The door burst open to the small room that Mistake and MistyTrail slept in. Soldiers quickly filed in and threw cloth sacks over the heads of the sisters. Despite their muted protests, their hands and feet were bound. As the bound bodies were passed out of the room, the bunk beds collapsed, strewing Garl’s belongings all over the floor.
The bodies were lowered by rope and placed in the back of a wagon. By the time the villagers, who had been awakened by the noise, had gathered below the trees, the wagon was already leaving the glade. Eltor raced to Garl’s house and climbed up the rope. He saw the front door wide open and entered anxiously. When he saw the destruction of the girls’ room, a rage built inside him. He raced out of the house and jumped to the ground.
“They have taken Mistake and MistyTrail,” he shouted. “We have to stop them.”
“They were soldiers,” replied Slari. “You cannot stop them.”
“But they didn’t do anything wrong,” protested Eltor. “Why should they be arrested?”
Caldal said nothing. He climbed the rope to his house and threw down his pack. Eltor looked questioningly at his friend as Caldal jumped down from the platform.
“Get your pack,” ordered Caldal. “We are going to Morada.”
“What for?” asked Eltor. “Didn’t you hear that they were soldiers? We can’t do anything, and we are forbidden to leave the village.”
“I don’t care,” retorted Caldal. “We got them into this mess; we are going to get them out of it. Have you forgotten how they risked their lives to save us?”
“I have not forgotten,” Eltor replied as he ran to his tree and climbed the rope.
Eltor grabbed his pack and jumped down to stand next to Caldal. The villagers looked at the two boys with fear and anxiety. Caldal’s mother came down and handed a small sack to her son.
“Be careful,” she said with tears in her eyes. “Try to do nothing to bring attention to yourselves. We want you both to come back safely.”
Caldal nodded and hugged his mother while Eltor waved to his. The villagers stood and watched until the boys exited the glade.
* * *
Tamar knew he was being followed again. His shadow was good at his trade, but not good enough. Tamar accepted the challenge without making any moves to indicate that he had detected the follower. For a while Tamar took delight in making stops that would frustrate the shadow. He entered an inn and sat comfortably drinking ale while he imagined his follower wondering if Tamar had darted out the back door. He went to the library, looped around the tables and casually exited the building. He smiled inwardly as his shadow had to run to catch up.
Finally tired of making his shadow’s life miserable, Tamar headed towards the harbor. He entered a sailors’ tavern and immediately exited through the rear door into a seldom-used alley. He quickly pressed his back against the wall behind the open door and shoved the door shut. Moments later the door opened cautiously. Someone peeked out the door and saw an empty alley. As the shadow opened the door further to exit the building, Tamar lunged at the door, slamming it with as much force as he could muster. He heard the man’s body fall and quickly stepped around the door.
He stared briefly at the unconscious form of Rattal. Tamar shook his head in disgust as he bent down and searched Rattal’s body. He removed a pouch of gold and took Rattal’s sword. Rattal’s sword was special to him. It had been a gift from his father and was engraved near the hilt. Tamar stuck it through his belt and moved swiftly along the alley. He made several quick turns and dropped the stolen sword in another alley. He knew someone would find it and try to sell it. He hoped that it made the attack on Rattal appear to be a robbery. Tamar was not ready to let Rattal know that he knew who was following him.
Tamar hurried across the city. He took a circuitous route to make sure that no one else was following him before he approached his father’s tree. He climbed the tree and knocked on the door. This time when Volox opened the door he stepped out of the way quickly so that Tamar could slip in.
“What have we come to when honest elves must sneak around the city for fear of being followed?” asked Volox as he shook his head.
“What we have come to, Father,” sighed Tamar, “is a very dangerous world. It is more dangerous for you than you can imagine. Queen Alycia is the one who ordered the arrest of Vitalora.”
“The queen?” gasped the elder. “That is hard for me to swallow.”
“You are on her list, Father,” Tamar said, “as am I. I caught the person who has been following me tonight. It is one of the officers under my command. An aggressive officer named Rattal.”
“Is he dead?” Volox asked with concern.
“No,” Tamar shook his head. “I made it look like a robbery. He will suspect it was me, but he cannot state that it was. Besides, I do not think he will want to brag about his failure to follow me. The queen has restricted my travels to Morada. I cannot leave the city without the fear of imprisonment.”
“This is not the way Elvangar treats respected officers,” frowned Volox.
“Or elders,” added Tamar. “Something is terribly amiss in Elvangar. I think it revolves around the two foreign girls, but I am not sure yet what is happening. I do know that the queen threatened your freedom today. I want you to rethink your position on retirement.”
“Your mother and I have already talked about it,” replied Volox. “We have always been dedicated to the good of Elvangar. We cannot stop now just because someone threatens us. We are staying right here. I am an elder and will carry on my life as an elder should.”
“I was afraid that you would say that,” frowned Tamar. “Do you have any idea why the queen is acting as she is?”
“Other than the fact that she hates humans?” asked Volox. “I think things changed when Eltor and Caldal brought Mistake and MistyTrail to Elvangar. Whatever that signifies to her, she obviously fears that something has changed and the humans are going to attack us. I am sure that it is fear that is driving her to such extreme measures.”
“Why does she hate humans so much?” asked Tamar. “I mean, everybody knows that she does, but no one knows why.”
“Oh many of us know,” sighed Volox as he sat at the table. “You were much too young at the time, but it all dates back some years ago to a royal family outing. The king, queen, and the princesses went on a family cruise together. It was to celebrate the anniversary of their wedding.”
“There were royal children?” asked Tamar.
“Oh yes,” nodded Volox. “Twins in fact. They were but babes when the ship left port. A tremendous storm appeared out of nowhere when they were out near the Barrier Islands. The king was an excellent sailor. He decided to outrace the storm, but the path of the storm took him past the Barrier Islands. The king sailed on into the night to avoid the deadly storm. That is when the humans struck.”
“Struck?” echoed Tamar. “What did they do?”
“The humans rammed the king’s vessel amidships,” related Volox. “It broke in two. The queen watched as her daughters floated away on the bow. She was stuck on the stern which was rapidly sinking.”
“And the king?” asked Tamar.
“Ah,” sighed the elder, “that is the worst of all. He landed not in either section of the ship. He was plastered to the bow of the human vessel. He never had a chance. The storm blew in so quickly that the stern section had not even sunk by the time the winds arrived. It was only a stroke of fortune that the queen was saved. Another elven ship was also blown off course by the mighty storm. They heard her cries and rescued her. She ordered the crew to search for the king and the princesses, but it was to no avail. Not even the wreckage of the bow could be found, and the storm threatened to sink the rescue vessel.”
“So they brought the queen back safely?” prompted Tamar.
“They did but it was quite an ordeal,” nodded the elder. “The storm was the greatest ever recorded. It took them days to return to Morada. During that time, the queen refused to eat or sleep. She just kept staring off into the distance. She was like a stricken animal when the ship returned to port. It took the Society of Mages a month to restore her to good health. Her first decree as queen was to ban sailing past the Barrier Islands. The second was to never speak to a human.”
“I cannot imagine living through such an experience,” frowned Tamar. “Not only to lose your husband, but your children as well. That is a bitter herb to swallow. It is easier for me to understand her moods with this knowledge.”
“Yes, it is,” Volox nodded sympathetically. “I imagine the sight of two young foreign girls coming to Morada might have touched off some inner feelings. They are probably around the same age as her poor lost daughters.”
“Sweet Kaltara!” exclaimed Tamar.
“What?” Volox asked, his brows rising questioningly.
“Those are her daughters,” Tamar proclaimed. “By Kaltara’s grace they survived the great storm.”
“Inconceivable,” Volox shook his head. “Perhaps I did not explain the fury of the storm with sufficient description. It was a monster of a storm the likes of which has never been seen before or since. They could not have survived.”
“Then how do you explain their Kieran ancestry?” asked Tamar. “The Kieran line is the most stringently charted line in all of Elvangar. Where else would they fall in such a chart other than the princesses?”
“They are Kieran?” asked Volox. “How could you possibly know this?”
“They said so themselves,” Tamar said excitedly. “Don’t you remember me saying so in the park when you and Vitalora were arguing about the queen?”
“No,” frowned Volox, “I do not recall you saying it, but it was a tense conversation. How could they possibly know their ancestry?”
“I do not know,” admitted Tamar, “but I believed them. No one in the village contradicted their claim. Why would they lie? We must tell the queen immediately.”
“No,” Volox said emphatically. “Let me think about this for a minute.”
“There can be no proof of such a claim,” offered Anija as she brought some hot drinks to the table. “Were Mistake and MistyTrail to proclaim that they were the lost princesses, the queen would see it as an attempt to steal the throne. You must learn to think before you act, Tamar.”
“Who was present when the girls made this claim?” asked the elder.
“Eltor and Caldal were there,” answered Tamar. “I was just escorting them to the village. Mistake and MistyTrail were with the old mage, Garl.”
“Garl himself is a Kieran,” noted Volox. “I wonder if he could have put such thoughts into the girls’ heads?”
“I thought you said that there were generations of elves living on the Island of Darkness,” interjected Anija. “They could be from any of those families.”
“No,” Volox shook his head. “The girls were not from Motanga. They did rescue Eltor and Caldal from the island, but only after they were shipwrecked there themselves. Both girls grew up in the land of humans. There should be no elves living there at all.”
“None?” asked Anija.
“None that the boys’ testimonies pointed to,” shrugged Volox. “I don’t know. This is a sticky situation. How does one prove their ancestry? And if they can prove that they are Kierans, should they? It could put their lives in danger with the way the queen is acting now.”
“I think the girls should be moved to an undisclosed location until we figure this out,” suggested Tamar. “There is too great a risk to them as it stands now. I do not want to see them harmed.”
“You are restricted to the city,” Volox pointed out. “I am not. In the morning I will go to Etta and collect the girls. I will take them somewhere safe and then we can figure out what to do with them.”
“Stay with us tonight, Tamar,” offered Anija. “We can discuss this a while longer before Volox goes to bed. I will make up the girls’ room for you.”
Anija stopped as she realized what she had said. Tears rolled down her cheeks as she went off to make the room up for Tamar.
* * *
“Someone is coming,” whispered Eltor. “Hide.”
Eltor ducked into some shrubs while Caldal hid behind a tree. Eltor peered into the moonlit night to see who would show up on the path. A distant figure appeared. It stopped walking and stood silently for a long time. Suddenly, the sky lit up brilliantly. Eltor shielded their eyes from the brightness. When Eltor looked back at the trail, the figure was gone.
“What are you boys doing out here in the night?” grumbled Garl. “Are you becoming robbers now?”
Eltor and Caldal spun around and saw the old man standing on the trail behind them. Eltor wiggled out of the shrubs and Caldal moved away from the tree.
“Soldiers came and took Mistake and MistyTrail,” reported Eltor. “Caldal and I are going to Morada to rescue them.”
“Rescue them, are you?” smiled Garl. “At least your hearts are in the right place. I passed a wagon hours ago. I wish I had known then whom it carried. You will not succeed in rescuing them. I am sure that the girls will be watched very closely.”
“They rescued me out of the temple of Vand on the Island of Darkness,” retorted Caldal. “The prison in Morada can’t be that hard.”
“They will not be just regular prisoners as you two were,” frowned the old man. “If Caldal was watched closely in the temple, would you have been able to free him?”
“No,” Eltor admitted after a moment of hesitation. “I guess we were very lucky, but we have to try. Why would they be arrested anyways? They have done nothing illegal.”
“It is not what they have done,” scowled Garl, “it is who they are.”
“What do you mean?” asked Eltor. “They are Mistake and MistyTrail. What do you mean who they are?”
Garl silently stared at the two boys for a long time without answering. The boys began to fidget while the old mage tried to measure the worth of telling them the truth. Finally he sighed and wrapped an arm around each of their shoulders in the manner of teammates.
“Mistake and MistyTrail are the lost daughters of Queen Alycia,” Garl said conspiratorially. “This is a secret that must remain among us. Their real names are Alahara and Alastasia. I do not know which is which.”
“Princesses?” gasped Caldal. “How can this be? They are foreigners.”
“They are elves of royal blood,” corrected Garl. “They may have grown up in foreign lands, but they are the heirs to the crown.”
“But why would they be arrested then?” asked Eltor. “None of this makes any sense.”
“Some of it does,” frowned Garl, “but not all of it. I have not figured out yet if the queen truly knows their identities.”
“Of course she doesn’t,” insisted Caldal. ”If she did, they would not have been arrested.”
The old man did not reply and Caldal began to frown deeply.
“She wouldn’t arrest her daughters, would she?” he asked.
“I don’t know what our queen is capable of,” admitted Garl. “One thing I am sure of, we must go to Morada and aid them in whatever way we can. I expect the two of you to do exactly as I instruct you. This is no time for taking chances on foolish bravado. Can I trust the two of you?”
“We will do as you instruct,” promised Eltor.
Caldal nodded exaggeratedly, and Garl accepted their vows. Garl took his arms off the boys and started walking towards Morada. Eltor and Caldal followed along.
* * *
The soldiers pulled the wagon up to the rear of the prison. They grabbed the bodies of the girls and carried them inside. A guard opened a sturdy metal door and the girls were carried into a cell. The soldiers took the girls’ belt knives and slashed the ropes that bound their hands together. Before Mistake could get the sack off of her head, the door had slammed shut.
“I would have liked to have seen what is outside that door,” whispered Mistake. “They were not very efficient at searching us.”
“Perhaps they don’t expect us to live long,” frowned MistyTrail as she untied her feet. I am beginning to get a poor taste in my mouth for Elvangar. Even the humans that didn’t like us treated us with more dignity than I have seen in this land.”
“True,” sighed Mistake. “Even as a slave I was never carried with a dirty sack over my head. What do you suppose happened to cause them to arrest us?”
“Maybe Garl was arrested in the city?” shrugged MistyTrail. “Maybe he said we were going to try to escape and return to the Sakova?”
“Garl would never do that,” sighed Mistake.
“I know,” agreed MistyTrail. “I just can’t think of any possible reason for arresting us. Do you think it is illegal for foreigners to learn elven magic? Maybe that is it. Yes, Garl was arrested and said he had to get back to give us magic lessons, but that is forbidden.”
“Nice try,” Mistake shook her head. “Although,” she added thoughtfully, “the sacks and binding of our hands is what you would expect to see if they knew they were arresting mages. Maybe it does have something to do with our learning magic, but Garl would protect us. I cannot see him ever bowing down to anyone. He does what he thinks is right.”
“Well,” posed MistyTrail, “maybe we should concentrate on what to do to get out of here instead of wondering why we are here.”
“I am sure that I could pick the lock on the door,” assured Mistake, “but we have no idea what lies beyond it. Let’s wait until they bring us a meal or something. Be alert when it happens and try to see as much of what is outside as you can.”
“At least our room was so small that we had to sleep with our packs,” MistyTrail said as she rummaged through hers for a bite to eat.
Mistake brightened as she watched MistyTrail rummage through her pack. She reached into her own pack and extracted the carozit.
“Give me your hand,” Mistake said to MistyTrail as she turned the carozit upside down.
MistyTrail placed her hand over Mistake’s and watched as the balls separated barely enough to slip a piece of paper between them.
“We are close,” Mistake said. “Our relative is in this city, probably only blocks away from us. I wonder what he or she is doing right now?”
“Probably sleeping,” frowned MistyTrail. “We might want to do that ourselves. If we do escape out of here, we will not have time to sleep along the way.”
The girls curled up on the cold stone floor and went to sleep. A few hours later MistyTrail heard a noise beyond the door. She quietly nudged her sister. Mistake sat up and listened to the noises. A key turned in the lock and the door suddenly swung open. A tall man in a white cloak walked in the door holding a torch high above him. The shadows distorted the man’s features, but his long black beard was obvious to both girls. He glared down at them as he placed the torch in a holder on the wall.
“Who are you?” asked the man.
“I am MistyTrail, and my sister is Mistake,” answered the Sakovan. “Why have we been arrested?”
“I will ask the questions,” snarled the man. “You have made statements that you are descended from Kieran. Is this true?”
“I am from Fakara,” Mistake said quickly before MistyTrail could answer. “I do not know what a Kieran is. May I ask your name?”
The man glowered at the girls for a moment before exhaling in frustration.
“You may call me Karaza,” declared the questioner. “Are you denying that you were overhead stating the you are descendents of Kieran?”
“I think whoever overheard us must be mistaken,” smiled Mistake. “We have no idea who our parents were. They died when we were quite small.”
The interrogator looked on with suspicion. He suddenly waved his hand, and Mistake felt a wooziness come over her. She closed her eyes tight and tried to will the feeling away, but it did not help.
“Have you ever said that you were descendents of Kieran?” asked Karaza.
“Yes,” replied Mistake.
“Mistake!” scowled MistyTrail. “What are you saying?”
The man waved his hand again and it was MistyTrail’s turn to feel woozy. She also fought the feeling, but she was incapable of doing anything about it.
“Who told you that you were descended from Kieran?” asked Karaza.
“Garl,” they answered in unison.
“And what leads him to believe this?” asked the interrogator.
“Our ability to cast a certain spell,” answered Mistake.
“It can only be cast by those of the Kieran line,” added MistyTrail.
“Do the names Alahara or Alastasia mean anything to either of you?” inquired Karaza.
“No,” Mistake and MistyTrail answered in unison.
“Are you aware that Garl is a criminal?” asked Karaza.
“We know that he was banned from the Society of Mages,” answered MistyTrail.
“Because he is a criminal,” declared Karaza. “If you allow his deceit to enter your minds, it will bring trouble for you. You are not of the Kieran line. He lied to you. Do you understand now?”
“No,” MistyTrail shook her head. “Garl is nice to us. He would not lie.”
“He lied to you,” shouted the interrogator. “You are not of the Kieran line. Repeat it. You are not of the Kieran line.”
“I am not of the Kieran line,” Mistake offered instantly.
MistyTrail’s mouth opened, but nothing came out. Karaza glared at her.
“Say it,” demanded the questioner. “You are not of the Kieran line. Say it.”
“I am not of the Kieran line,” came the sound from MistyTrail’s mouth.
“You are not to have any further contact with Garl,” declared Karaza. “Never again.”
“Does that mean that we are free to go?” asked Mistake.
Karaza shook his head and stared at Mistake. He frowned deeply at her question.
“You will be free to go when I decide that you may go,” he snapped. “I am not yet through with my questions for you, but I have enough for now.”
The interrogator rose and grabbed the torch. He left the room and the door slammed shut. Both girls shook their heads as the spell dissipated.
“What was that all about?” asked MistyTrail. “What happened to us?”
“He used magic to make us tell the truth,” explained Mistake. “It took me a while to understand what was going on. I guess we had already said too much to save Garl from the trouble that will now come his way.”
“I couldn’t answer his last question,” MistyTrail declared, “but he seemed to think I did.”
“I answered for you,” smiled Mistake. “My years of being a thief made the lie come easily to my tongue after I understood what he was doing to us. I just cast a small air tunnel to your head and answered for you. He would not have left until you promised something that your mind would not allow you to say.”
“What were those names he asked us about?” questioned MistyTrail.
“I do not know,” frowned Mistake, “but I got the impression that some one thinks those names belong to us. Alahara and Alastasia. They are pretty names.”