by Dylan Doose
Aldous rocked back and forth in the chair for some time, simply starring at the book, The Indisputable Science of Goodness by Darcy Weaver. He read the title aloud every ten minutes or so. But Aldous could not bring himself to start the book.
Why this particular book? Why his philosophy and not his fiction? Why this volume of philosophy? What if I disagree? The last was the core question and the main force that stopped Aldous from opening the book. Not once in his youth had he disagreed with his father. Essentially, it was a fear of having his very first argument with his father that would not let him even open to the first page.
A knocking came at the door.
“Yes?”
“It’s me,” came Theron’s voice.
Theron entered the room, about to speak, but before he could Aldous did. “Why are you doing this? Why have you done all that you have, not just for me but also for Kendrick?”
“I’m getting sick of you asking me that question. There is no other rational way to be,” said Theron as he stepped into the room.
The matter-of-fact answer irritated Aldous. He was not sure why, but it did. He was suspicious; he could not help it, for what man behaved as this Theron Ward? Born into wealth, sickeningly abundant wealth, with no need to ever do a bloody thing, yet he did so much. He made himself into so much more than his birthright. Aldous felt a spiteful, cynical monster in that moment, but he could not help it. The man’s positivity and compassion had all of a sudden become irksome.
“Of course there is, are you mad? You have everything, yet you risk it all to be a hunter to defend the weak, to try and save and change the villainous. You could sit about and—”
“And do nothing?” Theron snickered in a way that made Aldous feel like the greatest fool who’d ever lived for speaking the way he just had. “That is rational, you think? To sit about and do nothing?”
“You can’t win,” Aldous said in a weak voice. He was blushing now, and he looked down at the book, the book that belonged to Theron, and stopped rocking in the chair that belonged to Theron. He felt very much like an arrogant child, arguing just to argue. Disagreeing just because it took trust to agree, but despite this he whispered, “You can’t win, you can’t change the world; the evil in it will never leave.” He thought of his father, his brilliant, hopeful father, burning alive.
“Neither will the good.” Theron stood over Aldous, a great and powerful form.
“They killed my father because they believed him to be evil, because they thought they were right. In the end it is a matter of perspective,” Aldous said.
“If you truly believe that, you have lost. You have lost and you are not your father’s son. Such a belief is an escape. Saying that all is relative, or a matter of perspective, is to say you accept evil. Torture is not a matter of perspective; rape is not a matter of perspective; burning a man alive for questioning a church that flays and burns and crucifies any who do not kneel to the Luminescent is no matter of perspective. It is evil.” Theron tilted Aldous’ head up so he was looking into his eyes. “There is no arguing this. There is good and there is evil, and every man and woman must face this reality.”
“It’s not that simple,” Aldous said, with a bit more venom in his voice than he intended.
“Read your father’s book, Aldous.” Theron sighed. “I will be leaving Wardbrook for a short time. I have business in Baytown and I mustn’t be late.”
He turned his back and walked from the room without waiting for a response from Aldous, then over his shoulder said, “Sir Hakesworth will be in charge of the estate while I am gone, and will continue to make sure our friend Kendrick is in the process of good recovery.”
Aldous said nothing, just watched Theron walk down the hall until he had turned a corner and was out of sight, and then he closed the door and walked to his bed to again look at the book.
“They’re home! They’re home!” The blonde little girl ran down the path, lush green grass to either side. She spun once, and twice, her little dress rising and twirling in the soft summer wind. Her smile beamed. She closed her eyes tight, her head tilted to the warm sun, as she twirled toward the two figures of her affection that rode down the path back home.
“They have only been gone three days, child, just three days.” Her mother laughed.
“It felt longer! It felt like forever and ever. I’m so happy they are home!” The little girl’s voice trailed like her long golden hair as she ran ahead down the path.
“It will be a most cherished reunion,” whispered her mother.
Chapter Twelve
Reunions
Ken stood from the bed and walked to the window. Glass. He ran his hand over the smooth surface. Keeps and churches were the only places he had ever seen with glass windows, which made him wonder where he was.
What was the last thing he remembered? It wasn’t a good thing. There was an aching in his back, and the image of the torture chamber in the depths of Norburg Keep flashed across his mind, along with the memory of ten armed men dragging him from slumber.
“Alma,” Ken said. “I am sorry. I truly am. I hoped they would never find me, and for that I am a monster. For gambling your life on what I hoped.”
He turned and looked at the bed. All his life he had slept like a cave bear; as a boy and as a murderous man, not a thought stirred while he slept. Yet he knew that, in that bed, he had dreamed.
He remembered the blond man with the features of a northern warrior prince. Theron Ward, the monster hunter. He saved my life. There was another too, a young man. Black hair. Aldous Weaver.
He looked around the room. The walls were a deep maroon. A great fireplace was lit on the wall furthest from Ken, ten pointed antlers on a plaque above it. The floor was a dark wood, and in front of the fire was the pelt of a snow-white wolf. He turned his head back around and looked at the bed. It was royal. There was no other word for it; the bed alone was the size of Ken and Alma’s modest hovel.
He walked across the room toward the immense dresser, on which a large—and, to Ken’s taste, offensively decorated—mirror was fastened. The frame was rich wood, with a delicate relief of angelic creatures carved into it.
It had been a long time since he’d stared into a mirror.
Ken took a moment to comprehend the man in the reflection. His chin was clean shaved, and his once long, matted hair was trimmed down to the skull. Ken did not remember much, but he was sure that he was not responsible for the clean shave. The black bags beneath his eyes, the bandages around his torso and arms, and the overall look of depletion was likely the doing of fever, for that would also explain the dreams.
Looking in the mirror confirmed how he felt. Weak. Horribly weak. A sensation he had not felt since he was a boy, a sensation he despised. He wanted to strike the mirror, smash it to shards and obliterate every part of the strange, lavish room he had woken into. He expected the voices of self-loathing that haunted his mind to speak, to chide him, to ridicule him, but for the first time in a long time, the voices were silent. He took a deep breath and accepted that something had happened, something terrible, and for whatever reason he was still alive.
Chaos.
The door creaked open behind Kendrick and he turned from the window and saw the boy, Aldous. He looked both afraid and surprised to find Kendrick by the window.
“Where am I? I don’t think I’m supposed to be here,” Ken said, confused and embarrassed.
“You are supposed to be here. I just didn’t expect you to be out of bed.” The boy came no closer.
“Why? What has happened? Am I dreaming?” Kendrick was beginning to feel more than a bit uneasy, then he noticed the tray in Aldous’ hands. There was a cup of tea, or water maybe, and what looked like oats. Hot oats with milk and water. He sniffed the air. There was a spice… Cinnamon? Another symptom of wealth—or he was back in the east, for that was the only place he’d ever encountered such a spice. He hoped for the former.
“I hope not. I hope you’re awake and sane. F
or seven days you were ebbing in and out of this life and screaming madly in your dreams. In your most recent outburst, I feared for my life,” said Aldous, nervously extending the tray.
“I think I’m awake. Where are we, and why are you here? I remember the fight, the slaughter.” Ken paused. “We killed Count Salvenius. Or was that a dream?” He took the tray, and again smelled the cinnamon.
“No, that was real. That night was real. The count is dead and all of Norburg is in ruin. The rats were real, too.” Aldous shuddered.
“I remember a woman,” Ken said, setting the tray on a low table. “And the rats parting to let her through.”
“Yes.” Aldous shuddered again and sidled a little closer. “You were wounded and exhausted. We set out for Wardbrook, two days’ march from Norburg. You were fading the first day, but somehow managed to keep up. Do you remember any of this?”
Ken shook his head. He didn’t remember any of it, except what mattered. The dead count. And the witch, though why the witch mattered, he couldn’t say.
“By nightfall you collapsed and looked like you weren’t going to make it. It guilts me to say, but I simply thought we were going to leave you.” Aldous bowed his head and looked to be in genuine shame, a disposition Kendrick knew much of.
“Why didn’t you?” Kendrick asked. “Leave me, I mean. You should have. I deserved to be left there.” He was angry now, and he stepped forward, but then felt woozy and sat back down on the bed. “I deserve to die,” he said softly, as he thought of Alma.
Aldous handed him the cup, and Ken took a sip. It was tea, with milk, warm and pleasant and sweetened with honey.
“Theron didn’t think so.” Aldous said, still standing. Ken stared at the boy, who was clearly uneasy, not sure if Ken would bite.
“Why? He knows who I am, as I have no doubt you do as well. If not when we first met, our host has informed you.”
“He has,” Aldous said in a hush.
Ken gave a snort of laughter. He forced it out. Nothing was funny.
“Whatever he told you, the truth is far worse.” He finished the tea and handed the empty cup back to Aldous then wiggled his fingers at the porridge. The boy handed him the bowl.
“Are you an evil man?”
“Don’t be childish,” Kendrick said, but when he looked at Aldous it was clear the question was serious. “Yes.”
“Theron thinks that can change.”
“He does, does he? What do you think?”
“I’m not sure. Maybe you’re a good man who’s done evil things. Your punishment is living with that.”
“That’s a pretty easy punishment,” Ken said. He tried to sound cold, tough, and emotionless, but the boy’s fear was gone and he stood up to leave the room.
“I disagree. I doubt there is anything worse.” Aldous walked to the door.
“The fuck do you know about guilt, boy?”
“I watched the church burn my father alive. I watched and I did nothing, his screams ringing in my ears. Then I spent the rest of my life copying the Church’s scripture. If I didn’t, I’d be branded a heretic, so I bent my knee to evil. I want to make up for that guilt. I don’t know how, but I want to do it.” Aldous spoke quietly, and looked past Ken as he did; he looked down the path of hatred. It was cloudy for the boy now; the fog on the road was thick, but Ken knew that all one had to do to clear the path was keep on walking.
Theron had arrived at Baytown in good time. He smiled as he took in the salty air gusting in from the sea, through the wide, muddy thoroughfares of the town. Baytown was one of the rare places in Brynth that always looked and felt the same. A heavy fog drifting about the wooden shanties; bearded, grim-looking men weathered by the sea, always talking about their most recent catch. The issues of the world were lost on these people, unless those issues had to do with fish. The sound of the gulls cawing above as they circled in the sky, waiting for a morsel of any kind to make itself known through the fog below, whether it was a fish in or out of water, or perhaps to sneak into a bucket of bait whilst a fisherman was not looking. Baytown was a place where hunger ruled all in some ancient way, and a full belly was the only blessing asked for from the gods of the sea.
The last time Theron had been here, he himself was returning from the far northern isle of Ygdrasst. On a ship given to him by a great Jarl—the Storm Lurker. It was a lean vessel, half schooner and half dragon ship of some past era. It was a long ship, but it glided low on the water and moved with tremendous speed when the sails were full, and even when all that pushed her were the oars.
It was the ship Theron looked for now as he dismounted his horse and walked down the long dock that stretched out into the calm, lapping waves of the sea. He saw the bulkhead first, emerging from the heavy fog, the carved visage of a furious serpent, tongue like a snake and teeth like a wolf. Gulls floating on the water took flight and fled from the cruel face of that formidable beast of the blue. The sails were down, and the oars were out rowing hard toward Baytown.
He could see the girl at the head of the bow as the Storm Lurker glided from the mist. She was not the girl he remembered, and the way she stood at the head, it was as if she were captain—a position she had not held when she left Brynth. Even at the distance, Theron could see her shoulders had widened. She wore light chain mail, and the sides of her blonde hair were in tight braids with the center loose and wild.
She returns a hunter.
Theron smiled so wide it hurt.
“Chayse!” he called.
“Theron, you fool! You came to escort me home?” she called back as the Lurker neared the dock.
“But of course. I planned the trip the moment I received your letter.”
When the ship was aligned and the oars were taken in, the crew set to the task of pulling the schooner to dock. Chayse, apparently unable to wait for the ship to be fully settled, leapt from the deck to the dock. Theron caught her in his arms and squeezed her as he had when she was a child.
When they were children.
“You’ve grown,” he said when he placed her down.
“Excuse me?” she asked, flushing red in an instant and punching Theron in the arm. “That is not a thing you say to a lady.”
“In a good way.” Theron laughed. “You were meager when you left, could barely draw back your bow.”
Chayse drew the longbow that she wore on her back and flexed the sixty-pound draw all the way so that the yew of the shaft gave a bit of a bend. Chayse had been better than anyone Theron had ever met with a bow before she left; he figured her trials far away had honed her talent to the point of being frightening.
Theron squeezed her drawing shoulder. “Carved in stone!” he said, much impressed.
“Just like you,” Chayse said as she released the string, then gave Theron a hit to the gut.
They looked at each other for a long time. They laughed and embraced, then looked at each other once again. She was a stranger; she was a changed woman, physically and mentally. She was certainly altered from her time away, but she was still the same Chayse.
“How did the Storm Lurker serve you?” Theron asked.
“Well. She is small, but her craftsmanship is superb, for she rips through the tide quicker than any ship her larger.”
“Just as I said she would.”
“Yes, Theron, just as you said. You know all there is to know about ships.” Chayse gave him a playful shove.
“What can I say? I am an expert on a great many things.” He smiled wide at her again. Not the smile he gave to strangers, or even the one he gave to himself in the mirror. This was a special smile just for Chayse. They embraced once again.
By now the rest of the crew had come off the ship. Some men Theron knew, for they had adventured with him before. They embraced and offered one another a reminiscent joke. The men Theron did not know shook and embraced anyway, for they all knew of him, whether or not he knew of them. They exchanged jokes about what it was like to spend two years serving under the likes of Chay
se.
It was clear that the fact that she was only twenty years and a woman meant little to most of these men, for their respect was obvious. And those who were too primitive in their beliefs to admit respect for a woman looked as if they feared her enough to keep their opinions to themselves.
“What say you we stay one night in Baytown before we head back?” Chayse said. “I’m sure the lads would love to tell you stories and hear some of your own. Two years is a long time for racking up a good adventure or ten.”
“I would love to, but—” Theron began.
“But nothing, ye handsome bastard! Two years is a while to be free of having a drink with Franklin the Fierce,” said Franklin the Fierce.
“All right, all right. One night I shall stay, but then Chayse and I must depart, for there are guests waiting at the estate.” The group cheered, all of them madly excited about getting drunk, for every man knew that the only thing better than a voyage at sea was getting drunk when that voyage was done.
“Guests?” asked Chayse, eyes narrowed. “You didn’t go and get married, did you? Have some girl and her kin back at home?”
The group all had a good laugh at this, for if Theron Ward was known for one thing as much as his monster slaying, it was his womanizing.
The Scathing Skeemer was Theron’s type of tavern, although the misspelling of the word schemer on the sign outside did drive him a little mad. The place was filled with as much joy as it was with drunken sailors and fat, jovial concubines. It took Franklin the Fierce a matter of seconds before he had coin out and was smothering his mangled face in a plump, pale pair of teats. Chayse laughed at the sight and slapped Franklin hard on the ass. He raised his head and yelped, but his lady pulled him back down into the warm abyss of her mighty mams.
When they had slowed down a bit after the initial excitement of their reunion, they took to serious talking—well, Chayse, Theron and a few of the older, more weathered hunters. The younger ones and the crewmen who manned the ship stuck to drinking and whoring.