Admiral Kuvar Arenthorn of Port Denis knelt in the dirt above his village screaming into the night. He began with a plea for forgiveness to the souls of his children, then to the hapless innocents of Port Denis, murdered because of his own stupidity. His screams matched the tortured wailing of his wife, Port Denis’s lone survivor.
Marshalling his wits for a moment, he sprang from the bluffs into the darkness, hoping to plummet to death on the rocks below, but Malagon would not permit it. Reaching out, the dark prince caught Arenthorn in a vice-like spell and threw him back violently into the side of his carriage where the admiral finally lay still, whimpering beneath his breath.
‘Come, everyone,’ the dark prince commanded. ‘Let us return. We have a nation to run.’
The heat inside the tavern was stifling and the smell overwhelming: a fug of unwashed bodies and pipesmoke, that heady mixture of Falkan tobacco and fennaroot that was so popular. Brexan longed for a breath of fresh air. She had been sitting for nearly two avens and moisture was running down the small of her back. It was at times like this she missed the chilly evenings of northern Malakasia. Rona was a swamp compared to her homeland and she had no idea how anyone managed to survive in this climate for any length of time. Fighting to keep her mind sharp while she nursed a sixth beer, she laughed along with the jokes and innuendoes as the local lads battled to win her affection. The reprehensible – if handsome – assassin she had followed sat alone, drinking wine and ignoring the other patrons.
She had tracked the killer north from Estrad Village all day, riding with other travellers along the Merchants’ Highway when she could so he didn’t notice her. He had made several forays into the forest along the river, but invariably returned to the road; she guessed he was tracking someone as well.
As they neared the turn-off for Randel she had joined a group and ridden ahead of him; no one elicited more than a passing glance from the man. It was getting late, so she stabled her horse at the town’s largest inn and waited for him to arrive. Unless he planned to sleep alongside the Highway – a potentially dangerous decision for anyone – he would secure lodgings here in Randel and continue his journey the following morning.
Randel was a prosperous town surrounded by family farms that produced much of the beef, pork, milk and cheese, and vegetables, especially green root and pepper weed for Estrad Village and the southern coastal region. Judging from the clientele, Brexan could see the establishment catered for a wide variety of patrons. Farmhands downed copious quantities of beer alongside landowners sipping fine wines; merchants bargained with farmers while travellers passing through took advantage of the fresh produce to vary otherwise monotonous diets.
Lieutenant Bronfio’s killer came into the tavern a while later and took a seat at the end of the bar. He ordered a small meal from the kitchen and a flagon of Falkan wine. Brexan had eaten alone, but soon attracted a group of locals, who were eager to buy her drinks and shower her with compliments. She told them she was travelling north through the Blackstones with her brother, who had been taken ill earlier in the day and was now asleep in their room upstairs.
Although persistent, the boys were harmless; Brexan was glad she didn’t have to fend off less-polite suitors. These boys, however awkward, had obviously been raised well and were mindful of their manners, even six or seven drinks into their clumsy seduction. Under different circumstances, she might have enjoyed the attention, but this evening she would have been happy to add several rolls of unsightly flab and sprout a crop of ugly moles on her face so the local pack of sex-crazed youngsters would take their enthusiasm elsewhere.
At last her diligence paid off. A tall man who had been drinking in the corner near the fireplace stood and moved across the bar. He wore a hat pulled low over his eyes; she couldn’t make out his features with any clarity through the smoke and bodies. She sat transfixed as the man approached the Malakasian spy. Brexan watched their lips with a faint hope of lip-reading their conversation – but they didn’t exchange a single word. Instead, the man reached inside his coat, removed a small piece of parchment and placed it on the bar under his empty tankard. Without a glance in the merchant’s direction, he turned and left the tavern.
The barman moved to collect the empty stein and as he did, the spy lashed out with snakelike quickness, gripping the man’s wrist. Brexan could not hear what was said, but saw the innkeeper wrench his arm free and motion angrily towards the door. The assassin raised his palms in a gesture of supplication, dropped a handful of coins on the bar and discreetly gathered up the parchment as the tavern owner collected his payment. With a quick look around the tavern, he stood and strode purposefully from the room.
Brexan knew she had to act quickly or risk losing her quarry in the night. She walked up to the bar with her empty trencher and asked the barman casually, ‘Do you know him? That man who just left? He looks very familiar to me, but I can’t place him.’
Trying not to stare too pointedly at the moisture gathering above her breasts, he said, ‘Sure. He’s in here from time to time. Says his name is Lafrent, but I’ve heard others call him Jacrys Marsel, Marseth- something like that.’
‘What does he do?’
‘He moves about a lot. Does a good bit of trade here in Rona… fancy fabrics and textiles.’ He cleared several empty goblets from the bar.
‘I think my brother must know him from somewhere… that must be why he looks familiar.’ To the chagrin of her suitors, Brexan waved airily at them and excused herself, claiming she needed to check on her sick sibling. Hurrying upstairs, she moved along the second-floor hall to a window that overlooked the innkeeper’s stables. She peered back down the hall to be certain she hadn’t been followed, then pushed open the window and leaped out onto a pile of firewood stacked neatly against the wall.
THE ESTRAD RIVER
The cove was a perfect campsite, a small clearing in a grove of evergreen trees, the riverbank almost semi-circular at that spot. Steven felt as though he were back along the Big Thompson in Colorado’s highlands. He was still getting used to the way night fell so quickly in Eldarn – he was glad he had given his watch to Garec, as knowing what time it was at home would only confuse his circadian rhythms further. He amused himself by calculating the maths: if a day here was twenty hours long, then the equivalent of one calendar year would have more than four hundred and thirty Eldarn days and seven full Twinmoons. Gilmour had said the massacre at Sandcliff Palace took place nine hundred and eighty Twinmoons ago. According to Steven’s figures, that would have been about the same time that William Higgins was depositing the far portal and Lessek’s Key in his brand-new safety deposit box at the fledgling Bank of Idaho Springs, late in the year 1870.
Steven’s thoughts turned again to the old man. He liked Gilmour, but he still found it difficult to believe the man was more than two hundred and sixty years old. If Gilmour had lived more than nineteen hundred Twinmoons, he would be the oldest man in the world – by a century and a half.
‘Oldest man in the world,’ he whispered to no one. ‘He’d be the oldest man on Earth, at least. I guess I can’t say whether he’s very old by Eldarni standards.’ He dismissed the thought as irrelevant right now, but he was a little distressed at the number of thoughts he had been forced to dismiss over the past three days. Nothing made sense anymore. He was afraid that if he endeavoured to deal with everything that had been frustrating, confusing, or terrifying since his arrival in Rona, he would have a complete emotional breakdown. No, if he wanted to keep his head level, he would have to ignore the numerous inexplicable aspects of the life and times of Eldarn.