“I’m imagining things. The bump on the head,” he said, and grasped the chain, this time firmly.
He held nothing in his hand but air.
Hugh realized then that Bane’s eyes had opened, the boy was watching him, not angrily or suspiciously, but with sadness.
“It won’t come off,” he said. “I’ve tried.” The prince sat up. “What happened? Where are we?”
“We’re safe,” Hugh said, sitting back and drawing forth his pipe. He’d smoked the last of the sterego, not that he had any way to light it even if he hadn’t. He clamped the stem in his teeth and sucked on the empty bowl.
“You saved our lives,” Bane told him. “And after I tried to kill you. I’m sorry. I truly am!” The limpid blue eyes lifted to gaze at Hugh. “It was only that I was afraid of you.”
Hugh sucked on the pipe and said nothing.
“I feel so strange,” continued the prince in easy conversation, that one small matter between them having now finally been cleared up. “Like I’m too heavy for my body.”
“It’s the pressure down here, the weight of the air. You’ll get used to it. Just sit still and don’t move.”
Bane sat, fidgeting. His gaze went to Hugh’s sword. “You’re a warrior. You can defend yourself the honorable way. But I’m Weak. What else could I do? You are an assassin, aren’t you? You were hired to kill me?”
“And you’re not Stephen’s son,” Hugh countered.
“No, sir, he is not.”
The voice was Alfred’s. The chamberlain sat up, looking around him in confusion. “Where are we?”
“My guess is we’re in the Low Realm. With luck, we’re on Drevlin.”
“Why luck?”
“Because Drevlin’s the only continent down here that’s inhabited. The Gegs will help us if we can make it to one of their cities. This Low Realm is swept constantly by terrible storms,” he added in explanation. “If we’re caught in one out in the open …” Hugh finished his sentence with a shrug.
Alfred blanched and cast a worried glance outside. Bane squirmed and twisted to see. “It’s not storming now. Shouldn’t we leave?”
“Wait until your body’s gotten used to the change in pressure. We’ll need to move fast when we go.”
“And you think we’re on this Drevlin?” Alfred asked.
“Judging from our location when we fell, I’d say so. We were blown around some by the storm, but Drevlin’s the largest land-mass down here, and it’d be hard to miss. If we’d been blown off course too far, we wouldn’t be anywhere.”
“You’ve been here before.” Bane sat up straight, staring at Hugh.
“Yes.”
“What’s it like?” he questioned eagerly.
Hugh did not immediately reply. His eyes shifted to Alfred, who had lifted his hand and was examining it in puzzlement, as if certain it must belong to someone else.
“Go outside and see for yourself, Your Highness.”
“You mean it?” Bane scrambled to his feet. “I can go outside?”
“See if you can find any signs of a Geg settlement. There’s a big machine on this continent. If you can see parts of it, there’ll be Gegs living nearby. Keep close to the ship. You get caught by a storm with nowhere to go for shelter, and you’re finished.”
“Is that wise, sir?” Alfred looked anxiously after the boy, who was squeezing his small body out of a hole smashed in the hull.
“He won’t go far. He’ll get tired sooner than he realizes. Now, while he’s gone, tell me the truth.”
Alfred became very pale. Shifting uncomfortably, he lowered his eyes and stared at his too-large hands. “You were right, sir, when you said that Bane was not Stephen’s child. I will tell you what I know-what any of us knows for certain, as far as that goes, although I believe Trian has conjectured some theories to explain what happened. I must say that they didn’t seem to completely cover all the circumstances-” He saw Hugh’s face darken, the brows draw together with impatience.
“Ten cycles ago, a child was born to Stephen and Anne. It was a boy, a beautiful baby, with his father’s dark hair and his mother’s eyes and ears. You think that is odd, that I mention the ears, but it will become important later on. Anne, you see, has a nick in her left ear, right here, at the outer curve. It is a trait in her family. The story goes that long ago, when the Sartan still walked the world, one of their kind was saved from harm when a spear thrown at him was deflected by Anne’s ancestor. The point sliced off a part of the man’s left ear. All children born since have been marked with that notch as a symbol of the family’s honor.