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He adds a spoonful and takes another sip. It tastes a lot better. The tea is quite strange. It is unpleasant without the honey and delicious with it.
As he’s doing this, Perl takes up a small brass bowl containing what looks to be dirty salt and stands from the table. He begins to make a circle on the stone floor in front of the large, black hearth. “It is not a name you would know, and one I would rather not speak.”
Kerik watches Perl for a moment, the orange light of the fire behind him makes his ethereal glow seem even more unworldly. “And because of this person, we must go to Ceruleum?”
“Not us. You. I have another mission.”
Kerik drinks more of the tea. “So you’re simply releasing me? You have kept me in a magical sleep for five years only to return me to Azuria? Was that the plan? Were you meant to keep me until after Atticul had been named Duke of Fanost?”
“No.” Perl says, still working on his circle. He seems to be pacing out a precise size. “I have already told you that this is not about being named Duke of Fanost. You will not be going to Attar. Doroth Zain will not allow you to return to the Rose Palace. Your location must not be revealed to many. You are in too much danger. You will be kept safe there.”
This creature might be eager to insist that he does not care about Kerik being named Duke of Fanost, but, to Kerik it is obvious what has been done. Atticul has taken his title while he is presumed dead and now that is done he will be delivered to the Faith, And he has no doubt about what it means in Azuria to be imprisoned by the High Word of Zai.
He will likely be tortured into confessing to sins of the body before he is revealed to the Rose Court, shamed and bound for exile. He needs to find another way out of this.
Perl makes a second circle of salt inside the first and mutters something over them.
Kerik watches. So this is magic. It’s quite fascinating. Perl is performing some kind of ritual, each movement precise. Magic is real, he thinks, barely able to believe it. And if magic is real could he learn such from this creature? Can men learn magic?
Perl picks up a vial from a shelf above the hearth and sprinkles some water onto the salt circle.
“Are you going to tell me where you’re going?” says Kerik.
Perl looks up, looking as if he finds this question surprising. “I must travel to Ulla. To the realm of the fae. To Faerie. To the Ice Court at Vylenor.”
Kerik is silent for a moment, watching as Perl completes his strange sprinkling of liquid and chanting.
But…
Vylenor. Kerik has heard of Vylenor. In the tales where the fae live on the isles of Ulla and Oria, frozen lands, north of Ismagaar, they have a palace called Vylenor.
Of course, most men do not even believe it exists, that there could be anything out there in the ice. But now Kerik knows different. If faeries are real, if their magic is real, then Vylenor is real. And it is said, by those that claim them real, that there is great wealth in the fabled faerie lands.
Kerik says, “Why not take me with you there? To Vylenor?”
“No,” Perl snaps. “It is too dangerous.”
“You have already claimed I am in grave danger if I remain here,” Kerik says brightly. He has no doubt that the danger was a tale to mask a darker plan. But he suspects this faerie believes what he says. Perhaps someone from the Rose Court has tricked him somehow. Kerik knows he can be persuasive. Silver tongued, like his mother. So he says, “And what if this witch who has scared you so follows me to Ceruleum? Without you, I would be defenceless. But…,” Kerik pauses thinking, “she would not be able to follow us to the faerie realm, would she?”
“No. She would not. But I cannot take you there. You have no idea what that place is like for mortals. ”
“So, I suppose the question,” Kerik says easily, “Is which is the more dangerous option? Sending me alone to Ceruleum or taking me with you to Vylenor?” He smiles at Perl, trying to look as charming as possible. Surely, even this staid creature would relish the thought of an attractive travelling companion.
“I suppose,” says Perl, as if he is amazed to find he is even entertaining this idea. “I would be better able to protect you if I kept you with me. But, no, I cannot take you to Vylenor. The fae who live in Vylenor are not… it would be difficult.”
“Just more faeries? That is the danger. You think I can’t handle more of you?”
“The fae who live in Vylenor are not like me.”
“No? Why not?”
“Vylenor, my home, is on Ulla. …” Perl pauses from his work, straightening. “And the way they treat mortals is not kind. It is quite common for the fae of Ulla to take mortals for their beds. And it would be impossible to take you there because this is the only reason mortals are permitted into the Ice Court of Vylenor. As thralls.”
“Thralls?”
“Playthings.”
“Bed chamber toys.” Kerik says it lightly, but there are old stories that men are taken from Ismagaar by faeries who bring them to their frozen isles across the Starlight Sea and make them into their whores. “But you do not wish to use me so?”
