Authors: Usman Ijaz
“Port Hope, eh? Cannot say I have heard of it.
What is in Gale for two fine boys such as yourself?”
For that Adrian had no answer, and by the look
on Connor’s face neither did he. Alexis rescued them both.
“They are distant relatives of King Aeiron, and
he thought it time that they see another grand city such as Gale.”
“Ah,” Landerly said.
There was a brief silence, which Alexis broke as
he asked, “Lander, have you heard of any news of Legionnaires in a town called
Haven? It might have been a little while ago.”
“I presume you are talking about Grandal’s
Legion and not the Queen’s?” Landerly mused it over, then his eyes grew wide.
“Ah, yes, I was not too sure about the name of the town, but I did hear about
what happened there. Two Legionnaires dead, a sad thing that.”
Adrian’s gaze fell on Alexis’s dispirited face.
The Legionnaire lowered his eyes and shook his head. “Did you hear how they
died?”
“No one really knows what happened to them,
just that they were murdered. There was some speculation as to thieves, but
that does not make much sense now, does it?”
“No,” Alexis agreed, “it doesn’t.”
“Why did you want to know?” Landerly asked.
“I’d heard rumors,” Alexis said quietly.
The tea was brought then and set on the small
table. Landerly poured a cup and gave it to Alexis. As he was giving Adrian
his, he faltered slightly and spilled a little of the hot liquid onto the
table. “I ... I apologize,” he said. When you get to be my age your hands
barely obey you.”
Adrian smiled gratefully and took the cup.
“Did you see Allyse when you were last in Gale?”
Alexis asked in a resigned tone.
“What? Oh, Allyse. I have not seen her in a long
time,” Landerly said. “Where are you staying in Sune?”
“We took room at an inn.”
Landerly shook his head and declared, “No son of
my dear friend will sleep in an inn whilst I am around. Spend the night here,
beneath my roof, and in the morning you can take the horses and go your way or
stay a little longer.”
Alexis smiled. “Well, I suppose we could use a
night’s sleep in some real beds.”
“Of course!” cried Landerly and clapped him on
the shoulder.
They began to talk once more, of past times and
current affairs, as the boys wandered around the room.
8
For the dinner that night Landerly had a dozen
different dishes prepared, and even hired the entertainment of two puppeteers.
As dish after dish were brought out, almost the boys had the sense of what it
was like to live in extravagance. The night was full of merriment, and for the
brief space of that dinner the three guests forgot the woes that plagued their
minds.
Alexis, sitting on one end of the long, polished
oak table, ate almost mechanically. The food looked great, smelled great, and
he supposed that it must taste great as well, but he couldn’t be sure. It
simply settled in his stomach. He looked up from his plate and saw Adrian and
Connor watching the puppeteer’s display. Landerly watched too, but sometimes
his eyes drifted to his guests, as if to see if everything was to their liking.
Alexis gave the old man a smile as he met his eyes, but in the back of his mind
dark thoughts toiled.
Hamar and Owain dead. Only me now. Can I carry it out
by myself? Can I even take them to Gale safely?
The answers eluded him and
despair filled him. He supposed he had been wrong to hold onto the faint hope
that Hamar and Owain might still be alive, but what else had there been left
for him but to hope and wish?
He ate and drank as much as he thought he could
stomach, and then relaxed and watched the puppeteers. He couldn’t concentrate
on whatever tale the puppets were carrying out. In his mind he kept hearing the
crash of those guns as he had turned and fled.
I couldn’t have done anything
if I had stayed
, a part of him spoke firmly.
Hamar ordered me to leave,
and it’s why I ‘m still alive and so is the boy.
His gaze shifted to
Adrian, and he watched him silently, wondering how many others would have to
die to protect him. It was not anger he felt towards the boy, but a bitter
resentment towards all that had happened, and all that might follow.
“Alexis?”
He came out of his brooding thoughts to realize
that Connor had turned away from the entertainment and asked him a question.
“What did you say, Connor?”
Connor spoke quietly. “Are you really related to
the prince of Teihr?”
Now both boys were regarding him, as was
Landerly, and perhaps even the puppeteers for all that they pretended to carry
on with their show.
“Yes,” he answered, and smiled wanly.
“Why didn’t you tell us?” Adrian asked.
Alexis stared into his wine cup; he supposed he
had been drinking too much of it, but he couldn’t bring himself to care.
“Because often you don’t know if what someone says or does is truly because of
how they feel about you, or simply because of whom you’re related too. It
becomes hard to tell the sycophants from those that are friends.” That was only
half the answer though, but he didn’t feel like delving too much into it at
that moment.
“How true, my boy,” Landerly observed quietly from
across the table.
“Is that why we’re going to Gale?” Connor asked.
Alexis stared into his dark wine, watching his
own reflection staring back at him, and simply nodded.
9
When they were done eating and done watching the
puppets’ acts Landerly dismissed the puppeteers. Adrian and Connor were shown
to their rooms, while Alexis and Landerly moved to a sitting room to enjoy
their pipes.
Adrian relaxed down into the feather mattress
and pulled the covers up to his chest. It had been a very eventful day, and
now, with his stomach full and his mind feeling lazy, he simply wanted to go to
sleep.
“I still can’t believe that he’s of royalty,”
Connor said from his bed across the room.
Adrian shifted to face the wall and make himself
comfortable. “Leave it alone, Connor. I can understand why he wouldn’t go
around telling everyone with an ear to hear.”
“I suppose you’re right,” Connor said, sounding
tired, as well.
Adrian fell asleep, and for the first time in
months he didn’t care what the dreams showed him. Somewhere between dinner and
the final acts of the puppeteers, he had come to a truth. He realized that no
matter what the dreams showed him, it paled in comparison to watching his
mother’s death. As long as that particular nightmare didn’t steal over him, he
thought he could learn to handle the dreams and not let them drive him mad.
10
The pipe smoke hung thick in the air but Alexis
barely registered it. Across from him sat Landerly, watching him in pensive
silence and smoking his own pipe. Alexis noticed the other man’s presence, but
it was like being aware of an inanimate object. He simply didn’t register much
of anything around him.
He felt tired, as if all the weariness of the
past several weeks had at last caught up to him and now threatened to drown
him. He sat there, a stone statue himself, and pondered over the loss of Owain and
Hamar.
I can’t do this on my own
, came the thought again.
Even Hamar
and Owain didn’t believe me ready, yet I was sent along and now I’m the only
one left to guide the boy to Gale.
He wondered if he should not send word
to king Aeiron and ask for aid, and dismissed the thought quickly.
Not from
here. It’s too dangerous. Gale. It will have to be from there.
Landerly suddenly broke him from his thoughts.
“Your accents changed, you know?”
Alexis looked at him, suddenly aware of
everything around him through a haze of weariness. “Has it?”
“It has. You truly sound like a Westerner now.”
Alexis made no reply, content to settle in his
silence again.
“Have you spoken to your father lately?”
“Not in over a year.”
“And why is that?” Landerly asked around his short
pipestem.
“I ... I don’t know,” Alexis answered absently,
puffing at his own pipe. He wished Landerly didn’t want to talk right now; all
he wanted was to be left alone with his thoughts. In an attempt to end the
conversation, he said, “I write to him and my mother, but haven’t been to visit
in months. Lander, if you will excuse me, I should get myself to bed.”
He rose to stand up and the wave of dizziness
that rolled over him nearly threw him forward on his face. Landerly leapt to
his feet and helped steady him. Alexis was appalled at how much help he needed
simply to get to his room. Landerly talked all the while, but his words fell on
deaf ears. The old man let him down on the bed, still dressed, and turned to
leave.
“I’m sorry, my boy,” came the bare whisper as he
walked away.
“Sorry for what, Lander?” Alexis asked, his
words thick and mumbled.
Landerly started, and turned to look at him with
surprise and then sympathy. “Just that you had to hear about your friends’
deaths in this manner.”
The old man left then, and Alexis was left by
himself. He tried to rise to change out of his clothes, but felt too weary for
it, and decided to lie down on the bed to catch his breath.
He was soon fast asleep.
1
When Alexis awoke it was to find himself
surrounded by armed men.
He was grabbed by strong hands and dragged from
the bed and thrown to the carpeted floor. His stirring and confused mind was
still trying to make sense of what was happening as two men held him up on his
knees between them. Early morning sunlight streamed in through a window and
near blinded him, as if he didn’t already feel incapacitated. The wound in his
shoulder was stretched taught and pained him severely. It was but one of the
few things that he noticed, like the dust motes that swam in the daylight.
“What are--” he began, and lost his breath in a
gasp as a third man drove his fist into his stomach. He tried to fold over, but
the men holding his arms wouldn’t even allow that much. Even as the numb pain
spread through him, Alexis became aware of voices shouting from somewhere
deeper in the house.
“Alexis!
Alexis
!”
The boys!
he
thought frantically
. Adrian!
He tried to pull free from the men holding
him, but they were strong and he couldn’t move. He gritted his teeth, and
thought if only he could reach his guns.... His eyes immediately went to the
nightstand, but his guns were not there. He looked down, already registering
the missing weight on his belt, and saw his empty holsters.
“Looking for these, are you?”
Alexis looked up to see a fourth man standing
before him, holding his guns in his hands. He attempted to jerk free and reach
the man and the guns, but to no avail. He only earned himself a backhanded blow
across the face that split his lower lip open. Shaking off the blood, and
making his head throb in the process, he looked around the room. There were
five men in all, he saw, dressed in the coarse blue coats that marked them as
part of the city Guard, and not a one of them wore guns, only swords. Those
that were not holding him had their swords drawn. His anger swelled at the
situation he had awoken to find himself in.
How?
He
demanded of
himself.
“
Alexis! Help
!”
Those loud, frightened screams cut through his
thoughts like a knife. Sudden worry for the boys gripped him. He was angry to
find they had been taken as well.
“
What are you doing?!
” he shouted to the
men around him.
“Our duty, boy,” said the man with his guns as
he leaned close. He was the oldest of the five, with a beard that covered his
chin and trailed up the sides of his mouth. Alexis placed him as the captain.
“Grandal cannot help you now, even if you truly are a man of the Legion.
Grandal is far away, and here we adhere to our own laws.”
At a gesture from the man, Alexis was hauled to his
feet. He realized bleakly that he could barely stand on his own, if not for the
two men holding him up between them he would have sagged to the floor. They
half-carried half-dragged him out of the room.
As they came into the hall they nearly ran into Landerly,
standing outside the room, wringing his hands nervously. Alexis’s eyes met the
other man’s, and sudden understanding dawned on him as clearly as the sunlight
he had awakened to find himself bathed in. “
You
?” he whispered hoarsely.
Landerly looked away, shamefaced, and Alexis was dragged down the hall. “Why,
Lander?
Why?!
” he bellowed as they entered another hall. He heard no
answer.