Firstborn

17 — Quartered with a Gentleman

Rain, driven sideways by the wind, tore at the elves who stood on the stone pier at the river’s edge. The far bank of the Thon-Thalas could not be seen at all, and the river itself was wild with storm-tossed waves. Through this chaos wallowed the great barge, drawn as before by a giant turtle.

The more Sithas saw of the growing storm, the more he was convinced it was not natural. His suspicion fell upon the waiting humans from Ergoth. Their emperor was known to have a corps of powerful magicians in his service. Was this premature, violent storm the result of some dire human magic?

“Surely, Highness, you should not risk this crossing!” warned the commander of the escort standing with Sithas.

The prince held his sodden cloak closed at his throat. “The ambassador from Ergoth is waiting, Captain,” he replied. The turtle turned end-on to the storm waves, which crashed in green torrents over its high-domed shell. “It is important that we show these humans we are masters of our own fate,” Sithas continued levelly. “Praetor Ulwen does not expect us to venture out in the storm to meet him. If we don’t, when the storm ends he can rail long and loud about the timidity of elves.” Sithas blotted water off his face with his wet cloak. “I will not cede that advantage to the humans, Captain.”

The dark-haired Kagonesti did not look convinced.

The barge was close now. The thick wooden hull squeezed a swell of water between itself and the shore. This swell, some ten feet high, fell over Sithas and his escort, drenching them further. The guards cursed and muttered, shuffling about the pier. Sithas stood imperturbable, his pale hair running in rivulets down the back of his emerald cloak.

The ferry master shouted from the deck, “I can’t moor in this swell, Highness!”

Sithas looked to the captain. “Follow me,” he advised. Turning back the flaps of his cloak, Sithas gathered up the lower edge, so as not to entangle his legs. With a running start, he leaped the gap between the pier end and the heaving barge. The prince hit, rolled, and got to his feet again. The soldiers gaped in amazement.

“Come on! Are you fighters or farmers?” Sithas called.

The captain squared his shoulders. If the heir to the throne was going to kill himself, then he would die, too. Once the captain was across, he and Sithas stationed themselves to grab the hurtling warriors as they, too, landed on the barge.

The ferry’s deck rose and fell like the chest of a breathing beast. When everyone was safely aboard, the ferry master blew his trumpet. The implacable mammoth turtle paddled away from shore.

Rain swirled and lashed at them. The scuppers ran full, and all sorts of loose debris sloshed back and forth on the ferry’s deck. The ferocious pounding near the shore lessened as the raft gained the deeper water in the center of the river. Here the danger was from the churning current, as the wind drove the surface water against the natural flow of the river. The thick chains that secured the barge to the towing turtle snapped hard, first the port, then to starboard. The giant reptile rolled with these blows, which sometimes lifted one of its thick green flippers out of the water. As if resenting this challenge to its strength, the turtle put its head down and pulled even harder for the western bank.

The captain of the escort struggled forward to report to Sithas. “Sire, there’s a lot of water coming into the boat. Waves are breaking over the sides.” Unperturbed, the prince asked the ferry master what they should do.

“Bail,” was all he had to say.

The soldiers got on their knees and scooped water in their helmets. A chain was formed, each elf passing a full helmet to the leeward side and handing an empty helmet back to the first fellow bailing.

“There’s the shore!” sang out the ferry master. When Sithas squinted into the rain, he could make out a gray smudge ahead. Slowly the shoreline grew more distinct. On the slight hill overlooking the boat landing stood a large tent. A flag whipped from the center peak of the tent.

Sithas spat rainwater and again clutched his cloak tightly at his throat. In spite of their request to be met and conducted into the city here the humans sat, encamped for the night. Already they were leading the speaker’s son around by the nose. Such arrogance made Sithas’s blood burn. Still, there was nothing to be gained by storming into the ambassador’s tent in a blind rage.

He stared at the swimming turtle and then farther ahead at the gently sloping riverbank. With a firm nod to himself, Sithas teetered across the pitching deck to where the soldiers still knelt, bailing out water with their helmets. He told them to hold fast when the barge reached the shore and to be prepared for a surprise. When Sithas informed the ferry master of his idea, that tired, storm-lashed fellow grinned.

“We’ll do it, sire!” he said and put his trumpet to his lips. On his first attempt, instead of a blaring call, water spurted out. Cursing, he rapped the trumpet’s bell on the bulwark and tried again. The command note cut through the noise of the storm. The turtle swung right, pulling the barge to one side of the pier ahead. The trumpet sounded again, and the turtle raised its great green head. Its dull orange eyes blinked rapidly, to keep the rain out.

There were a half-dozen caped figures on the dock, waiting. Sithas assumed they were the Ergothian ambassador’s unfortunate guards, ordered to wait in the rain should the elves deign to show up. When the barge turned aside, they filed off the dock and tried to get in front of the approaching ferry. The turtle’s belly scraped in the mud, and its shell humped out of the water a full twenty feet high. The humans scattered before the awesome onslaught of the turtle. The elf warriors on deck let out a cheer.

The ferry master blew a long rattling passage on his horn, and the turtle dug its massive flippers into the riverside mud. The bank was wide and the angle shallow, so the great beast had no problem heaving itself out of the water. The driving rain rapidly cleansed it of clinging mud, and the turtle crawled up the slope.

The bow of the barge hit bottom, and everyone on board was thrown to the deck. The ferry master bounced to his feet and repeated the surging trumpet signal. All four of the turtle’s flippers were out of the water now, and it continued up the hill. As Sithas got to his feet, he resisted an urge to laugh triumphantly. He looked down at the human guards, who were running from the sight of the turtle.

“Stand fast!” he shouted decisively. “I am Prince Sithas of the Silvanesti! I have come to greet your ambassador!” Some of the gray-caped figures halted. Others continued to run. One human, who wore an officer’s plume on his tall, conical helmet, tentatively approached the beached barge.

“I am Endrac, commander of the ambassador’s escort. The ambassador has retired for the night,” he shouted up at Sithas.

“Then go and wake him! The storm may last another day, so this is your master’s best chance to reach the city without suffering an avoidable, but major delay.”

Endrac threw up his hands and proceeded up the hill. He was not much faster than the turtle, weighed down as he was by armor. The giant turtle ground its way up, inexorable, dragging the barge behind it. The warriors were plainly impressed by the feat, for the barge obviously weighed many tons.

Torches blossomed on the top of the hill, all around the elaborate tent of the Ergothian ambassador. Sithas was gratified to see all the frantic activity. He turned to the ferry master and told him to urge the beast along. The elf put the trumpet to his lips once more and sounded the call.

They were quite a sight, rumbling up the hill. The turtle’s flippers, each larger than four elves, dug into the soft ground and threw back gouts of mud against the hull of the barge. The chains that shackled the beast to the boat rattled and clanked rhythmically. The giant grunted deep in its chest as the effort began to tell on it.

The ground flattened out, so the ferry master signaled for the turtle to slow down. The barge tilted forward on its flat bottom, jarring the elven warriors. They laughed and goodnaturedly urged the ferry master to speed up again.

The ambassador’s tent was only a few yards away now. A cordon of human soldiers formed around it, capes flapping in the wind. They stood at attention, spears against their shoulders. The turtle loomed over them. Endrac appeared.

“You there, Endrac!” Sithas shouted. “You’d best disperse your fighters. Our turtle hasn’t eaten lately, and if you provoke him, he might eat your men.”

Endrac complied, and his soldiers moved with grateful speed out of the turtle’s way.

“There now, ferry master, you’d better rein him in,” cried Sithas. A quick blast on the trumpet, and the turtle grunted to a stop.

A human in civilian dress appeared at the door of the tent. “What is the meaning of this?” he demanded.

“I am Sithas, son of Sithel, Speaker of the Stars. Your ambassador sent word he wished to be met. I have come. It will be a grave insult if the ambassador does not see me.”

The human drew his cape around himself in a quick, angry motion. “A thousand pardons, noble prince,” he said, vexed. “Wait but a moment. I will speak to the ambassador.”

The human went inside the tent.

Sithas put one foot on the port set of chains that ran from the ferry to the halter encircling the turtle’s shell. The links were as thick as the prince’s wrist. No one but an elf could have walked the fifteen feet along the swaying length of chain in the rain, but Sithas did it easily. Once he reached the turtle’s back, he was able to move briskly over the shell to the beast’s head. The turtle, placid as all his kind were, paid no mind as the elf prince stepped gingerly on its head.

The human appeared again. This close, Sithas could see he was a mature man; his red-brown hair and full beard were sprinkled with gray. He was richly dressed in the vulgar Ergothian style—which meant he was clad in strong, dark colors, wine-red and black, with a golden torc at his throat and a fur-lined cape.

“Well?” Sithas demanded from his lofty perch atop the turtle’s head.

“The ambassador asks if you would care to come in out of the rain for a short time, while preparations are made to go,” said the human more solicitously.

Using the deep creases in the skin of the creature’s neck as hand and footholds, Sithas descended the twelve feet to the ground. Once down, he glanced up at the turtle; a huge eye regarded him benignly.

The bearded human was tall for his race. His gray eyes were hard as he bowed. “I am Ulvissen, seneschal to Ulwen, praetor of the empire,” he said with dignity.

With a sweep of his arm, Ulvissen indicated Sithas should precede him. The prince strode into the tent.

It was the size of a largish house. The first room Sithas entered featured the imperial standard of Ergoth, a golden axe crossed with a hammer, on a field of dark crimson. The second room was larger and far mare elaborate. Thick carpets covered the ground. In the center of the room, a fire burned on a portable blackiron hearth. Smoke was carried out through a metal chimney, made of sections of bronze pipe jointed together. Couches and chairs covered with purple velvet were scattered around the room. A lap desk full of rolled maps lay open to Sithas’s left, and a table laden with decanters of drink stood on his right. Glass-globed oil lamps lit the room as bright as day. Wind howled outside, and rain drummed on the varnished silk roof.

A flap across the room was pulled back, and four thick-armed servants entered, carrying a chair supported by rods through its armrests. Seated in the chair was an ancient human, far older than Ulvissen. His bald head was hunched deep between his shoulders. His skin was the color of egg yolks, and his rheumy eyes seemed to have no distinct color. Sithas did not need to know much about human health to recognize that this was a sick man.

The prince was about to speak to this venerable man when another person entered, a female. She was altogether different from the frail figure in the chair. Tall, clad in a deep red velvet gown, she had dark brown hair that fell just past her shoulders. More voluptuous than any elven maiden, the human woman appeared less than half the age of the man in the chair.

When she spoke, it was with a velvety voice. “Greetings, Prince Sithas. On behalf of my husband, Praetor Ulwen, I greet you.” She rested her hands on the back of the old man’s chair. “My name is Teralind denCaer,” she added.

Sithas bowed his head slightly. “In the name of my father, Speaker of the Stars, I greet you, Praetor Ulwen, and Lady Teralind,” he said respectfully.

She came out from behind the chair and went to the table where the decanters were. Teralind poured a pale white liquid into a tall glass goblet. “We did not expect anyone to meet us. Not until the storm was over,” she said, smiling slightly.

“I received the ambassador from Thorbardin this morning,” Sithas replied. “It was only proper that I come and greet the emperor’s envoy as well.”

The old man in the chair still had said nothing, and he remained silent as Teralind drank. Then she passed in front of Sithas, gown rustling as she walked. By lamplight, her eyes were a foreign shade of brown, dark like her hair. Teralind sat and bade Sithas sit down, too.

“Excuse me, Lady, but is the praetor well?” he asked cautiously. The old human’s eyes were closed.

“Ulwen is very old,” she said with a tinge of sadness. “And it is very late.”

“I can’t help but wonder why the emperor did not choose a younger man for this task,” Sithas ventured softly.

Teralind combed through her thick, wavy hair with the fingers of one hand. “My husband is the senior praetor of the empire. Also he is the only member of the ruling council to have dealt with Silvanesti before.”

“Oh? When was that?”

“Forty-six years ago. Before I was born, actually. I believe he worked on what was called the Treaty of Thelgaard,” she said distractedly.

Sithas tried to remember the obscure treaty, and could only recall that it had something to do with the cloth trade. “I’m sorry I did not have the pleasure of meeting the praetor then,” he said. “I must have been away.”

Teralind looked at the elf oddly for an instant. Humans never could adjust to elven life spans. “In deference to the age of the ambassador,” Sithas added, “I would be willing to stay the night here and escort you all to the city tomorrow.”

“That is acceptable. Ulvissen will find you a suitable place to rest,” Teralind agreed. She rose suddenly to her feet. “Good night, Your Highness,” she said courteously, then snapped her fingers. The servants hoisted Ulwen up, turned ponderously, and carried him out.

Sithas was given a bed in a private comer of the great tent. The bed itself was large enough to sleep four grown elves and far too soft for the prince’s taste. It seemed strange to him that humans should prize comfort so excessively.

The rain struck the roof of the tent with a rhythmic beat, but that did not lull Sithas to sleep. Instead, his mind wandered to thoughts of Hermathya. He would have to work harder to reconcile their differences, he decided. But his wife’s face did not remain long in Sithas’s thoughts. Kith-Kanan soon pushed to the forefront. His twin would probably have enjoyed Sithas’s little gesture of bringing turtle and barge to the ambassador’s very door.

Kith was a long way off now, Sithas thought. So many miles and so much time lay between them. As the prince closed his eyes, he felt the faint but persistent tie that had always existed between him and Kith-Kanan, but now he concentrated on it. The rain grew louder in his ears. It was like a pulse, the beat of a living heart. Feelings began to come to him—the smell of the woodland, the sounds of night animals that no longer lived in the more settled parts of Silvanesti. He opened his mind further, and a flood of sensations came to him.

He saw, as in shadow, a dark elven woman. She was strong and deeply connected to the Power, even as the high clerics and the Speaker of the Stars were said to be. But the dark woman was part of an ancient group, different from the gods, but almost as great. Sithas had an impression of green leaves, of soaring trees, and pools of still, clear water. And there was a battle raging inside this woman. She was trying to leave the Power, and it did not want her to go. The reason she wished to leave was clear, too. She loved Kith, and he loved her. Sithas felt that very strongly.

A word came to him. A name.

“Anaya,” he said aloud.

The link was broken when he spoke. Sithas sat up, his head swimming with strange, unexplained impressions. There was a struggle going on, a contest for possession of the dark elf woman. The struggle was between Kith-Kanan and the ancient powers of nature. The storm…not the work of human magicians, or any magicians. The storm was a manifestation of the struggle.

As Sithas lay back on the ridiculously large bed, a twinge of sadness entered his heart. The short connection had only emphasized how truly far from home his twin had journeyed.

And Sithas knew he dare tell no one what he’d learned.