said as he returned and entered the office.
“I was taken in to see the Doge right away,” Kestrel replied. “And there will be a reception tomorrow evening at the palace.”
“I knew there would be!” Castona replied.
“When I entered the court, the ambassador from Uniontown was leaving,” Kestrel said, and he watched Castona make an unpleasant face. “What can you tell me about him?”
“He seems evil,” Castona said, making one of the rare statements Kestrel could remember from him that judged the values of someone or something. Castona usually weighed things in his merchant’s manner and delivered an evaluation, but this ambassador drove the trader to a simpler, more direct conclusion.
“He arrived on one of their ships a couple of weeks ago, and acquired one of the largest estates in the city, one that I didn’t even know was available to be had. He and his group have remained largely within it, coming out rarely, except when they tell the gullible people how strong and wonderful their new gods are. He’s gotten some locals to listen to him already!”
“They say, and I know such rumors are the food of fools,” he commented, “but I almost believe this — they say there are strange lights at night, and screams that are terrible.”
“Where is Uniontown?” Kestrel asked. “I thought I had learned the cities of the north and the Inner Seas, but I never heard of it.”
“It’s not properly a part of the Inner Seas Kingdoms,” Castona answered. “It’s much further south, along the Gamble River, near the Western Mountains. It’s grown in profile in the past few years, starting to sell more goods along the Inner Seas and sending ambassadors to some of the kingdoms there.
“Why they have an ambassador here is beyond me. There’s no trade between the two nations at all,” Castona mused. “But they’ve gone to court and presented their credentials, you say? Then they’re here, for whatever reason, and the Doge can’t have been happy to have to recognize someone who is stirring sedition among the lower classes.”
“That’s not the topic I thought we’d talk about though,” Castona moved on. “I’ve found a berth for you on a ship. There’s a naval cutter that’s headed to North Harbor in two days, and as a Captain of the Fleet you’re entitled to a berth onboard. It won’t be comfortable, but it will be fast; with the right winds you could be in North Harbor in just five days sailing time.”
“What would I do from North Harbor?” Kestrel asked.
“It’s an open port,” Castona answered, meaning that it wouldn’t freeze shut the way Estone would in the winter time, “so you’ll be able to purchase a ride aboard a merchantman from there to take you south, at least to Seafare, and from there you’ll be able to find your way anywhere in the Inner Seas.”
“You’ll be a bit of a curiosity aboard the cutter, The Seagull,” Castona told Kestrel. “This honor of being a Captain of the Fleet is usually given to retired naval officers of distinction. The use of its privileges is very rare, unknown for a landsman.”
“Well, this is probably my one and only time to use the honor, so they shouldn’t worry about abuse,” Kestrel laughed.
He parted soon after, and returned to his room at his inn, where he restlessly waited the remainder of the afternoon, until the early nightfall of the season. Kestrel ate a simple meal at the tavern next to his inn, and waited impatiently for time to pass, until he judged that Merilla would be alone in her home, and he started through the streets to visit her.
There was a cold wind blowing from the North Sea, sweeping debris along the city ways, and it caught Kestrel full in the face from time to time, making him wince as he pulled his hood tight and bent forward. The walk seemed to take forever, but in time he reached the corner he had visited the night before. In Merilla’s house there was only one window lit, and a figure stood at the window looking out, serving as a confirmation that Kestrel was welcome to come in out of the cold.
He opened the door and climbed the stairs, then knocked softly and pushed the door open. He saw Merilla walking towards him, carrying a candle that lit the front of her in a warm glow. She was wearing black underclothes, small scraps of cloth that served mostly to accentuate her curves rather than hide them, and that drew more attention to her flesh by its stark contrast with her pale skin. Kestrel could see such details clearly, even in the dim light, because she wore a diaphanous wrap of material around her body, the sheer white material they had looked at in the shop.
“Let’s go someplace warm,” he said huskily, as she came to him and kissed him, a light cloud of a delicate fragrance enveloping him as she arrived, an expensive perfume, he was sure.
“Wait,” she said, and unwrapped her wispy covering. “No reason to take this in,” she told him, as he pulled off his hood and cape, and set his staff aside. They went into the bedroom and Kestrel removed his boots as Merilla pushed the door closed, and then they laid down together and started to kiss, when a shrill voice cried out.
“Kestrel! Human-friend! I need you! Jonson is hurt, badly, and I’m afraid he will die! Please come take him to the healing spring!” Dewberry was in the air above them, hovering and darting wildly in the dim light of the candle, and Kestrel could see tears rolling down her cheeks, glistening like blue crystals.
Merilla stifled a shriek, as Kestrel looked up at Dewberry’s heart-wrenching distress, then looked down at Merilla’s expression of disbelief beneath him.
“I have to try to help,” he told Merilla, then looked up. “Dewberry get the help you need to carry me.”
Dewberry disappeared without response, as Kestrel sat up. “I’m sorry, my love.”
“We are truly forbidden to be together, aren’t we?” Merilla asked in an emotionless voice. “The gods do not want us to couple.”
“It seems like it, for now,” Kestrel answered as he pulled his pants back on and stuffed his feet into his boots. He went back out to the front room, where he was surrounded by Dewberry and three other sprites.
“We’re going,” Dewberry shouted, as Kestrel reached for his staff, and felt his fingers clasp the wooden shaft a fraction of a second before he left Merilla’s dark apartment and entered the momentary, disquieting transition of chill and darkness that the sprites’ translocation created, then re-materialized in a dark, cool swamp. There was fetid water up to his knees, spilling over the tops of his boots to fill them inside.
“Where are we? Where’s Jonson?” Kestrel asked. He could see virtually nothing in the blackness.
“Reasion,” Dewberry called, “go home and get a lantern. Jonson’s must have burned out.”
Seconds later, a light appeared, and Kestrel instantly saw a horrific sight; Jonson floated atop the scummy water of the swamp, his legs gone, a dark stain spreading out around him. Next to his body floated a huge, toothy lizard-like monster, twice as long as Kestrel was tall. It was dead, a shaft driven through its skull.
Kestrel picked up Jonson’s body. “Take us to the spring!” he cried out, and multiple small bodies embraced him, then deposited him on the lawn next to the spring, where the warm water of the pool was covered in mists. Kestrel plunged Jonson’s body down into the water, laying him on the sandy shelf that was the usual place he rested the sprites.
“Now, Dewberry, take me to Alicia, the elf-woman who came here with us before! Hurry!” Kestrel called. “We may need her to save him!”
The bodies surrounded Kestrel again, and suddenly they were all in a room, where Alicia slept alone in a narrow bed. The lantern in Reasion’s hand illuminated the scene, as Kestrel knelt next to the bed and shook Alicia’s shoulder. “Alicia! Wake up. We need a doctor,” Kestrel said loudly.
The woman’s eyes sprang open, and she looked at Kestrel without comprehension for only a half second, then sat up and looked around the room at the floating crowd of blue bodies. “Gods above! Kestrel, what are you doing here?” she pulled her sheet up over her torso.
“We need you. Our friend, Jonson, the water imp, he had his legs bit off by a monster creature. He’s at the healing spring now. Please come look at him,” Kestrel said, shaking his head slightly as he tried to remove the untimely comparison his mind was making even now between Alicia’s sleek elven body and Merilla’s soft and shapely human one.
“I need, I need my tools,” Alicia replied, climbing out of bed and hurriedly wrapping a robe around her body. “Let’s go,” she darted out a doorway and down the hall. They were in the very building where she had operated on him, Kestrel realized, and he wondered where Silvan was sleeping.
“Take her first, and take the light,” Kestrel instructed Dewberry, “explain to her what has happened, then come back and get me.”
