31

  Longshore, in a fluttering, noisy healer’s tent:

  After the prince consort left his side, Nalderick sat blinking a few moments longer. He was… and wasn’t… himself. A bit of manna had returned. He could conjure and cup a small mage-glow, sense the wandering minds of his teammates, parents and sister, and levitate about six inches over the scratchy, hay-bale platform he’d been stretched out on. Even managed to cleanse himself somewhat.

  Right. Derrick’s memory was patchy, but he sensed that he’d nearly died, flying a struggling dragon into the side of a mountain. He ought to have felt heroic, but he didn’t. Wanted to rage at the gods, instead.

  “If that was supposed to teach me something,” he muttered. “It failed.”

  Derrick leaned over to kiss Genna’s bruised forehead. Through screaming wind, icy cold and a terrible impact, it had been her manna that kept him alive. Her light that helped others to find him through all of that crushing, rumbling snow. His sister had come near to killing herself, and for what?

  Nalderick swung both his legs off the side of the platform and got to his feet; bleary, exhausted and swaying. His parents, Filimar and Valerian were quite nearby, but he found himself more concerned about Bert, Trixie, Curtis and Wenchie. What had become of his mortal friends, he wondered? Were they safe? What about Kia, his eagle?

  Nalderick took a moment to reorient himself, taking hold of a nearby ley-line. Then, giving that sparking, flickery wizard a very wide berth, he nudged everyone’s attention away from himself, and slipped out of the tent. Away from singing, coughing, moans and occasional barks.

  The light outside was pearly and soft, filtered through curving snow that spread out on all sides and most of the way overhead. The ruins of Longshore sprawled before him. Just scorched, shattered wreckage, and corpses piled up for burning. Blood, mud and ashes. Nalderick swallowed hard, clenching his fists. The curse was broken, Galadin had told him. So, why did he feel like he wanted to sink right into the ground? He should have been happy and proud… right?

  Derrick glanced down at himself, then hauled out Valerian’s magical looking glass. What he saw made his heart sink. The person he had been was gone. Tall, arrogant, dashing Prince Nalderick didn’t seem to exist anymore. What he saw in that shining glass wasn’t an elf or a mortal; ears barely pointed, hair just a plain blondish-brown, eyes a mixture of hazel and green. He wasn’t glowing at all, and his gut muscles bulged, loosened by too much food and strong drink.

  Nalderick rubbed at his bristly chin. Though that ratty half-beard was gone, another seemed to be coming in fast, gritty as stone. Sighing, he dropped the hand from his face and then dismissed the looking glass. Galadin had said that Derrick was clutching chains that no longer bound him. Doing this to himself, somehow… and no wonder.

  Stepping further away from the tent, Nalderick looked around at a village that his actions had brought to ruin. His friends had burned down the warehouse, causing a blaze that spread to most every building in Longshore. His presence had summoned the dragon, which descended in search of the ‘slayer’. Nalderick’s fault, all of it, with a lot of help from the wretched, unyielding gods.

  “Was punishing me worth all of this?” snarled Derrick, folding both arms on his chest. He stared down at his feet, blinking back unwanted tears.

  The air was acrid and still very cold, but his breath didn’t mist and he wasn’t shivering. His illness had vanished, too. Gone away with the curse, he supposed. Nalderick would have called it a win, but most of Longshore’s people were dead, and it looked like they meant to stay that way. By-catch. Mortal collateral damage. Nothing at all to their lofty gods.

  “What did they do to you?” he demanded, low and savage. “Just a lot of grubby peasants mucking about after fish and whatever the ground would yield up. What did they do to deserve this?!”

  Then,

  “Lud Derrick?” somebody whispered, surprising him.

  Nalderick pivoted, almost gracefully, frightening snarly-haired Wenchie, who stumbled back a few paces.

  “Y’ve changed somewhat, Luddy,” she said, growing wide-eyed. “’Cept fer that muddy tunic, I wouldn’t ‘ve known ya. Don’ tell me all o’ that rot about bein’ an upper-class servant were true?”

  “I… well… Yes, in a way. It is,” he responded, starting to smile.

  Derrick was amazed at how good it felt to see and hug Wenchie, then Curtis, and finally Trixie and Bert, when he used manna to ease the older folks down through the hole up above. For a wonder, they hadn’t been touched by the blight. A muttered healing spell dealt with most of their cuts and bruises, leaving Nalderick terribly drained.

  “We did like ya told us,” confided Bert, sharing the last of the grog with his mates and Derrick. “Found a cave an’ laid low, till an avalanche stripped away most of our cover. Dangdest thing ya ever saw, Lud Derrick. Dark one moment, blinkin’ like owls in th’ daylight, next.”

  Stolen story; please report.

  “Was it you did fer th’ wyrm?” prodded Curtis, leaning close enough to fan Nalderick’s hair with a deep, liquor-fueled belch. “Didja kill it, like ya said?”

  “Sort of,” Nalderick admitted, sensing Kia scratching around at the edge of his mind. “Truth is, I pointed the beast at a cliff and let stone do the rest.”

  “Hark at ‘im!” laughed Wenchie, shoving Nalderick’s shoulder. “Our great ‘ero… Mister Fetch-it ter all them big-knobs… an’ ‘ee says it was rock done the ‘ard part!”

  Said Curtis, once the general laughter and foolishness stopped,

  “So… we thought we might pinch a boat an’ head out fer Rich Port. Once everyone that’s left wakes up, we ain’t likely ter find much of a welcome here, Luddy. Comin’ with?”

  Derrick found himself truly considering Curtis’ offer. Step outside of everything that he’d ever been or known? Abandon responsibility to drift along with his mortal friends? The notion was oddly tempting, but Nalderick shook his head, no.

  “I cannot,” he said, regretfully. “What happened to Longshore is mostly my fault, and I have to help put things right.”

  “They won’t thank ya fer it, Luddy,” snorted Trixie, shaking her head. It was warmer near Derrick, and so she stayed close to that fallen young elf. “They come near ter hangin’ ya once already, an’ if wishes could bring ‘em all back, they’d most likely start up n’ finish th’ job.”

  “I…” Derrick fumbled for a way to make them understand him, ending with, “I was cursed for something I did, then ran away to the mainland and bungled things worse, pulling Longshore into my troubles. You four… believe it or not… are the best thing that’s happened to me since I got here, but I have to rebuild Longshore. After that,” Nalderick shrugged, gazing up through the hole in their snow cave.

  “I don’t know. Maybe I’ll meet you in Rich Port.”

  He sensed it when Val awoke from a dream of the past. Kia, he thought. His big, blond northern cousin had Kia. Nalderick meant to reclaim the starving eaglet, but first he pulled a handful of silver pennies out of a faerie pocket.

  “Buy the boat, don’t just steal it,” he told his friends sternly, giving each vagrant three shining coins.

  “Cor… This ere’s more ‘n I’ve ever ‘eld at one time,” breathed Wenchie, shaking the pennies around in one hand to hear them tinkle. “Bein’ an elf’s servant pays that much, Luddy?”

  Nalderick stifled a laugh.

  “My folks may have skimmed a bit off the top,” he said slyly, enjoying the respect it got him. Then, more seriously, “Go find a boat down-river, pay for the drekking thing, and shove off. Maybe I’ll see you in Rich Port.”

  They hugged him again. Even Curtis, to whom Derrick gave back that big iron key.

  “Come in handy, did it?” asked the grinning, bearded ruffian.

  “Aye, that,” lied Derrick. “I couldn’t have broken into the station without it.”

  Next, he helped them up and out to the surface again, exchanging backslaps, farewells and advice as he boosted the humans magically upward. (Only twelve feet, but the effort nearly killed him.)

  “Friends of yours?” drawled a scornful, familiar voice, as someone approached from behind, elven-soft.

  Nalderick took a very deep breath and squared his shoulders, then turned to face Filimar and Valerian. His teammates weren’t looking at each other or standing close together, Derrick noticed, sensing possible trouble.

  “What if they are?” he shot back, addressing Filno. “I’ll chose my own comrades, and there’s more to life than court-ball, drinking and parties!”

  “Aye, that,” agreed Val, forgetting himself enough to elbow Filimar. “There’s also hunting…”

  “…wenching,” added Filno.

  “…and duels. I’d include gambling, but my teammate’s poverty is such a sobering lesson that I’ve given up dicing and cards,” taunted Valerian.

  Filimar turned to glare at him.

  “I’m still going to kill you,” the scowling young lord told his friend. “Just as soon as we’re back in Karellon, we’ve won the tourney and done for Heinril.”

  “That may take a while,” mused Val. “But I’ll be happy to shove you off to your choice of afterlife directly we’ve finished, Arvendahl.”

  “Do hurry up and get married first,” growled Filimar. “A sniveling widow and orphans will add some much-needed grief to your loss, warg-son.”

  Nalderick resisted the urge to crack their heads together like walnuts.

  “Much as I hate to break up this touching love-fest,” he grumped, “I want my eagle back. Valno, where is she?”

  “What? Oh… right here, Highness.”

  Valerian reached sideways into a faerie pocket, producing a very noisy and ravenous chick. Kia promptly bit and slashed him, which warmed Derrick’s heart.

  He reclaimed the fluffy, greyish-white bird, who tried to launch herself from Valerian’s bleeding hand in her frenzy to get to Nalderick. The former prince didn’t have access to most of his own pockets, just the first few. That wasn’t much help, as they held only candy and drink-money, but there were plenty of flash-roasted mice and rats to be found.

  Nalderick conjured Exterminator and began skewering rodents. Valerian and Filimar were horrified. Derrick cared not at all.

  “Do whatever you want to,” he told them, probing under a fallen timber with the tip of his sword. “Go back to Karellon or Rich Port or the Blessed Isles. Whatever you like. I’m going to stay and help restore Longshore. The two of you can…”

  Nalderick’s next suggestion petered out when a big, glowing square unfolded in the air overhead. Not a gate. A sky-view, like the ones that transmitted their matches all over Karellon. The magical screen flared purple and silver, portraying the Grand Council’s cockatrice seal, then that of the Imperial navy.

  Lord Tormund Arvendahl’s image appeared next, in full uniform and rigid posture.

  “Dad?!” blurted Filimar, but the sending wasn’t two-way.

  “Be advised,” announced Tormund, “that the city and people of Karellon have decreed the arrest and return of the following individuals: Alexion Valinor, Korvin Valinor, Nalderick Valinor, Genevera Valinor, Alyanara Valinor Tarandahl, Keldaran Tarandahl, Meliara Tarandahl, Lerendar Tarandahl, Valerian Tarandahl, Infant Tarandahl. The aforementioned are to be taken alive, if possible. As for the traitor Galadin Tarandahl… he is to be slain on sight. A reward is offered, and no blood-penalty will be levied against his killer or killers. This message will be dispatched to the mainland a day early. Be advised and prepared, all who receive this order. That is all.”

  It was a small, almost invisible gesture, but Tormund’s right hand signed: good luck. Then his image disappeared, leaving Nalderick, Filimar and Valerian staring up at nothing but curving white snow and a patch of blue sky.