by Travis Bughi
Gavin squinted one eye and pursed his lips, his gaze still focused on some unseen object in the distance. Next he brought his cup up and drained it in one swoop. When it was empty, he laughed and slammed the cup down on the table.
“Ha!” he yelled, a smile on his face as he looked to Takeo. “I got it. Follow me.”
He leapt up from the table and dashed out of the tavern. Takeo and Krunk had to sprint to follow.
* * *
Gavin led them at a brisk pace to the docks, weaving in and out of the crowd as if his life depended on it. All the while, Krunk chased after him, shouting a ceaseless barrage of questions about where they were headed. The ogre didn’t seem to catch on, after the first couple of times asking, that Gavin wasn’t going to answer.
“Krunk want to know! Tell Krunk! What about Nicholas?”
Well, at least he’s considerate, Takeo mused.
They came upon a somewhat quiet place in the shadow of a three-story building just beyond the busy docks. The shouts of men and women working ropes and pulleys to load and unload cargo could be heard faintly echoing off the stone walls that surrounded them, as could the slap of the ocean waves. The air was fresher here with a hint of salt in the breeze.
On a wooden barrel pushed up against a corner where the shadows were darkest sat an old satyr. Arrayed around him was a tight circle of small children, some humans, a few minotaurs, even some gnomes, a couple other satyrs, and one peculiar leprechaun. It dawned on Takeo in that moment that he’d never seen a leprechaun child, yet this one seemed just like her human counterparts, only smaller. All the children stared hungrily at the old satyr as he spoke, his tale only half interrupted by Takeo, Gavin, and Krunk’s sudden appearance.
“As I was saying.” The satyr cleared his throat. “The Angels’ Vassal and the Rakshasa fought a terrible battle in the dungeons below. They raged across the iron cells, ripping apart the cages and crushing stone with their strikes. The Vassal fired arrows of pure light and fire, melting stone and iron alike and setting the wooden benches and tables aflame. Smoke choked and clouded the area, blocking out sight and forcing the two to battle by sound while they held their breath. The Vassal, though mortal, was partly angel and thus could hold her breath for a whole day if needed. The Rakshasa was a force to be reckoned with, too, for as you’ll remember, the beast had made a deal with a jinni from Savara. Between their terrible wrath, the fate of Lucifan—no, the fate of the world—rested!
“Good and evil personified, they were champions of each side. They clashed as day and night, flickering shadows of twilight that weighed the balance of the world.”
The satyr paused ever so slightly, and Takeo felt a smile pull at his lips. He recognized the storyteller’s trick and watched as a young boy fell for it.
“What happened next?” the little human yelled out. “What next? What next?”
The crowd descended upon the boy with a barrage of shushes that would have made Emily’s mother proud. Takeo, Gavin, and Krunk came forth to sit at the edge of the circle, trying not to distract but failing horribly. Their age and size clearly set them apart here.
Fortunately, the satyr didn’t seem to mind. His eyes barely flicked their way before returning to the children.
“I’m getting to that,” he said, “but you already know. As the angels would have it, good won out that day. However, it was not without a price.
“I will not lie to you, children. There is strength in evil. If this were not so, then how could the evil ever hope to oppose the good? If evil were weak and helpless, if evil did not occasionally reign triumphant, then why would such a thing as angels exist? This world is renowned for its cruelty, not its kindness, hence the angels sent their Vassal to fight back the darkness and save the precious few that are worthy of this kindness.
“So it is, and so it was. The Rakshasa used the smoke to mask its movements and pounce on the Vassal. Without the guiding light, our champion was struck down. She fought with all her strength, but she was a loving creature of purity, an angel in her own right, full of mercy and passion—”
He got one of those right.
“—but that was not enough. The Rakshasa pinned her to the stone floor. She fought and fought, but her bow was out of reach, and the Rakshasa was so much stronger than her. You might be asking why she didn’t call out for the colossus? It was because she loved us so, each and every one of us. If she had called the stone guardian over, it would have crushed so many innocent people, so many of the warriors who had fought the Battle of Lucifan. She could not do it. She would rather have died than intentionally harm us, those she loved so much.
“But she was not powerless, not yet. The Vassal still had the gift of life, and she would give it up so that we could live.
“As the Rakshasa tore into her, our Vassal shed a tear—not in pain as one might think, but in regret and sadness that she could not do more. She regretted having only the one life to sacrifice, for she wished to give more. She had wanted to survive to lead us into an era of peace and prosperity, but we would have to be trusted to make that journey alone. She would die to give us that chance.
“The Vassal opened her soul, the part of her where the angels’ power resided, and let loose the blessing of the angels. Pure good burst from her chest, and a blessed light filled the dungeon. The smoke was banished, the fires were extinguished, and even the stone was mended. The Rakshasa, and the darkness with it, met the one thing that it had never truly prepared for. The light tore into the beast, ripping it to shreds and banishing its evil from this world. It screeched in bloody horror at the pain. It tried to run but could not escape. The light from the Vassal, the light of the angels, is the greatest power this world will ever know. In one fell swoop, both our Vassal and the Rakshasa perished. Evil had been defeated, but the forces of good had lost their greatest champion.
“The Vassal left behind her mortal form: a young girl named Emily Stout barely older than any of you. When her lover, the mysterious samurai from the East, found her, it is said he wept for one month straight. His eyes never dried, his heart broke in two, and he carried her in his own arms across the Great Plains back to her family. He was never seen again.
“Do not fret, though, for our story is not yet a tragedy. Although her body was left behind, the Vassal returned to the heavens and rejoined the angels there. From above, she watches over us, judging our decisions and helping those who choose the path of good and righteousness. She protects us, each of us, for the love in her heart knows no bounds. You might look around and see nothing but darkness, but she is there. You can feel her in your heart, if only you’ll stop and listen.”
The satyr paused again and drew a big sip from a metal mug at his side. Takeo noticed a second mug, this one wooden.
The audience sat stunned with mouths agape. Even Krunk was speechless, and Gavin was grinning like a fool. Takeo, also feeling swept up in the teller’s art, realized this satyr, whoever he was, was a master of his craft.
Takeo loved to see masters at work.
“Another?” the satyr asked.
The children screamed for more, shouting and jumping up from their seats on the ground. The satyr set down the metal mug and picked up the wooden one.
“Come now, come now!” he shouted. “A satyr has to eat. Who wants a story?”
“I do,” Takeo called out from the back, standing and towering over the children.
The crowd went silent, and the satyr seemed to notice Takeo for the first time. The satyr eyed him suspiciously, though whether that was due to Takeo’s age or dress, one could not be sure. When Takeo took out one of the gold coins Abraham had given him, though, all the questions written on the satyr’s face disappeared.
“Ah, thank you, my good man!” the satyr said as the coin was passed from child to child until it dropped into his wooden mug. “What story would you like?”
“That same story,” Takeo said, “from the beginning.”
* * *
A lot had changed
about Emily’s story in the short time Takeo had been gone. She’d grown taller, wiser, more confident, and apparently unmatched in beauty. Although Takeo’s heart appreciated these changes, his mind retracted from the lie. Still, though, the satyr was a great storyteller.
The whole story took a good hour, maybe a little more. In the end, the satyr looked up to Takeo, and Takeo gave a curt nod of approval. The satyr smiled at first, and then a sudden realization seized his eyes. The creature stared a moment, blinked, then shook his head and turned back to the children.
Takeo rose to leave.
“He looks like he saw a ghost,” Gavin said with a smile and nudged him, “or perhaps a legend.”
“Almost, but then he realized I’m not big enough to be a legend,” Takeo replied. “Also, mysterious warriors always travel alone.”
“They do, don’t they.” Gavin tilted his chin up in sudden realization. “Huh, I hadn’t thought about that until now. Hey, where are you going?”
“We haven’t moved in over an hour. Where do you think I’m going? This satyr might have an exceptional bladder, but I’m only a man.”
At that notion, Gavin nodded in agreement and rose alongside Takeo. As they walked, Krunk asked what Takeo had meant about where they were going, and Gavin explained it in obvious terms. Then all three of them were in agreement.
As they went to find a privy, Krunk talked excitedly about Emily’s story, recounting his favorite parts while Gavin corrected him at every other sentence about what the satyr had gotten wrong. The ogre was particularly upset that Emily had never shot arrows of pure light, but then again so was Takeo. That would have made the tasks they had faced much easier to accomplish.
Takeo also thought about other aspects of the story, though only arbitrarily.
He thought about how much more Emily’s story was going to change. Only a single year had gone by, yet so many inconsistencies and outright lies had been contrived to fill in her mysterious life. Emily had always been a very private person, despite how strongly her actions had shaped the world, and that was leaving a lot of blanks for storytellers to fill with their own preferences. None of this was or should have been surprising to him, yet the samurai felt a well of anger knowing that this was only the beginning. Emily’s story was going to get much more twisted as the years drew on.
At least they got Jabbar mostly right. That rakshasa was a bastion of evil. Their whole race was as far as Takeo was concerned.
“That old satyr has been telling stories since before Madam Sweeney took me in,” Gavin said, his voice jarring Takeo back to the present. “He used us kids as practice, telling new stories he’d been working on and seeing how we reacted to them before trying them out on his true audiences in the taverns. If you buy him a drink or a meal, he’ll tell you any story you ask for.”
“Did you know he’d be telling Emily’s?” Takeo asked.
“No,” Gavin admitted, shrugging apologetically, “and when I realized that was who he was talking about, I thought maybe I’d made a mistake and we should leave. Then I saw that look in your eyes and changed my mind. That turned out to not only be a good story, but also very informative. It baffles the mind how quickly facts become distorted.”
“I was thinking the same thing.”
“Krunk thinks satyr’s story too good to be a lie.”
“You and half the town, I’ll bet,” Gavin said. “Don’t worry, Krunk. It doesn’t bother us that you believe the satyr.”
The ogre grinned so wide that Takeo wondered if doing so strained his hearing. Then they found a place to relieve themselves, purchased a slab of smoked meat, and returned to the satyr to kill the rest of the day.
The satyr told more stories, one about the angels coming to Lucifan, another about a dishonored Kshatriya who fought to free slaves in Savara. At one point, Takeo requested a story of his own, asking about the Fall of Savara back in ancient times. He was pleased that the satyr was creative enough to invent names and places without a hitch in his story. Takeo was convinced that if he hadn’t already known a good portion of Savara’s landscape, he would have believed the satyr’s story word for word.
The truth was that no one knew exactly what had caused the kingdoms of old Savara to perish. Most of that history had been lost to the sands. The only thing that was known was the rakshasas had bound together to enslave the land. They’d almost won, too.
To Takeo’s surprise, near the end of the day, one child who’d been there since the beginning walked up and asked for a story about the mysterious warrior who’d fought alongside the Vassal.
“Who was he? What happened to him?”
Takeo leaned in ever so slightly, his curiosity blocking out all other thoughts.
“That is a good question, good question indeed,” the satyr said, rubbing his hairy legs and then stroking the grey hairs on his chin. “I wish I had an answer for you there. They don’t call the man mysterious for nothing, though. I’ve been working on a story, gathering rumors, but I don’t have anything for you now. Ask me again in a week.”
Takeo huffed in surprise. A week? Is that really all the time this satyr needed? Takeo suspected that the creature had no idea about this mysterious warrior at all, likely why so little had been said about him in Emily’s story. The satyr probably would never have tried to learn whom the mysterious warrior was at all, but now this kid had asked about him, and that showed the story was in demand. Most likely, he would take a few days interviewing knights about the warrior and then spend the next couple of days making up a story that fit his audience. In the end, Takeo’s story would become more distorted than Emily’s.
“But what happened to him?” the kid whined. “Does no one really know?”
“Not a soul,” the satyr lied easily. “However, let me tell you this: one such as him only has one purpose.”
The kid went still, as did many others. The satyr motioned for the kid to take a seat, and then waved a hand out to the crowd to make sure all their attention was gathered.
“The legend says that the warrior the Vassal recruited to her side was once an ally of her enemy. They say this one’s eyes were blacker than a starless night. It is a reflection of his heart, and only time will tell if the Vassal was able to turn him or not. Such a man knows nothing other than war. He is fated for it. The two are intertwined, like life and death, and I tell you this: I know not where this man is, nor where he will go, but the next war will not be fought without him.
“I can only hope that he is on our side.”
Chapter 10
Before leaving Lucifan, Takeo made one attempt to interact with Emily’s nephew.
When he looked at William, he did his best to ignore his uneasiness and tried to picture the baby as part of Emily. He knew it wasn’t the child’s fault that he was temperamental, drooled all over the place, and cried like a banshee; in fact, none of these qualities endeared William to Takeo. Instead, he imagined William as the man he would one day grow up to be, someone worthy of the Stout name. That was how he convinced himself to do it.
For the most part, it worked.
The amazons cooed as Takeo awkwardly lifted William up and tried to cradle the baby in his arms.
“His head, support his head,” Abraham said, pointing as if Takeo could not figure out what that meant.
“A few days and you’re an expert now?” Takeo replied, venting his nervousness through sarcasm.
“I’m more of an expert than you,” the gunslinger countered. “You look like you’re holding the slobbering, decapitated head of an ogre instead of a baby—oh, sorry Krunk.”
“Krunk no like headless ogres either.”
“Perhaps William is too heavy for the samurai,” Nicholas said with a smile. “I could probably hold Takeo easier than he’s holding William.”
“Maybe you all need to shut up?” Takeo said.
That got a good chuckle from the group, and Takeo adjusted his elbow to support William’s head. The baby took no notice, instead focusing o
n all the other faces surrounding and staring at him. After getting the baby comfortable, another bout of awkwardness struck Takeo. He couldn’t figure out what to do next.
“So, is this all you do?” Takeo asked. “You just hold them?”
“You could rock him,” Adelpha suggested with a huff. “I’m sorry he isn’t old enough to hold a sword.”
Too bad, Takeo thought, and grimaced as the baby attempt to stick his entire fist into his mouth. William mumbled some gibberish, then flicked his glossy eyes to Takeo and scrunched up his face.
Damn it, now he’s going to cry.
William grinned.
“Ahhh!” a chorus went up.
“He likes you,” Leda shouted.
“Of course,” Nicholas said and thumped his chest. “William’s going to be a warrior, and he can smell one of his own.”
“He’s not even a year old yet, and you’re deciding his fate?” Abraham scolded. “You’re as bad as Mother.”
“Okay, that’s enough attention.” Takeo sighed, handing William off to Abraham. “There, I’ve done it. Are you ready to leave?”
“Haha! Come on, Takeo, was that really so bad?” Nicholas elbowed him. “What are you afraid of exactly? Making the little guy uncomfortable? That you might get a taste of what you put other people through?”
Takeo rolled his eyes through the next round of laughter and checked over his gear again. He had food, clothing, tools, water; nothing was missing, which he knew already, but it gave him the chance to leave the spotlight. After long believing life’s only worth was won through a glorious death in battle, Takeo saw little point in celebrating new life.
Takeo’s companions checked their gear as well, and so did the amazons. Their time in Lucifan had run out, and they were all ready to return home. While Abraham was ecstatic about bringing William home to Mariam and Paul, Adelpha was struggling to keep her composure, knowing it would be at least a year before she saw her son again. Meanwhile, those amazons who were more motherly and didn’t mind the fact that he wasn’t a girl whispered their goodbyes to William, and Leda gave Gavin a kiss that looked enticing even to Takeo. Gavin’s smug grin demanded someone wipe it off, and Nicholas accepted the challenge, telling Gavin that he didn’t have to join them on this journey. The knight could stay in town and weep if he liked.