The Queen of Death

17

“How wonderful to see you again,” Majeeda said to Kandler, Sallah, and Burch. “I feared our paths might never cross again.”

Kandler stared at the mad elf as if his eyes might fall from his head. Sallah and Burch remained silent too, just as stunned as he. Ledenstrae struggled to stifle a vicious laugh, enjoying the situation but clearly wanting to avoid insulting his surprise guest.

Then Kandler realized he’d stopped breathing. He took in a deep breath then plastered a pleasant smile on his face. He thought that Ledenstrae would see it for the thin disguise it was, but he didn’t care. He knew from experience how dangerous the wizard was. If he treated her with the respect she felt she deserved, she would gobble it up, or so he hoped.

“My Lady Majeeda,” Kandler said in Elven, after clearing his throat. “How wonderful to find ourselves in your presence again.”

Majeeda arched a desert-dry eyebrow at these words. “Is that correct?” she said, hiding her suspicions under the thinnest veil of civility. “The manner in which you took your leave of my hospitality would seem to indicate otherwise.” Kandler gave the deathless elf a short bow. “My deepest apologies if our actions caused you any distress, my lady. We were called away in an instant and didn’t wish to disturb your rest as such a late hour.”

Majeeda rasped at this such that Kandler thought she might fall over from lack of breath. The he realized she was laughing. “My foolish soldier,” she said, “do you not know that those such as I do not require such things?”

Kandler feigned disappointed shock. To nail home that effect—he hoped—he switched to the common tongue again. “Please allow me to double my apologies over this incident. We must have seemed rude in the extreme to leave so hastily. Please believe that we had only your interests in mind.”

The justicar looked to Sallah, who nodded regally. She seemed to see the need to pay Majeeda some respect, whether authentic or not, but she didn’t enjoy playing along with the charade.

Kandler felt something somewhere in the room thump against the floor. He’d been in enough fights to recognize it as a body slumping to the ground, and he coughed to clear his throat once more. Before he could say anything, though, Majeeda raised a skeletal hand to silence him.

“May I ask what you have done with the airship?” she asked. Her papery lips shook as she spoke, and Kandler knew everything turned on giving her the right answer here.

“When we discovered her, we realized that she must have belonged to the intruders you had mentioned to use during that wonderful dinner you served us. Since she had sat for so long, unused, we thought …”

The skeptical look on Majeeda’s face told Kandler he was losing her. He struggled to find the right words and felt himself starting to panic. His hand fell to his sword.

Dealing with Ledenstrae was one thing. That elf had something to lose. Majeeda, on the other hand, was not only crazed but powerful. She could probably kill them all with not much more than a word, and where would that leave Esprë then?

Perhaps if he could unsheath his fangblade quickly enough he could kill Majeeda before she could cast a spell. Killing something already dead was always tricky though, and he would only get one try.

“That’s how you found us,” Sallah said to the deathless elf. “Isn’t it?”

Majeeda stopped staring so coldly at Kandler and smiled at the lady knight. Her lips crinkled like paper around her yellow teeth. “Of course,” she said. “I am a seer of many things—especially those that I own. When something has been in my possession as long as that horrid airship, I know where she is. Finding her is as easy as closing my eyes.”

She did just that by way of illustration. Her eyelids folded and unfolded like ripe husks, and Kandler realized that he’d never seen her blink before.

“Why?” Kandler said. “If you know so much, then you must understand what Esprë means to Ledenstrae.” He meant to speak around Esprë’s dragonmark. So far, neither Ledenstrae or Majeeda had said they understood her horrible powers, and he didn’t care to tip that hand without some kind of confirmation that they’d already seen it. “Why would you help the people who abandoned you so long ago?”

Majeeda’s head wobbled atop her neck, and Kandler feared it might fall off. Instead, she spoke. “Don’t you see, my dear soldier? Your stepdaughter is my way back into the good graces of proper elf society. She’s my way into the Undying Court.”

The deathless elf spoke with such breathless glee at the end that Kandler thought her concave chest might burst from the rare stress of expressing a happy emotion. He nodded at the creature, whose presence turned his stomach more than ever. He didn’t want to incur her wrath, but he refused to consider turning Esprë over to Ledenstrae, now more than ever.

Kandler gave Majeeda a half-hearted smile. “I am pleased to hear that you’ve managed to find your way home. Permit me to take my leave of you once more so that I might go and tell my daughter the good news.”

“Please,” Ledenstrae said, stepping forward to show Kandler the door. “I’m looking forward to seeing my daughter again. It’s been far too long.”

“Of course,” Majeeda said, “we must do something to repay the man for all his trouble of taking care of your darling for so long, mustn’t we?”

Ledenstrae cocked his head at the deathless elf, surprised at the turn the conversation had taken. “How do you mean?” “It is unseemly to not present such a man with a gift to demonstrate your gratitude for all his efforts. Just think what sorts of horrible fates might have met young Esprë, wandering through this cruel land, thinking herself to be an orphan.”

Ledenstrae narrowed his eyes at the elf. “What did you have in mind?”

“Why, the airship, of course.”

Ledenstrae’s suspicious frown evaporated. “What a splendid notion.”

“You want to trade me an airship for Esprë?” Kandler couldn’t believe the words passing through his own lips.

“If you have no further need of her, I will pay you handsomely,” Ledenstrae said, warming to the idea. “I’ll even arrange for your passage home—wherever that might be.”

Kandler hesitated. He had no intention of letting them take Esprë, no matter the price, but he wasn’t ready to declare that to them yet.

“You’ll probably be happy to get rid of her,” Ledenstrae said. “A ship like that is nothing but a target.”

The elf’s tone bore just a hint of menace, enough so that Kandler couldn’t miss it. Majeeda, on the other hand, showed no sign of detecting it. She smiled blankly at both him and Sallah.

“I’ll have to discuss it with my crew,” Kandler said. He bowed toward Majeeda. “My thanks for your kindness, my lady.” He nodded sharply at their host, then turned and left. Sallah followed close behind.

“Where’s Burch?” she whispered as they stepped into the basket.

Kandler kept his mouth closed until the basket began to descend. “Don’t worry about him,” he said. “He’ll let himself out.”

“What are you going to do?” Sallah said.

“Just what I told Majeeda. I’m going to discuss it with the crew. Then we’re going to sail out of here as if we had a horde of dragons on our tail.”

“What about me?”

Kandler looked at her, surprised. “I—I don’t know,” he said. “I hadn’t thought that far ahead.”

“You can’t leave me here after you race out of town. They’ll have my head on a pike.”

“You could come with us.”

Sallah’s nostrils flared as she glared at the justicar. He turned away.

“We’ll find someplace safe to drop you off,” he said. “Maybe in Q’barra. Wyrmwatch isn’t that far from here, I think.” Sallah nodded. “One of our faithful is the lead elder there, a man by the name of Nevillom. That could work.”

When the basket reached the ground floor, the guards showed Kandler and Sallah to the door. “The dockmaster returned to his post,” one of them said. “You can show yourselves back.”

The door to the tower slammed shut behind them. As it did, Burch appeared from where he’d been hiding behind the door.