‘Tell us about your journey, Brexan,’ Gilmour said. ‘Garec mentioned that you were at Riverend Palace, that morning so long ago. I guess you were on the wrong side when all this started, but I’m glad you’ve seen the error of your ways and joined us.’
Brexan gave him a thin-lipped smile. ‘You looked a bit different back then, Gilmour.’
‘That I did, my dear,’ the youthful Malakasian replied. ‘Over the Twinmoons, I’ve looked like a lot of things, some a good deal worse than this fellow.’
‘I thought you were dead.’
‘Everyone did. I still manage to get a few surprises out of this ageing spirit.’ He thumped one temple with a knuckle.
‘Sallax would have wanted to know you were alive; he wanted to see you, to apologise,’ she said, sadly.
‘It was Nerak,’ Gilmour said, ‘it wasn’t Sallax’s doing. I would have forgiven Sallax in a heartbeat.’
‘I told him that.’
‘Thank you; I hope he believed you.’
‘He talked often about you, once he recovered. And from what I’ve seen recently, he and Versen were telling the truth,’ she said.
‘Those two always made up nice things about me,’ Gilmour teased. ‘Anything off-colour they might have spilled… well, that’s different!’
‘About you, too, Steven.’ She told them all about how she had ended up in Orindale, working for Nedra Daubert. She told of first meeting Versen, of being beaten by Lahp and transported to Strand-son, of Gabriel O’Reilly’s rescue and of Versen’s death in the meadow near the stream. She cried when she spoke of the big woodsman; Garec joined her. But then she was cold and economic in her description of Haden’s torture. Gilmour was fascinated at how Sallax had found her, and once again he thanked Brexan for helping the big Ronan wrestle his emotional demons.
‘In the end,’ she said, ‘it was really Brynne who helped him get the edge he needed to kill Carpello Jax, and to try to kill Jacrys Marseth.’
‘How did she help?’ Kellin asked.
‘Knowing she was- well, lost to him, that helped Sallax find enough anger and rage to keep focused. He’d come a long way, but he was still prone to drifting a bit. His guilt was enormous, but the wraiths had twisted it into such a knot, Sallax struggled for a long time just to see through the hazy grey of everything plaguing him at once.’ She took a long swallow of beer. ‘After discovering that Brynne had died, so much of what had been haunting him didn’t matter any longer. He wasn’t able to banish it, but he did find the strength to push through it.’
‘So he was back?’ Garec asked. ‘He was cured?’
‘No,’ Brexan said. ‘He still referred to himself as “Sallax” sometimes, but he certainly found his skills again. I watched him kill a raging Seron with just a knife, a big bastard, stinking like shit and set on killing us both. Sallax’s shoulder was damaged at the time; it was healing but still not strong enough for combat.’
‘How’d he do it?’ Garec asked.
‘One-handed,’ Brexan replied. ‘It was unbelievable.’
Gilmour said, ‘He was tough and single-minded; there’s no question about that.’
‘And then we captured Carpello Jax, the shipping magnate who assaulted Brynne all those Twinmoons ago.’
‘And killed him?’ Steven asked, no longer surprised that such things were considered fit topics for polite conversation over drinks.
‘Essentially, yes.’
‘Tell us about Carpello Jax,’ Gilmour said. ‘Garec mentioned shipments. Do you know what they were?’
‘Something from Rona, bark or roots, leaves maybe. I don’t remember very well, and Carpello wasn’t articulating as clearly as he might have under other circumstances.’ She closed her eyes, trying to recall the details of that morning at the Topgallant Inn. ‘He did say that it came from the Forbidden Forest. You know, the one out beyond the Estrad River on the peninsula? My squad used to patrol there for Moons at a time.’
‘Something magic?’ Steven asked, ‘Gilmour, maybe that’s what you felt that day you were searching for Kantu?’
‘It could be,’ Gilmour said, then asked, ‘Garec, how far out on the peninsula did you and Versen go?’
Garec thought for a bit. ‘We never tried to get to the end; that would have been asking for trouble. We only ever went in far enough to hunt and fish. Sometimes we rode for half a day, but I don’t remember ever going as far as the end. No one would try that; they’d have to be suicidal. It’s probably been five generations since any significant number of Ronans were out on that point. The odd boat runs southeast from the inlet, chasing schools of fish, but too many have been burned to the waterline by the Malakasian navy. That’s never been a secret to fishermen: stay out of those waters.’
Steven said, ‘So, I wonder, did Prince Marek close that forest?’
‘About the same time he was wrapping up his takeover and establishing his occupation force in Eldarn,’ Gilmour said. ‘We were always told it was because Riverend Palace was on the other side of the river, and it was some kind of retribution for King Remond and, in turn, Prince Markon establishing the seat of Eldarni government there. We figured he wanted Riverend to crumble.’
‘It has,’ Garec interjected.
‘That’s true,’ Steven said, ‘but could he have been using that land for something else?’
‘Maybe growing whatever it is that Carpello Jax was shipping north to Pellia,’ Brexan said. ‘If it’s trees, they’ve had almost a thousand Twinmoons to spread and mature out there.’
Gilmour’s cherubic face was hidden behind billowy smoke. ‘When did you kill this fellow, Brexan?’
‘Nedra did it,’ Brexan laughed, ‘accidentally. But I suppose it was about a half Moon ago.’
‘That was too early for him to have shipped whatever I sensed in that schooner heading north,’ the old magician said. ‘With him dead, do you think his shipments continued running?’
‘I don’t see why not,’ Brexan said. ‘No one knows he’s dead. His employees may just think he’s missing, and I overheard a pair of bakers talking about him, saying Carpello was involved with all kinds of women – several of whom might even believe themselves to be his wife. So it wouldn’t surprise me if he frequently disappeared on business trips so he’d be away from the capital for Moons at a time.’
‘All right,’ Kellin said, ‘so if we assume that his shipments are some kind of magic bark or leaves or roots, and that they are bound for Pellia, who cares? What are the Malakasian people doing with that much magic?’
‘But they’re not really bound for Pellia. That’s just a stopover,’ Brexan said. ‘They’re loaded onto barges and shipped upriver to Prince Malagon’s palace. That much we did manage to beat out of Carpello before he died.’
‘A whole schooner-full?’ Steven said.
‘Several,’ Brexan corrected, ‘many, even from what Carpello said.’
Gilmour paced around the small room, holding his pipe with one hand, swinging his beer bottle with the other. No one said anything; it was clear he was thinking.
Finally, he said, ‘So Prince Marek closes Rona’s southeast peninsula. The climate’s right, so he plants something he knows he will need one day in the distant future, though he isn’t sure exactly when. Over time, and subsequent Malakasian dictators, Nerak monitors the progress of his crop, whatever it is, and as he draws ever closer to his date with destiny and the Larion spell table, his trees take over much of the landmass south and east of Riverend Palace. A few poachers slip over the river to kill a deer every now and again, but anyone caught out that far is given a tag hanging in Greentree Square. The message about their necks is easy to read: KEEP OUT. And so for nearly a thousand Twinmoons, the peninsula is essentially the prince’s personal garden.’
‘Keep at it, Gilmour,’ Steven said.
‘Generations later, Prince Malagon finds the slimiest shipper he can and hires this fellow to oversee the transport of his harvested crop from Rona to Pellia and then upriver to Welstar Palace, where it’s either stockpiled, or put to some other use. The slimy merchant makes a few trips to Estrad Village, to get a sense of the lie of the land, shipping demands, deep water anchorage off the inlet, and on one of these trips he brutally assaults a young girl at Greentree Tavern-’