“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.
