David Farland - Sons of the Oak

The Royal Palace stood upon the highest hill of the main island, and by all rights, Fallion and his family should have gone there for the night. Fallion had been born there, but had not been to the palace since he was two or three. His memories of the place were dim and wondrous.

But though Chancellor Waggit reported that the city was safe, free of any sign of assassins or marauders, Iome reminded the children that they were in hiding. “We don’t want to attract attention by walking up through the castle gates.”

Thus that evening the elders rowed the boat beneath the shadow of Fallion’s own palace, its dim lights gleaming through windows. On the east, the stately whitewashed towers seemed to rise straight up out of the water, and Fallion could see the sweeping alcoves built in at the waterline, lighted nooks with broad pools where in the past undines had swum like dolphins right up to the grand portico and held counsel with ancient kings.

Right now, there were no undines resting on the porch-only a few seals lying on the rocks while white gulls with gray backs floated upon the water nearby.

Fallion longed to row his boat into that shelter and head up the steps, but instead the boat rounded the ocean side of the island, into the deeper shadows, to the grungy dockside wharf where hundreds of fishing boats were moored. There the reek of fish guts and boiling crab mingled with salt spray.

In pitch-black, they moored up beneath a pier, and the whole family shambled through the night to an anonymous inn that Borenson assured everyone “is not as bad as it looks.”

And he was right. The outside was dingy and dark, but inside the place was more homey. The scent of savory chicken dumplings, buttery rolls, and roast apples soon had the children’s mouths watering. Rather than the nasty fishermen and whores and pirates that Fallion imagined might be in such a place, the common room was clean, and most of the patrons seemed to be decent shopkeepers who had brought their wives or friends out for a good meal.

As Borenson rented a room, Fallion looked around. A trio of minstrels played by the hearth. Beside each door and window an image of the Earth King stood-a man in green traveling robes with a deep hood, with leaves for his hair and beard.

Sage, Borenson’s three-year-old daughter, saw the decorations and shouted, “Look, it’s Hostenfest!”

Hostenfest was a month past, but the little ones had no sense of time and only wanted more presents and games.

“They put up the decorations in honor of the Earth King,” Myrrima said, and Fallion knew that she must be right. The decorations were an invitation for his father’s spirit to be welcome here.

Borenson secured a room, and just as the children were about to be whisked upstairs, the innkeeper, a fat old man, peered down at Fallion and roared, “Hey, what’s that in your pocket?”

Fallion peered up. It seemed that everyone in the room had stopped talking, had turned to stare at him.

“Your pocket, boy? What’s that squirming in your pocket?”

Fallion looked down. Humfrey was in the pocket of his tunic, rolling around. “It’s just my pet ferrin,” Fallion whispered.

“We don’t let the likes of them in here,” the innkeeper shouted, “the thieving vermin.”

“He don’t steal,” Jaz said, offering up a patent lie. All ferrins stole. It was in their nature.

“We had one that stole bad,” the innkeeper said. “Customers were losing gold and jewelry by the dozens. I sacked a couple of my girls, thinking it was them, until we caught the rascal.” He nodded to a small crack in the corner where the cobbled floor met the stairs.

They’d killed the ferrin, of course, Fallion realized. Innkeepers were notorious for hating ferrins.

“Humfrey wouldn’t steal,” Fallion offered; on a sudden inspiration he went to the corner, knelt on the ale-stained stones of the floor, and pulled Humfrey from his pocket.

The ferrin looked about, blinking his huge dark eyes. Fallion thought for a moment. Ferrins didn’t have a word for gold or jewels, not that Fallion knew of. Instead, they used a whistle that meant sunlight. So Fallion whistled and snarled, “Sunlight. Hunt sunlight.”

The ferrin stood, looking up at the crowded inn, at the angry humans peering down at him. He became more fearful by the moment, his whiskers trembling, nose twitching as he scented for danger.

Borenson must have realized what Fallion was trying to do. “Here. Show him this.” He held out a silver eagle in his palm, then let the coin glint in the air.

“Hunt sunlight,” Fallion said again, shoving the ferrin toward the crack in the wall.

Humfrey sniffed at the hole, then shrieked in delight as he realized what Fallion wanted.

He lunged into the hole.

Fallion had seen what kind of damage a ferrin could do to a building. They loved to dig their holes under rocks and trees, and thus they were a nuisance to men folk, for they would dig under the foundations of houses and buildings, and at times a ferrin’s tunnel would collapse, and a whole wall might come down.

It had happened at the cobbler’s shop at Castle Coorm just last spring. A wall had collapsed, and Fallion had gone out to see the cobbler and his neighbors digging up the foundation to expose the ferrins’ tunnels. There were a surprising number of small chambers, sometimes lined with stolen cobblestones to bolster them up. And inside them were piles of buttons and scraps of leather, old thimbles, and string and metal tacks. The cobbler was livid to see how much merchandise the ferrins had taken over the years.

“Five hundred shoe tacks!” he’d exclaimed over and over. “What would they do with so many? They don’t make boots.”

Fallion did not have to wait for more than a minute before Humfrey returned to the mouth of the den. In his mouth he carried a gold eagle, a coin that would easily pay for a week’s lodging in the hostel.

Fallion took it from Humfrey and tossed it up to the innkeeper, who bit it to see if it was real, then roared with laughter. He probably wouldn’t see a coin like that more than once a month.

He looked thoughtfully at Fallion, as if trying to decide, and said, “See what else he can find down there.”

Fallion whistled the command, and Humfrey went rushing back into the hole.

Certainly the innkeeper had to know that a few coins were hidden down there, but like the cobbler, he didn’t have any idea what it might amount to. And the cost of tearing out the walls and floors to go looking for them had probably seemed prohibitive. A ferrin might easily tunnel fifty yards in any direction, and an old warren, one that had been built up over years, might have dozens of branches.

It was several long minutes before Humfrey reappeared. This time he held an earring in his mouth, a long thing with several cheap beads dangling from it.

The innkeeper looked disappointed, but said, “Right. He can stay-if you have him do a little more poking around.”

“Okay,” Fallion agreed.

Then the whole “family” hurried upstairs, Borenson and Myrrima acting as the parents of a large brood, while Iome played the part of “grandmother.”

Fallion had never been in such cramped quarters, but soon he found a corner and lay down upon a blanket while his mother lit a fire in the small hearth.

Myrrima put her children down for the night, while Borenson went down to the common room to hear the latest gossip and drink a few mugs of ale.

Humfrey found a hole in the wall, just under the bed, and disappeared. Every few minutes he would bring back a piece of ferrin treasure-a woman’s comb, an ivory button, a tin coin. Each time he did, Fallion would give him a bit of food-a crust of bread or a dried date-as a reward.