The Unexpected Heir: A Tale of Alus (39 page)

Ashleen had started to become a friend as had many of those with Sebastian. She felt for the girl's loss. There were covered bodies on the dock for members of her crew who no longer lived as well. No one had gone completely unscathed from any side.

"She could sail if we needed her to," Delfren stated writing on a sheet of paper. The man had recorded anything that should be repaired while they had walked around the vessel. With the help of the sea folk they could even check beneath the water from the outside of the ship. Internally, no holes were found to let in water; but once the Sea Dragon set out again they would want to know that the ship was completely sea worthy. It was a long way to the next port after all.

"Do any repairs that you need to now, captain. Master Aramathea has already forced Sebastian to give him a month before he is willing to leave for Southwall. If nothing else, the village needs some repairs and to deal with their losses as well," the platinum haired lady stated for her captain.

"This is his home now," Sebastian replied looking at her like he had failed instead of defeating a powerful enemy. "Gerid could have said no to us. We've interrupted his life, even if this is also his prison."

Yara was missing from his side, a rare sight. Annalicia knew the healer was still working with the shamans of the merfolk on the wounded. There were still wounds to heal and medical attention to follow up on as well.

"You have a plan for freeing him," she stated without a doubt.

"Yara and I can combine our power to destroy the pillars set to trap the Grimnal and any of his descendants. Once they're destroyed, he can leave and so can any of the others. The people of this island might choose to join society again."

"They have their own society here with the mermen. His village can't really start trade with the outside world without risk of revealing them at the same time. You haven't been given permission to reveal that they are real to the rest of the world, have you?" she asked having heard some of the conversations between the mage and the giant immortal.

He shook his head. "Your people need to be sworn to secrecy also. If we don't, the merfolk will make sure that we don't leave the island either."

Annalicia nodded. "They can't know that someone won't speak of them once they return home, but if no one else backs their story, they will look like a fool. If someone does believe though, the Grimnal's village will be the site of hunters looking for the mythological merfolk."

Sighing at her opinion, Sebastian replied, "We can only do so much. If the sailors aren't trustworthy, I guess that you are right."

His eyes looked past her a moment later and Anna turned to see the silver haired giant approaching with a small contingent of elders from both the village and tribe beneath the waves. The latter dressed in strange clothes made of material capable of surviving beneath the sea. Looking like they wore woven seaweed garments, the merfolk also had slightly larger eyes than normal, the girl thought.

Looking at Gerid, Annalicia felt his power and something else that she couldn't quite quantify. It was a weird feeling of familiarity. She had that feeling from the first time she had met him.

"How does she look, captain?" Gerid asked as he met them at the end of the dock. There was a single pier for the village. Usually just fishing vessels were moored there, but the Sea Dragon and the Carnivore had alternated using the pier at its far end where the water was deep enough for the larger ships to avoid getting stuck.

"Considering everything, the Sea Dragon doesn't look too bad, sir," Delfren replied with a perplexed looking smile for the immortal. He was uncertain how to address the legend. He had been a king and was synonymous with the Southwall king's castle also. Calling him Gerid felt wrong, even if it was his given name. "She survived the battle, but we'll do what repairs we can to make certain that nothing is worse than I think."

"If you need help, let us know. The sea folk can help below the water. They help our fishermen with our ships here also."

The men spoke briefly about the status of the boat and Annalicia listened with half an ear. It seemed more like the men wanted to talk about the boat to be able to speak of what their respective people could do. No one wanted to be talked down to, but in the end they talked about repairs which had little to do with the air wizard.

She had been trained in magic, but this was beyond her wizard schooling. The girl had little practical knowledge of repairs or ships. Before Anna could excuse herself from their talk, Gerid placed a hand on her shoulder to make her turn to walk with him.

"Can I help you, Master Aramathea?" she asked curiously. There were times where the girl thought that he had looked at her in an odd fashion. This seemed like more of that strange interest.

"You are a granddaughter of Darius, if I heard correctly."

"I am," Annalicia nodded. He stood so much taller than her that the girl thought her neck would snap trying to look him in the face from so close.

A moment's pause led him to ask another question, "Has Darius had other children or grandchildren with our gift?"

Confused as to what he meant, she was forced to ask, "What do you mean 'gift'?"

"I have had many children and they have had children adding generations of grandchildren, but none gained the gift of immortality. Has Darius had any children like that? Perhaps with an elf for a mother there have been more."

She shook her head. "There are none that I know of. My father and some of the others didn't even inherit his magical talent. You've met my cousin, Darterian. He and my cousin, Elias, are wizards; so am I, of course, but none of us are immortals."

His look at her seemed a mix of amusement and confusion. "Has Darius ever told you how an immortal is discovered or what traits they seem to share?"

Frowning at the man, the girl looked ahead of her as they slowly walked along the pier towards shore. "Well, he said that most are born with silver blonde hair. Of course, they can be injured, but you heal from just about anything too. Beyond that I am not sure that there are any other similarities."

"Some are born with white or silver hair. Mine was diagnosed as an omen from birth, but I have known a few that had more common hair colors. All can heal well, but the one certain shared event we all share is that we should have died.

"Darius may have studied it closer. I'm no wizard. I preferred a sword to all that research. Luckily, my extra gift is that I am resistant to magic and can't use even a trace of it."

"That is lucky?" she asked thinking that her enjoyment of magic would mean that she viewed having magic as a gift. Being unable to touch any of it would have made the girl feel empty, Annalicia thought.

"Well, I didn't have to spend my lifetimes studying all the time," he laughed. "That's lucky for someone like me. If you're like your grandfather, you probably enjoy studying and your magic; but I am better off like I am."

Wondering if there was a point to this talk, Annalicia simply waited for him to speak as they continued their walk.

"Have you ever had a moment where you should have died?" he finally asked.

Frowning at the giant beside her, the girl immediately retorted, "Of course not! Though I have been through a few battles since letting Sebastian and his people came aboard, I never..."

Her steps faltered and her frown deepened.

"You've thought of something?" he asked sounding hopeful, which annoyed Annalicia further.

The problem was that something else nagged at her because of what she had already said. "During the tournament, the final round in fact, I lost to a fire wizard when I lost consciousness. Sebastian came to my rescue. Magnus helped the mage when he feared that I was dying inside of a vortex heated by the fire wizard's countering fire tornado.

"He used magical tubes to funnel the flames inside of my defenses. The fire burned up the air before I could dispel the tornado or find a way out of it. Sebastian managed to lift a lot of water up to the vortex putting out the flames and disrupting my defenses which continued without my conscious thoughts.

"They found me unconscious and breathed life into me. The healers were able to restart my lungs without magical help though. No one said that I was truly dead, but..."

As the girl stalled in thought, Gerid nodded finishing the reflection, "But now you wonder if it took you further than you thought."

"I awoke and didn't feel any different," Anna countered his odd insinuations. "His saving me was part of why I am here though. Darius asked me to help Sebastian and I owed the man my life. It was also a good move for solidifying our alliance; but coming so close to my death, I think part of me just wanted time to relish not dying, if that makes any sense."

He shrugged. "Most of the immortals I know didn't really have some major epiphany after surviving a death. Darius said he died over using magic, but it didn't sink in that he was immortal for weeks afterward. Dante died in battle, one of the first armies destroyed here by the Dark One's beasts, and woke amongst the dead. I think he knew sooner that he was different.

"The soldier took more risks and found Valenia. He felt something about her before her first death, but Dante was right about her as well."

"And you?"

"Killed scouting an enemy village and left for dead with the refuse," he mused rubbing his chin. His eyes were lost on the distant past for a moment. "It took me awhile to reconcile that I couldn't be killed, but even longer to realize that I wasn't aging at all. I outlived my siblings and wife. Then I was still the same and burying grandchildren who were old and brittle."

She felt the darkness of his memory, but suddenly he smiled and pulled a long knife from his waist. "One trick I discovered early on that drew men to me like I was a god was sticking a knife through my hand and healing before their eyes. Some needed more convincing. A knife through the heart is messier and more dangerous if it is the first test to see if you're immortal."

Stepping back from the giant sensing where he was going with this after talking about his morbid test, Annalicia shook her head and worried, "You aren't seriously considering trying to stab me with that are you?"

He held up his hand and pierced his left with a quick strike. She had seen the blood on the Grimnal after the battle before he had time to clean up. There had been no noticeable wounds on the giant afterwards, but now she wondered how much of what had soaked into his clothing had been his own blood as much as others.

The blade stuck through the hand and he revealed it to her proving that it was no trick. Paling to the point of wanting to be sick, Annalicia saw the blood already trickling down the metal blade.

Withdrawing the knife, Gerid held up the hand to reveal the wound. Anna was pretty certain that she could see light through the opening for a moment, but in the next the wound began to heal. Some of the blood even drew back into the wound as it closed slowly. It wasn't instant healing, but at the rate it was closing Annalicia didn't doubt that anything more than a scar would remain in less than an hour.

"I am not doing that!" she accused him thinking the immortal crazy. There had been nothing to imply that she was immortal. A close call in a tournament was hardly death by a sword to the heart. "You are crazy. I didn't ask you to do that to yourself!"

Instead of being insulted, Gerid chuckled at the girl. "You don't have to be as extreme about it, of course. A small cut, a scratch, would tell us for certain. Surely with Sebastian and Yara around to heal you to full, the princess could put up with the pain of a small knick."

Unlike the giant, Annalicia turned red with anger at his insult. "I am not a princess! But that doesn't mean I am a fool willing to cut myself needlessly."

He shrugged with indifference. "Fine, but now that it has been said, eventually you will get curious. I am traveling back with you and Sebastian to Southwall. If you change your mind let me know, though we might have more of an audience onboard a ship."

Still angry, the much smaller girl turned on her heel and returned to her ship. No one asked what had happened. Everyone could tell that she was angry and let her disappear into her cabin without bothering her more.

Gerid didn't bother to board the Sea Dragon and returned to his village. There was still a lot of work to do there, or so he believed as the immortal readied himself for returning to the outside world.

Weeks passed on the tropical island. Annalicia continued to socialize with the other women brought on the ship. Yara and Ashleen were slightly younger than her. Nara and Serrena were slightly older. As a group, the young female wizards had begun to bond.

The daughter of the Kardorian ambassador had spoken to her a few times acting like they should be friends, but Anna quickly tired of her pompous attitude. Helena Romonus was pretty and had been too spoiled by her father most likely. She was the type of girl Annalicia had done her best to avoid at the king's parties. The type of girl that was from nobility and aspired to greater things, Helena probably thought that she deserved much more than life had already given her.

Ashleen was a surprise, however. The lightning wilder let slip that she was the daughter of a Kardorian noble as well. He was apparently an influential man with great wealth; but she was a wizard. There was little she could do within Kardorian society once it was known that the girl had magic. Being a wilder was a further stigma in the north, not that any society liked having people with little control over their magic running around.