“The lute. You were going to take your lute.”
“Oh, uh. I ... I decided . . . not to,” she said lamely, coughed, and cleared her throat.
Alake had been keeping watch in the hall. She beckoned to us impatiently.
“Come on before Marabella catches us!”
Sabia hastened after her. I was about to follow, when I heard what I thought was a sigh coming from the darkness, and a rustle in Sabia’s bed. I looked back, saw an odd shadow, and was about to say something when Alake pounced on me.
“Come on, Grundle!” she insisted, digging her nails into my arm and dragging me out.
I thought no more of it.
We three made our way out of the Grotto safely. Sabia led us, and we only got lost once. Thank the One elves never feel the need, as do humans, to post guards over everything. The streets of the elven city were deserted, as would be any dwarven road at this time. It is only in human villages that you find people wandering about at all hours of the night.
We reached the boat. Alake cast her magical sleep over the dwarves on watch and they toppled to the decks snoring blissfully. Then we faced what would be our most difficult challenge during that entire night—hauling the slumbering dwarves out of the boat and back to shore, where we planned to hide them among some barrels.
The sleeping dwarves were so much deadweight, and I was certain I’d torn my arms out of their sockets after wrestling with the first. I asked Alake if she didn’t know a flying spell we could cast on them, but she said she hadn’t gone that far in her studies yet. Oddly, weak, fragile Sabia proved unusually strong and adept at dwarf-hauling. Again, I thought this strange. Was I truly blind? Or had the One commanded me to shut my eyes?
We manhandled the last dwarf off and slipped onto the boat, which was really just a much smaller version of the submersible I’ve already described. Our first task was to search the berths and the hold, gathering the various axes and pole arms the crew had left about. We carried these up to the open deck, located behind the observation room.
Alake and Sabia began to throw them overboard. I cringed at the splashing sounds the arms made, certain that it must be heard by everyone in the city.
“Wait!” I grabbed hold of Alake. “We don’t have to get rid of all of them, do we? Couldn’t we keep one or two?”
“No, we must convince the creatures that we are defenseless,” said Alake firmly, and tossed the last few over the rail.
“There are eyes watching us, Grundle,” Sabia whispered in awe. “Can’t you feel them?”
I could, and that didn’t make me any happier about handing over our weapons to the dolphins. I was glad that I’d had the foresight to slip an ax beneath my bed. What Alake doesn’t know won’t hurt her.
We trailed back to the observation room, none of us saying anything, each wondering what would happen next. Once there, we stood staring at each other.
“I suppose I could try to run this thing,” I offered. But that wasn’t necessary.
As Alake had foretold, the boat’s hatches suddenly slammed shut, sealing us inside. The vessel, steered by no one that we could see, glided away from the pier and headed out into open sea.
The fevered excitement and thrill of our stealthy escape began to seep out of us, leaving us chilled; the full realization of what was likely to be our terrible fate was stark before us. Water swept over the deck and engulfed the windows. Our ship sank into the Goodsea.
Frightened and alone, we each reached out our hands to the others. And then, of course, we knew that Sabia wasn’t Sabia.
It was Devon.
8
In the Council Chamber, in the city of the Sartan on Chelestra, Samah’s pronouncement that the Patryns must be going to war brought expressions of grim consternation to the faces of the Council members.
“Isn’t this what they intend?” Samah demanded, rounding on Alfred.
“I ... I suppose it might be,” Alfred faltered, taken aback. “We never really discussed . . .” His voice peetered out.
Samah regarded him thoughtfully, intently. “A most fortunate circumstance, Brother, that you have arrived here accidentally, wakened us at this precise moment.”
“I—I’m not certain what you mean, Councillor,” answered Alfred hesitantly, not liking Samah’s tone.
“Perhaps your arrival wasn’t quite by accident?”
Alfred wondered suddenly if the Councillor could be referring to some higher power, if there could be One who would dare rely on such an unworthy, inept messenger as the bumbling Sartan.
“I—I suppose it might have been . . .”
“You suppose!” Samah leapt on the word. “You suppose this and you suppose that! What do you mean ‘suppose’?”
Alfred didn’t know what he meant. He hadn’t known what he was saying, because he’d been trying to figure out what Samah was saying. Alfred could only stutter and stare and look as guilty as if he’d come with the intent of murdering them all.
“I think you are being too hard on our poor brother, Samah,” Orla intervened.
“We should be offering him our grateful thanks, instead of doubting him, accusing him of being in league with the enemy.”
Alfred stared, aghast. So that’s what the Councillor had meant! He thinks the Patryns sent me! . . . But why? Why me?
A shadow passed over Samah’s handsome face, a cloud of anger covering the sun’s politic light. It was gone almost immediately, except for a lingering darkness in the smooth voice.
“I accuse you of nothing, Brother. I merely asked a question. Yet, if my wife believes I have wronged you, I ask you to forgive me. I am weary, undoubtedly a reaction from the stress of awakening and the shock of the news you have brought us.”
Alfred felt called upon to say something in response. “I do assure you, Councillor, members of the Council”—he glanced at them pathetically—“that if you knew me, you would have no difficulty in believing my story. I came here accidentally. My entire life, you see, has been a sort of accident.” The other Council members appeared faintly embarrassed; this was no way for a Sartan, for a demigod, to talk or act.
Samah watched Alfred from beneath narrowed eyelids, not seeing the man, but seeing the images formed by his words.
“If there are no objections,” the Councillor said abruptly, “I propose that we adjourn the Council until tomorrow, by which time, hopefully, we will have ascertained the true state of affairs. I suggest that teams be sent to the surface to reconnoiter. Are there any objections?”
There were none.
“Choose among the young men and women. Tell them to be wary and search for any traces of the enemy. Remind them to be particularly careful to avoid the seawater.”
Alfred could see images, too, and he saw, as the Council members rose to their feet in apparent outward harmony and agreement, walls of bricks and thorns separating some from another. And no wall was higher or thicker than that dividing husband from wife.
There had been cracks in that wall, when they’d first heard the startling news of their long slumbering, and came to understand that the world had fallen apart around them. But the cracks were rapidly being filled in, Alfred saw, the walls fortified. He felt vastly unhappy and uncomfortable.
“Orla,” Samah added, half-turning on his way out the door. The head of the Council always walked in the lead. “Perhaps you will be good enough to see to the needs and wants of our brother . . . Alfred.” The mensch name came with difficulty to Sartan lips.
“I would be honored,” said Orla, bowing in polite response. Brick by brick, the wall was growing, expanding.
Alfred heard the woman sigh softly. Her gaze, which followed after her husband, was wistful and sad. She, too, saw the wall, knew it was there. Perhaps she wanted to tear it down, but had no idea how to begin. As for Samah, he seemed content to let it be.
The Councillor walked out of the room, the others followed, three walking with him, two—after a glance at Orla, who only shook her head—removing themselves shortly afterward. Alfred remained where he was, ill at ease, not knowing what to do.