Forty-Six: Slade's Escape

  Soon we came to yet another stand of trees, and decided to bed down for the night.

  “So,” Slade asked us, “the firbolg told you a fire should be safe, here?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Let’s build one. It will frighten off the armored land narwhal, for one thing.”

  We did so, and set out our bedrolls, and ate some of the firbolgs’ food, talking all the while. One question, of course, was foremost for me:

  “So Uncle Slade, how did you manage to get out of Wastemoor? You had been imprisoned for quite some time, right?”

  “Indeed. About two years.”

  “Did the Mage let you go?”

  “Certainly not,” he said. “I mean, I suppose you could say that she let me go whether she liked it or not; but no, it was not her idea. I escaped.”

  “From an underground dungeon?”

  “That’s right. I had help.”

  “From whom?”

  “A guard there. He let me out. And now I’m obliged to get something back to him.”

  “What is it?”

  “Well,” he said. “Something in this hoard, where we are headed. I was not the one who stole this item in the first place, you understand. I traded for it. But it’s an object dear to the Mage herself. It belonged to her. But it was taken from her, and then I traded for it.”

  “Caiside had just let us know that some objects like that might be in with the rest,” I said.

  “Well, yes. That’s maybe not ideal, is it? In retrospect. Personal items of the Mage . . . anyway, this one is a crystal statue. About yay high,” he motioned. “Very finely made. In the shape of a woman. Smooth, bright, glittering, all that.”

  “Something like a very large jewel, then?” I asked.

  “Something like it, yes. And there’s more to it.” He paused again. He seemed strangely reluctant to talk about what I had thought was just another piece of treasure.

  “So this guard,” he resumed. “He took the job of dungeon keeper specifically to find me, and to make this deal. A deal that he would spring me, and then I would retrieve the statue for him. It’s very important to him.”

  “He volunteered to be a dungeon-keeper just to get it back?”

  “That’s right.”

  “I suppose I had never thought about how tyrants staff their dungeons,” I said. “This is an unusual way to do it?”

  “Very,” he said. “Typically, your dungeon-keepers are not so gung-ho about working there. No one volunteers for it. But this man did. He is quite well-born, too. He’s not some desperate ne’er-do-well. But he had heard the rumors – which were true – that I had acquired the statue, and that I had sent it out of Wastemoor.”

  “Had it been his? And the Mage stole it from him?”

  “No. She had it made, herself. But this fellow – he has a wife. A woman he loves very much. And she herself had come into conflict with the Mage somehow. And now, he told me, she is near lifeless. She just sits in a chair in a corner of his home, motionless. Barely breathing. Eyes open, but never looking around. Not speaking. She doesn’t even eat, but still hangs on, surviving; it’s wizardry, something done to her by the Mage. That’s what he said. He seemed believable, to me.”

  “Very sad,” I said. “How is that related to the statue?”

  “Well, it turns out that apparently his wife’s spirit – her life force, or her personality, whatever you might call it – has been locked into that statue. By the witchcraft of the Mage.”

  “What?!”

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  “Yes,” he said.

  “How horrible! Do you think it’s true?”

  “That’s what he told me. And some others who knew the story seemed to think it was accurate.”

  “You took a statue holding this person’s soul?” Freydis asked.

  “I didn’t know what it was!” Slade objected. “I had no idea. I thought it was just a beautiful piece. Worth a fortune on its own. Just wait until you see it. I didn’t realize it essentially imprisons someone else.”

  “And this woman’s spirit is now locked away in a that statue, and kept in your vault?”

  “I’m afraid so.” He shivered. “So, that’s the story. That guard released me. He made it look like I had overpowered him, something like that; some cover story that will get him sacked, but not locked up, we hope. Locked up or worse. So I need to get to that hoard and get that statue back. That poor woman.”

  “And then you have to carry it back to Wastemoor?”

  “No. My alkonost friend will do that. Ilhoniviastorovavisencilavina.”

  “You are still in contact with her?”

  “Yes. I had not talked to her in all my time in the dungeon; but once I was out, she found me. I’ve spoken with her three times, already.”

  “That’s a rare privilege,” Caiside said, “to have an alkonost who looks one up.”

  “Indeed,” he said. “Although I have to say, it’s never a very relaxing visit with her, when she comes around.”

  “Why not?”

  “Eh, you know.” He raised his hands. “Alkonosts. There are a number of them up in the farther reaches of Wastemoor, you know. I’ve met quite a few. Haughty at best, and impossible to work with at worst. And some are allies of the Mage, even. If you do have to deal with one, I definitely recommend saving her offspring first, as I did with her egg.”

  “What happened to that egg, by the way?” Caiside asked. “I have never known. Did it hatch, after everything it had been through? Hauled around the way it was?”

  “It did hatch, yes. Ilhoniviastorovavisencilavina’s daughter, of course. Still small and young, about five years old. Quite small, a chick. I wonder if it is acceptable to call them that? Young alkonosts? It’s what she is, though.

  “I haven’t met her, of course. There’s no way an alkonost would let any outsider see someone that young. Ilhoniviastorovavisencilavina has spoken of her, though. Very proud of her. Goes without saying.” He shook his head. “It was really a stroke of luck for me when that knucklehead smuggler nicked that egg, and I found out about it. Life-changing.” He finished the firbolg honeycake he had been eating.

  “So, tomorrow,” he said. “I join you in your walk. And I hope the way is smooth. I think we come onto some broken land, next, and then up and over a spur of the actual mountains. I suppose this should be our last fire. We’ll be in truly wild lands again.”

  Caiside took to her bedding, then, bidding us good night and going to pile up some leaves to put her blankets on top of.

  Slade and Freydis and I stayed awake longer around the fire.

  “So, how was it to be back in Enkel Kanindal?” I asked him.

  “Very familiar, but very different,” he said. “Any village that peaceful would be a shock to the system after spending so much time in a dungeon. Much less such a village that’s my hometown. But at the same time, not much has changed, really. Danzig and Lila doing well with their sheep. You and your father, Flicker, getting along playing your weddings. The Dwarves stomping around town from time to time.”

  “You talked to everyone?”

  “Of course. They were glad to see me. They, um, were not completely confident in the story they heard from Caiside, you know. About the existence of the hoard.”

  “Neither were we,” Freydis said.

  “So I set their minds at ease that there really is a pile of treasure there, waiting. They appreciated that. I also spoke to Miranda, Flicker. Almost forgot – she sent you this.”

  He reached into his bag and pulled out an oblong parcel, covered in white paper carefully tied up with red string. He handed it to me.

  I unwrapped a bit of it. It was a long sweet roll, an Enkel Kanindal specialty. Its aroma wafted around, pulled by the heat of the fire.

  “Made with cinnamon,” he said. “She must have had a hard time finding that.”

  I went red.

  “So, you are living in that tiny guest house on your parents’ land?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Mm-hm. I could imagine that you would very much like to use some of this treasure, if we do recover it, to buy a proper house for you and Miranda.”

  “Well –”

  “I would love to be able to help with that, Flicker. That alone would make me feel all my years of trading were worthwhile. And Freydis, I’m thinking of you too. I know you may not want to spend your life helping your parents with those sheep. Or doing just that and nothing else. So, a big share for you, too. And for Caiside of course. Plenty to go around.”

  He poked the fire. The orange light flickered about his face. He looked weathered.

  “I’m glad I’ve found you. Let’s go get that hoard and get back home.”

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