The Prince's Mark

The Road to Dezmer - Nine

"Lord Vartanian! Here you are—what are you doing here?! It's been months! Some of us were sure that you'd been killed! Serpouhi told us that you sent her a letter, but she wouldn't let us see it. All she said was that you were in the capital. We've waited for a long time and I decided to come find you, so here I am! Serpouhi's been putting on a brave face, but everyone knows she's been worried."

Tracou could only stand there and let the torrent of words rush past him. Perhaps he should have expected to meet someone from Ergakan in Terel, considering he had told Serpouhi to tell others that he was there. But seeing Elira, the daughter of the man Tracou had left temporarily in charge, had not occurred to him.

Elira was a stout woman, just a little younger than Tracou. She was already married which she seemed to think gave her a maturity that unmarried men and women lacked. For the most part, Tracou avoided dealing with Elira because she tended to trap him in conversations from which he struggled to depart.

As the oldest child in her family, she would take over as the leader of Tracou's small 'militia.' Ardit, her father, was rapidly approaching the end of his days. While annoying, Elira had studied diligently under her father and, in Tracou's understanding, would do well if there was ever a need to fight. But she, like most dezmek, stood no chance against humans. What would she do without her wand?

Elira abruptly noticed the elf next to Tracou and froze, her eyes trailing up Mirthal until she reached Mirthal's ears. Finally Tracou could speak.

"I'm on my way back to Ergakan, Elira. But I have some... business to deal with before I can leave Terel."

"Ah..." Elira nodded, unable to look away from Mirthal. "That's good. But, um... who is this?"

"This is my friend, Mirthal. He doesn't speak Dezmerian."

Elira didn't speak Aodehsh, which would spare Mirthal from her chatter at least.

"Is he why you're so late?"

Tracou hummed in thought, looking up at Mirthal. The elf turned his head toward him, an expression of good-natured confusion on his face.

"It's more complicated than that, but yes."

"Well! While you were out gallivanting with this elf, a lot has happened in Ergakan!"

Worry swelled within Tracou. Ergakan was a sleepy place, where a visitor passing through on their way to the ocean stayed a popular topic of conversation for weeks. Things happening in Ergakan, good or bad, was out of the ordinary.

"Like what?"

"Fishermen like Stepan have been saying that something strange is happening out in the water."

Fishermen like Stepan were old and particularly prone to superstition. Tracou didn't usually speak with them, but he few times he had dealt with Stepan in particular he had been chastised for things like letting Stepan sneeze without saying bless you afterward.

"Strange how?"

"Apparently," Elira began, pausing on purpose to build suspense. "The bigger ships, you know, from the navy? They haven't been returning to port. There's at least three missing, or so I heard. No one's found floating planks or anything so it doesn't seem like they sank. Stepan thinks they've been spirited away somewhere, but an entire ship? You know how big those things are. I think it's more likely that they got lost, really lost."

While mildly interesting, that didn't have anything to do with the land the Vartanian family owned.

"What about Ergakan?"

"Oh." Elira waved her hand dismissively. "The main well dried up. There were a lot of arguments about where to dig the new one, which could have been avoided if you were there!"