“Sabia?” Alake was startled. “Why, I suppose she’ll be happy for me. Why shouldn’t she?”
“She’s unselfish. We all know that. And she loves you dearly, Alake, but she’s pretty fond of Devon, too, and I don’t think—”
“Devon!” Alake could barely speak for shock. “Do you . . . Did you think I meant I was in love with Devon?”
“Who else?” I asked as innocently as possible.
“Devon’s very nice,” Alake was going on, “and he’s been very kind and helpful. And I will always think of him with the highest regard, but I could never fall in love with him. After all, he’s little more than a boy.” A boy who’s about one hundred times older than you, I could have said, but I kept my mouth shut. Humans tend to be touchy about their age.
“No,” Alake continued softly, her eyes glowing like candlelight at dusk, “I’m in love with a man. Grundle . . .” She gulped, swallowed, then said, in a rush, “It’s Haplo!”
Of course, she expected me to fly backward around the room in shock and was considerably put out when I didn’t.
“Humpf,” was all I said.
“You’re not surprised?”
“Surprised! Try painting ‘I love you’ in white paint across your forehead next time,” I suggested.
“Oh, dear. Has it been that obvious? Do you ... do you think he knows? It would be dreadful if he did.”
Alake glanced at me sidelong, pretending to be afraid, but I could tell that deep down she was hoping I’d say, “Yes, of course, he knows.” Which I could have said truthfully, because the man would have to be blind, deaf, and dumb and a fool on top of it not to have known. I could have said this and it would have made Alake happy, but, of course, I didn’t. It was all wrong and I knew it and I knew Alake would get hurt and the whole thing made me cross.
“He’s old enough to be your father,” I pointed out.
“He is not! And what if he is?” Alake argued, with the sort of logic one comes to expect from humans. “I’ve never met another man as noble and brave and strong and handsome. He stood there alone, Grundle. In front of those horrible creatures, naked, no weapons, not even his magic.
“You see, I know about the water and how it affects his magic, so don’t say anything to me about that!” she added defiantly. “We humans can’t do rune-magic ourselves, but our legends tell about people who could once, long ago. Haplo obviously wants to hide his power, and so I’ve said nothing.
“He was prepared to die for us, Grundle.”
(No use my saying a word. She wouldn’t have heard me.)
“How could I not love him? And then, to see those dreadful dragon-snakes bow down to him! He was magnificent! And now they’re sending us home, giving us gifts, promising us a new homeland! And all because of Haplo.”
“That may be,” I said, feeling crosser than ever because I was forced to admit that what she said was true, “but what is he getting out of this? Have you asked yourself that? What does he mean, coming around asking me how many men my father has in his army and asking Devon if he thinks the elves would fight if they had to and whether or not they still remembered how to make magical weapons and wanting to know if your Coven could persuade the dolphins and whales to be on our side if it came to war?”
It occurs to me that I have forgotten to mention that Haplo had been asking those very questions of us that day.
“Grundle, you are mean-spirited and ungrateful!” Alake cried, and burst into tears.
I hadn’t meant to make her cry. I felt about as low as a dragon-snake’s belly. Going over to her, I patted her hand.
“I’m sorry,” I said awkwardly.
“I asked him why he wanted to know such things,” Alake continued, between sobs, “and he said that we should always be prepared for the worst and though this new homeland might look like a perfect place, it might be dangerous . . .” She stopped to wipe her nose.
I said I understood, which I did. What Haplo said made sense. What he said always made sense. And that made this nagging, rotten feeling of distrust and suspicion inside me all the harder to bear. I apologized again, and teased Alake until she cheered up and dried her eyes.
But dwarves are always truthful, and I couldn’t help but tell her, “The only reason I said those things is that . . . well . . . it’s just that . . . Haplo doesn’t love you, Alake.”
I cringed, waiting for another storm. To my surprise, however, Alake was quite calm. She even smiled, sadly, but it was a smile.
“Oh, I know that, Grundle. How could I expect him to love me? He must have thousands of women longing for him.”
I thought I should encourage this line of thinking.
“Yes, and maybe he’s got a wife somewhere—”
“He doesn’t,” Alake said quickly, too quickly. She looked down at her hands.
“I asked him. He said he’d never found the right one, yet. I’d love to be the right one for him, Grundle. But I know I’m not worthy now. Perhaps someday I will be, if I keep trying.”
She looked up at me, her eyes shining with her tears, and she was so lovely and seemed older and more mature than I’d ever known her and she glowed with a kind of inner light.
I said, then and there, that if love could do that for her then it must not be bad, no matter what happened. Besides, maybe when we reach home, Haplo will leave, go back to wherever it is he came from. After all, what could he possibly want with us? But I kept this thought to myself.
We hugged each other and had a good cry and I didn’t say anything else awful about Haplo. Devon heard us and came in and Alake broke down and told him and he said he thought love was the most wonderful, beautiful thing in the whole world and we talked about Sabia and then they both made me confess that I wasn’t a stranger to love myself and I broke down and told them about Hartmut and we all laughed and all cried and couldn’t wait to get home. Which made what happened when we got there all the more terrible. I’ve been putting off writing this. I wasn’t certain I could do it, for one thing. It makes me so terribly sad. But I’ve told everything and I can’t very well go on with this story and leave out the most important part. Being saved from the dragons and returning safely to our homelands would constitute a happy ending in most tavern tales I’ve heard. But the ending wasn’t happy. And I have a feeling it isn’t the end, yet, either. The moment our submersible left the dragon-snakes’ lair, we were besieged by—what else—a bunch of pesky dolphins. They wanted to know everything, all about what had happened, how we’d escaped. We’d barely told them before they swam off, eager to be the first to spread the news. There never was a more gossip-loving fish.
At least our parents would hear the good news and have time to recover from their initial shock at learning we were still alive and well. We started arguing among ourselves, trying to decide which of us got to go home first, but that was soon settled. The dolphins returned with a message saying that we were to meet our parents together on Elmas, the elven seamoon. This suited us fine. To be honest, we were a bit nervous, now, as to our parents’ reaction. We knew they’d be happy to have us back again, but after the kisses and tears we figured we could expect a severe scolding, if not worse. We had, after all, disobeyed their orders and run off without thinking of the suffering and misery we’d cause.
We even went so far as to mention this to Haplo, hinting that he would do us another great service if he would stay with us and smooth things over with our mothers and fathers.
He only grinned and said he’d protected us from the dragon-snakes, but when it came to parental wrath, we were on our own.
But we weren’t thinking about stern lectures and punishment when the submersible landed and the hatch opened and we saw our parents standing there, waiting for us. My father took me in his arms and held me close and I saw, for the first time in my life, tears in his eyes. I would have listened to the sternest lecture, then and there, and loved every word.