Son of the Hero

9 – Arrowroot

I didn't have any solid plans when I stepped back through to Castle Basil. I hadn't been consciously thinking about Varay's problems. At the start, I was too upset to worry about them, and later there was the bomb in New York to occupy my mind. But once I decided to go back, a few basic premises clicked to the front of my central processing unit. Maybe some of that training that Dad had insisted on over the years was finally taking over. I might be the rookie, but Dad had drilled all of that military nonsense into me. One thing was obvious. Hero or not, there was no way one man could handle a two-front war. I had to either make sure that the Varayan army only had to face one enemy or find a way to get that army back and forth between fronts fast enough to keep both enemies at bay without wearing out our troops. That's how the Saxons lost England to William the Bastard, among other examples. It may still be impossible for anyone to be in two places at the same time, even in a magical world, but maybe we could come close enough for government work. I had an idea… one idea.

There was no one in "my" bedroom in Castle Basil. I didn't see anyone until I entered the great hall. A dozen or so people were lounging around or working-including Lesh, who was draining a tankard of beer.

"Where's Parthet?" I asked loudly. That got everyone's attention. But nobody knew where the wizard was, so I went to check his room in the castle and then headed for Baron Kardeen's office. Lesh stayed with me, but I moved too quickly to give him a chance to ask the questions I could see he wanted to spring.

Parthet was just leaving Kardeen's office when I got there.

"We need to talk right now," I said, "somewhere private. And we need that big map."

Parthet nodded. "Kardeen has the map." We got it and went up a circular stairway to a room above the chamberlain's office in the tower. I told Lesh to stay at the door and make sure we weren't disturbed by anyone but Kardeen, the king, or my mother. I couldn't have excluded them if I wanted to.

Inside, Parthet unrolled the map across a table that was much too small for it. The ends of the map drooped toward the floor.

"First off, I need to know more about the magic doorways," I said. "Can I take other people through them?"

"Once you open the way, anyone can use it-while you hold it open."

"How do I open a new passage?"

"First, you line the doorways on each end with sea-silver. If there are two of us available-and there are only four of us who wear the twin rings now-one stands at either end of the passage, rings on the silver. Then we have to concentrate on each other until the co

"Where do I get the silver and how do I attach it to the door?"

"Getting the silver is the snag," Parthet said. "It grows only in the Mist, off certain beaches along the Isthmus of Xayber." He pointed out several locations near the top of the map. The map showed only the nearest portion of the isthmus-I guess the part that sometimes became part of the border or something. "There are probably other areas, but those are the ones I know of, the nearest ones."

"Behind enemy lines."

"Yes," Parthet agreed. "But once you have the weed, attaching it is simple. Start at the floor with one end and press it in place. If the first strand isn't long enough, just overlap the ends the least little bit. The sea-silver adheres easily. You just have to make sure that it remains wet from the time you harvest it until you use it."

"I don't suppose there's a doorway leading to one of those beaches?"

Parthet shook his head. "It's unlikely that this magic would work in lands dominated by Fairy anyway."

"What's the nearest point to those beaches that I can reach by doorway?"

"Castle Arrowroot at the edge of Battle Forest and the Mist, where our north shore meets isthmus."

"How long will it take me to get to the silver and back to Arrowroot?" One day, I would have to ask why all the castles were named after spices, but not right then.

"Eight days if everything goes perfectly, and nothing ever goes perfectly for mortals inside Fairy. Ten days is a more realistic minimum, and two weeks is yet more likely-if you can make it in and back at all. That's never certain even in peacetime. And the Elflord of Xayber will know when you enter his lands."

"Tell me about him." I studied the map while I listened to Parthet. The map was almost devoid of detail for the isthmus, not much help at all.

"There's little enough I can tell," Parthet said. "He's an elflord, quite literally larger than life. No one in the seven kingdoms knows his real name. Likely no one outside him immediate family has ever known it. Like most creatures of Fairy, he considers his name his most closely guarded secret, lest it be used to conjure spells against him. He is apparently something of a rebel in Fairy, even by their loose standards, refusing to acknowledge the authority of their king-the Elfking. But they take no action against him unless he raids the domains of other elflords. That's pretty standard for that lot-'I don't give a damn what you do as long as you don't do it to me.' Xayber has a motley army of human renegades and fairy creatures. Freebooters, brigands. Xayber has powerful magics at his command and a deep hatred for all the people of the seven kingdoms, even the turncoats who serve him."

"Can we get him to leave us alone for a time? Will he agree to a truce?"

Parthet snorted. "The only way you could get him to leave us alone would be to kill him, except that he probably can't be killed, not by a mortal. The only thing that might deflect his attention from us even for a short time would be an attack on his lands by another elflord, and that is unlikely."

"How long would it take to ride from Arrowroot to Castle Thyme?"

"Four days if you ride like a host of demons is at your back. Four and half, maybe five, if you want to make sure your horse survives the ride."

"I'd be better off coming back here to start the ride."

"Or here." Parthet stabbed his finger at the map. "Castle Coriander, inside Battle Forest. It has part of our army too, and you could make it to Thyme from Coriander almost as quickly as from here."

I continued to stare at the map, focusing hard. I don't have a photographic memory, but I wanted to absorb as much of the map as I could. Parthet waited patiently. There might be time, if I could do anything right in the north.

"Can you get a message through to the Elfking with your magic?" I asked. Something Parthet had said a couple of minutes before had given me a second idea-if it was worth anything.

Parthet had to think about it. "I'm not sure, but it may be possible. I've never tried to communicate directly with anyone in Fairy."

"You have a pen and paper?"

He dug out the pad and pen he had used at the i

"The activities of the Elflord of Xayber are already causing major disruptions in the mortal world beyond the buffer zone. His assaults on the seven kingdoms threaten the stability of your realm also. He seeks this chaos to make possible his usurpation of your throne. Gil Tyner, Hero of Varay. "