Sasharia En Garde (8 page)

As he spoke the sailors divided into work parties, some
pulling in the gangplank, others going to the sail ropes. Zathdar indicated we
should go aft, down a few steps with a carved handrail, and into a cabin that
spread across the back of the vessel, the walls and stern windows slanting in
at a graceful angle. This had to be the captain’s cabin.

Elva looked around with the air of an experienced sailor.
Devlaen seemed more anxious to keep his balance as he clasped his bulky pack to
himself. The siblings halted just inside the door of the captain’s cabin,
blocking the way.

So I turned my attention back to the smooth, slightly
sloping deck. The crew seemed to be mostly made up of young people, females as
well as males. Here and there a gray head was visible among the varying shades
of brown, black, red, and blond. Some dressed gaudily like their captain,
others wore plain homespun shirts and brown-dyed deck trousers. These were like
hip-hugger bell-bottoms of my mom’s day. Almost all of the crew went barefoot.

On a signal the sails loosed, placketing loudly until the
wind caught and filled them so they belled in the slow-moving breeze. The ship
surged on the river, water chuckling down the sides.

“Go inside.” Zathdar’s open-handed gesture was just a tad
ironic. “I assure you, there are no trapdoors.”

Devli and Elva shuffled farther inside the cabin, gazes
flicking warily this way and that. Zathdar’s head barely cleared the bulkheads,
as did mine. A circular table had been built into the center of the cabin,
around which were set cushioned low chairs. I chose the empty one between the
siblings. Zathdar left the only vacant chair and moved to the stern windows,
through which he peered out at the trail we’d descended.

No pursuit appeared before we rounded a bend and a hill hid
the trail from view.

Zathdar faced us. “The short version of what I discovered at
my rendezvous is that the king sent his son with a sizable force to take anyone
found in the tower. Apparently the prince changed his mind when they arrived
just ahead of you and found the place empty. He left the two ridings we met—all
inexperienced men—and took the better ones as an honor guard on an art quest
southward. He seems to have heard about some famous sculptor—”

Devli snickered in a familiar teenage-boy way.

“—or we’d all be guests of the king right now.” Zathdar made
an ironic gesture, putting his wrists together as if shackled.

“Art quest,” Elva repeated, laughing with her brother. “I’ve
heard all about those art quests of his. What d’you want to wager that sculptor
is pretty?”

Zathdar spread his hands, obviously uninterested in
sculptors, pretty or not.

“What now?” Devlaen asked.

I said, “Canary has a son? Why would he put a boy in charge
of warriors?”

Elva waved a hand. “He’s older than all of us. Didn’t you
know? Canardan Merindar was married to someone else before he married the
queen. A morvende. They had a son before the marriage ended. The gossip is, he
ended the marriage so he could marry Queen Ananda, and the prince’s mother went
back to the morvende.”

“Well that would explain the prince’s interest in art. I
mean, what I remember is that the morvende are the deep-cave dwellers who don’t
have governments, but do lots of singing and painting and archive keeping. And
magic.”

Devlaen’s wistful expression made it clear where his own
interests lay.

“I never met any son, though.” I shook my head. “I wouldn’t
have forgotten that.”

“But he wasn’t in the country for a long time.” Elva jerked
her thumb toward the west. “He got sent off to those barbarians at the other
end of the continent to some military school. When he was done with their
lessons in marching, he got sent off somewhere else, I don’t know where, but that’s
not important. The important thing is that he’s about as sky-eyed as the queen.
Won’t set foot on ships. Gets sick. Hates getting dirty, so he won’t drill with
the castle guard, though he supposedly commands them. The king tries to get him
to take charge of guard business, but if he passes by some house with a good
mural, or some fine weaving, or hears a new melody, he’s as likely to leave the
army sitting there in the sun while he chats with some old bard or sculptor or
weaver. Especially if the artist is female.”

“I’m surprised Canary hasn’t killed him,” I exclaimed.
“Unless he’s mellowed since the days he wanted my parents dead. Probably me,
too,” I added.

“Oh no.” Elva waved her hands. “He wanted you alive. To
bring up and then marry off to the idiot prince, according to the gossip my
mother was hearing from castle people, before she was turned off. Then nobody
could complain about your father being ousted.”

“What?” I jerked upright. “I never knew that!”

Zathdar said, “It’s true. That’s why your father had to hide
you before he could act.”

Devlaen smacked the table. “My mage tutor says the king
probably would have killed off Prince Jehan a long time ago if there wasn’t a
severe shortage of heirs.”

“There’s also the fact that though he’s an idiot, the prince
managed somehow to make himself popular.” Elva made a disgusted face. “Even
though he never gets anything done.”

“Maybe
because
he
never gets anything done. He never gives orders, just hands out money, and
follows after any pretty bard or artist. Our mother says that the government is
a mess,” Devlaen put in. “Ma told us the king is now trying to arrange a
marriage to any suitable princess who will accept a bumbling fool so he can get
grandchildren and train
them
in his
wonderful ways.”

“Ah, speaking of wonderful.” Zathdar indicated the cabin
door. Three sailors entered, each carrying a tray. Good smells filled the cabin
as they set the trays on the table.

Zathdar slapped together a sizable sandwich between slices
of very fresh bread and ducked out. His voice drifted from the deck as he
issued rapid orders.

The thundering sails and the groan of wood smothered most of
his words. I caught a few: lookouts, signals, line of sight. I suspected that
the rest of Zathdar’s fleet was guarding the river mouth from the sea. As soon
as we joined them, they’d be running for open water, spread as far as possible
so as to spot any fleets on the horizon.

“So what do you want to do?” Elva asked, recalling my
attention. “I mean, after he puts us ashore again.”

I needed time to consider my words. I took a bite of a
rice-and-cheese stuffed cabbage roll. It tasted like a pot sticker or spring
roll.

When my father taught me that last bit of magic, he’d told
me there were two plans. The best one was that he’d come himself to get us. The
second best would be his old teacher, Magister Glathan, coming for us. That
would mean Dad had had to hide in a certain place, but I had memorized the
release spell. The magister wouldn’t know it in case they caught him and tried
to get it out of him.

The worst would be that no one came.

And the worst had happened.

Nobody had said if Dad or Magister Glathan were alive, but I
knew where to go to find out about my father. I also knew what to do. What I
did not know was whether or not I could trust these people. If Dad was alive
but under protective enchantment, what good would it do to perform the spell,
just to bring him back straight into danger? “I wish I could contact my mother.
She is going to be so worried.”

“If they find her, she’ll be a prisoner,” Devlaen said
soberly.

I sighed.

Zathdar reappeared, the fringes on his bandana dancing in
the freshening wind. “Soon’s you’re done I’ll show you your cabin.” He turned
from me to Elva. “If you don’t want to bunk in the crew quarters, you can share
with her. There are two bunks in the forward cabin.”

Elva looked mutinous, but Devlaen half raised a hand as if
in supplication. Elva scowled at Zathdar. “I’ll stay with the princess. Since
you already have a navigator.”

Princess
. I
laughed.

Everyone turned my way.

I waved a hand. “Never mind. It’s the princess thing. Took
me by surprise. Not that I actually am one. My dad was replaced by a new king.”

“But people remember. Your father was very popular. That’s
why we’ve found so many people to help us.” Devlaen pointed to his sister and
himself.

Elva grinned. “And so was Princess Atanial.”

“Atanial.” Sartoran for “shining sun”. I’d forgotten that.
My throat tightened, causing me to breathe deeply the way Mom had taught me. I
didn’t know if I wanted her to find out I was here or not, and have to deal
with all the memories and the pain of the questions we could not answer.

So I rose and Zathdar led us forward along the gangway. We
dodged around busy crew members. I noticed that nobody stopped or saluted or
any of that. Some of the sailors (and they looked to me more like sailors than
like my idea of pirates) sang as they hauled on halyards. Others high on the
masts talked cheerily.

The forecastle cabin was narrow but pleasant, two bunks
built into the sharply curving bow with storage built below each bunk, scuttles
for air, and two little fold-down tables on either side of the door. Someone
had set neatly piled clothing on one of the bunks, both of which had soft
cotton-wool blankets on them.

Zathdar stood on the deck immediately outside the door, for
there wasn’t much space inside. He ducked his head under the low, carved lintel
and indicated the pile of clothing with an open hand. “Donations. Hope
something fits.”

Elva threw her knapsack onto the other bunk.

“There’s a cleaning frame down in the crew’s quarters. We
all share it.” Zathdar nodded at my bag. “If you want that stowed below, I can
take it.”

“No thank you.” I kept the bag gripped in my arms.

They looked at me, and Elva said diffidently, “What do you
have in that thing, anyway?”

“Just a lot of boring paperwork of the sort you need on
Earth. And a few childhood keepsakes.”

“Oh.” Elva turned away and busied herself with unpacking her
knapsack—all three things.

Zathdar leaned there still, arms over his head and braced
against the lintel, one hand dangling beside his fringed bandana. He didn’t
look the least bit threatening, but Elva set aside the knapsack and scowled at
him, her shoulders tight, arms crossed and held close.

“I’ll send over the remains of the meal in case you get
hungry.” He turned away, letting sunlight stream into the cabin, and ran up
onto the aftdeck to oversee our emergence from the river into the sea.

Sun remembered the ancient castle. It had belonged to the
crown (whatever family was currently wearing it) for centuries, with occasional
zigzags into the hands of rebellious dukes and princes, and once it was a mage
school, established by a princess whose older sister was the heir.

On their very first arrival through the World Gate, Math had
conducted her all over the castle, relating its colorful history and pointing
out with boyish delight various sites of magical traps and illusions.
Ever since the old mage school was closed,
Math had said,
the mages keep insisting
they got them all, but then people discover new ones. In fact, Magister
Glathan—he’s my tutor, I hope you will come to love him as I do—made me go
through until I discovered one, as my own master’s test
.

The one Prince Mathias had discovered lay behind what
appeared to be solid wall. Beyond that illusory section of wall, Sun
remembered, someone had built a cozy little room. There they spent their first
night in this world, and their last. The first in a fire of young and ardent
love, the last in close-hugging sorrow at the imminence of parting, their
tired, bewildered ten-year-old daughter pressed between them for comfort. That
they gave. They also kept her between them for safety, which they could only
try to give.

Sun turned away from the dining hall, and lifted the
tapestry, peering into the mold-walled passage. Even dimly lit by the weak
glowglobe, it clearly had not been disturbed for a long time. She trod
carefully to the end, avoiding leaving footprints on the mold splotches, but
instead of passing down the narrow circular stairs, she turned to the left and
cautiously put out her hand.

Cold, damp air chilled her fingers. Yes, the illusion was
intact. She held her breath and plunged through. Safely inside, she clapped
once. The glowglobe lit, though it, too, was very dim.

Thick, rotting cloth hung on an old rod over the illusory
door. She pushed the curtain along the rod, which would block light breaking
the illusion, and turned around.

The windowless little room appeared to be untouched. There
was the narrow cot on which Sasha had lain her last night in this world, after
Math taught her some spells. Difficult spells—far too complicated, one would
think, for a child. But Math and Glathan had been desperate, and Sasha brave
and determined until she could stay awake no longer.

Sasha had curled up on the bed, and the mage left to walk
the perimeter as well as to give them privacy.

Math and Sun had sat shoulder to shoulder, guarding their
daughter’s slumber while they talked and talked, making promises and
contingency plans.

All in vain.

Sun turned in a slow circle. There was the old carved chest,
its pattern of running horses so heartbreakingly familiar. She lifted the lid,
sniffing in the scent of cedarwood, and pulled out one of the soft yeath
blankets, and a sturdy tunic of Math’s that she herself had packed away. It was
brown livery, the silver-and-crimson firebird of the Zhavalieshins stitched on
the front.

No more sorrow. You’ve
wept enough. So you are back at last. Find Sasha. And then find out what
happened to Math instead of wasting the rest of your life wondering.