The rest of our trip within Gremly went by smoothly enough. I felt my left side regain its strength to the point I could practice two-handed sword stances without a sting gushing outward with every sharp motion. My overall health steadily returned as well. It used to be that I would tire before even Marcela felt like stopping, but my hard-earned endurance soon displayed itself in our shorter rest periods.
Wanting to make sure our visit with Gwen stayed as brief as possible, I told Ghevont to not tell his former guardian about the death of his sister. Ghevont agreed, likely because he wouldn’t want to be in the position of consoling anyone. Perhaps he was also afraid that seeing someone grieving for Vey’s death might make her passing more of a reality, though I doubt anyone outside his unsocialized mind would know if he was ever in mourning.
In the same vein, I told Marcela to begin referring to Ghevont by his first name instead of his last. When she asked why, I let her know that if anyone learned he was Rathmore’s son, it would trigger an inquisition on her friend. She assented, but she needed some time to self-adjust.
There came a point when it was necessary to exit the forest and find a road that led to Omauwend. It was a little surreal when I stepped out of Gremly’s dreary domain for the first time in weeks. The fresher air, brighter sunlight, and resonances of nature made it seem as though I were no longer exceptional, but merely another living being among a trillion others. The first town we encountered informed us we were still a full day’s journey from our destination. With everyone well rested enough, I pushed us to make the trip in half that time.
We approached Omauwend in the late afternoon. Ghevont noted how the town was noticeably larger than when he last left it. Some of Gremly had been cut down to make room for it, though tendrils of its mist still creeped out. With a light rain falling, we traversed the peripheries of the town and looked for the scholar’s former home. When we wandered into the western outskirts of town, Ghevont pointed at a rundown house. It looked like a straw hut, but it turned out to be mostly made of frayed wood.
On reaching the derelict shelter, Ghevont said, “I’m positive this is it.”
“And I’m positive she doesn’t live here anymore,” said Marcela.
I told Clarissa to go inquire with the nearest neighbors while the rest of us examined the home more closely. Looking through a glassless window showed the inside to be bare except for a degraded straw bed and curtains of spider webs dangling from the cracked ceiling.
Clarissa came back and said, “Gwen still lives in town, just on the east side of it. She’s apparently married to a blacksmith and has two kids.”
“Interesting,” said Ghevont. “I was not expecting her to recover from my father’s death. She was quite devastated when she heard the news.”
“It’s hard, but people can move on from tragedy,” said Clarissa, looking at me as she did so. “Especially if they find someone else to help them through it.”
“Yes, my studies, combined with my personal experiences, appear to reliably imply that sentient beings, while initially rendered incapacitated by a loved one’s passing, do gradually recover their emotional stability over time. I wonder if time alone can heal these jarring impacts to the soul? They are both in the realms of the immaterial. In all probability-”
“Ghevont,” I said. “Keep it in your head when we’re in public.”
“Right, of course. Sometimes it’s difficult to separate my mind’s thoughts from my speech.”
The short trip to the opposite side of town ended when we recognized the cadenced clanging of hammer on metal on anvil. The origin of the clatter came from a smithy, whose door was open to allow the heat of the forge to pour out onto the little grassy hill the property was perched on. I assumed the home nearest it, a wide one-story brick home sitting twenty-five yards away, belonged to Gwen and her husband. A sign at the bottom of the slope read ‘No job requests at this time.’
As we made our way up to the worn footpath, a figure became outlined by the red glow of the workshop’s entrance. The hammering stopped and a broader figure stepped behind the first. They each made their way down to us.
As expected from anyone in his profession, the older man was a well-built fellow, if a little stout. Despite the combustible danger it presented, a thick black beard concealed his lower face. The younger man, who also wore the blacksmith’s apron over his burly physique, looked to be about Marcela’s age. The girl child’s unblinking gawking of the young man told me that not so childish feelings were stirring within her.
“Sorry folks,” said the parched voice of the more mature blacksmith. “I’m not taking any requests right now. Maybe next week.”
Mistaking him for our leader, his words were directed at the oldest member of our group, but it was I who said, “Your sign works well enough, sir. We’re here to see Gwen Prothoro.”
“She hasn’t used that name in seventeen years. It would be Gwen Droland now. What’s this about?”
“Old acquaintances. If you please, can you inform her that Ghevont is here?”
“Ghevont? Vey’s brother?”
“You know Vey?” asked Ghevont.
“Aye. She visited a few years ago.”
“She actually visited?”
“You Ghevont?”
“Yes, uh, mister, sir.”
“Well, well, then this has been a long time coming! Peter, close down the forge for me… Did you hear me, boy?” The young man took his eyes off Marcela and ran back up the hill. “Now, if you’ll follow me, we can join Gwen and my daughter preparing our feast for the evening. My name is Cecil Droland. No need to introduce yourselves just yet. We’ll do that when everyone is gathered.”
“How is Gwen doing?” asked Ghevont.
“She’s the epitome of stalwart health and vibrant spirit. What about you? Your sister hardly mentions your state.”
“Oh, I’m well indeed. I merely lack some sun and musculature, things you’ve appeared to have gotten plenty of. Tell me, was your own father a strapping man?”
Clarissa chuckled. “Don’t mind his oddness too much, sir. He’s a scholar interested in many aspects of life, both small and large, but this has led to a lack of social poise.”
“I see.”
A dozen strides away from the house had us sniffing the boiling whiffs of chicken, sweet spices, and baking potatoes. Cecil opening the door had an almost solid cloud of this cooking wash over our faces. My stomach growled with the promise of a real meal.
“Gwen! Come meet our guests!”
From an unseen room, a high-pitched voice replied, “Guests? Is it the Warrens?”
“See for yourself!”
Hurrying out from a room to our right was a smiling woman with short brunette hair. The fine wrinkles on her fair face said she was closer to fifty than not, but besides being a little plumper than Ghevont described, she wasn’t too far off from that description. I lamented that I couldn’t see the body and face of her twenty year old self.
Her amber eyes swept over us until they spotted something familiar. She covered her open mouth with both hands, only to drop them at once. “Ghevont!?”
For the first time since knowing him, Ghevont initiated human contact. He walked up to her with spreading arms. She moved in and they met in a warm embrace.
“I knew you couldn’t stay away forever!” Gwen said in a sniveling voice. “What took you so long to come back?”
“Nothing, I suppose. Nothing but my own passiveness. I’m sorry.”
“No apology needed. Look how you’ve grown!”
Fulfilling my desire to see a younger Gwen, her daughter entered the room. She inherited some of her father’s features, such as her pronounced chin and broad shoulders, but she was otherwise a fledging version of her mother. Even the length of hair matched.
“Mother? What’s going on?”
“Melea! This is Ghevont!”
“Oh, Vey’s brother?”
“Do we have enough food to offer our guests?” Cecil as
ked his daughter.
She counted us and answered, “We should, as long as everyone doesn’t eat like you, Dad. Dinner will be ready in a few minutes.”
“Excellent, then let’s move this gathering to the table.”
The rest of us introduced ourselves when Gwen’s son came in a few moments later. We next told them of the invented way we knew each other—namely, that the girls were Ghevont’s apprentices and I was their bodyguard.
“Bodyguard, eh?” said the blacksmith. “Where did you learn to fight?”
“Everywhere I’ve had to.”
“May I see your sword?”
“No sword play in the house!” remonstrated his wife.
“I only want to see its craftsmanship, dear.”
“I would wait until after dinner, Mercer. My husband is just a giant child and is bound to knock something off a shelf. Now, Ghevont, I’m glad you’re finally visiting, but is there something in particular that led you here? Are you in trouble? Is it your sister?”
I espied Ghevont from my corner seat, who briefly did the same to me.
“N-no, nothing in particular. Spending time with my companions here simply reminded me of past company.”
The conversation while we ate our chicken and soup was largely anecdotal. It seemed Gwen’s family believed Ghevont and Vey were related to her by way of a cousin I was sure didn’t exist. This imaginary cousin had died and so Gwen reared her children for several years before another imaginary relative took them north. Shortly after that and the children had gone their separate ways.
I kept quiet when possible, of course, but that didn’t stop Melea from taking glimpses in my direction. I conceitedly thought she was mimicking her brother’s interest in Marcela, but when I made eye contact with her, she didn’t smile or look away sheepishly. I soon realized she was smarter than the rest of her family—she was suspicious of us.
The crisscrossing dialogue went on well after dinner. At least the meal turned out to be good. The talking died down when everyone noticed a dozing Marcela. Arrangements were then made for everyone to find places to sleep. Marcela was given the lone guest room, which she would share with Clarissa. It was next agreed that Ghevont would take Peter’s room, while Peter moved in with his sister. My plan was to take the bed after Ghevont woke up, but for now, only Marcela went to sleep.
It took a half hour more for the other youths to follow her lead, so I just needed for the blacksmith to take his leave. Luckily, his arduous day of work soon wore on him.
After he could not stifle a yawn, Cecil said, “Well, there’s much to do tomorrow. I’ll have to bid you all a good night. How long will you be staying with us?”
“Not too long, I’m afraid,” said Ghevont. “A couple of days?”
“At least another night,” I said.
“If it isn’t too much trouble,” added Clarissa.
“Of course not!” said Gwen. “I wouldn’t mind if you all stayed the rest of my life.”
“I would,” I muttered below anyone’s hearing range.
The loud rabble of the house dropped significantly after Cecil left us alone with his wife. Going by the occasional twitch in her eyes and hands, she had figured out somewhere in the middle of the reunion that we must have known of Ghevont’s infamous last name. Still, I don’t think she was worried as much as she was trying to figure out the real reason for our visit.
Clarissa and I scooched closer to Gwen’s end of the table. With no one else taking the initiative, I said, “We know the real link between you and Ghevont.”
“I had a feeling. So you’re not a bodyguard, are you?”
“I’ll be whatever I need to be to find what I’m after.”
“Which is?”
“Did Riskel leave anything with you other than his children?”
“Like what?”
“Literally anything. A document? Information?”
After a half second of reminiscence, she said, “Oh! He did leave me a journal of his poetry.”
“What do you mean ‘his poetry’?”
“Just give me a moment and I’ll show you.” She left the room, returning in the promised moment. She handed me a little leather-bound book. “The only nonliving keepsake he gave me.”
Opening the journal, I asked, “He didn’t say anything about it?”
“No, only that it was something to hold me over until he came back.”
“Do you remember why he left? What he was after?”
She pressed a chubby finger on her chin. “He mentioned something about picking up an important book from somebody.”
“From Corbin Tolosa?”
“He never gave me a name.”
“Do you mind if I look over it?”
She glanced curiously at Ghevont, who nodded. “Sure, I guess.”
I was reading Riskel’s poem book a third time, so I was dangerously close to nodding off under the torchlight just outside the house. With the middle of the night being her domain, I wasn’t surprised to see Clarissa walk up and sit beside me.
“Find anything yet?”
“I’ve found that Riskel was quite sappy. He was also a terrible poet.”
“Really? So you don’t think there’s some kind of secret code you need to break? Maybe there’s a hidden rune or something.”
“No, Aranath couldn’t feel a trace of prana on any page, and while I’m uncertain of my decoding abilities, I know the staleness of these words alone would be enough to deter most from probing too deeply.”
“But doesn’t it sound strange that a man as smart as Riskel wrote so badly?”
“A little, but he could’ve been writing down to Gwen’s level.”
“So you’re saying a man known to have killed dozens of people for the sake of horrific experiments was a romantic? I don’t know if I find that funny or scary.”
“I would define ‘romance’ as a scary amount of feeling.”
“True. Hmm, I wonder whether I would have been smitten with Riskel? He seems to have been very charismatic for such a malicious man.”
“His goals were malicious, but I suppose the man himself couldn’t have been much different from Ghevont.”
“Uh, Ghevont isn’t exactly charming.”
“I don’t mean his personality, just the fact that most people don’t look like their true persona. If Riskel actually bore a likeness to the depraved caster many portray him as, then he would have been hanged years before he left Voreen. I’m sure most of his friends, colleagues, and strangers he passed on the street never knew what went on in his head.”
She leaned back in her chair and looked up at the sky. “Kinda like how I never saw Trevon’s true nature.”
“That’s different. You saw it, you just chose not to acknowledge it.”
“You’re right, they are different. Choosing to be blind is worse than having a real reason. If I only-”
“Stop.”
“Stop what?”
“Going over your mistakes. I know them, you know them, so there’s nothing left to do but move on. I made a mistake coming here, but I won’t waste time regretting it. We move on, that’s all.”
“I don’t think it was a mistake coming here. Ghevont and Gwen are obviously very happy they got the chance to reunite after all this time. Knowing Ghevont, he would have probably realized too late that he wanted to catch up with family.”
“I guess she would count as his last living family member.”
“Not really. Isn’t Marcela like family to him by now?”
“An odd family, but yeah, I suppose so.”
Smiling, she said, “We’re all rather odd, I guess.”
I didn’t like what she was forcing me to think about.
We persisted in silence as I pretended to read the poem book for another few minutes, but I couldn’t help ultimately saying what I was thinking. “You should really stop following me.”
“What? Why?”
“Because you might die, and that possibility is bothering me m
ore and more.”
She blinked at me for a moment, judging my disposition and thinking of a response. When she came up with one, she said, “I don’t want you to die either. It’s why I have to keep watch over you. If you don’t want me to follow you headlong into danger, then you shouldn’t head right for it, but you will, so there’s no getting rid of me just yet.”
I think she expected for me to respond with some conviction-filled declarations, but I was too tired to keep talking. I shrugged and closed the book. Standing up, I said, “I’m going to sleep. Keep watch over the place.”
“Oh, uh, sure thing.”
Chapter Four
Ghevont and Gwen spent most of the next day together. Marcela, interested in the blacksmith’s work for more than one reason, disbursed her time between watching Peter at work and being with Ghevont. Clarissa stayed glued to her bed for the early part of the day, but came out when the damp weather weakened the sunlight to the point even a starving vampire wouldn’t be troubled by it.
I was left to my own devices, which included showing Cecil my blade. The experienced blacksmith was quick to comment on the steel’s masterful craftsmanship. By looking down its edge and flicking it with his finger he concluded that the steel had likely been forged using a lengthy antique process that required the precise involvement of a skilled caster.
“Where did you obtain such a fine blade?” he asked me while cutting the weapon through the air outside his smithy. The sword sang with every swing, though my own evaluation told me he only had a basic understanding of swordsmanship.
“I found it in an old ruin.”
“Really? Which ruin still carries treasures like this one?”
“A forgotten one. I only accidentally fell upon it, and that blade is the only reason I stand here today.”
He put the sword back in its sheath and said, “If I could forge a sword like this, I would be working for kings. Keep it close.”
The Dragon Knight's Curse (The Dragon Knight Series Book 2) Page 3