My Royal Pain Quest (The Lakeland Knight series, #2) (9 page)

“They are.” I reached out and took the cluster, relieving him of the weight. “They are called grapes.”

“Let’s eat, then.” He plopped down next to me. “There are plenty of them, so we won’t go hungry.”

“Thanks, Reggie.”

It had been a while since I ate, I could use a snack. The grapes were excellent, ripe and sweet. I gave Reggie a handful and watched him bite in, getting juice all over him, pulling out seeds.

I wished I knew what to do. I had to admit, this situation was unlike anything I’d dealt with in all my career of villainy.

“Did the witches ever say what they wanted from you?” I asked.

“Yeah. They were after out secrets, wanted to know how Swirgs disappear and hide so well. I said I don’t know. They didn’t believe me. But they said, ‘It’s all right, the others will tell us if they want you back’.”

So I had guessed it right, it was about blackmail.

“Queen Wilhelmina will reward you again when we get back home,” Reggie said.

I sighed. “I’ll be honest with you, Reggie. I don’t know how and when we’ll be able to do it.”

He looked surprised. “You haven’t yet thought up a plan?”

“No.”

“It’s all right, you will. Or Cassandra will come and get us out.”

If only I could be so sure.

I tried to think. Cassandra had to be worried by now, probably wondering whether she should try to open the passage or go back to Triar for help. That is, if she’s still alive…

She is,
I told myself.
Otherwise Ragnar would have been here to taunt.

If she can’t open the door, she would eventually choose to go back. Or perhaps she would send
Frederick
. Yes, that’s more likely. It would take Triar some time to come to the mountain, but together they should have no difficulty with the door. Reggie and I should be out of here in a few hours.

And if something didn’t go the way I’d just calculated… Then I had only Ellar to count on. If Faradin lets him come.

“I also found human stuff in there,” Reggie said, licking grape juice off his fingers.

I looked at him, distracted. “What?”

“Big things. Like someone your size would use.”

“Where?”

“Over there,” he pointed at the leafy thicket. “In a huge wooden house.”

Of course. It only made sense that the witches had some sort of a shelter here, and probably supplies. How had I not thought of that? Not that we needed anything, and I hoped we wouldn’t be here long enough to want to use the shelter, but it wouldn’t hurt to check it out.

“Show me.”

It was not far; nothing could be far away on this little island. We walked under the leafy canopy. The “huge house” was only huge from Reggie’s perspective. It was just a hut, much like the other one the witches had. The door was not locked. Inside I found a table, a bench, and several wooden boxes. Everything was easily accessible, the witches had no fear of thieves here in this place. One box had a cooking pot, bowls, and spoons, the other contained folded blankets. Modest food supplies were stored in the third box: pouches with walnuts, dried beans, barley, raisins.

The fourth box surprised me with a luxuriously decorated book: the gold-encased cover had four sapphires, one in each corner, and a ruby in the middle. Under the book I saw a heavy golden chandelier, a silver tray, and several smaller items like a gilded quill holder and jewelry. This had to be the witches’ treasure trove, the most valuable things they owned. The only item that seemed out of line was a mirror shard. Small, narrow, slightly darkened, it looked like something that belonged in the trash, but its being placed here, in the same box with the treasures, indicated otherwise. It had to have some hidden value, most likely magical.

I picked the shard up and took a better look. Just a piece of a broken mirror, nothing special, expect for a distinctive twirling pattern on the back, painted in red. What’s the point to decorate the back of a mirror that was most likely encased?

Well, there was no way to know. I put the shard back and lifted the book. I opened it, hoping it might contain the incantation to unlock the passage, but the pages were filled with unknown symbols.

“Can you read this, Reggie?”

The little Swirg shook his head.

“Oh well then. No luck.”

We searched some more, found nothing interesting and returned to the seashore. Reggie ran to the rocks, to check on the passage. There still wasn’t one.

“Why isn’t Cassandra coming?”

“She’s… doing her best, I’m sure. It’s not easy to open that door, she might have gone for help.”

“I’m tired. I’ll go take a nap, wake me up when she’s here.”

“I will.”

He curled up in the shade. I went to the sea, now rolling with gentle waves, and splashed some water on my face. That mirror shard wouldn’t leave my mind. Was it something like a spare key?

I went back to the hut, took the shard and brought it to the rocks hiding the passage entrance. I tried touching the stone with it, turning the shard this way and that, pressing it flat to different spots, moving, drawing invisible figures with it—a circle, a triangle, a cross. Good thing no one saw me, I must have looked like a picture of lunacy.

Nothing worked. Well, it was worth a try.

I wanted to follow Reggie’s example and rest, but I couldn’t. I sat next to him, watching the waves and trying not to think.

The sun was beginning to set when I heard the stone crack—the sound I’d been waiting for as I clung to the dwindling hope, yet it startled me. I jumped to my feet. The door had opened. A figure showed up, walking slowly, heavily laden with several large sacks, bending under the weight. It was Cassandra. She looked apprehensive, almost fearful, squinting against the sun as her eyes swept over the area. The moment she saw me her face relaxed in relief.

“Alive and in one piece.”

“Yes.” I stepped toward her. “What’s all this you are carrying?”

“Stuff we’ll need.” She walked out of the passage.

“Wait, don’t let the—”

Too late. The stone door slammed shut behind her.

I stared.

“…I take it Triar has told you the password.”

She dropped her heavy load. “No. He doesn’t know it. But we couldn’t use the tunnel to go back, anyway.”

“Why?”

“It’s complicated. Triar tried to explain, I’m not sure I got it all right. He said the tunnel’s doors don’t work like ordinary doors. You can’t open and close them any way you want. When you unlock the tunnel, you are given a pass to the other side. That means, you go in, the door closes, you travel through, the door on the other side opens, lets you out, and closes. That’s it. You can’t change your mind in the middle of the tunnel and turn back; the door you had entered won’t open. You’d have to go all the way through, let the door close, then open it again to get another passage.”

I tried to process it. “So you can’t enter when someone else is walking out?”

“No. You’d risk getting stuck in the mountain because the other door will not open to let you out.”

“I see. Extra security to prevent unauthorized access.”

“Something like that.”

I looked at the blade on her belt. It was not Jarvi’s.

“You left the sword with Triar?”

“I had little choice. I could not bring it with me. I asked Triar to go through the tunnel to you, but he wouldn’t hear of it. He’s scared of flying.”

“What does that have to do with…” My gaze fell on the sacks. “Oh no. You’ve brought flying berries.”

“Yes. Lots of them.” She looked at me, confused. “Why do you say ‘oh no’?”

There was no way to break it down to her gently.

“Because now we’re stuck here. I hoped Triar came up with something else.”

***

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“We can’t fly all the way back,” I explained, “it would take days.”

Cassandra arched a brow. “So? I’ve brought enough berries. And food, too. We’ll stop to rest, eat and sleep. We’ll make it just fine.”

“There’s no place to stop. It’s an island. We’d have to fly over the sea. There is no land all the way from here to mainland.”

I expected her to crumble under this news, but she didn’t.

“Who told you that?”

“Ragnar, the gormack. He was here to gloat.”

“Ah, that explains it. He lied.” She reached into her pocket and pulled out a folded parchment. “Here’s a map Triar gave me. He knows exactly where this island is, he’s marked the way for us. There are other islands on the way. See?”

I looked at the map. She was right. The first island was a bit farther than the rest, so the first part of our journey back would be the most challenging, but after that we’d have no trouble making regular stops.

“That stinking blue rascal. We’ll see how he likes our return.”

“Cassandra’s here!” sounded Reggie’s voice. “You said you’d wake me up!”

“Uh, yes. Sorry, Reggie, I was just going to do that.”

Cassandra bent down and scooped him up. “Hi there, big fellow.”

“‘Big fellow,’ yeah, right. Stop teasing.”

“I was worried about you. Are you all right?”

“Better than ever, having all kinds of fun! Don’t even wanna go home.”

“No? Well, that’s good, because it’s going to be a while before we get there.”

We filled him in on the situation. He was ecstatic.

“Hurray, the adventure continues! Yip-yip-yippee!”

He squirmed so hard, Cassandra could barely hold him. She released the Swirg to continue his happy dance on the sand. We both couldn’t help chuckling.

“When do you want to head out?” Cassandra asked.

I looked at the setting sun. “No point to rush and leave now, flying in the dark can easily turn into a disaster. We’ll rest, prepare for the journey the best we can, have a good breakfast in the morning and then get going. How does that sound?”

She nodded. “Sounds like a plan. I could use some rest. And I’m dying to know what you did with the witches.”

“Ah. I think I’m going to have you guess.”

We built a fire to ward off the gathering darkness, sat around it and spent some time filling each other in on what we’d been through. Reggie, who said he could see perfectly well in the dark, went and brought more grapes, Cassandra opened one of her sacks and took out some bread and potatoes. She shared her part first. The door suddenly closing and shutting me in when I’d entered the mountain had startled her, just like it had startled me. She hadn’t yet known that the mountain was actually a passage, so she thought we were inside fighting—me against the three witches and three beasts. She’d pressed her ear to the rock, trying to listen in, but she couldn’t hear anything. As time passed and nothing was happening, she’d grown worried. She hoped it meant I had won but couldn’t unlock the door, because if I was killed, the witches would have probably come out. Cassandra had waited some more, then tried to open the passage. Just like I thought, she was not strong enough for that, she couldn’t overcome the resisting force and bring Jarvi’s sword close enough to the mountain to hit it.

She had then run back to where
Frederick
waited and asked him to bring Triar the hermit, as soon as he could. That turned out to be much more difficult than it sounded. Not only the Swirgs had the policy of avoiding humans at all costs, they thought Triar the worst of them. I hadn’t told them about the impostor, so as far as they were concerned, Triar was the bad guy who had lied to me and sent me to steal their emerald apple. Somehow, Cassandra had managed to set the record straight and explain it all to the very deeply frowning
Frederick
. He had only agreed to go to Triar after she used Jarvi’s sword to prove she was telling the truth and the real Triar was indeed a friend.

Which had led to another problem. To bring Triar to the mountain,
Frederick
would have to make sure the hermit wouldn’t be harmed by the witches’ magic while passing the swamplands. That meant giving him anti-magical berries. That meant revealing the guarded secret of saveberries. At the very least,
Frederick
needed the queen’s permission for it.

Cassandra wouldn’t allow him to waste time on seeing the queen first;
Frederick
wouldn’t budge. She was unwilling to reveal how long they’d been bickering before she’d finally relented and let him do it his way. Thankfully, Queen Wilhelmina had given her approval immediately, also assigning a group of Swirgs to help in any way they could. That group had proved very useful later, when Triar had assessed the situation and it turned out we would need a large quantity of flying berries.

“Don’t worry about the sword,” Cassandra said as she finished her story. “It’s in good hands. The best possible hands, actually. Triar knows exactly what it is and how important it is to keep it safe.”

I nodded. “Yes, I suppose he’ll take good care of it.” I knew I could not be at peace until I had the sword back, but there was no need to tell her that.

“Sorry I had to leave it behind.”

“Like you said, you had no choice.”

It was my turn to share my part of the adventures. Reggie took over completely, jumping around and brandishing a stick to illustrate my fight with the beasts and the witches. He had us both laughing as he tried to reenact it all, including the two beasts colliding, which was rather problematic since there was only one Reggie.

When Cassandra heard that I was whacked in the head, she wanted to check the wound. I knew I had no wound, perhaps just a little swelling, so I tried to wave it off, telling her I’d walked away from battlefields in a far worse shape. But she wouldn’t leave me alone.

“What is it with some men and not getting their injuries treated?” she asked, exasperated. “Roderick was the same way. Would you rather have it infected?”

“No, but there’s no injury. That’s the point.”

“How do you know? Have you seen it?”

I sighed. “All right, you can take a look.”

She had me turn to the light and examined the back of my head. I was right, after all—no blood, no wound.

“Was Roderick your fiancé or something like that?”

Don’t know why I asked. She hadn’t mentioned the guy for a while, and now that she did, I was curious.

“Nah. Just an employer, and not the best one at that.”

“Do you have a fiancé?”

She didn’t respond right away, as if unsure whether she should.

“I did.”

“May I ask what happened?”

“I broke it off.”

I knew I’d already ventured far enough. Much farther than
I
would allow anyone.

“I don’t want to be nosey, I hate it myself when people ask too many questions. But if you ever feel like sharing that story—”

“No.” She did not hesitate this time.

So that’s forbidden territory. Like any forbidden fruit, it was instantly ten times more appealing, but I knew how to back off when I had to. After all, there were always other ways to obtain information.

“All right. Fine with me.”

“I’ll go get some more bread.”

As soon as she stepped away, I winked to Reggie.

“Can you find it out for me?”

He sidled up closer. “What? Why she broke off her engagement?”

“Yes.”

“I’d love to, but how? It looks like she doesn’t want to tell.”

“She doesn’t want to tell me. A cute little Swirg who wants to know about human betrothal customs may be a different story.”

Reggie grinned. “You’re sneaky.”

“You have no idea how sneaky. Shh, she’s coming.”

We finished our supper and started preparing for the journey. Since everything was already packed, there was not much to do, we just rearranged some things to be able to carry the supplies more comfortably. I told Cassandra about the hut. She wanted to see it, so we made torches and went there. After a brief inspection we decided not to take anything—except for the mirror shard. Cassandra was just as intrigued with it as I had been. Other items were too heavy to carry. Reggie wondered whether we should take the food, “because you humans sure eat a lot,” but we assured him we had enough. Besides, Triar had said most of the islands on the way would have plenty of fresh fruit.

We returned to our dying fire, took turns for a brief swim in the sea, and retired for the night, glad that we could just go to sleep, without worrying about beds or anything like that. The place was warm, the sand soft. We spread out the blankets, took smaller sacks as pillows, and that was it.

***

We departed early in the morning, after a filling breakfast for which we used up all the food that wouldn’t keep. We tied the sacks and bags onto ourselves, so that we wouldn’t have to worry about dropping them, leaving our hands free to reach for flying berries as needed. The berries were readily accessible, in our pockets and in a small pouch each of us had around the neck. When the pouches would empty, it was going to be Reggie’s job to take more berries out of the large sacks and refill them.

Reggie was riding on my back, with a rope around his waist so that he wouldn’t fall off—the notion he deeply resented, but Cassandra and I did not want to take the smallest chance of that happening. He took comfort in being put in charge of a task of utmost importance, crucial to the success of our journey: watching the time. We couldn’t afford guessing whether the ten minutes were up or not, risking to fall in the sea. Reggie sat there with my watch, shouting “
Berry
time!” every nine and a half minutes, following it with one of the Swirgs’ famous piercing screams that had proven so effective against the thugs. The first time he did it, both Cassandra and I nearly took a dive.

I was right when I thought this would be the most difficult part of our trip back. We were loaded so heavily, we could only move at the slowest pace. I wondered how Cassandra had carried it all by herself through the passage. The sun rose higher and began beating down on us mercilessly. Our water flasks went empty much sooner than we’d hoped. Two hours into the journey we both longed for a break. And we’d barely started out.

I glanced at Cassandra. She was holding up well, looking straight ahead, focused on her efforts to move along. Not a word of complaining so far, and I knew there would be none to come.

Reggie’s enthusiasm began to fade, his shrieks became rather half-hearted. I knew he’d constructed some sort of a tent using my hood to protect himself from the sun, but it probably wasn’t helping much.

“How are you doing up there, big fellow?” I asked.

“I’m all right,” he bravely replied. His weakened voice was betraying him though. “Just a little hot.”

“Care for a splash?”

“Can I do that?”

“Sure, why not. I’ll hold the rope, you go spend some time in the water.”

He gladly followed my suggestion. The coolness of the sea revived him.

“Guess what? This water is
salty!
” he reported, eyes bright with excitement.

“That’s because it’s sea water, Reggie,” Cassandra smiled. “It is always salty.”

“Oh.” He was clearly disappointed. “So you knew.”

“We’re just a tad more experienced. You, on the other hand, are becoming quite a bit more experienced than most other Swirgs.”

That brought his grin back. “Hey, that’s true! They won’t believe it when I tell them about all the things I saw.”

“Pull him out! Quick!”

The urgency in Cassandra’s voice made me jerk the rope up, perhaps too fast—Reggie dangled helplessly until he grabbed it with both hands.

“What?” I asked, looking around. “What is it?”

“I saw something move in the water. Something big. Let’s fly higher up.”

We did, though it was hard, with our strength already taxed as it was.

“A shark?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

“What’s a shark?” Reggie asked, back in my hood.

“A huge fish with several rows of sharp teeth. Bad news. I heard they can jump out of the water to catch flying prey, so yeah, we better not get too close to the surface.”

“I want to see a shark!”

“No, you don’t.”

We surveyed the sea below. The water was clear, but deep, so we could only see through its nearest layer. Except for an occasional group of small fish, there was nothing.

“Well, I don’t think a shark would retreat from a possible meal, so perhaps it was just a larger fish,” I said. “But we’ll have to keep an eye on the water, just in case.”

We pressed on, our task even more arduous than before since we had to fly higher and stay vigilant. Crossing a desert would probably be easier; at least there one could stop when they were exhausted, unload their burden, rub their sore muscles. And one crossing the desert would not have a sea tantalizing them: so close with its coolness, yet forbidden.