. He gave in to the urge to demand an answer. “What kind of insurance? What does what I want have to do with you or any other Northlander?”
“Everything,” Glee hissed. “Bee is our sister. We know what she said to you. We know what’s at stake.”
“What your sister told me is nothing but her fantastical imaginings.” Skallagrim scoffed. “I considered what she said, but in the cold light of day it doesn’t mean anything. I believe what I can see. Not what some woman fancies in her mind.”
“That is precisely why this is the payment we demand.” Glee placed the small bowl containing the potion on the top of the crate in front of Skallagrim. “If you can’t see beyond what can’t be proven, then you can’t be trusted. And when a man can’t be trusted, there must be insurance to protect our reputation in case he uses our help to make a bad decision.” She pointed at the bowl. “That is the insurance we require.”
“Drink it,” Fee said.
“What is it?”
Instead of answering, the alchemists smiled.
Skallagrim balked. “You want me to drink something without knowing what’s in it?”
The alchemists kept smiling.
Skallagrim took a step back. “Are you both mad? Who in his right mind would drink something without knowing what’s in it? How do I know you’re not trying to poison me?”
The alchemists giggled.
“How foolish!” Glee said. “Why would we want to do such a thing?”
Skallagrim’s thoughts raced. He stepped forward and leaned in to whisper, mak
ing sure no one could overhear. “Maybe Frandulane paid you. Maybe he’s trying to get rid of me before I can get rid of him.”
The alchemists frowned, and disappointment filled their eyes.
Fee spoke to Skallagrim as if he were a very small child. “We are healers. We don’t cause harm. We remedy it.”
Skallagrim waved a wild hand at the potion in the bowl. “Is that what you’re telling me to ingest? Some kind of remedy?”
“Of sorts,” Glee said.
“I’m not having it.” Skallagrim raised his hands, repelled by their request.
“I see,” Glee said in an even voice.
Fee opened the larger pouch attached to her belt and stuffed the smaller one inside.
The alchemists returned to puttering as if Skallagrim had left.
They made him nervous. He’d expected them to argue with him, and the ease with which they withdrew their offer to help and request for payment confounded Skallagrim.
He turned his back on the alchemists and walked away.
But he thought about Lumara and the chance to see her again.
He thought about his past attempts to find Frandulane and how all of those attempts had failed in miserable ways.
What do I have to lose?
Skallagrim stood still and considered the question.
These alchemists are Thurid and Claude’s daughters. I’ve known their parents since I was little. It was Claude and Thurid who took me to Bellesguard when I was a boy. It was Claude and Thurid who got me accepted into dragonslayer training.
If not for them, I would never have become a dragonslayer. What would my life have been like without their help?
Skallagrim found the answer easy to imagine. He would have been relegated to living on Tower Island with nothing to do. He would have had no way to contribute to the world and protect his people.
His life wouldn’t simply have been dull. His life would have been meaningless.
Thurid and Claude would never cause me harm. Why shouldn’t I trust their daughters?
Skallagrim returned to the alchemists’ market booth. The alchemists continued their puttering and ignored him.
Seeing that Glee had left the bowl of potion where she’d placed it on top of the crate, Skallagrim raised it to his lips and drank every drop.
