Michael Sullivan - The Crown Tower

Gwen stepped outside and closed the door.

Her hands were shaking and the tremor traveled the length of her body until she thought she might collapse right there on the porch.

“Where are we going, Gwen?” Abby asked.

“You don’t know, do you?” Jollin said.

“You wouldn’t do that to us, would you?” Mae asked. “Get Raynor mad like that and not have someplace to go?”

Rose touched Gwen on the arm, those big doe eyes focused on her. “Please tell us. Where are we going?”

Gwen stood shivering, her back to the door. The sun was finally high enough to erase the shadows cast by The Hideous Head, and across from Wayward Street stood the dilapidated inn.

“There.” Gwen pointed.

“You’re crazy,” Jollin said.

“Maybe.” Gwen nodded. “But it’s better than being dead.”

Thought something might have happened to you,”-Sebastian said the next morning as Hadrian stepped onto the deck. “Eugene tried your room, but your door was locked and you didn’t answer.”

Hadrian glanced up at the sky. The sun was nearly overhead.

They were all up and gathered in the middle of the boat again, except the fellow in the hood, who remained aloof and at that moment was nowhere to be seen. Vivian sat in the center of them, wearing Hadrian’s cloak and a pleasant smile.

“I stayed up late. Must have slept in.” He sounded guilty, like a kid accused of laziness.

“Well, I barely got a wink myself,” Sebastian said.

“I don’t think any of us slept much,” Samuel added.

Hadrian reached into a bucket hanging from the rail and caught enough water to wipe his face. He stretched and yawned. Waking up late always left him feeling tired and sluggish. He had spent most of the night with the door to his room open and an eye on the tiny corridor leading to the other cabins. He watched the lamp sway for hours but never saw anyone. Finally, as the sun came up, he had locked his door and crawled into bed, feeling foolish.

Hadrian sat down next to Eugene. The youngest merchant had his hands fanned out and stared at them admiringly. His nails were ragged and dirty, so Hadrian guessed he was looking at his rings. With three on each hand, he had almost as many as Sebastian. Hadrian didn’t wear rings. He never saw the point. A wealthy warlord gave him one once, but Hadrian hadn’t liked the way it interfered with his grip, and he left it as a tip for a barmaid. He imagined that, being jewelers, the men with him had different opinions.

Across from Hadrian, Vivian sat wrapped in his cloak. With her knees pulled up to her chest, she vanished within its folds. Hadrian had never liked the thin garment, what the Calians called a bisht. He had bought it from a zealous bazaar hawker in Dagastan just before boarding the ship to Avryn. Never good at bartering, Hadrian had spent more than was necessary. He’d done a lot of that while in the east, and the cloak was a physical reminder of his time in Calis. Still, it looked good on her.

The barge continued upriver, stopping only to change horses and drivers and bring on a relief steersman so Farlan could sleep. The world around the Bernum had changed dramatically overnight. The river was narrower, more turbulent, and the banks had risen. Canyon walls cast the river in shadow, and the towpath transformed from a country lane into a narrow track that skirted cliffs where pines struggled to find purchase in thin soil, leaving roots exposed.

This was the landscape of the north he remembered-mountains and ravines, snow and ice. So much had happened in the two years since he’d left. Beyond the cliffs were the lands of Warric, the kingdom just to the north of his childhood home. Old Clovis Ethelred had been the king. A cruel ruler, but then Hadrian had yet to meet another sort. Ethelred had built a fine army. Hadrian felt he possessed a particularly expert opinion on that subject, as he had both fought against and been a member of its ranks. That was how he knew the cliffs and canyons of the area; that was how he remembered them, as a young soldier driven through the crags and up the mountains, holding the high ground against the enemy who months before had been his friends.

He chanced another glance at Vivian. When she returned his gaze, he quickly looked away, staring at the banks of the river, realizing too late that his sudden shift would be taken as an admission of guilt.

“Do you know where you’ll be staying while in Colnora, Mr. Blackwater?” she asked.

“I have no plans at present,” Hadrian admitted.

“But you’re a soldier.” Eugene’s tone was dismissive and superior enough to irritate.

“And you’re a merchant,” Hadrian said, although he was thinking of another word instead of merchant .

Eugene smirked. “I meant you’ll be staying at some barracks, won’t you?”

“Actually … I’m retired.”

“Retired?” Sebastian chuckled. “You don’t look old enough to have done much more than enlist.”

“And yet…” Hadrian smiled at them, spreading his hands out.

“What are your plans, then?” Samuel said.

Hadrian was beginning to see why the hooded man kept his distance. “Just traveling.”

“To where?”

“North.”

“That’s a very big place. Anywhere in-”

The boat bucked, glancing off a boulder. The tow cable went slack, then snapped taut again. Hadrian looked back and noticed the lack of a steersman. “Where’s Farlan?”

Sebastian tilted his head to peer around the others. “I don’t know.”

They all got up, and Hadrian led the way to the rear of the boat, where they found no sign of the ship’s guide. Sebastian gestured to the rope looped around the tiller’s handle. “He does that when he needs a break, but he’s never gone long. Perhaps he’s preparing breakfast. It’s getting late.”

Looking back, Hadrian saw the river, which had been relatively flat and straight for miles, was now becoming rife with boulders and starting to zigzag with the emergence of the high cliffs.

He glanced toward the cabins. “After a bump like that, don’t you think he’d come up?”

They all looked expectantly toward the door, but when it opened, it was the hooded man peering out. Still with hood up, he looked around, then without a word went back below.

“Someone isn’t concerned,” Sebastian observed.

“Has anyone seen Farlan today?” Hadrian asked.

The three merchants and Vivian exchanged glances.

“Now that you mention it … no. No, I haven’t. Anyone else?” Sebastian asked.

They all shook their heads.

“The relief steersman got off after supper last night, didn’t he?” Hadrian asked.

“I believe so,” Sebastian replied. “When they traded out the horses.”

“Is it possible that Farlan got off, too, and we didn’t notice?” Hadrian asked.

“Maybe it was some kind of mistake,” Eugene said. “A scheduling error or something like that? Maybe the driver started hauling before Farlan got back on?”

“I think Farlan would have told him to stop.”

Sebastian said, “Flag the postilion.”

Samuel whistled and Eugene waved until the driver halted the horses. Hadrian loosed the tiller and brought the barge over to the bank, where it was inclined to go anyway, being swept to shore by the current. The merchants conducted a search but failed to find the missing steersman. They all disembarked, even the hooded man, who observed from a distance.

“Relief steersmen come and go, but Farlan don’t never leave the boat. He cast off after I got my gals here hitched and ready,” the postilion told them. His name was Andrew, an older fellow with short-cropped hair who seemed out of his depth when speaking to customers and kept patting the rumps of the horses self-consciously. “Never seen old Farlan step on land except to help load supplies or cargo.”