The Fanged Crown

CHAPTER SEVEN

29 Kythorn, the Year of the Ageless One

(1479 DR)

Chult

Harp and his men rowed the short distance through the choppy waves to the beach. He watched Boult working the right oar and grinned broadly. He’d been traveling with the most infamous killer in Tethyrian history, and had never known it.

Cardew had framed Boult for masterminding the entire massacre at the Winter Palace, with political implications that still resounded throughout Tethyr. Knowing Boult and his character, Harp decided there was a vicious irony to the situation. Life was such a travesty. A man had to learn to laugh about it, or he’d burn down the world for what it did to people who did nothing to deserve such pain. As if Boult could read his mind, the dwarf shot him an annoyed look and shook his head in disgust.

The skiff crested a wave, and Boult glowered at Harp over the top of his oar. “You’re a goat, Harp. You’re the son of a goat, and your children will be little, bleating goats,” Boult said crossly.

Harp laughed, ignoring the surprised look on Verran’s face, who had no idea where Boult’s outburst had come from.

There were five of them in the skiff. Kitto and Boult were going with him into the jungle. Harp wanted to bring Verran onshore too, just because he wanted to keep an eye on him. At seventeen, the boy was a year older than Kitto, but he still had that wide-eyed look of most youths-scared, but curious. With his round cheeks and big blue eyes, he looked as if he’d just crawled out of a schoolroom. Verran was almost a head taller than Harp, with a stockier and more muscular physique. Most men of that size dominated any situation they were in. But Verran, who was almost as big as Cenhar, never seemed to know what to do with his body or how to use his commanding presence.

Cenhar and Llywellan had been with him on the Marderward. Both were older and capable in a fight, but Llywellan had the edge when it came to thinking, which made him a better choice to guard the ships. Besides, Cenhar carried a greataxe, and a jungle seemed like the kind of place where they might need to chop down a tree-or something more vicious.

“Don’t worry, Verran,” Cenhar said. “They’re always like that. It’s especially bad when things get hairy. Whenever Harp starts joking, somebody’s going to get hit.”

“Mainly because Harp thinks he’s funnier than he is,” Boult said.

“Kitto thinks I’m funny,” Harp protested.

“Kitto thinks we’re all funny,” Boult said amicably.

From his place at the back of the boat, Kitto didn’t say anything, but there was a faint smile on his lips. Kitto was easily amused by the antics of the world. Although he was quiet, Kitto seemed to be a master at picking up subtle things that Harp usually missed. Kitto could pick a cutpurse out of a crowded bazaar before the thief even made his move.

“Should we be worried?” Verran asked, when the boat reached the shallows. “I mean, are things going to get … dangerous?”

“It’s Chult,” Boult said. “What did you expect?”

Harp and Kitto jumped out and splashed through the waves as they lugged the skiff onto the narrow beach running along the edge of the cove. Kitto crouched down and scooped up a handful of fine white sand. He let it seep through his fingers while the others pulled on their packs and canteens.

“It’s too hot,” Harp groused. Sweat was running down his face and stinging his eyes, and his cotton shirt was sticking to his lower back.

“It’s Chult,” Boult repeated testily. “What did you expect?”

From the ship, the band of green that marked the beginning of jungle looked like a seamless wall of vegetation. Harp could see that the earlier assessment wasn’t far off. The edge of the jungle was an imposing barrier of thorny vines, jagged leaves, and flowers in startling shades of red and orange.

“How in the Hells do you expect us to get through that?” Boult said, peering at the tangled undergrowth in front of them.

“Avalor said there was a path to the colony,” Harp told him.

“He didn’t happen to know where the path began, did he? There’s probably a mile of beach along that cove.”

“Well, we’d better start searching.”

As they walked down the beach, tiny red crabs skittered across the sand at their approach. There were no breaks in the wall of vegetation or paths leading into the darkness of the jungle. Except for their footprints in the sand, there was no evidence that anyone had ever discovered this pristine corner of the world. But as Harp and his men searched the beach, he began to hear sounds from inside the jungle. A faint vocalization, like the cry of a wounded beast, and a rumbling growl echoed out of the jungle. Even more disturbing were the rhythmic sounds that seemed too regular to be accidental.

“Is that drumming?” Verran asked nervously. They’d all heard rumors of what dwelled in Chult, the feral monstrosities that had survived for ages hidden in the tangled undergrowth that covered most of the island: yuan-ti, carrion crawlers, purple worms, plaguechanged horrors too terrible to consider.

“The colony is just a mile inland,” Harp assured him. “Once we find the path, we’ll be in and out before nightfall.”

The men spread out along the beach, searching for what should have been seen easily. In his experience, forests were quiet, reverent places crowned by oaks and conifers, where man or elf could walk between the trunks of trees hindered by no more than the occasional blackberry bramble. The Chultan jungle couldn’t be more different than the forests of his childhood. Listening to the distant, unfamiliar sounds, Harp felt as if he was faced with a creature he’d never encountered before. It was vicious and feral with only one purpose-constant growth toward the heavens.

A few paces down the beach, Kitto stood close to the edge of the jungle. With his eyes closed, he held his hands up with palms open to the tangled vegetation.

“Is something there, Kitto?” Harp asked.

“Heat,” Kitto replied.

“Heat coming off the plants?” Sure enough, waves of hot air pulsed against Harp’s sweaty face. “What do you think

it is?”

“The life of the jungle,” Kitto told him, as the other men joined them. They waited there for a moment, feeling the flow of warm air against their faces, listening to the call of an unknown creature, and staring at the vegetation as if an easy passage through the mass of thorns and leaves might reveal itself.

“How bad can it be?” Harp said, mostly to himself. “We’ll cut through, and maybe the way will get clearer as we get to higher ground.”

“There’s higher ground?” Verran asked.

“It’s hard to see from here, but there are mountains inland,” Boult said. “If we’d sailed from the north instead of the east, you would have been able to see the lay of the land.”

Boult pulled out his short sword, and the other men followed his example. But it was Harp who took the first swing at the vines, quickly hacking a man-sized hole and stepping into the humid darkness. The foliage was thick above his head, blocking out most of the sunshine, with just the occasional patch of sky showing through the leaves.

“Stay close,” Harp said over his shoulder.

The dull whack of his blade against the woody stalks and the rustle of leaves made talking to the other men difficult. The vines seemed to twist out of the way of his blade and regroup after each stroke. The farther Harp moved into the thicket, the slower he moved. The branches scratched his face, and he stumbled on the uneven ground. He couldn’t help but think of Liel and wondered how anyone could make a home in a place as inhospitable as the jungles of Chult.

Harp remembered Liel standing in a grove of ash trees on Gwynneth Isle, shortly after they’d escaped the Marderward. Although Liel had healed his injuries and fever, Harp had still been weak, and the short walk to the grove had sapped most of his newfound energy. Leaning against a tree to catch his breath, he’d watched Liel turn in slow circles staring up at the leaves, while the shifting pattern of light and shadow played across her face. She’d turned to smile at him. Her green eyes seemed to glow in the gathering twilight, and there was a pink tinge on her cheeks.

“The forest makes me powerful,” she said.

There was no arrogance or pride in her words, and for an instant he envied her. Liel could convert the very structures of nature into magic, while he was bound by his mortality, his commonplace mind, and his workman’s hands. But his envy vanished, and he felt awe that the beautiful creature could have cast her eyes on him and liked what she saw. The memory of Liel gave him hope that she might have survived her time in Chult. Who knew how the wildness of the jungle would affect Liel? It might keep her safe and cast her mind places he couldn’t imagine.

“There has to be an opening soon,” Harp said over his shoulder as he hacked through a snarl of sticky vines that reminded him of spiderwebs. “It can’t be so thick all the way to the colony.”

When Boult didn’t answer, he turned around, but the rest of his crew was nowhere to be seen. He couldn’t see the beach, and the passageway that he’d cut through the underbrush seemed to have reverted to its original state. Surrounded by a tangle of plants, Harp suddenly felt disoriented. He tried to listen for the ocean, but he couldn’t hear the crashing of the waves through the dense plants. Harp resumed his hacking, moving slowly back to the beach-he hoped-but without making much progress. If his boyhood forest was a cathedral, the Chultan forest was a demon’s playground.

The air around him was hot and close, and he felt dizzy as if he had been working without water in the hot sun for hours. He realized he had no sense of how long he’d been alone in the thicket. The sunlight world of sand and crashing waves was long gone as Harp struggled against the stranglehold of plants.

“Boult!” he shouted, surprised at how little his voice carried. He might have been yelling from inside a closet for all the sound he made. “Kitto!”

He attacked the vines with renewed vigor. They’d all left the beach at the same time. Surely they couldn’t have gotten too far apart, not when they were all fighting through the same twisted undergrowth. Harp saw a beam of light flash across the ground. Bending down, he saw an opening at knee height. He sheathed his sword and scrambled on his hands and knees into a low, narrow passage through the thicket.

As he crawled along the ground, he felt his hands squish into something soft. The ground beneath his fingers was slick with white fungal growth. He crawled faster, sinking deeper into the thick mat of mold, the putrid smell of decay making him gag. A netting of black moss hung from the branches above him, tangling around his face and neck. Harp felt panic rising in his chest. It would be a miserable place to die.

Up ahead, he saw a clearing in the thicket. He lunged forward and tumbled into the open, pausing to wipe the slime from his hands on the leaves on the ground.

“Harp!” Cenhar called with relief. The old warrior stood at the edge of the clearing, his axe raised high above his shoulder. His long, gray hair was matted with leaves. Cenhar’s massive biceps twitched as he gripped the handle tightly, and his eyes darted wildly as he scanned the undergrowth with unnerving concentration.

“What’s wrong?” Harp asked. Usually Cenhar was as steady as a boulder, but Harp wouldn’t be surprised if the jungle had spooked even the veteran warrior. “I heard something,” Cenhar said.

“Animal?” Harp noticed that his sword’s sheath was coated in white slime. Crouching down to wipe it off, Harp sensed movement behind him. He spun around, but nothing was there.

“Did you see that?” he asked.

“No, but I hear something over there,” Cenhar said. He used the edge of his axe’s blade to part the leaves and peer into the bushes.

“Let’s get back,” Harp said. “We need to find the others and regroup on the beach.”

“Yeah-” Cenhar began. Something long and narrow snapped out of the undergrowth, cracked through the air, and retreated into the thicket with a hissing sound. Cenhar sidestepped out of the way and moved to join Harp in the center of the clearing.

“What in the Hells was that?” Cenhar said. “A whip?”

“I think it was a vine,” Harp replied. The leaves on the ground began rustling as if a multitude of snakes were slithering toward their feet.

“Since when do vines move?” Cenhar shouted as the two men leaped away from the mysterious onslaught. A mass of dark green tendrils rose out of the loam. They undulated back and forth rhythmically before lashing simultaneously across the clearing. Harp and Cenhar scrambled away as the vines snapped against the ground.

“Welcome to the jungle,” Harp said, pulling a flask with a cloudy orange liquid off his belt and flinging it at the vines. The bottle smashed, splattering the tendrils with acid, and making them drop to the ground and retreat out of sight under the fallen leaves. Cenhar and Harp moved to run, but the vines snapped into the air again. Cenhar dropped to the ground, yanking Harp down as the vines lashed over their heads. They clambered to their feet and plunged into the underbrush. Beside him, Cenhar gasped in pain. But when Harp paused to see what had happened, Cenhar shoved him to keep moving.

“Kitto!” Harp yelled. “Boult, you bastard! Answer!”

He heard Boult shouting at him, but the dwarf’s voice sounded muffled and distant. Harp’s skin itched. He looked down and saw small dark shapes swarming over his hands and legs. He yelped and tried to brush them off, but the swarm clung. He and Cenhar blundered in the general direction of Boult’s voice. They stumbled out of the vegetation and onto the beach, as thousands of tiny insects swarmed over their clothes.

Wincing in pain, Cenhar stumbled and nearly fell, but Harp half-carried him down to the ocean waves where they frantically scrubbed off the creatures, some of which were already burrowing into their skin. Harp yanked off his shirt and scrubbed his face and the back of his neck. As they cleaned off the last of the insects, Cenhar groaned in pain. Harp helped him back ashore, and the old man collapsed on the beach.

“What happened?” Boult asked as he loosened the shoulder straps on Cenhar’s leather chestplate. The warrior took ragged breaths between his gritted teeth. A green vine had wound tightly around his upper arm; hooked burrs curled deep into the inflamed tissue.

“It jumped on him,” Harp said.

“The vine jumped on him?” Boult repeated, “I don’t like that sound of that.”

“How long were we in there?” Harp asked.

“Not very long,” Boult replied. “But we all came out onto the beach in different places.”

Harp pulled his dagger out of his boot and began to slice through the vine, sparking cries of pain from Cenhar.

“Damn,” Harp said, sheathing his dagger. “We have to get him back to the ship. Help me lift him.”

But when they tried to pick Cenhar up, his body went rigid, and he seemed to stop breathing.

“Poison?” Boult asked.

“His lips are blue,” Harp said. “We have to move.”

Verran laid his hand on Harp’s shoulder. “Let me try,” he said, but he looked terrified.

“Try what?” Harp asked suspiciously. But he moved away so Verran could kneel beside Cenhar.

Verran held his hands over Cenhar’s chest and began to chant under his breath. As his trembling fingers moved through the air, the barbed plant began to twist and writhe around Cenhar’s arm. The warrior cried out, and Harp moved to stop Verran, but Boult stayed Harp with a hand on his shoulder. The dwarf pointed to the vine, which began smoking as if it were burning from the inside out. With a hissing sound, it blackened and dropped to the sand. Small puncture wounds remained in Cenhar’s arm, but the redness vanished, and Cenhar flexed his huge gnarled hand with a look of relief.

Boult helped Cenhar sit up, and both of them stared at Verran, who looked like he wanted to crawl into a hole and hide.

“Stop looking at me like that,” he said defensively. “I saved you.”

“Uh, thanks.” Cenhar swayed on his feet, and Harp thought the behemoth of a man was going to faint back onto the sand.

“We didn’t know you were a sorcerer,” Boult said to Verran.

“I’m not. I got rid of the vines, that’s it.” Verran jutted out his chin defiantly.

“You used magic!” Boult said.

“You should have told us,” Harp said.

“I’m not … It doesn’t matter,” Verran said shakily.

“Magic always matters,” Boult insisted.

“It’s complicated,” Verran said, kicking at the sand beneath his boots. “And private.”

“If you want to be on the crew, you have to be honest with us,” Boult continued angrily.

“Really?” Verran said. “Does that just apply to me? The captain can keep whatever secrets he wants?”

“What do you mean?” Harp asked.

“You have a massive secret. Not even a secret. It’s all over you.”

“What do you want to know, Verran?” Harp asked quietly.

“How’d you get the scars?” Verran demanded.

When he saw how the other men reacted to the question, Verran lost his adolescent bravado. “They’re all over your body. I even saw them on your feet. You get those kind of scars from a demon pact.”

“There are ways to get scars like mine,” Harp said quietly, “that make a demon pact look like a stroll down the dock. I’m no warlock.”

“What then?

“It’s a long story I promise to tell you another time,” Harp said, “but now….” Harp stood up and brushed the sand off his knees. He caught Verran’s eye and held it. “Where did you learn about demon pacts, Verran?”

Verran looked away from Harp and rubbed his eyes with his fists. “I don’t know anything,” he insisted. Harp could tell he was lying-and doing it badly.

“I’m not angry,” Harp said. “Whatever your story is, you’ve clearly got skills we need. Besides, you wouldn’t believe what Boult told me earlier.”

Boult coughed, and Harp continued, “Men are entitled to their secrets, sure. But when it affects the safety of your crew, it’s time to put it in the open.”

“My father … was a warlock,” Verran said and stopped. Harp noticed the tears forming in the boy’s eyes and decided the topic should be discussed with fewer people around.

“Good enough,” Harp said, raising his hand. He turned to talk to Cenhar. “How are you feeling?”

“Like I been dragged through all Nine Hells … No offense to you, Verran,” Cenhar said.

“Can you row the skiff back to the ship?” Harp asked.

“I don’t need to go back.”

“You’re ill,” Harp said firmly.

“My arm’s all right,” Cenhar said. He waggled his fingers as if to prove that everything worked. “But I don’t want to-”

“Sleep on the ship,” Harp insisted. “Tell Llywellan what happened. He’ll keep an eye on you.”

“What if you have trouble?”

“We’re going to find the colony. We’ll come back to the ship and figure out our strategy together. No time for trouble.”

For a moment, Cenhar looked like he wanted to argue. Changing his mind he said, “Aye, captain.”

“Kitto, Boult, help him get the boat on the water.”

When the three men had moved away, Harp turned back to Verran.

“Your father was a warlock?” Harp prompted.

“Not at first. I loved my father, but he was … easy to persuade. He began studying with a man who had traveled everywhere searching for lost magics and artifacts. My father idolized him.”

“A sorcerer?” Harp asked.

Verran gave a non-commital shrug. “He was very charismatic, and his followers were utterly devoted to him. I’d never met someone who was so … strong-willed. Just a few words could convince you of things that, as I look back on it, made no sense.”

“You knew the man?”

Verran wiped his sleeve across his eyes. “Yes. My father used to take me to their gatherings, in the guts of a derelict building. I was always the youngest one there.” He looked up at Harp. “They said it made me special.”

“You were a child, Verran,” Harp assured him. “You couldn’t have known any better.”

“Some things are horrible no matter how old you are.”

Harp took a deep breath. He and Verran had more in common than the boy thought.

“The man offered my father a deal,” Verran said.

“It’s one of the oldest stories,” Harp said grimly. “Men sell their freedom for power.”

“And it worked,” Verran said bitterly. “My father became very powerful. But he also changed. He’d been so happy, so cheerful, and suddenly it was like something black replaced his heart.”

“Spending too much time around death will do that to a man,” Harp agreed.

Verran shook his head. “It was more than that. I saw scars on his hands one night. Scars just like you have, only they were fresh,” Verran continued. “My father was so proud of them. Whatever he’d done had been a major accomplishment. Mama got so angry. I’d never seen her like that. She saw marks on his back. There were five of them, all in a row. Like … silhouettes of a shape that’s just a little too far away to recognize. The night when he got those scars, one of the … silhouettes … took a new shape. It was finished.”

“I don’t understand, Verran,” Harp said patiently. He knew the boy was trying his best to explain, but finding the right words to describe something evil was hard. Harp knew that as well as anyone.

“It was the pact. My father was given power. And he was expected to do certain tasks, part of a larger plan that none of us understood.”

“And one of those debts was paid that night?” Harp pressed.

“Yes. My mother was clever. Once she saw the mark on his back, she knew what he had done. She took me away from him.”

“Where did you go?”

“A relation’s farm in Cormyr. Mama and I were both relieved to be away from him. We missed who he had been, but we were happy there,” Verran paused. “He found us a year later, after he’d had a change of heart. I’m amazed he found the strength to get away from them. But he couldn’t escape the demon at that point, just fight it. He was a broken man. He’d sit in the fields for hours staring at the sky.

“I was in the village when … something came to the house and killed him and Mama. Our neighbor found me and told me what happened. They smuggled me out of the province that very day. There’s no reason for it to be looking for me, but still I wonder. It’s why I joined the Crane.”

Harp laid his hand on Verran’s shoulder. “None of us have an empty road behind us.”

“No, I guess not,” Verran said, but he sounded unconvinced. He turned sharply as Boult and Kitto walked up to them. Behind them, Harp could see Cenhar rowing the skiff across the waves to the Crane.

“Did you do the spell on the ship?” Boult asked abruptly. “The one that melted the captain?”

Verran looked at his fingers. “I’m not sure.”

“How could you not know?” Boult demanded.

“It seems too powerful for me. Once we left home, my mother wouldn’t let me try spells anymore. She was too scared.”

“And do you try spells now?” Harp inquired.

“Sometimes,” Verran admitted. “And sometimes things just happen.”

“Has anyone ever gotten hurt?” Harp asked.

“You mean besides the dead captain?” Boult reminded him.

“I’ve never hurt anyone … who didn’t deserve it,” Verran finished slowly.

“That’s comforting,” Boult said sarcastically.

“It’s been useful to us so far,” Harp pointed out. “Verran, I don’t supposed you have another useful spell that can locate the path?”

Verran looked sheepish. “It’s over there.”

“Did you just figure that out?” Harp asked.

“Um, a little while back. Before Cenhar was attacked. I was on that side of the trees when you shouted,” Verran replied. “And there’s something else.”

“I hope it’s a welcoming party,” Boult said.

“No. I think there’s a body on the other side of the trees.”

A mesh of woven branches hid the path. Without Verran’s luck, there was little chance they would have discovered it. And without the path, there was little chance they would have made it very far through the twisted undergrowth, fungus slicks, and flesh-eating vines.

“You think it was Bootman’s crew who covered the path?” Harp asked Boult as they made their way down the narrow channel through the dense vegetation. It was more like a tunnel than a path, with leaves and branches intertwining over their heads. Without regular travel across the ground, the jungle would soon retake the unnatural highway that allowed intruders to enter its confines.

“Doubtful,” Boult said. “That wasn’t done yesterday. There was new growth mixed in with the cover. Plus, someone shaped the vines. I don’t think they formed that latticework naturally.”

Boult glanced at Harp out of the corner of his eye. Kitto and Verran were ahead of them on the path, and Boult wanted to know what Verran had told Harp. Boult had been suspicious of Verran from the moment they met him in a waterfront village south of the Amn border. A cold, stinging rain had fallen in sheets, soaking the shivering boy. At first glance, it was obvious the boy was unprepared for whatever he was dealing with. Boult barely gave him a second thought, but Harp had stopped and struck up a conversation.

Harp had bought the boy a hot meal in a nearby inn, and before Boult could kick his captain under the table, Harp had hired the strapping lad to help on the Crane. Despite the fact that he said he didn’t know how to sail. Or use a sword. Or work a trade. Boult didn’t have much use for such helplessness. But Harp was drawn to a needy person like a moth to a flame.

“You’d hire a plague rat to sail our ship,” Boult grumbled as he stomped through the jungle. He glared up at Harp, hoping to get a rise out of him.

“Huh?” Harp asked.

“A plague rat,” Boult repeated impatiently. “And you wouldn’t be able to see his dagger at your throat.”

Harp looked at Boult like he’d lost his senses. “Since when do rats have daggers? What are you babbling about?”

“I’m talking about Verran,” Boult said.

Harp’s brow furrowed. “He’s had a hard time of it, Boult. Give him a chance.”

“He’s a wild shot,” Boult said with annoyance. He should have known that Harp was going to defend him.

“Sometimes wild shots hit their mark,” Harp said. “He took out Bootman. That was helpful.”

“He could have just as easily taken you out,” Boult said. “That doesn’t make you a little nervous?”

“He could have. He didn’t,” Harp said. “And if we find Liel’s body, I’ll be grateful to him.”

“How can you say that?”

“Because I’d know for sure,” Harp said. “I’d know that she was gone.”

Boult sucked in a mouthful of air, mainly to keep himself from saying what he wanted to. Harp’s pining for Liel had gotten old years before, and he hoped the trip into Chult would end it, in whatever way necessary.

“Do you actually think we’re just going to stumble on Liel’s body as soon as we walk into the huge, highly dangerous jungle? Do you know how many people die in the jungle every day?”

Harp rolled his eyes. “No, and neither do you.”

“It has to be a lot. Do you know how many ways there are to die in the jungle? Animals, disease, cannibals … Did I mention they have a disease down here that turns your tongue into an actual slug. In your mouth. Did you hear me? A slug.”

“Ugh,” Harp shuddered. “Tell me why I took the job again?”

“Cause you’re a drunk who can barely keep his ship.”

“Again. Not helping.”

“And I’m not trying to. You were a good sailor once,” Boult said.

“I was good,” Harp said. “That’s why you made me captain.”

Boult snorted. “We made you captain because no one follows a dwarf who gets seasick.”

“Particularly not one as charming as you.”

“There’s another way,” Boult said, after a moment. “We could signal the crew and sail the ships to port.”

“No. I told you already. We have a job to do.”

“We’re not prepared for the jungle,” Boult said quietly. “And selling the Marigold will equal the rest of Avalor’s payment.”

“I’m going to the colony.”

“There’s a good chance that Liel is dead, Harp. What do you want to find? Her decomposing body? Bring it home to her father in a box?”

“Cardew survived somehow,” Harp pointed out. “And I’ll wager Liel is mountains stronger than her pitiful excuse for a husband.”

“Unless he killed her. That’s what Avalor thinks happened, isn’t it?”

Harp hesitated. “He wants proof. And when I find it, it will give me every justification to cut Cardew’s throat.”

“Vankila’s not enough?” When Harp didn’t respond, Boult continued. “Why would Cardew bring Liel all the way down here to kill her?” Boult said. “Why not just kill her in Tethyr? Or just have her kidnapped. Again.”

“Too much protection? Avalor is well connected. And it’s more than that, anyway. Avalor thinks Cardew has his heart set on something else.”

Boult stopped in his tracks. “Avalor thinks so? So what does that sniveling blot of a man have his sights set on?”

“Not much,” Harp said pushing a large fern frond out of his way. “Just the kingdom of Tethyr in the palm of his hand.”

It had been Boult who insisted that Harp answer Avalor’s summons in the first place. Harp and Avalor had never met in person, but the powerful elf had summoned him, and him alone, for a reason. If Avalor offered them a paying job, they would have to take it. Otherwise they were going to lose the Crane. If Harp was being summoned for another reason, he would just have to deal with whatever news Avalor had for him.

“And about time you started dealing with things too,” Boult often said to him. “Kitto looks up to you. And there isn’t much to look up to. Not anymore.”

So Harp hauled himself to the designated meeting place, a pub called the Broken Axe. Although Harp had walked past the shabby building many times, the sign above the front door showed only a war axe cleft in two pieces; there was nothing to show that it was an alehouse.

Harp had a few pints while waiting for Avalor to arrive- just enough to get almost drunk, but sober enough to have a conversation and keep up appearances. It was the best he could possibly expect from himself, given the nature of the situation.

“Don’t drink anything,” Boult had told Harp before he left. “You want to keep your wits about you.”

Then Avalor should have picked an establishment that served tea and sweet cake, Harp thought, taking another drink from his pint and staring out through the dirt-smeared window at the crowded market street. It was late afternoon before some festival to some druid or cleric. Harp couldn’t care less, but it looked as if every wife and daughter from the quarter had turned out to buy a chicken.

“Must be the festival of the chicken,” Harp muttered, earning dark looks from the two scabby men at the table next to his. The pub was only half full, and the two goons had been paying too much attention to him. Harp sighed. If years of hard living hadn’t been enough to dull his senses, he wasn’t sure what would.

“You blokes need something?” he asked in as amicable a tone as he could muster.

The bigger man grunted. “You look familiar.”

That was nothing new to Harp. Whenever he went into a town, a certain element noticed him. Or rather they noticed the spider-web scarring across his face and hands. The scars had faded since the Vankila Slab, but the white lines were still noticeable, particularly if his skin was tanned from days at sea on the Crane. If someone recognized the distinctive scarring, it meant they were familiar with a particular kind of necromancy. As soon as recognition clouded their eyes, Harp hated them for it.

“I don’t think so.” Harp said evenly. It usually played out in one of two ways: The idiot got the hint and shut up, or he insisted on continuing the line of inquiry, in which case Harp usually had to punch something, which wasn’t a good idea. It wasn’t a good idea because Avalor was due to arrive at any moment. It particularly wasn’t a good idea because Boult wasn’t there to back him up. In all the brawls inspired by Harp’s scars, Boult had always been there to back him up.

The men exchanged glances. “You sailed on the Marderward.”

That was not what Harp was expecting. Since they had made no assumptions about his scars, he wasn’t sure what to say to them. But just the mention of the Marderward made him want to get blinding drunk.

One of the men raised his glass. “To Captain Predeau.” And his comrade raised his glass too.

Harp took a big drink. “May the scars of his victims never heal.”

“Hear! Hear!” the men said appreciatively.

Harp took another drink. “May his enemies tremble at the sound of his name.”

“Hear! Hear!”

Harp drained the last of his ale. “May the cries of the children he orphaned never be silenced!”

The big man set down his glass. “Something tells me you’re not speaking well of the dead.”

“Hard to do when the dead ain’t well,” Harp said as he stood up abruptly and shoved back the table.

The men were on their feet at the same time, fists raised and fury in their eyes. The well-dressed gnome who had been drying glasses behind the bar appeared out of nowhere and thrust himself between Harp and the other men.

“You have a visitor,” the gnome said firmly to Harp. “Through there,” he added, pointing to a door behind the bar. “And if you gentlemen will take your seats, I’ll refill your pints on the house.”

Harp bent over to pick up his pack, happy that the world wasn’t spinning as he made his way across the floor. Since he’d got out of prison, he’d spent way too much time in places like the Broken Axe, throwing words around with men like that.

The back room was a dimly lit storage room, packed with jars of pickled food and barrels of ale. A light was coming from under the door on the other side of the room. Harp opened it, half expecting to see the alley. But the dirty cobblestone streets and shabby storefronts were nowhere to be seen. Instead, Harp was standing in the middle of an old-growth forest. He was surrounded by black-barked trees with strands of long red leaves that whispered in the wind. There was the distinctive slant of the shadows and the buttery light he remembered from the harvest season of his childhood. Harp heard a rustle in the underbrush and spun around. On the other side of the clearing was a great tawny stag with reddish horns branching from its head. It paused when it saw Harp, and leaped into the undergrowth.

Enjoying the quiet noises of small animals hidden in the underbrush, Harp followed the stag and saw a narrow path winding through the trees. He tried to remember the last time he enjoyed the quiet of a forest, but it had been years, before he was imprisoned in the Vankila Slab. He had spent too much of his adulthood in the city.

The path rounded a bend, and in the clearing in front of him, he saw an auburn-haired, copper-skinned elf alone at a mahogany table that was simple in design but polished to a glossy shine. Dressed in unadorned gray robes, the elf’s hands were folded on the table, and his eyes were closed as if he were meditating. A roughly hewn staff rested against the table beside him.

It was Avalor, Treespeaker of the Wealdath Forest and member of Queen Anais’s privy council. And father of Liel, Harp thought, again wishing he were drunker than he was. Avalor didn’t move or give any sign that he recognized Harp’s presence. In fact, he seemed to be in some kind of a trance. From his reputation, Harp knew Avalor was an older elf, although his unlined face and lean body betrayed no signs of aging.

When Harp reached the table, Avalor opened his eyes, rose to his feet, and extended his arm. Harp shook his hand, and the elf looked into his face and smiled gently. Staring into Avalor’s bright green eyes, which were very much like Liel’s eyes, Harp relaxed. The knot of tension in his belly faded away.

“Please sit, Master Levesque,” Avalor said, nodding to a chair.

“Harp,” Harp told him. He’d not used his surname for a long time.

“Thank you for coming,” Avalor said. “I have wanted to meet you for a while.”

“Is this … Are we in the Feywild?” Harp asked, taking a deep breath. The air smelled of honeysuckle and freshly turned earth.

“No, no,” Avalor said. “It’s just an illusion. We are actually in the barkeep’s rather unremarkable garden. Much less pleasant. But we are alone, and the high walls keep away prying eyes. So you may speak freely. I thought we would be more comfortable. I have a keen dislike for the city.”

“It’s remarkable.” Harp shook his head in wonder. “I could swear I’d walked into the heart of a forest.” He looked back at Avalor. “I appreciate it. I, too, have a keen dislike for cities.”

“And yet you frequent them as if you can’t help yourself,” Avalor pointed out.

“I never got a chance to thank you for getting me out of Vankila,” Harp told him.

“And I never got a chance to thank you for saving my daughter,” Avalor replied.

“I didn’t save Liel.”

“I think you did.”

They sat quietly for a moment, and Harp could feel the elf’s eyes inspecting the lines of scars crisscrossing his hands.

“I’m regretful that I couldn’t get you out of Vankila before-”

“I’m grateful for what you did,” Harp broke in. He didn’t want to talk about his scars with Avalor. Someone powerful enough to create such an illusion in the barkeep’s garden was sure to see through his nonchalance. Harp still had nightmares that one day the scars would unbind themselves and his body would fall apart into pieces on the ground. He had no interest in discussing his past with such a living legend.

“I was surprised to receive your summons,” Harp continued.

“Yes, it is a matter of some delicacy,” the elf began.

Harp snorted. “Are you sure I’m the one you want? Delicacy isn’t my strength.”

Avalor studied him. “I believe I can trust you in the matter. Let me begin by saying that we will pay you two thousand gold. Half of it on acceptance of the job, and the rest when you return with the information I need.”

Harp frowned. “That’s a lot of coin. You already had my attention.”

“Yes, but I need your secrecy. You’re a man of strong loyalties. The general nature of the task may be shared with your crew. But I’ll ask you to keep the specifics to yourself, at least in the early stages of the venture.”

“You want me to keep information from my crew?” Harp asked.

“At first. At least until you’re away from our shores. If you don’t feel like you can do that, we can end our conversation right now.”

“It’s not my way to keep secrets from my men,” Harp said slowly. He knew that the coin from the advance itself would let them pay their debts and keep the ship. And without the ship, there wouldn’t be any crew anyway.

“I know,” Avalor said sympathetically. “But I need to make certain this information does not find the wrong ears.”

“All right. But if there comes a time that I have to tell them for their safety, I will.”

“Agreed.”

“So what’s the job?”

“Liel was murdered. I want you to find evidence of the crime and … bring her home.”

Avalor’s words hit Harp like a fist to his throat. He found himself coughing uncontrollably, as if he had swallowed water wrong. When he finally got control of himself, he looked at Avalor, whose angular face betrayed a hint of anger and sadness.

“I’m sorry to be so blunt. There’s no way to soften a truth this hard.”

Harp nodded, still trying to master his shock at the news that Liel was dead.

“I apologize if I upset you. I don’t know the extent of your relationship-”

“I haven’t seen her in years,” Harp interrupted.

“But I know she cared for you deeply and had many regrets after you went to prison. It was at her request that I sought you out in the Vankila Slab. I would have on my own accord, had I known the situation. But, of course, I did not. Until she told me.”

“Why me?” Harp managed to say. “Why of all people do you want me to look for her?”

“Isn’t that is obvious?” Avalor said. “You of all people will take the matter to heart.”

“Who do you think murdered her?”

Avalor reached for the nearby staff, his hands gripping the wood until his knuckles were white. “Do you even have to ask?”

“Why would Cardew want his own wife dead?”

“He’s quite involved in the Branch of Linden. They’re backing him for a powerful position on the Privy Council, but having an elvish wife is an embarrassment.”

“How could you let her marry him?”

Avalor laughed. “Let? She knew I didn’t want her to marry him. But she thought their marriage would help the tensions between elves and humans in Tethyr.”

“She did?” Harp asked. Liel never told him that.

“I told her it wouldn’t make any difference, that she shouldn’t sacrifice her happiness for such an unlikely possibility. It became such a raw issue between us, that we stopped talking about Cardew.”

“Still, why kill her? There are other ways to end a marriage,” Harp pointed out.

“Not if you want to marry a queen.”

“Cardew wants to marry Queen Anais?” Harp said doubtfully. The queen already had a consort, who was rumored to be perfectly weak-willed and unambitious enough for her tastes.

“Her niece, Harp. He wants to marry Princess Ysabel.”

Maybe if Harp had been sober, the wheels of his mind would have spun a little faster. As it was, he didn’t comprehend what Avalor was implying.

“Ysabel is just a girl …”

“Impressionable and easily manipulated.”

“What about the queen we already have?”

“As you may or may not know, there have been plots to remove her since The Children’s Massacre. With coordination and cleverness on the part of her masters, Ysabel could become queen of the realm.”

“Which would mean that Cardew …”

“Would be royal consort and have the ear of the queen.”

At that thought, Harp automatically reached for a drink that wasn’t there. “What do you have in mind?”