The Warrior Elf (33 page)

“I’ll be sure the sharks aren’t bothered,” Kevin said with a smile.

“I don’t want them caught up in any nets either. If your people want to fish, they need to do it close to shore, before the reefs.”

“I’ll make sure they’re careful,” Kevin agreed. “And I’ll take food out there for them. They won’t need to fish to survive.”

“Are you planning to build docks?”

Kevin shook his head. “I don’t want to advertise that anyone’s there.” After a moment, he added, “The student has a price on her head. Someone wants her dead before she can learn to protect herself.”

“I’ll pass the word, and if we see anyone in the area, I’ll let you know.”

“Thank you. I’d appreciate that.”

“Now, if you’ll excuse me, I want to swim a bit before the meeting. I’m starting to dry off.”

“Enjoy your swim,” Kevin said as Yara dove through her throne and disappeared under water.

“Nice of her to volunteer to do that,” Chris said quietly.

Kevin nodded. “I wanted to ask her to do it, but having her volunteer makes it a whole lot better. I hate asking anyone on the federation to get involved in human affairs.”

“Except King Merdin,” Chris said, grinning. “But he enjoys it.”

Kevin laughed. “Adds a little spice to his day, or at least that’s what he told me once.”

While they were talking, a few other representatives arrived. As Kevin went one way to greet them, Chris went another. Before long, everyone was present and Glendymere called the meeting to order.

“Is there any old business?”
the dragon asked.

“Well, it’s not exactly old business, but I’d like to send Laryn my best wishes for her marriage. I was pleased to hear she’d chosen a mate,” Jinks, the brownie, said.

For a moment everyone was talking at once as the rest of the representatives asked Kevin to deliver congratulations and best wishes to both Laryn and her husband. Then, as the hubbub subsided, Caradoc, the leprechaun, added, “It’s quite happy I am for the lass, and tell her it’s waiting for the arrival of a wee babe I am.”

“Well, I don’t know if she has any plans along that line,” Kevin said as he felt his cheeks grow warm, “but I’ll deliver your message.”

Caradoc nodded with a big grin. “You’ll see. ‘Twon’t be long.”

“Not if she’s wearing the pendant I gave her,”
Glendymere said privately to Kevin and Chris.

Kevin felt his whole face heat up.

“And when will you be choosing a mate of your own?” Tricie, the pixie, squeaked.

Kevin shook his head. “Tricie, I haven’t had time to even think about a mate.”

“Well, you better think quick,” Yanko, the goblin, growled. “Way you’re fighting other sorcerers you may not last long.”

“Yanko, the boy won,” Hagar, the yeti, said. “And speaking of the duel, I want to let you know how grateful we are Gwendolyn’s gone. We don’t know young Alastar yet, but I feel sure he won’t be as bad as his mother.”

“And that’s a fact,” Conrad, the dwarf, rumbled. “She threatened to enslave the dwarves living in the mountains of Landoryn if they didn’t leave ‘her’ mountains. Dwarves have been living in those mountains longer than her family’s been in Landoryn. She would have found herself in for a bit of a fight if she’d tried to enslave any of them, but they decided it would be easier to find new homes than deal with her. I would have brought it before the council, but they’d already moved to some nearby mountains in Havernia by the time I found out.”

“Some of the yeti did the same thing. She kept sending guards up to the high peaks to tell us to move on, that the yeti weren’t welcomed there,” Hagar said.

“Didn’t want any of us around either and made no secret about it,” Caradoc added. “Easier to move on than put up with her it was.”

“She had a deep-seated animosity for elves,” Caelan said quietly. “Think it might have had something to do with the House of Nordin.”

“I doubt it,”
Niall, the pegasus, said.
“She hated anyone who wasn’t human.”

“Well, she’s gone now,”
Eryk, the phoenix, screeched.
“One less evil heart, thanks to our young man here.”

For a moment no one spoke, so Kevin said, “I’m sorry she caused some of you so much trouble. If anything like that ever happens again, please let me know. As for Gwendolyn, I would have preferred not to fight her, but she insisted on the duel.” Kevin paused and then added, “I’d like to ask you to give Alastar a chance. As you say, we don’t know him yet. Maybe he’s nothing like his mother.”

The others nodded, but no one else said anything, so Glendymere asked,
“Is there any more old business?”
When no one spoke, he asked,
“Any new business?”

Caelan nodded. “There’s something happening in North Amden I think the federation needs to be aware of.”

Glendymere nodded, so Caelan continued. “Rolan, the Seated Sorcerer of Brendolanth, has sent men into North Amden to search for his sister. He thinks she’s hiding among the elves. The Council of Elders met this past Monday, and we have received word she’s nowhere near North Amden. However Rolan’s men are determined to search every building and question every elf, young and old. So far there’s been no violence, but if those men don’t leave North Amden soon, we’re afraid someone will get hurt. I don’t know if it will be a human or an elf, but a showdown is coming.” Caelan paused and looked at Kevin. “Myron is aware of the situation and has a plan in place for persuading Rolan that his sister is somewhere else. If his plan succeeds, Rolan will pull his men out of North Amden.” He glanced around the group. “So it’s being addressed, but in case things escalate before it gets resolved, the council felt it should be brought to the attention of the federation.”

For a moment, no one spoke, then Ferdic, the giant, looked at Kevin. “This sounds serious. Perhaps you should tell Rolan to remove his men from North Amden.”

Kevin shook his head. “That wouldn’t work, not with Rolan. If I told him his sister was not in North Amden and to call his men back, he’d be more convinced than ever she’s hiding there. Not only would he not call his men back, he’d send more, possibly with harsher orders.”

“Don’t the other sorcerers have to do as you say?” Yanko asked.

“I can ask them to do something, but they have the right to refuse.”

“Then fight him, like you did Gwendolyn,” Conrad suggested.

Kevin shook his head. “The only way I can fight him is if he challenges me, and he’s not going to do that, not after he saw me fight Gwendolyn.” Kevin took a deep breath. “We do have a plan in place. It will take some time, but if it works, this situation will be resolved peacefully. And that’s in everyone’s best interest.”

“I take it this plan of yours involves a little deception and chicanery,” King Merdin, the gnome, said.

Kevin nodded.

“Then I say we give Myron a chance and see what happens,” King Merdin said. “If it’s not resolved by the time we meet again, it may be time for more aggressive action, but for now, let’s see if he can solve this one without resorting to violence.”

Ferdic looked at Caelan. “Are you willing to wait until then?”

Caelan nodded. “Provided things don’t escalate in North Amden.”

“Very well,”
Glendymere said.
“Caelan, let both Myron and me know if things get any worse in North Amden.”
The elf nodded.
“Then, if that happens, we’ll re-evaluate the situation and come up with a more direct approach.”
Glendymere looked at Myron and added,
“In the meantime, I wish you luck with your plan.”
Then he glanced around the whole group.
“Any other new business?”
When no one said anything, Glendymere nodded.
“Thank you for coming, and I look forward to seeing all of you again on September 21. This meeting of the Federation of Terah is adjourned.”

The representatives spent the next half hour milling around, eating the refreshments the island brownies had left out for them, and chatting. Before they left, most of them reminded Kevin to give Laryn their best and wished him luck in dealing with Rolan. King Merdin told him if he decided he needed a spy, hang the chimes and he’d be right there.

Then, after everyone but Kevin, Chris, and Glendymere had gone, Yara asked,
“The girl you mentioned earlier, the one you want to put on the island, is she the one Rolan’s looking for?”

Kevin nodded. “Her name’s Landis. She’s his half-sister.”

“And he wants to kill her?”

Again Kevin nodded.

“We’ll keep a close eye on that island and do what we can to discourage visitors,”
Yara said.
“Good luck.”

“Thank you,” Kevin said as she dove through her throne and vanished under the waves.

“Guess it’s time to go now,”
Glendymere said.
“All in all, not a bad meeting.”

“I don’t think they were too pleased with my handling of the invasion of North Amden though.”

“Depends on how it plays out. If your plan works, they’ll think you’re brilliant. If things escalate before you convince him to look somewhere else, they’ll think you bungled it.”

“I’d say that’s human nature, but they’re not human,” Chris said.

“All the same where that’s concerned.”
Then Glendymere turned his key and left Federation Isle.

“Are you ready to go?” Kevin asked.

“I guess. It’s nice here after everyone’s gone, so peaceful.” Then with a sigh, he nodded. “Okay. Let’s go see what surprises await us in the office.”

~ ~ ~ ~

While Kevin and Chris were at Federation Isle, Joan was having a rare quiet afternoon in the governor’s office. She was caught up on her mail, no new projects were looming, everything was done. So she decided to see what she could find out about Petri’s background. “Petri, do your parents still live in Jardin?”

Petri shook his head. “They’re both dead.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

“It’s all right. They’ve been gone a long time. I was only two months old when my mother died. I don’t even remember her,” Petri explained. “But I do remember my father. He and I had a house on the edge of Claymor.”

“What happened to him?”

“He was killed.” Petri sat down opposite Joan. “One of the men from town, Haner, went crazy one morning and started attacking people. My father stopped him, but in the process, he got stabbed. Everyone said he was a hero, but my father would have said he was just doing his job. He was an army lieutenant.”

“Did you see it? When your father got stabbed?”

Petri shook his head. “I was off fishing with one of my friends. I didn’t find out until later, when Braddock came looking for me. He was my father’s best friend.”

“How old were you?”

“Seven.”

“What did you do? I mean, you were too young to live by yourself. Where did you go?”

“I stayed with Braddock for a while. He was promoted to lieutenant in my father’s place.”

“How did you end up in Starvos’s office?”

Petri laughed. “I’m not sure. It just sort of happened.”

“How? You didn’t live at the castle, did you?”

Petri shook his head. “Braddock got married when I was nine. I could have stayed with them, but I didn’t much like his wife, so when the district captain asked me if I wanted to work in his office, I said yes. I was there for a year or so, but he didn’t really need any help. I think he offered me the job out of respect for my father. I wrote some letters for him, learned how to keep books, things like that. Then Gen. Chardney asked me to work in his office, so I moved to Norris. Before long I was working in the sorcerer’s office as much as I was in the general’s office. By the time I was thirteen, I was a page in Sorcerer Starvos’s office.”

“So you weren’t a slave?”

“I didn’t think so, not until Sorcerer Starvos had me thrown in a cell with some other slaves and sent me off to Glenarbour to be sold.”

“That’s interesting,” Joan said.

Petri paused. “Braddock used to write to me once in a while. I wonder if I should let him know where I am and what I’m doing.”

“I think that would be a good idea. Are you going to tell him about Glenarbour?”

Petri didn’t answer right away. “I don’t think so, at least not in a letter. I’d rather not have to answer a bunch of questions about it. I’m still not sure what I did to make Starvos get rid of me, but whatever it was, it must have been pretty bad.”

“I’m not sure you did anything.”

“I must have. I just don’t know what. Do you think it would be all right to leave that part out when I write to Braddock?”

Joan nodded. “And if he asks any questions, you can decide how to answer them later.”

Petri stood up. “Think I’ll do that now, while things are quiet, unless you have something else you want me to do.”

Joan shook her head. “Not at the moment. Go ahead.”

~ ~ ~ ~

Later, after Kevin and Chris returned from Federation Isle, Joan dropped by Kevin’s office. “Have you got a minute?”

“Sure, come on in,” Kevin answered, nodding towards the chair across from him.

Chris asked, “Do you want me to leave?”

Joan shook her head. “No, it’ll save Kevin the trouble of having to fill you in later.” Then she told them what Petri had told her.

“So he wasn’t a slave?” Chris asked.

“Not until he was thrown in with the other slaves.”

“Well, at least we won’t have to worry about trying to get his parents out of Jardin, but selling off the child of one of your soldiers is a horrible thing to do,” Chris said. “And risky. There’s no telling what his other soldiers would think if they found out.”

“Starvos might not have known anything about Petri’s history,” Kevin said. “I don’t know the history of our pages. Do you?”

“Actually, yes,” Chris answered. “Ask me about it later and I’ll fill you in.”

Kevin nodded. “I’ve gotten the impression a lot of the pages are the children of castle slaves.”

“That may be, but he wasn’t,” Joan pointed out. “Seems to me Gen. Chardney would have mentioned he was a soldier’s son when he sent him to work in Starvos’s office.”