Reunion (19 page)

“Next you will tell me which horse you have currently saddled and ready that is the most gentle, for I have a lady with me who is in ill health and needs to see a healer.”

The boy was silent.

“Oh. You may speak now,” Corwin added.

“M'lord, a party must have left earlier, for several of the horses . . . um . . .”

Oh, he's afraid to say more
, Corwin thought,
because the king must have fled with the best steeds. I'd better reassure him or he'll die of fear
. “Yes, yes,” Corwin said. “My father took a hunting party out earlier this evening. While you were sleeping. A good thing they didn't see you. What's left?”

“There is . . . Meadowflower, Highness.” The boy cringed as if expecting to be beaten.

“Which one is that?”

The boy paused. “Highness, that's the horse you rode from boyhood. Or so you yourself told me.”

Uh-oh
. “I KNOW THAT!” Corwin declared. “I was testing your memory. Where is she?”

The boy pointed with a shaking hand. “
He
. . . is that way, Highness.”

“Quite right. Stay where you are and pray that the king is of forgiving mind when he returns from hunting.” Taking Nia's hand, Corwin whispered, “C'mon.”

“I don't think he believed you.”

“It doesn't matter, as long as his disbelief takes a while to sink in.”

They found at the end of the stables an old gray gelding with a long, shaggy mane, munching on hay. The horse looked up at them with complete calm, as if he'd seen everything. “Well, I expect this one should be gentle,” Corwin said.

“What do I do?” Nia asked.

“You get on its back.” Corwin was about to put his hands on Nia's waist to lift her; in fact, he was looking forward to it.

“Oh, I see. This is a step,” she said before he had the chance. She put her left foot in the stirrup and swung her leg over, as though she were a born rider. “Is this right?”

“I must remember never to underestimate your intelligence,” Corwin said. “That was perfect. Now scoot back so I can sit ahead of you.”

Corwin untied the reins from a nearby post and mounted the horse as well. He hadn't ridden much . . . horse thieving was a hanging offense, and Fenwyck had never been able to afford one. But he had seen enough to know how it was done. “Now put your arms around me and hold on tight,” Corwin said, “in case the horse takes off quickly.”
Which this horse is not likely to do
, he added to himself.

Nia did so and Corwin smiled as she rested against his back. He picked up the rein loop and said, “Ho, Meadowflower. Get up. Let's move.”

The horse looked up at him, still chewing.

Corwin shook the reins. “Come on. Let's go.”

The horse turned its head back to the hay trough and grabbed another mouthful.

“Corwin . . .” Nia tapped his shoulder.

The stable boy was standing beside the post. “You aren't Prince Vortimer,” he growled.

“And you should be very glad that I'm not,” Corwin pointed out, “considering your inexcusable behavior. Here.” On impulse, Corwin took Faustus's money bag from his pocket and tossed it to the boy. “You make a terrible stable hand. Go find some other employment. Maybe as a squire.”

The boy looked in the bag and his eyes nearly popped out of his head. “Thank you, sir! You're an angel, sir! The prince shall hear nothing of this from me, sir!”

“Good. Now we'll just be on our way. Assuming the horse is willing.”

“Oh,” said the boy. “You must tell him, ‘To the hilt, Meadowflower!' That's what His Highness always said.”

“Very well. Thank you. Ahem.” Feeling silly, Corwin again imitated Vortimer. “To the hilt, Meadowflower!”

The horse sighed a heavy, patient sigh and turned. He clopped nonchalantly out of the stables and toward the castle gate without any steering at all from Corwin.

“You're right,” Nia said. “This beast isn't too fast at all.”

“Truly, in fact I think this may be his top speed.”

But as they approached the gate, Corwin saw those guards were awake and none too happy to see a stranger.

“Halt. The gate is closed to all travel until sunrise.”

Corwin was out of clever ideas.

The stable boy came running up alongside. “Uncle Morcar! It is I, Gowan. This man is on a special duty from His Highness Prince Vortimer himself. He escorts an ill lady who must seek medicine at once. I am to go with them, to guide them. Please let us out. You know how wrathful His Highness can be when his orders aren't followed at once.”

Uncle Morcar rolled his eyes. “God spare me from the whims of princes. Very well. Bide a moment.” He conferred with the other guard and they slid open the bar across the double gate. The guards pushed the doors open just enough to make a passage big enough for the horse to pass through. “Hurry along, if you will, good sir,” Morcar said to Corwin. “May the lady regain her health soon. As for you, Gowan, go on home as soon as you're done with your errand. You know your mother worries when you stay out long o'nights.”

“Yes, Uncle. I will, Uncle.”

Corwin nodded regally to the guards and allowed the boy to lead Meadowflower through the gate as if it were the most natural thing in the world to be doing.

As soon as they were across the drawbridge and on the main road into town, Gowan said, “I will leave you now, sir, m'lady, but may angels guide you on your journey, wherever you are going!” He ran off into the night laughing and jumping for joy.

“Thus is charity rewarded,” said Corwin, with some irony.

“It was very kind of you,” Nia said, “but I thought you said we needed those coins.”

“And we did, didn't we? It bought us our way out. Besides, now should Lord Faustus ever question me as to whether I have his purse, I can in all honesty say no.”

Nia sighed, laughing. “I don't think I will
ever
understand your land-dweller ways.”

“Perhaps just as well. Ho, to the hilt, Meadowflower!” The horse lurched forward and plodded down the road.

A full yellow moon was rising in the west. Stars were shining overhead. It was really a very pleasant night. Except for one problem. “Where should we look for Gobaith?” Corwin asked. “I haven't felt a trace of his mind since I threw him off the tower. Can you sense his surroundings at all?”

“I feel sick when I try,” Nia said.

Corwin found that odd, so he reached out for Gobaith's thoughts as well. And the world spun around him, vertigo so strong that he nearly fell off the horse.

“Corwin! Are you all right?”

“I see what you mean,” Corwin said, shutting off that part of his thoughts at once and clinging to the front of the saddle. “But where could he possibly be to feel like that? Where would that crazy bird have taken him?”

“Rawwwk!” the cry came from overhead.

“Nag?”

There was a
plop
, and something wet splashed into Corwin's lap. “Hey!” He grabbed it—it was the shell, which was full of seawater. Gobaith's tentacles flopped outside the lip of the shell and curled gratefully around Corwin's fingers.

“So that's where he's been, and why he's been dizzy!” Nia said. “Gobaith likes to fly, but not when carried by a wild raven.”

Nag landed on Corwin's shoulder and laughed and laughed and laughed.

Corwin and Nia couldn't help but join in.

Epilogue

Late summer sunlight sparkled off the ripples in Carmarthen Bay. Corwin sat on the rocky shore watching Nia and Gobaith play in the water. It had been two weeks since their escape from the castle, and Nia was completely back to health. Gobaith was now nearly four feet long, and his skin had turned an iridescent blue-green. He hadn't lost his enjoyment of flying and would sometimes launch himself out of the bay and skim over the water for yards at a time before diving back in. It was rather eerie to watch him and Nag race each other over the waves. Corwin could only wonder what passing fishermen might think.

Corwin had gradually realized that the Farworlder had . . . well, a personality, even more complicated than his own. Gobaith had a sense of humor, a wisdom far surpassing his age and experience, and an uncanny sense of the unis, the fabric of space and time that binds all things. Having come to know Gobaith had given Corwin greater understanding of the world around him, and Corwin knew he would have been much worse off had he never met the Farworlder. He actually
liked
the little squid.

Nia was also a complicated matter. Through her, he now saw the fair sex in a much different light. Unlike most young men of his land, he now saw her in much the same way as he saw Gobaith—as a full person, with feelings and thoughts much like his own, but also unexpectedly opposite at times. And he liked her more and more every day. But he couldn't help remembering what old Henwyneb had told him—how no good ever came from the union of a mermyd with a land-dweller. . . .

Nia popped up in the water a few feet away, brushing the water back from her face and smoothing her silvery hair with her hands. Beside her, Gobaith allowed his head to bob out of the water, like a green fisherman's float with eyes. Nia was wearing a mischievous smile, and Corwin could tell she was working to hide her thoughts from him.

“Have a good swim?” Corwin asked, waiting to hear what the joke was.

“Yes, though Gobaith always tries to wear me out. He's still young in spirit, but he's becoming so strong. I can't keep up with him.”

“Well, he'll keep you in better shape for those races you've told me you have down in Atlantis.”

Nia glanced away and her smile vanished.

Corwin mentally kicked himself. He should have known better than to mention Atlantis. He knew she worried about her people. Corwin felt a familiar growing fear that she would be leaving him someday soon.

But her mysterious smile returned. “Gobaith has been telling me secrets.”

“What? Telling you and not me? That isn't fair, is it?”

“He wasn't sure you were ready. But I think you are. So I'll tell you.”

“Ready for what? Tell me what?”

“Remember those strange hints Ma'el made, about knowing something about your past and who you really are?”

“How could I forget?” Corwin growled. “Him teasing me like that. I'm glad I gave him every blow I could.”

“Ma'el wasn't just teasing,” Nia said. “I'm sorry, I was wrong. He actually knew something. Gobaith has been watching you and has figured it out. I should have seen it myself.”

“Now you're being as bad as Ma'el!” Corwin shouted. “What is it that you know?”

“That your father must have been a mermyd, Corwin. Your . . . form is mostly that of a land-dweller; you take after your human mother more. But you have mermyd blood within you, which is why you swim so easily underwater.”

“A merman! Me?” Corwin almost laughed. He knew by now how wise Gobaith was, but the Farworlder was way off on this one. “But I'm a clumsy oaf in water!”

“Has anyone ever taught you how to swim?”

Corwin thought back. “Not that I can remember.”

“But you knew how, anyway. You simply haven't had much practice until recently.”

“But I—I mean, I don't even have gills!” he blurted, thinking of the most obvious flaw in this far-fetched concept.

“You have the . . . structure for them. Under your skin.”

Corwin put his hands to the sides of his neck. He felt ridges there, but he had always thought those were muscles. “Gobaith,” Corwin shouted out to the floating Farworlder, “is this really true?”

It is so
, Gobaith replied in his thoughts.
You have mermyd blood. This is why you survived receiving my mark and my toxin. It was very fortunate that I found you. Or you found me
.

“Maybe it wasn't luck,” Nia said. “Maybe Ar'an, as the last magic of his life, searched the unis for one who could bear your mark.”

Corwin nodded, still in shock. Nia had finally told him the story of all that had happened in Atlantis before she'd come here, and he knew that Ar'an was the creature he'd found on the beach, the one from whom he'd taken Gobaith.

“So. I'm part mermyd.” Saying the words out loud somehow made them seem even more absurd. He still couldn't grasp how it could be possible. “Why haven't I felt any longing for the sea, then?” he asked.

Nia shrugged. “You were born and raised on land. You've never known the sea as your home. Why should you long for it? All mermyds have land-dweller ancestors, but we certainly don't long for land.”

“Well, isn't . . . don't . . . never mind.” He looked down at the sand, trying to order his thoughts. As crazy as it all seemed, some part of him felt a bright hope at the idea that he and Nia shared more than he'd thought. If this were all true, then could the two of them . . . ? “But this still doesn't tell me who, exactly, my father is,” he pointed out, pushing away the other thought.

“You may never know,” Nia said, sympathy in her eyes. “I just recently learned that there were wild mermyds, who now and then left Atlantis to swim in the wide sea. The Councils, as well as Ma'el, had spies who informed them of what land-dwellers were up to. Your father might have been any of these.”

Corwin kicked the water in frustration. It was annoying to have only half an answer to a question that had haunted him all his life. “So,” he said as something else occurred to him. “How did Ma'el know I was part mermyd?”

With his current powers, he is now sensitive to the presence of any oculae
, Gobaith informed Corwin.
And you have a partial one
.

“What! I have one of those little throbby lumps?”

Just a bit of one
.

“Where?”

In your head. Behind your eyes
.