“You have some new task for me?”
“No task, my lady. Only a question.” He took a further step inside, though this would only be a short meeting. “The cousins. Have you heard any news of them?”
“I have.”
“Oh?” He hadn’t expected that. “And?”
“It appears that Prince Sevrin is still alive, Elyon, or so I have been informed. He is the eldest of the cousins, and after Hadrin’s death, the rightful King of Rasalan. Under his authority, the city survivors are rallying. Both Lord Buckland and the Oakenlord have sent men north to help, my sources say. It is favourable news. Sevrin is a noble man, well-liked, and there could be no one better to restore order.”
“Or master the Eye,” Elyon said.
“Yes. That as well. Though I still have my doubts on that account.” She looked through the flaps. Beyond the great ward, with its enormous mast-like poles, the sight of the city proper could be seen across the river, faint against the bleak grey skies. “I took some time to search through the Rustbridge libraries during your absence, and Lord Lester graciously gave me access to his private shelves as well. There were some old tomes that dealt with matters mythical and arcane, though I found nothing inside any of them to help light our way. You spoke during council of unprecedented ground, and that is what we are treading here. Until such a time as Sevrin sits before the Eye of Rasalan, we cannot know for sure what will happen.”
“That time is coming up shortly, my lady. I plan to fly to Thalan tomorrow.”
“And the Eye? When will you deliver it back to its rightful place?”
“As soon as I can. Though all this must be done in secrecy. I have little doubt that Eldur will be hunting me, Marian. For what I did.”
She nodded. “Have you felt yourself being watched? Anything out of the ordinary?”
What’s ordinary these days? “Nothing,” he said. “I see dragons, most days, but they are fewer than they were. When I move the Eye, I’ll make sure I’m not watched. Though Thalan may not be the best place to keep it. Somewhere stronger, or more secret, would be better.”
She mulled on that. “Find Sevrin first,” she said. “He will know best, Elyon Daecar.”
“I will do that, my lady.” He left her at that, giving her a bow as she returned to her task, stepping back out into the ward.
“Getting colder,” Roark said outside, squinting up at the skies. “And the days are darkening too. Where you heading now, then?”
“Northeast,” Elyon told him. In search of kings and giants.
18
“Another ship has been spotted coming from the south, Great One,” said the slimy seneschal in his slimy voice, he of the lank black hair and earthy hempen garb, a skinny creep of a man, snivelling and servile. “This one is bearing soldiers, hard-eyed and lean, wearing cloaks of dull grey and blue on their backs. I fear they may seek to land here, on the island. If they do…”
The Lord of Seals raised a flipper to cut him off. He looked down the table to Amara. “Who are these hard-eyed men? These colours…they’re of your kingdom, no? Vandar, was it?”
She wanted to kill him. Soon. By the gods I promise it. “They sound like Taynars,” she said, playing nice for now. “Most likely they are fleeing north, to the Ironmoors.”
“The Ironmoors?” The Great One repeated, in that horrid choked voice of his, as though his throat was constricted by the thick rolls of blubber that enwrapped his enormous neck. It seemed to amuse him tremendously to play dumb with these famous names. “Ah, yes, these hard cold lands to the north of the lake. Beyond the city of…um…what was it?”
“Elinar,” the seneschal told him, always eager to please. Amara did not hate him quite so much as his lord and ruler, but that did not mean much. There were many rungs on the ladder of hate, and while the Blubber King might be at the very summit, that did not mean his thrall of a seneschal didn’t warrant a place beneath him. “It is the city founded by Elin, my lord, who was the firstborn son of Varin.”
“Varin…yes, Varin, I know the name.” The Great One fingered his hairless chins, flesh wobbling. The rest of him was hairless too - his head, his brows, he didn’t even seem to have much in the way of lashes over his eyes. “The man who built this city of yours, my lady. Is that right? This city that you say was burning.”
She nodded, silent, trying not to think about it. The flames, licking at the suffocated dawn skies, the plumes of smoke, twisting up in great black columns, pouring from the burning keeps raised atop the hills. She remembered the screaming, of a hundred thousand souls, ringing out at the edge of hearing. The shapes of the dragons, moving through the mists, and that shadow, that vast winged shadow…dwarfing all others…the shadow of the Dread…
A shudder rippled through her, cold fingers climbing her spine. She reached out with a shaking hand to take up her cup of wine and drank deep. Still, even after all these days, the memories were fresh in her mind, haunting her; the shock had gone bone-deep. She gulped, feeling the warmth of the wine reach down into her chest, calming.
The Seal King was watching her through those tiny little eyes of his. “Better?” he asked her. “Wine helps. It always helps, no?”
A knife in your neck would help me more. “It does,” she agreed. “The best medicine, I always say.”
The whale gave a chuckle. “Others say that is laughter, but I agree with you, my lady. Wine is better, I have always thought. And food, yes. Food.” He licked his lips, beady eyes surveying the great feast laid out before him: plates of fish, herring and trout and salmon, pickled and salted and fried; great tubs of soup and stew and broth, made of shark and eel and seal; bowls of nuts and dried fruits; cakes, savoury and sweet, and a deal more besides. He reached out with one of his flippers and closed it around a fishcake, stuffing it into his maw. The whale was not a quiet eater. Amara stared, inwardly hateful, as he munched and chewed and slurped, crumbs tumbling to his gargantuan gut, neck bulging like a snake as he swallowed and swallowed and swallowed again.
The seneschal made a little move, just a shift of his slippered feet, to get the Great One’s attention. “My lord, the boat…I fear they may attempt to make harbour here, as I say. There are several dozen armed men aboard, I am told. If they should find their way upriver…”
“Then they will steal our food and rape our women and make this little haven of ours their own,” the whale said, through a mouthful of food. He chewed some more, swallowed, washing it all down with a full goblet of wine. “Oh yes, I have heard of these men of the Ironmoors. A rough folk, given to barbarism, who will take what they wish and kill to get it.” The Great One took another great gulp of wine, and shook his huge round head. “No. No, no, and no again. I say no to that. The world may well be falling to war out there, but here, no, here we are at peace. That cannot be allowed to change.”
The seneschal took his meaning, putting his hands together as he inclined his head. “I will make sure that the ship is…diverted, my lord. With good fortune we will be able to lure it away, beyond our shores, but I am told that it has suffered some damage. It may have no choice but to land, and…”
“And you’ll deal with it, yes?”
“Yes, my lord. I…I will deal with it.”
“Good. Then go, and see it done.” The Great One waved those fat fingers of his, dismissing the seneschal from his hall. Thrall that he was, the slimy creature bowed that spiny back and slipped away, out through the door of hanging vines that marked the way into the pirate lord’s palace, a hall woven and grown of wood and leaves over centuries. “I apologise for that unseemly interruption, my lady,” the Lord of Seals said, once the man was gone. “To bring this talk to table while we’re having our dinner.” He shook his blubbery cheeks. “It’s all such an ugly business, don’t you think?”
“Very ugly,” Amara agreed, glaring at him from behind the rim of her cup. She had watched him eating for days, stuffing his face on food enough to feed a hundred men. She had glimpsed his larders too, and seen the fisherfolk coming and going from the beach with nets wriggling and writhing, full to bursting. There is food here, she thought. Plenty of food, but you’ll not share it.
“You think me cruel,” the Lord of Lard observed, not missing that glare. “Oh, don’t deny it. I can see it there in your pretty grey eyes.”
“I think you’re trying to protect your people,” she said. And yourself, most of all.
“Yes, exactly. My people. There are only so many mouths I can feed, Lady Amara. I told you that, when you first came to me, do you remember? The tolls we charge, and the coin we take. It is only to feed my children.”
She remembered that well enough. She’d made a jape about his own mouth costing a fortune, a jape he hadn’t taken so well. She was in no mood for japing now.
