A Song and Ale

by M E Wolf

  Delaigda looked at them both and then spoke,

  “Okay, I will agree that we should meet with this person or persons, but we don’t agree to anything unless we are all in agreement with what they say.

  “It is not certain how we should meet with them, but it could be that they are listening to us right now. The fact that the assassins have lessened a bit in the last couple weeks probably means that they have to kill them in order for them to keep in the open more to listen to us talking.

  “In my opinion that is kind of underhanded to not show yourself when we are in need of help from assassination attempts on our very lives, but I guess that there is nothing else that they could do in order to find out if we are worthy of their attention.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY TWO

  All at once they looked behind where Gr’g’r was into the forest when they barely heard some branches crunching under someone’s feet. They all prepared themselves for the worst because they expected more assassins and were relieved when a very short girl or what appeared to be a little girl, stepped out from the woods. She was all in black and was hard to see no matter how close she got to them. Weapons could not be seen on her, but she did not appear to be afraid of them and she radiated an air of confidence that they had never experienced before now.

  Fast she was because she appeared to be going to attack Gr’g’r but at the moment she had reached him she hugged him and Delaigda had to clear her throat for her to let go. Gr’g’r’s face, for some reason, had gone red. Maybe it was because he found out that she was not a child, but a small attractive woman. It was also because he had found out that she was the source of the hungry eyes on him these past two or more weeks.

  Veri was glad that she did not have to hide in the forest any longer. Their conversations regarding the mysteriousness of her stalking them bothered her, she did not feel like a stalker. She was to find out if they were a viable group to approach and did not want to risk herself if they were hostile and attacked her. When they began to talk about contacting whatever faction had been helping them from a position of safety in the woods, it had been as good a time as any to come out and talk to them.

  She could not hold back when she came out she had to grab a hold of Gr’g’r and give him a good and long kiss. His face went red and his friends did not see the kiss so did not know what had happened, it had made her blush as well because she did not expect the kiss to be so good or him to respond and kiss her back. It made her the happiest that she had ever remembered being. Her love for him seemed more real to her now that she could actually spend time with him and he would not be lonely anymore.

  After her embrace with the man she loved, she spoke to them and introduced herself to them,

  “I am Veronica, but most people call me Veri. The syndicate will keep sending assassins after you because of the songs that one of you sung. They do not like anything that exhibits the magic of the past and have been searching for anyone or any object that has these properties and they will destroy them.

  “All of you are unique in being the only group that has not only defended themselves against them, but has killed their assassins every time they have come to kill you.

  “The underground, the organization that I am with, looks for these items and individuals as well but we try to preserve them because we feel that something terrible will come that will need their skills and abilities to defend this planet from total annihilation.

  “Even with our vigor in locating and having many people of your natures join us, most of what was left of the old magic ceases to exist. It is unfortunate that this does happen, but our agents cannot be everywhere.

  “Fortunately, I am here to assist you in getting to one of the bases of the underground where assassination attempts will be impossible. If you are ready, we could leave now.”

  Delaigda thought that it was strange that this girl was an agent of the underground and that she happened to be the one trailing them. It was also weird that she had a thing for Gr’g’r and even gave him a kiss that was probably thought to not be seen by anyone but Gr’g’r. They would have to go some distance from her in order to make an appropriate decision of which Gr’g’r was probably already in agreement with Veri.

  “Before we decide to go with you to a base of the underground we will have to make a decision between us. If you will excuse us for a moment while we discuss this out of earshot of you and when we come to a decision we will come back and tell you.”

  As Delaigda spoke the last words of her discourse, she dragged Gr’g’r and The’d’r a ways away to discuss whether they will go with Veri or not. Veri sat down beside the fire, crossing her legs and began to play with a twig in the fire. Delaigda spoke to Gr’g’r and The’d’r after looking back to see if Veri was trying to listen to them.

  “What do you guys think? I am not sure of her motivations and her playing around with Gr’g’r bothers me. Have you ever met her before Gr’g’r?”

  Gr’g’r shook himself for a moment. It was hard to get out of day dream land once Veri showed up because he kept thinking about how life would be if he could spend the rest of his life with her. He was vaguely aware of Delaigda asking him a question and he barely remembered what it was. His mind was made up that he would go with this girl and make a life with her no matter what life that would be because he was tired of being alone all the time.

  Both Delaigda and The’d’r were looking at him, and so he spoke,

  “I have never met her before, but I do like her a lot and it is not just that she kissed me. There is love in her eyes for me and it is hard being alone especially when I am traveling with you two who stay with each other all the time and I feel like the third wheel.

  “It is my decision to go with her wherever she is going. That way I will have someone to share my life with. Of course this may seem strange to both of you because I have only met her today, but I feel like she was the source of the hungry eyes on me for at least the last two weeks.

  “All those times I had a close call with death, I am sure it was her killing them for me. If we inspected her all those mysterious deaths would be found to be caused by her weapons.

  “So, I will join the underground with or without you, but I would rather both of you join with me because we have to stick together.” Gr’g’r hoped that they would join the underground with him because he could not see how he could do without his brother and knew that his brother could not be without Delaigda.

  He knew that if they did not join the underground, they most likely would eventually be killed. They were too young to be killed at this point in their life. The’d’r was puzzled by what his brother had said because it contradicted what they said earlier also because he could not see his brother leaving him.

  “I am not sure of what to say because I do not want to leave you brother. It is understandable that you are lonely and this girl does show a lot of affection for you.

  “Some of the reasons that we have not been talking to you, is the fact that you put us both together naked. Sure we are closer now because of it, but at least you should have told Delaigda what you were doing at the time.

  “That is mostly behind us now. You are right in thinking that we should stick together and I do not want to leave you either, but can we trust this underground organization?”

  Gr’g’r interjected before his brother or Delaigda could say anymore,

  “There is one thing that we can trust in, well actually more than one thing, but I will mention the major reasons for going with the underground.

  “One, we are very tired and will not be able to withstand too much more of their attempts on our lives. Two, the syndicate will not stop till we are dead and the items that we carry are destroyed.

  “Do you want to lose those artifacts we took from the ruins, your books, the other weapons, and especially the book that only one person could ever read?

  “That person is not known to us yet, but you heard what Veri said about them taking in other gifted peop
le like us.

  “If the syndicate knew about the items that we carry, that not even Delaigda knows about, they would send more than a hundred times the assassins that we have already encountered. Third, for the safety of this planet we must join the underground.”

  Delaigda was surprised that The’d’r and Gr’g’r had kept information from her. She thought that she could trust them and they trusted her, but they had kept a secret. What was on those packhorses that could get the syndicate to kill them even faster than they were already trying to do? If the items on the packhorses were that important then they really did not have a choice like Gr’g’r was saying, but to join the underground.

  “Alright, I agree. With this new information about the items on the packhorses we will have to join the underground organization.

  “You are the only one that has not made their decision The’d’r and you know more about these items than we do. In fact, if the syndicate knew that you were the source of the singing you would be in more trouble than either of us.” The’d’r thought for a moment and came to his conclusion.

  CHAPTER FIFTY THREE

  He needed to find the chosen one. It was not certain whether it would be male or female, but one sign was that she or he would be able to read the books that he had that no one else knew how to read. No one in fact could read them in the last thousand years. To find that one in the underground would make joining it worth while.

  “Okay, we will join the underground, but no word to anyone about what we are carrying on the packhorses. Just say that I am a scholar and they are needed for my research. It is not far from the truth, so it will fit for our purposes.”

  Delaigda, The’d’r and Gr’g’r all went back to the camp fire and told Veri that they would be joining the underground. They packed up their camp while Veri went to get her stuff from the woods. When she got back they all left the road and followed her to a cave. Veri went back out and made sure that their tracks could not be found. She did not have a horse, so everyone decided to pull their horses along instead of riding.

  The cave went deep into the earth and when they had thought they could go no further down, Veri pushed on a part in the wall and a slab of rock rolled back to reveal steps down. Everyone climbed down the steps as Veri made sure that there was no sign of them going through the stone door. Rock was heard sliding on rock as the door closed shutting out all light that they had had when the door was first opened.

  Veri grabbed a torch out of the sconce on the wall and lit it with something. They did not know how she had lit it. The torch gave off only enough light to vaguely display the steps, three at a time and everything else was still dark as though the darkness was trying very hard to swallow the light that the torch did produce. After climbing down the stairs for several hours they came to the bottom or what was supposed to be the bottom since the bottom of the stairs was in some way connected to a bridge that spanned a chasm so wide that the other side of the bridge was not in sight.

  She placed an object into the stone before the front of the bridge and everyone heard metal gears as though something locked into place. It was difficult to get the horses to move over the bridge when it looked like it was made out of glass. To them it was as though they would fall through it anytime and walking on air with little light was not natural to them. The only horse with little problems was Delaigda’s horse Thunder and even the people had problems crossing the chasm.

  A rock was dislodged from the bridge and it had never hit the bottom of the chasm, even when they were halfway across the bridge. Once on the other side of the bridge, Veri put something into the stone before the bridge and metal gears were heard again, but this time it sounded like something was unlocking. They all continued to walk, but up a steep incline instead of down some stairs. When they got to a stone door, Veri knocked three times. Waited, knocked three more times, waited and then knocked once. After a few moments there were four knocks, a pause, then three knocks, a pause and then one knock. Veri then knocked five times, paused, knocked five times, paused and then knocked once.

  Five minutes passed and there was one knock and Veri responded with two knocks and then the door opened.

  “Hello, Veri.”

  A broad shouldered man with a chest larger than a barrel and arms the size of an average man’s legs greeted.

  “You brought the three with you that is good. Candis is awaiting you and made sure that no one would be following any of you by having some people posing as the three going in a direction away from this secret passage.

  “There are more agents hiding around them to get rid of the assassins so that we are not putting them at risk. We have found other talented people on this planet and one that will be hiring others to join us that saved Candis from certain death a few days ago.

  “Rooms have been set up for all of you. We were not sure how your arrangements were, but there is a room for each of you individually. If we need to arrange things differently, we can do so and give couples larger rooms than what we have as singles.”

  Delaigda and The’d’r expressed their wish to be together in the same room right away, likewise Veri and Gr’g’r asked for a shared room and in fact asked for some iced wine to be brought to the room. When Veri and Gr’g’r had both asked this, Delaigda and The’d’r smiled and asked for a bottle of iced wine as well. It was late in the evening and Candis expressed her wish to see them all in the morning.

  The’d’r got all of his stuff brought to his and Delaigda’s room and put his books on two shelves in the room. Surprising Delaigda with more than one hundred and fifty books, of which The’d’r professed only to be able to read a few of. He said that the other books were what the chosen one was to be able to read because they were written in the original language that has not been used for more than a thousand years.

  Inspired by the king sized soft mattress and three bottles of iced wine that she had shared with The’d’r for the last two hours, Delaigda got out of all of her clothes and jumped on the bed. The’d’r also with a heavy buzz from the wine, got out of his clothes and got on the bed close to Delaigda. The rest of the night was a drunken blur and then they fell asleep in each others arms not aware of what they had actually done. They would not know for years of what they had done this night until reflection years and years from now.

  Veri and Gr’g’r once in their shared room forgot about the iced wine and got undressed and joined each other in bed. Their mothers and fathers would not approve of whatever they had done during this night. In the morning they got up, not from slumber because they were up all night and went to the table in their room after grabbing a robe. It is this time that they had some wine.

  CHAPTER FIFTY FOUR

  Jacob had no idea where he was. His clothes were gone and he was in a bed. A bed, how did he get to be in a bed? Trying to get up, he was pushed back down and told to stay down and rest. Who was in the bed with him? Did he get drunk somewhere and end up in someone’s bed? Looking towards where he had heard the voice, he saw the girl that was being chased by the bandits. She was cuddled up next to him and was not wearing any clothes either. Her legs were wrapped around his and her arms were wrapped around his chest.

  It both felt right and did not feel right at the same time, she was fifteen after all. Sure he appeared to be seventeen in all aspects, but he was really one hundred and thirty eight years old and his great, great, great granddaughter on his home world was her age. How would he cope with this? Sure things like this happened on his home world, but the fact that he was seventeen again would actually change all that. Being young would have its benefits, but his mind was still not ready to grasp this or was it.

  He was the only one who knew that he was actually one hundred and thirty eight years old and everyone else would see him as a seventeen year old. Since none of his relatives were here on this planet, he hoped, he could live life as a very intelligent knowing more than he seemed teenager and no one would be the wiser for it. Besides this girl seemed to want Jaco
b for some reason, hopefully it was a good reason.

  Jacob spent days and days more in the bed with the girl before he was allowed out of the bed. It seemed like she did not bother to put on clothes even to answer the door when food came for them because he watched as a tray was put on a table and the girl was standing naked in front of him. Her form was tantalizing, her buttocks were firm and when she turned around with the tray in hand he could see that her breasts were plump and fit tightly on her chest.

  The servant or whatever he was acted as though she was clothed and closed the door behind him as he left, he did not even look back to get a look at the naked girl. This place was strange to Jacob and got stranger as the days went by because the girl never put any clothes on no matter what time of day it was and the servant never even took a first glance at her, he only served the food and that was it. The only day that the girl actually got dressed was when he was ready to get up.

  She had put on all the proper clothes and by the time she slipped her blue silk dress over her head, Jacob found himself wondering why she was overdressing after weeks of wearing no clothes at all. He got dressed into something that looked to be a fifty’s style tuxedo and he was definitely overdressing for something because he had never dressed this fancy even when he had went to receive his Nobel prize. Why this girl had chosen deep purple for the colour of his tuxedo was beyond him.

  Since he had never heard her speak before, her honey coated words poured themselves into his ears and filled his heart with a yearning for her.

  “We are going to a party, my love. I do not know what your name is, and you do not know mine. My name is Sarah, my love. What are you called by, my love?”

  A party, what type of party requires him to wear a suit that would get him called numerous names on his home world and targeted by bullies. At least with her beside him, he should not be considered any of those things. She decided blue for her dress, why not purple for herself and blue for him. Strange party indeed.