The Game Piece: Homeward I Page 4

  “You interested?” a voice called from behind him.

  Turning quickly, out in the street he spotted a solid-looking man in his early thirties with a friendly face, wearing a flour-dusted apron. The man’s sandy hair was thinning at the crown. Loni guessed that as the man aged, he would become stocky and bald.

  “Pardon?” Loni asked, uncertain what the man had meant.

  His new acquaintance stepped forward with a smile that reached his eyes.

  “Karlin Boigiesque, at your service,” he said. “I run the bakery down the way. I’m also the default caretaker for this place, assigned by a bank of Bela that holds the deed. I saw you stop for a look and wondered if you’re interesting in buying it?”

  “Buying it?” Loni had no idea how to respond. “It is for sale?”

  “Three years and running now. The last owner had it open for four years while he made payments. But he fell ill, lost his appetite, and died soon after. A shame, as he was a good sort, and this was the best inn Miiska had to offer. Without it, the quality travelers passing through town don’t stay long.”

  The man, this Karlin, sighed, but then perked up and fished a key out from under his apron.

  “The main bank of Bela holds the deed, but so far no one’s shown interest in buying the old place. You want a peek inside?”

  Loni had no intention of buying an inn in a small human port town. But he was a little curious. The inn somehow reminded him of himself, all on its own, not fitting well with its surroundings.

  Slightly ashamed of wasting the baker’s time, he nodded.

  Karlin opened the door, and Loni stepped inside. The first thing he saw was the dusty front desk. It was made from finely crafted mahogany, and he imagined it had once gleamed. Further in, he looked around at the faded opulence sinking further into decay.

  The walls had once been painted a shell white that now looked dusky gray. Red carpets, thick enough to sleep on, covered the main floors and hallways, including up the staircase at the entryway’s far end. But these had grayed with dust as well, and some had small holes as if nibbled by rodents. Large, dark-toned paintings of battles, seascapes, and tranquil landscapes hung in strategically tasteful places. Long dead, dried, and blackened saltwater roses still stood in simple but exquisite ivory vases.

  “You are the caretaker?” Loni asked with a frown, wondering about the age of those dead roses.

  “Figure of speech,” Karlin answered, glancing at a vase himself. “The bank gave me charge of the key and asked me to let any interested buyers have a look.”

  The neglected state of the place left Loni feeling sad, but he had his own path to follow, and this Karlin seemed a talkative sort.

  “I am on my way to Bela soon,” Loni said.

  “Are you?” Karlin appeared curious about this ambiguous statement.

  “I would like to find the elves of this land. I’ve heard their ships sometimes make harbor up there.”

  Even the friendly Karlin paused at this change in topic. “They don’t dock at the piers, but sometimes they anchor in the harbor. I’ve only been to Bela a few times in my life—too big for me—but I don’t think those elves come often.”

  But they do come, Loni thought, and that was all that mattered.

  “So, what do you think of this place?” Karlin asked.

  “I think it could be beautiful… again.”

  Karlin smiled. “Well, you’d be most welcome to it.” His smile broadened, “add a bit of mystery to the place, you would.”

  · · · · ·

  Back at the Moon Sliver, Loni received distressing news from Captain Townsend. The main mast needed to be replaced, and that would take half a moon.

  “But I need to get to Bela,” Loni insisted.

  This journey had already taken longer than he’d anticipated. He was anxious to find his people—his real people—and someplace where he belonged.

  The captain frowned. “Well, you’re here. Miiska is as good a place as any to start your reports to the guild.”

  Loni tried to keep his temper. What if in this delay he missed one of the elusive ships of those other elves?

  “No, I need to start in Bela, in a city.”

  Townsend looked unconvinced but pointed down the docks. “There’s a small schooner heading out tomorrow. You might be able to buy passage, and Bela should only be a four-day run in this weather.”

  At least that was some relief, and Loni still had ample coins to pay for passage.

  · · · · ·

  The king’s city of Bela rested at the base of an immense peninsula reaching over thirty leagues into the ocean from the northwest corner of Belaski. On each side of the peninsula’s base were two large bays with mouths some eight to ten leagues wide. They were known respectively as Vonkayshäé u Vnútornä Zäliva, or the “Outward and Inward Bays.” The former was on the peninsula’s ocean side, while the latter faced northeast into the Gulf of Belaski. Bela was situated at the inner most point of the Outward Bay facing the ocean.

  Loni learned all this and more on the journey up the coast from Miiska. The schooner’s captain proved to be both talkative and a self-proclaimed amateur historian. But nothing could have prepared Loni for the sight of the great port.

  The land at the bay’s back was a massive, rising slope that extended all along the shore. At its center was the king’s city of Bela, the “white” city. Apparently, more than three centuries past, before Belaski was named or known as a country, Bela had consisted of little more than a small keep settled at the slope’s crest.

  Villages closest to the keep spread into a town, and a defense wall had been erected around all of this. But the schooner’s talkative captain told Loni that the town, eager to become a city, wouldn’t be contained. As the population grew, new structures sprang up, with the keep expanding to a castle proper as well. The city sprawled ever farther along and down the slope. A second fortification wall was erected around Bela, as the city was then called. Given more years, it still wouldn’t be confined. A third ring wall with regularly spaced towers almost reached to the shore and the expansive docks that supported moorage for scores of ships.

  To Loni’s eyes, it all looked overwhelming as he departed the schooner and headed up into the three-ringed white city with one thought in mind: to find an inn and hide for a short while before launching into what he hoped would be the final step of his long journey. He would make himself known to the descendants of the Departed, and they would take him home to his true place in the world.

  He stopped at the first inn nearest the docks and asked for a room with a view of the harbor. Alone in his room, he sank onto the bed in relief, relishing solitude once more. He didn’t like Bela. It was too large and too crowded.

  To his surprise, he found that he missed the easy, open feeling of Miiska. But he didn’t have a choice. From all he’d learned, his only chance was to wait here and watch the harbor.

  · · · · ·

  A whole moon passed, and Loni’s days had become uncomfortably idle. He did little but keep watch across the vast bay, not truly knowing what he was looking for. Still, he was certain he’d know when he saw it.

  One day, he sought out a shop and sold another game piece—a horse with bright blue gems for eyes that his grandmother had called “sapphires.” By now, he had a solid handle on the value of local coins and made certain he wasn’t cheated. The resulting money would pay for his meals and his keep at the dockside inn for some time. But he didn’t want to be stuck here for that long.

  Every day, he grew to dislike the crowded walled city even more. It was loud and crushing, making him feel as if he were suffocating. He often didn’t sleep at night. Worse, unlike the people in Miiska, who had looked at his eyes and ears in curiosity, he saw only suspicion and wariness on the faces of those who lived and worked here.

  In Miiska, it seemed that no one ever had any dealings with elves, so he was more of a novelty than anything else. Karlin the baker had suggested he would add �
�mystery” to that place. Here, people looked at him as a potential danger to be avoided.

  His life-long sense of not belonging grew more acute than ever. But he did not miss life in a’Ghràihlôn’na, nor was he sorry he’d come. This was all a means to an end, and the end was worth any suffering.

  The weather began growing even colder, and it seemed to him that fewer ships were making dock. He began to worry that perhaps the Elven people of this continent might not travel by sea in the winter. If so, he was in for a long and miserable wait until spring.

  That afternoon, as he walked the northern shore beyond the port, watching the waves, a glint caught his eye. At first, he wasn’t certain it was more than sunlight breaking through the cloud cover to strike the water. It sparkled like polished metal, but then it wavered, as if what it reflected rippled in the wind or rolled on the ocean.

  Then he saw the ship.

  It rode smoothly across the ocean’s surface. That shimmer, like the inside of clamshell, came from its white sails—like undyed shéot’a cloth.

  Loni shaded his eyes.

  Long and sleek, the bow reached out to a point like a spear. The hull appeared to gleam a sun-tinted green. But when he blinked, it had shifted to a rich gold as the sunlight dulled.

  Loni’s breath stopped, catching in his chest. He looked around wildly, spotting a young fisherman coming from the surf, and he ran to the man.

  “That ship out there, where is it from?”

  He already knew, but he needed to hear it.

  The young man glanced back out over the bay and then eyed Loni with a mix of discomfort and confusion on his face. “It’s Elven,” he answered shortly, “from the far north, on the east side of the cape.”

  Loni had not traveled all this distance in vain.

  “Thank you,” he managed as he ran for the water’s edge and stood there staring at the strange ship in the distance. What should he do next?

  He waited, but nothing more happened. For as still as the ship was, it had likely had set anchor, but there was no sign of a skiff or other boat leaving it that he could make out. Perhaps they were waiting for nightfall?

  The few hints he’d heard of the Elven people here suggested they did not mix openly with humans. But he was not a human, and he was not waiting for nightfall.

  He ran back for the port.

  Smaller piers had been haphazardly constructed on the north end for skiffs and fishing vessels. Most of the fisherman had come in for the day, and the area was nearly deserted but for the gulls crying overhead. He walked out to the end of the first short pier, and of course there were several empty skiffs tied off. He was no thief, but he could not think anyone would begrudge him merely borrowing one briefly—not after the long journey he’d made and now that he was so close to the end.

  Climbing down into a skiff, he untied it and pushed off. Settling in the middle, he fumbled with the oars, having never used such a vessel before. With too much splashing, he rowed with more energy than he’d felt in a year. He thought of his grandmother, wishing he could tell her of this moment, and how he’d found the descendants of the Departed and the legendary Sorhkafâré, his true people.

  He couldn’t put a name to all his emotions, though relief was the strongest, and he rowed faster, ignoring the weariness growing in his arms. As he neared, constantly looking over his shoulder, the ship became larger and larger in his sight. At each glimpse, he only pushed himself harder.

  Taking another glance ahead, he saw something silvery glint over the top of the ship’s rail.

  “Bârtva’na!” a voice shouted at him.

  It took an instant to recognize that word; it was strangely formed versus the way he would have spoken it.

  Stop now!

  Another glint appeared over the rail as he ceased rowing and the skiff merely drifted in nearer to the ship. To his shock, two white-blond men were leaning over the rail with arrows pulled back in their bows aimed at him.

  Remembering how they were said not to mix with the humans here, he let go of the oars and carefully stood up.

  “No,” he called back in Elvish, hoping they could follow his dialect. “I am one of you! I came to find you.”

  The elf on the left looked to the other with uncertainty. Whether it was because Loni spoke something akin to their language, or that his way of speaking differed from theirs, Loni couldn’t be certain. The one on the right lowered his bow but kept his arrow notched as he squinted down.

  Loni watched as the two whispered briefly to each other—possibly arguing by the quick shifts of their expressions. Then the one on the right turned slightly, speaking to someone behind him. They both backed away from the rail as a rope ladder was thrown over the side.

  Loni took a shaky breath of relief. They’d understood him and realized he was one of them. Grabbing the oars again, he maneuvered the skiff in beneath the ladder to grab the bottom rung. Even after the long row, he climbed up quickly and crawled over the sculpted rail—like the edge of a giant holy leaf, now that he saw it up close.

  He landed lightly on the deck, and for an instant he was distracted by his immediate surroundings. Starting with the sidewall beside him, the entire deck appeared to be made from one solid piece, without a single crack or seam in its smooth tawny surface. Of course he knew of what some called the Makers and Shapers among the Lhoin’na who could create such things. But they were very uncommon, rare anymore, and he’d never heard of a “making” or “shaping” of this size. It was inconceivable.

  Then… he looked up, and the first waves of doubt began to touch him. He was surrounded by other elves, their eyes all locked on him in open hostility.

  They were slightly taller than the people of his homeland, taller than his father and brother. Their hair was white-blond, and their skin a darker tan than was common among the Lhoin’na. There was something savage in their facial expressions.

  The two who’d first appeared over the rail came at him quickly, bows still in hand. Both wore hauberks of hardened leather. They carried long bows of subtle curves that curled more at the ends, and they wore quivers perched over their right shoulders. The heads of their notched arrows were made of shining white metal.

  Each grabbed one of his arms with their free hand, and he struggled in surprise.

  “What are you doing?” he asked. “I am like you, just come from afar!”

  His words had no effect. Perhaps twenty people on deck began to shift, making way as a single figure approached. Doubt gave way to fear as Loni took in the newcomer.

  He was as tall as the others but moved so fluidly and gracefully that his steps made no sound. He was dressed all in wool of a color somewhere between dark forest green and dusky gray. His matching cloak had its corners tied up across his waist. His cowl was thrown back, and his hair glowed nearly white in the sun.

  But his slanted eyes caught Loni’s attention the most.

  They were so light of color as to be almost yellow rather than amber. Yet they were cold, like a mid-winter’s day, regardless of any sunshine. They studied Loni’s hair and eyes with a mix of confusion and malevolence.

  “You are not an’Cróan,” he said flatly. “What are you?”

  Though his accent was thick, and parts of the words seemed oddly out of order, Loni understood the man—but he had no idea how to respond. As near as Loni could follow, the term “an’Cróan” meant “those of the blood.” But he had no idea what this meant or what was happening here.

  It had all gone wrong, and everyone on deck was watching him. These elves were nothing like what he’d imagined the descendants of the Departed to be.

  “I belong with you,” Loni said, though he wasn’t certain anymore. “I came all the way from the central continent to find you.”

  One archer holding him said something so quickly that he couldn’t follow the words. It sounded like a question, something to do with “mixed blood.” The one in the tied up cloak studied him again and shook his head.

  “No,”
he said quietly, “not mixed blood, but not an’Cróan either.”

  “My people are the Lhoin’na… of the Glade,” Loni rushed on, desperate to be understood. “They were your people once, where your ancestors came from. Sorhkafâré took some and left that place a thousand years ago.”

  “Liar!” spat one of the armored archers holding him.

  The yellow-eyed one remained still and quiet. His eyes widened briefly, and his right hand slipped up inside his left sleeve. Two things became blindingly clear to Loni.

  This one man knew he spoke the truth about Sorhkafâré, but it appeared the others did not.

  Second, Loni realized that his life was in danger. For some reason, the gray-clad man was deciding whether to kill him or not. He saw something in that darkly tanned face, and the man paused in a disturbing stillness.

  Lhoin’na did not spill the blood of their own. Perhaps these people still followed that same edict. This man might view him as an outsider, someone not… of the Blood. But the yellowed-eyed one, to whom all here appeared to defer, had acknowledged him as full-blooded.

  That one pulled his hand sharply from his sleeve, still empty, but he flipped the same hand toward the ship’s rail and barked, “Off!”

  The two holding Loni jerked him backward toward the sidewall.

  “Do not come back,” the yellow-eyed one said quietly.

  “Wait!” Loni shouted, and then he was pushed over the rail.

  He went tumbling over the side, head first, hit the cold water, and sank deep. Twisting to right himself, he clawed toward the surface and broke it to gasp for air. He was not a practiced swimmer and struggled to reach the skiff. When he latched onto its side, he looked up once more at the smooth vessel above him.

  Three archers now leaned over the sidewall, aiming drawn bows at him. Their meaning was clear. He would leave or they would kill him right there.

  Shattered in mind and numb in body, Loni pulled himself into the skiff and grabbed the oars. He began rowing away but gave little notice to where he headed, his eyes still locked on the ship… and those archers.