The Fisherman's Daughter Read online

  THE FISHERMAN’S DAUGHTER

  An Ahmbren Chronicles Tale

  by

  K. Scott Lewis

  This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are either fictitious or are used fictionally. Any resemblances to real people or places are coincidental and unintentional.

  THE FISHERMAN’S DAUGHTER

  Copyright © 2014 by Kyle Scott Lewis

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form.

  The Ahmbren Chronicles® is a registered trademark of Kyle Scott Lewis

  Cover Art by Kyle Lewis, Copyright © 2014.

  For announcements and other author’s discussions of science-fiction/fantasy:

  www.innerworldsfiction.com

  Edited by Tammy Salyer

  www.inspiredinkediting.com

  First Edition v1.1, December 2014

  For those who seek Love through Art

  Acknowledgements

  Special thanks to all of Ahmbren’s fans, beta readers, and contributors for your continued encouragement and feedback.

  Author’s Note

  Welcome to Ahmbren! Inside these pages, you will find a world of enchantment, passion, romance, and danger. There are many shades and facets to the world, from high fantasy to steam-age adventure.

  If this is your first look into the world of Ahmbren, welcome! If you like what you find and want more in this world, the first book is Myth and Incarnation, a high fantasy about dragons and avatars coming to terms with their destinies. The second book, When Dragons Die, is proto-steampunk and sets up the world for future tales in a magical Age of Reason. When Dragons Die is published in three volumes: Lightfall, Covenant, and The Tides of Artalon.

  If this is not your first time walking the fields of Ahmbren, welcome back! The following story takes place after the events of When Dragons Die, and is part of an intended series of shorter tales leading up to the next set of Ahmbren novels.

  I hope you enjoy this tale from The Ahmbren Chronicles. May you always find magic in story!

  ~K. Scott Lewis

  The Fisherman’s Daughter

  Mind my words, child, lest the elf king take you.

  Don’t look long at the woods, child, lest the shining ones keep you.

  Once the elf Courts catch you, they never let you go.

  ~Aradic saying

  Part 1: Fairholm

  1

  Two elven women sat on a veranda in the seaside town of Tavenport, watching the gondolas take tourists through watery streets. Tavenport was usually the first stop for sightseers on their way to Erindil to see the wizard’s tower of Taer Iriliandrel and the old cathedrals of the ancient Archurionite Church.

  The elven women, however, were well familiar with Taer Iriliandrel, and after what they had lived through in Artalon a year prior, the smaller wonders of the world had lost a little of their fascination. Each of them held something in common: they appreciated the calm serenity of quiet charm, such as the smaller city of Tavenport with its canals and waterways, and a good pastry in the morning accompanied by fresh coffee topped with frothy sugared milk.

  Other than that, however, the two elven woman couldn’t have been more different. The blonde elf looked every bit the idealized picture of what humans thought of when they said the words “elven beauty.” She had golden hair, blue eyes, and a soft porcelain face caught somewhere in time between maiden and mother. The one feature that made her stand out from other ladies of the sidhe were her ears. Instead of extending upwards, they fell to the side and gently sloped to her shoulders, ending in soft rounded tips almost reminiscent of a floppy bunny. She was a sidhe, one of the ancient race of high elves who had built cities on Ahmbren when humankind still hunted and gathered from caves and hide tents.

  The other elf was one of the light elves, the much younger seelie race. They had only existed on Ahmbren for a few decades, and she was one of the first, having manifested in the world from lightfall as a fully adult woman. She’d never been born or had to experience growing up, yet in some ways she had a younger mind than the sidhe. Her skin was dark gray, and she had slate-colored hair and purple eyes. Indigo whorls, indicators of the dead Fae spirits she held within her, covered her body like tattoos.

  “It’s good to see you again, Eszhira,” the sidhe said, setting her cappuccino down on the white delicately wired iron table.

  “I’ve noticed you haven’t returned to the Frost Court,” Eszhira replied. “I’d thought you would have gone home by now.” The two of them had become pleasant acquaintances in the past year, and Eszhira knew they could grow to be true friends in time.

  The sidhe glanced away at ships offshore. The pier also held new airdock towers, wooden platforms of ratling construction that allowed airships and zeppelins to land and take on crew and cargo without having to rest on the ground. “I’ve lived outside the Frost Court for so long now. I prefer the world, I think, to our secluded Courts.”

  Eszhira leaned back and nodded. “Tallindra, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about. The world is changing, for the better I think. The seelie have integrated throughout the human Realms. I think the sidhe can too.”

  Tallindra raised a skeptical eyebrow. “It’s a nice thought,” she agreed. “But there would be… complications.”

  “The high elves have stayed secluded far too long,” the gray-skinned woman insisted. “It’s time to think of opening your borders. Let the world into your cities and share their beauty. Send your people out to live in the world. We need to start thinking of ourselves all as Ahmbren’s children. One world, one people.”

  Tallindra looked at her for a long moment. “The sidhe will have a hard time integrating.”

  “Why?” Eszhira asked. “You’ve done it before. You administered the Empire.”

  The high elf shook her head. “That was different. That was controlled. What you’re talking about, opening our cities… full integration. We can’t do that. It’s too dangerous.”

  Eszhira stared in confusion. “But why?”

  “You’re seelie. You’re so close to humanity, I almost envy you. It’s the Dragon in your soul that saves you from the curse of fascination for humans.”

  Eszhira narrowed her eyes. “I like humans. That’s not a curse.”

  “That’s not what I mean,” Tallindra replied, shaking her head. “We’re not from Ahmbren. Not really. Your kind is grounded to this world through the Green Dragon’s essence. Dragons are native to this world.”

  Eszhira regarded her. She knew sidhe history, but she had never really considered the high elves as alien. “But the Archdragons created your world. You’re still Ahmbren’s children!”

  “The Archdragons created the Otherworld,” Tallindra agreed, “but not us. The Otherworld responded to Ahmbren’s life. The Fae were born from the dreams and artistic feelings of humans. We’re an idealized reflection of them, made real by the Otherworld’s magic. The Fae that settled here eventually became the sidhe, over time, but we still have some of that human-inspired essence in our spirits. It creates a… strange effect. The first of the Fae who came here, the original seelie after which your people are named, did not suffer from the affliction. But their descendants developed a magical weakness for humans.”

  “What kind of weakness?” Eszhira asked. Why had she never heard of this before? She realized that in all her adventures, the sidhe were still something of an enigma.

  Tallindra withdrew a crystal from beneath her blouse, fastened to a cord hanging from her neck. She touched its side and it hummed. “You need to understand. Really understand. Let me show you.”

  “What is that?”

  “A memory. A series o
f memories.”

  “Whose?” Eszhira stared at the crystal in fascination.

  “A fisherman’s daughter.”

  Eszhira took the crystal in her hand. “What must I do?”

  “Touch it to your forehead.” Tallindra sat back in her chair and sipped her coffee quietly as she waited.

  The seelie touched it between her eyebrows, and the crystal flashed with light…

  2

  The fisherman’s daughter awakens. It is not yet dawn, but if she doesn’t hurry, she’ll hear it again from Pallo, her dad, that she needs to take their livelihood more seriously. She slips into a fresh tunic and tosses the old to the foot of the bed. She’ll have to make time to wash their clothing later that evening, when her dad salts and preps the catch for smoking.

  Her dad looks at her with raised eyebrows when she joins him. He’s already unwrapping the tether from the pier. “You’re almost late, Meiri,” he says gruffly.

  “But I’m not.” She knows he’s not mad.

  She steps aboard and settles at the front of the boat. It’s wider and longer than the canoes most people in town own, built to hold a catch for market. Her dad prefers to row, but there’s a single sail for those days they venture farther out on Fair Lake. He rows for a bit and then unfurls the sail.

  Meiri checks the nets. They’d both gone over them the prior night, but she can’t help herself but check them again. He gets agitated if it looks like she’s lazing about the boat. Life depends on work, and she wants to show him she can work just as well as the son he never had.

  It’s almost midday by the time they draw the last catch from the nets. Meiri reflects on what it might be like for the fish, plucked from their homes into a strange world of captivity to be sold and consumed. The water baskets are full with five large rangerfish and two ghostfish. The ghostfish especially will fetch a good price from the temple. The shamans claim to use ghostfish liver as one of the ingredients in an incense that lets them communicate with their temple spirits and the sidhe of the deep woods.

  Because of the ghostfish, they won’t immediately return home. Pallo guides the craft towards the shore and then furls the sail. He works the oars in the shallows, bringing them up the gentle river and into the Sutonian Woods.

  The forest seemingly never ends, stretching out far to the north beyond the reaches of human civilization. They won’t be going far; the temple stands at its edge and even the shamans don’t venture into the woods lightly. The forest belongs to the high elves, and no one wants to challenge their magic. The sidhe don’t suffer intruders.

  Humankind has so far won against the other races. Meiri knows that once upon a time, trolls lived on the southern shores of Fair Lake, until they were killed off. The human city to the south, Fairholm, keeps the orcs from venturing too far north. By now, no one younger than village elders has even seen an orc.

  The elves have magic, and Meiri hopes Fairholm is never foolish enough to try to tame the forest. She stares into the trees as they venture up the river, trying to penetrate their shadows for a glimpse of the fair folk. She wonders what it would be like to have magic, and she’s heard stories that elves are the most beautiful of all people. But no one she knows has ever seen an elf, either.

  They round the bend and enter a secluded side lagoon, out of view from the main lake. She hops over the side, bare toes sinking into the soft silt. He father does the same, and they guide the boat until it’s far enough beached it won’t float away. He reaches into the live basket and pulls out the ghostfish, dropping them into a smaller handbasket.

  She follows him out of the water, dirt trail clumping around her wet feet. They walk together towards the temple, a small ziggurat made from rectangular stone slabs. The temple stones are pocked from time and covered in layers of brown clay. No one knows who or what made them. The shamans had found it and moved in, greedily taking over the place of power.

  One of the shamans sits on the temple steps, watching them as they approach. He’s chewing something, occasionally spitting green fluid. White pigment covers his face in stripes, lighter than his pale skin. Most of the rest of his naked chest is covered by a fine layer of mud. A long flowing skirt covers his knees and touches his ankles. He stares at her intently. The thick face paint can’t hide his wrinkles completely, but the white paste brushed over the eyelids to touch the eyelashes conceals the blue veins that she knows have become swollen from overuse of ghostfish liver.

  He eyes Pallo’s basket with greed, almost as much greed as when his gaze brushes her up and down. The incense they will make from the ghostfish liver allows them to see spirits, alive and dead. It is rumored that a shaman in a ghost trance may venture deep within the forest and communicate safely with even the sidhe of the High Elven Imperium. But the potion takes a toll on their bodies. It is said that wisdom ages a person, and if one acquires wisdom too quickly through unnatural arts, the body ages to match the mind.

  Pallo negotiates with the shaman, and they agree on a price. Coins change hands, copper disks from some forgotten time, and Pallo turns to leave.

  “I see your fate,” the shaman says with a cracked voice. “You are meant for the fair folk. Stay with us and learn our arts. The ghost trance is the only way to safely meet them. If you go unprepared, they will take you away from the world of men.” Her skin crawls at the way his eyes try to slither around the edges of her tunic.

  “Keep your poison,” she replies coolly and proceeds back to the shore where the boat waits for them.

  3

  Meiri and Pallo leave the temple behind, and the sun still has a few hours left by the time they return to their village. They dock near the town’s center, and Pallo hoists a water basket with two of the large rangerfish, leaving one behind to take home. She takes a basket with the other two, centering its weight over her shoulder. Water from the fish’s scales soaks through the top of her tunic sleeve, and the scent of fresh fish makes her stomach twitch with hunger.

  Something’s different. The air feels taut, somehow. Meiri can’t put her finger on it at first but then realizes the market is unusually quiet. She hadn’t been paying attention as they walked into town, thoughts still churning over the shaman’s creeping eyes.

  She sees horses. Dozens of them, maybe more, each with an armored man. The market vendors and customers alike stand by merchant stalls, silently waiting with tense curiosity.

  “From Fairholm!” Pallo exclaims softly.

  “What do they want?” Meiri replies, almost at a whisper. She presses her lips thinly together when she notices horse-drawn carts with empty cages behind the armored men.

  “I don’t know.”

  She glances back the way they came, wondering if they should just quietly slip away. She looks at her father and can tell he’s thinking the same thing.

  The men dismount. Their captain points to her.

  “Run!” Pallo suddenly says. “They’re slavers!”

  Meiri has just put it together as well. The cages glint in day’s dying light with acute clarity. She drops her fish basket and sprints toward the shore.

  An armored man appears beside her. How did he get there? she thinks as she runs facefirst into his outstretched arm. Her nose smacks into his bronze arm plate, and pain explodes through her skull. Her legs fly forward, and she lands hard on her tailbone before she falls back and hits her skull on the hard ground.

  She blinks. The world seems to spin, and for a moment all she can see is the blue sky above. The silhouette of the man pierces her view, and then she’s being yanked to her feet and shoved forward. She’s vaguely aware that other women and children in the village are being herded into the cages.

  She trips once. It’s Pallo’s bloodied arm in the way, lying across her path to the cage. He stares lifelessly up at her, with an open spear wound in his chest.

  Meiri vomits and inhales to scream. She chokes on the burning fluid and devolves into coughing as she falls to her knees.

  The warrior drags her up again and sh
oves her forward. She stumbles into the cage, unable to think as she climbs inside it. Rage burns almost as hot as her vomit-scorched throat. Her head throbs, and the world seems to spin again. Blood flows from her nose, drying in a sticky cake over lips and chin. She grasps the cage bars, trying to find her father’s body, but she can’t tell where he is. There are many bloodied men sprawling dead over the ground. Those who resisted. Those who didn’t want their wives and sons taken.

  The slavers take the young and strong, and the pretty. The rest they line up and kill with quick spear-thrusts through the heart. As they leave, they set the village aflame.

  She’s still gripping the metal bars of the cage when the cart rolls away. She thinks briefly of the rangerfish still caught in the basket left behind on the ground to die. This cage is her basket; she too has been fished, plucked from her world to be sold. The burning village jostles in her vision as they move over uneven ground, and then she slips away into unconsciousness. Before she completely fades, she hears the shaman’s voice: You are meant for the fair folk.

  4

  Meiri awakens. She and the other women from her village are being tended to and cleaned by a group of stern-looking women in dark gray robes. Their faces are neither kind nor cruel, regarding her as if she were nothing more than livestock. They get her to stand, pull her stained clothing from her body to clean the remaining blood, and then dress her in a light gray tunic. It scratches, but at least it’s clean.

  Meiri opens her mouth to speak, but the older woman purses her lips, shakes her head, and flicks Meiri’s broken nose, which sends an explosion of pain through her skull. Indignation fills her. She wants to respond, to punch the woman and run. How dare they treat her like this! These people—