by C B Samet
I turned toward the emerald beach. Waves licked the warm golden sand on the beach of this secluded paradise island. I thought about how this was no longer a rescue mission. I couldn’t take her away from this, certainly not from her family.
She sat down in the sand, staring at the beach as well.
Sitting down next to her, I said, “More importantly, I can come here. I can come visit you and Trad and Bellok.”
Her shoulders seemed to relax, as though she had been holding tension in them. Did she expect me to demand she leave all of this? How could I possibly insist she go home when her home didn’t exist anymore?
“I would very much, though, like you to come to my wedding.”
Looking at me perplexed, she said, “But I thought you said...”
“We are married,” I interrupted. “We legally married on the junk ship by the captain. But there is to be an official wedding at the Queen’s castle.” Then I added in a murmur, “Something ridiculous and extravagant, no doubt. Something, I suspect, that will make her seem magnanimous for hosting the Champion’s wedding. I think it’s a political ploy, but I agreed to it.”
I picked up a shell and scraped at the sand with it.
“Of course, I will go to your wedding!” She took my hand and squeezed it.
I smiled in relief, suddenly excited that there would be a large ceremony and elated she would be there.
We sat on the beach until sunset, talking about our families. I told her about Joshua and how many times he seemed to have saved me, sometimes from myself. She shared with me some of her courtship with Bellok. She told me about Trad, how his tenacity reminded her of me, but his math skills were reminiscent of Paul’s.
As we walked back to the village, I explained I needed to get back to Marrington and let the Queen know I was okay. Secretly, I also did not want to spend another night sleeping in a strange place. I could sleep at the castle and return tomorrow well rested.
We also discussed that once people knew leaving was an option, some were likely to want to go. I asked her to make a list and I would transport one person or family and their belongings per week back to their homes.
Walking inside my mother’s house, I saw Joshua, Trad and Bellok seated at a table drinking moon juice. Well, Trad was perhaps drinking regular juice. They greeted us warmly. I explained to Joshua that we should go back to the castle to let them know we were safe.
Trad gave me a hug, as though he’d been part of the discussions between Joshua and Bellok and now understood the situation. I smiled and thanked him. I nodded at Bellok, and then turned to hug my mom.
I felt like a child again in her embrace, forgetting cares and worries and remembering tall, tickling grass as I tumbled in a meadow, the sting of bark scraping bare knees as I climbed a tree, and the smell of butterscotch nuts baking in the oven. The best part of this hug was that it wasn’t the last. Through all of the fear and agony and devastation, I had my mother back in my life.
We separated.
I took Joshua’s hand in mine and led him a few steps away from everyone else so we could go back to Marrington Castle.
I transported us back to my room. Serenely, the blue light of the moons filtered through the blue curtains. I recognized the comfortable blue bed and the many items I had amassed over the last few weeks that were neatly against one wall.
Suddenly Joshua was lifting me into his arms and burying his face in my neck. I gasped, clutching my legs around his waist.
“I’ve been wanting you in my arms,” he said in a husky voice, his lips attacking my neck.
I moaned.
“Is that all you want?” I whispered in his ear.
He took his cue and pulled my tunic off. I took down my leggings as he pulled off his clothes. I leaped, naked, back into his arms.
“You feel amazing,” he said.
I kissed him, the heat and desire swimming through my body. “Not here,” I murmured. Closing my eyes, I took him back to the first place I had nearly lost my mind with desire for him. Cool water engulfed us. He arched his back and gasped slightly. I wriggled my hips until he slipped inside of me.
The lake all around was tranquil and dimly lit by the pale moons. Distant birds were settling in nests for the night and crickets were be- ginning their song.
Joshua clasped my body close to his and moved rhythmically, magically. I kissed him frantically, and then pleaded with him not to stop until my words became screams of pleasure that echoed through the night. Every drop of fear, pain and suffering from the last years of my life seemed to rush out of me and into the ripples of water around us. I collapsed onto Joshua.
14
The wedding arrangements were underway, but they didn’t involve my input. There were all sorts of people scrambling throughout the castle discussing flowers, draperies, decorations, meals, guests and a flurry of other things. My opinion was not consulted, but it was hardly an insult. I really didn’t have an opinion on the matter. I had neither attended a wedding nor possessed an inkling of what mine should look like.
As far as I was concerned, my ideal wedding had already happened—the two of us promising love forever. The fact that it was on a boat in an ocean—a living, swelling, vicious body of water I had feared for so long—was proof that location and ambience were of little con- sequence to me.
My wedding preparations were dance lessons, two hours per day with Baird Potts. I had not thought of the historian and fighter as a dancer, but he was as graceful on the dance floor as he had been on the battlefield. He arrived at our lessons with a neatly trimmed beard and dressed in pressed cotton, looking more like the mythologist, Sebastian Slade, than the burly hermit I saw battle the Muglik warrior on the mountainside. His dark brown hair was pulled back neatly with streaks of blond on the top and gray on the sides. I wondered how long he had been alive. A hundred years? More? He looked to be in his late forties.
Given my clumsiness on the dance floor, I was grateful that I was practicing with him, and Joshua would not see me until my skills were more polished. After the first few days, I could finally claim to have rhythm.
As we danced, Baird discussed the Traveler’s Star. He explained that with training I could become a spectacular warrior, shifting so fast as to make myself undefeatable by opponents. In demonstration, we disappeared and reappeared several times as we danced around the floor. It was a little dizzying, but magically graceful.
“Spectacular warrior?” I scoffed. “I’m done fighting. There is no battle for another thousand years, give or take.”
And I won’t be around for that one. Will I?
He said nothing as he led me through the dance.
“Besides,” I added, “I have my degree now. I can be a science teacher. And Joshua will finish getting his degree. He wants to find cures for ailments, he told me. Then, there is my mother. I have her back now. We have much to catch up on. And I have a half-brother. Then eventually Joshua and I will have children of our own. Interesting, I never considered a family of my own until recently, and suddenly it sounds marvelous.” I stopped talking finally, noticing how Baird was tolerating my rambling.
He smiled warmly. “You will have all of those things, Abigail,” he assured me. “But you have gifts that will enable you to do things others cannot. You will find yourself helping others because you can. There are obligations in this life we attend to, not because we aspire to them but because we are the best ones to fulfill them. You have more greatness to come, Abigail. You are the only Champion to be given the gift of longevity. There is a divine design behind that even if you don’t know it.”
More schemes?
I thought quietly, my mind irritatingly chewing on this bit of grisly news. I had wanted to keep the Warrior Stone as a precious token, not because there was more unrest in store for me. I was ten times stronger with the stone, and he made it sound as though I would need that extra strength.
We finished the dance with a twist and a dip. I stood and he led me to the refresh
ment table. I traced the star on my hand as we walked.
After we drank cool water, he told me about an adventure he had undertaken on Bellos where he diffused tensions between two bickering cities by solving the murder of one of their cooks. I listened, enjoying his storytelling skills. No wonder he wrote books. I also observed how pleasant he was to spend time with. Unlike the Queen, he treated me as an equal. Unlike Zack, he didn’t speak in riddles. Despite our age and experience difference, he was not a superior or an elder, he was just—a friend, a very good friend.
He restarted the phonograph, and we were back on the dance floor. “Baird,” I began, “does the Traveler’s Star ever transport you unawares?”
He considered my question for a moment. “Before I knew what it was, I would occasionally be reminiscing about a place I wanted to visit and find myself there, but the view was transparent. It was a mixture of both where I was and where I wanted to be. That is the closest to an involuntary travel as I have come. Why do you ask?”
“My dreams,” I replied. “On our journey I would dream of en- countering Malos. Each dream was a little more real, everything a little more tangible.”
“Oh,” he said, a bit alarmed as though he were considering the magnitude of those encounters. The Champion could have been destroyed at any one of those prior encounters before ever reaching the battlefield.
My thinking was that perhaps I could have annihilated Malos before the battle. But I couldn’t have, could I? I could not have succeeded without the stone, without knowledge and without development of my crossing abilities.
After a few moments of silence, he said, “You seem to have a bit of a strained relationship with the Queen.”
I puffed out a breath of air. That was an understatement.
“She is actually quite a remarkable woman,” he added.
I turned to him. “I don’t doubt that,” I said. “But I look at her, and I see a stone wall of a woman who showed little remorse over the death of my brother and father when they died helping her. I look at her and I feel anger swell inside me. I know it’s irrational, but it’s like smoldering embers that flare to fire in her presence.”
We stopped dancing and were back at the refreshment table.
Baird nodded and scratched at his beard. “Do you know how the Queen is chosen?”
I shrugged, then sipped my lemonade again. “Sure, the ministers are elected by the citizens and then they elect her.”
“The first part is correct, but she is not exactly elected.”
I stared at him.
“Every fifty years the Queen’s counsel of the time is tasked with finding her replacement. He or she does so because of his or her ability as an oracle. The counsel predetermines which woman, usually in her twenties, will activate the Authority Stone, a Che stone that bestows leadership knowledge to its possessor. The ministers then approve the selection.”
“So the Queen is chosen by the mystical Chevorik Ambria.” It seemed simple enough, yet I felt there was something else he was trying to explain.
“Yes. Much the same way as you were the chosen Champion, a mantle you beheld out of responsibility to your loved ones and your country, so was the Queen given the burden of leading a country be- cause a mystical stone and an oracle told her she was the most qualified.”
“Oh,” I coughed, realizing that was quite a large burden to suddenly have. One day she was living in peace and ambiguity, running through the fields of Aithos petting horses, and the next she was told she would spend the rest of her life in a stone castle making life-and- death decisions.
“My point,” he continued, “is that you two have a great deal in common, and you may benefit from a more symbiotic relationship with her.”
I swallowed a lump in my throat. He was right. Was it important that I admit he was right? I decided that I would keep my silent brooding face and only nod. I wasn’t ready to admit my misjudgment, be- cause then I would need to take the next steps in figuring out how to dismantle the anger I felt toward her.
Taking advantage of the rest of my free time, I visited Phobus in Aithos and we took long rides together through the sun-swept prairie. I also spent time with my mother before the wedding. It was their planting season, so I helped till and plant as she told me about her time on the island. I transported a gift to her—Baby, the ox. I had asked the Queen if I might have the ox that saved my life, and she agreed. She made the request to the Caballus who willingly gave the ox to the Avant Champion. Baby was past her birthing years, but had many more tilling seasons in her. Trad seemed instantly attached, making me realize she might become more of a pet than a worker.
It was a beautiful day, the day before my wedding. The sky was a rich aqua blue filled with tall, buoyant clouds. A breeze swept through the castle grounds, cooling the heat from the warm sun. I had not seen Joshua in two days, having been too busy receiving guests, which was apparently a custom prior to weddings. I suppose they assumed I wouldn’t see much of anyone afterward.
Aman, counsel to the Queen, came by to wish me love and happiness. He looked thinner than the first time I’d seen him but just as worn and wrinkled. Perhaps the worry lines around his eyes were more relaxed now. I asked him how he knew I would become the Avant Champion, how he knew that I could bring the Queen to safety, much less save the kingdom. He gave a distant stare and then recalled in a vague and hopeful tone something about a dream with a lion and a deer crossing a river together.
I frowned, not sure that my quest full of uncertainties and perils quite fit his dream. It was a less than satisfactory answer, but I didn’t know how to respectfully tell him how unhelpful such a story was. He rose, patted me on the shoulder as one does to an ignorant child, and bid me peace and lifelong happiness once more.
Allis came by smiling and dressed in fine attire appropriate for the Queen’s Court. His left leg from below the knee was a metal peg, and he walked with a cane. I hugged him warmly and expressed my delight to have learned that he lived through the battle. I thanked him for all the help he had given on the trip, and he nodded.
Then he handed me a long, slender item wrapped in soft leather.
I bowed slightly and unraveled the gift. It was a beautiful ivory elephant tusk elaborately painted with gold and reds. I sucked in a breath as I turned it over to examine the exquisite work.
“It’s beautiful.” I exhaled in astonishment. “Thank you.”
He beamed, a full set of white teeth lighting up his face.
I poured him a cup of tea, then asked him what was next for him.
“Return to Laos a hero,” he replied, grinning. “I can now marry the woman of my choosing. And have a litter of children.” Then he added, “It is because of you, Abigail the Bold, that I know those children will grow up in a safe world.”
I nodded and avoided saying something that Joshua would frown upon, such as, “There were so many more lives that could have been saved,” or “If I had realized sooner and attacked Malos one-on-one, I could have eliminated him before we ever took the battlefield.”
Instead, we sat and drank tea together, and I told Allis my plans for my own future. My vision was just as serene and tranquil as what he was foreseeing for himself. We made plans to visit each other often.
There were many other visitors bearing gifts and well-wishes— ministers, courtesans, farmers, municipal leaders, and more. Most of them were sincere in their thanks, and many of them had known Paul. They mourned his loss with me. Others were less sincere and seemed more to make an appearance to be able to say that they had done so; they had shared tea with the Champion. I was not sure if some of them were disappointed as I found conversations with strangers, well, strange ... and laborious.
A tall, bulky figure entered the room next.
“Arturo!” I hugged him and he returned it albeit awkwardly. Then he half knelt before taking the seat I offered him.
I waved a hand at him. “I’m a bride, not royalty.” “Ya bedaone save us all. Ya bedaone return me
ta me ’ome. I bow fadat,” he explained.
“Okay.” I nodded. I suppose that being the Champion and returning him home was reason enough for a polite bow.
He straightened, produced a small cloth sack and handed it to me. I felt a little sad and a great deal humbled thinking how this sailor who lived as an outcast from his people had taken the time and effort to bring me a gift. After untying the string, I let a solid object from inside the sack fall into my right hand. I stared at a green geode.
“It’s amazing,” I marveled.
“Ya told me da story ’bout ya fader, ’bout ’ow he found da girl.”
I nodded, recalling how I had shared the story with everyone one night on our boat ride. The geode was the same color though half the size my father’s had been.
“It’s perfect,” I said. “Where did you find one?”
He smiled, his cheeks bulging up toward his prominent brow ridge. “I’m a sailor, Ab’ay. I know all de best import shops.”
I nodded and then asked him to tell me all of the places to which he had traveled. He leaned back to consider this before launching into a series of descriptions about his favorite places.
He stayed and talked for a half hour before there was a knock at the door that I had another visitor.
Baird entered and begged forgiveness for the intrusion.
“No, I’d bes’ be on ma way,” Arturo said, rising. “I be lookin’ for- ward to ya weddin’ day, Ab’ay. Well, ya second weddin’ day.”
I stood, nodded, and failed to suppress a nervous chuckle. “Thank you,” I said. As he left, I turned toward Baird with a sheepish smile. “It was supposed to be a secret.”
He sighed with an amused twinkle in his eyes. “I may be a monk, Abigail, but I am not celibate nor ignorant about love. I think the way you look at Joshua makes your feelings about him and your intimacy with him fairly translucent.”
I busied myself pouring a cup of tea for him.
“I’m sorry,” he added with a frown. “That was not intended to embarrass you. A woman in love who is spiritually and physically satisfied is always a thing of beauty.”