The Innkeeper's Son

by Jeremy Brooks

  “Too true, my boy. Too true,” Cano agreed.

  “I could sure go for a few strips of bacon right now,” Jerron said, with salivating regret.

  Cano blew out a long puff of his pipe smoke. “That makes two of us.”

  The night was hauntingly quiet. The expected chorus of owls and crickets, the mating calls of nocturnal creatures harkening in the beginning of spring, was oddly absent as they lay in silence staring at the ghostly slivers of dim moonlight, sneaking through cracks in the canopy of leaves. Jerron could feel the effects of the second helping of fruit steadily slipping away. He found himself already missing the unbridled feeling of invincibility. Eating the fruit made the impossible, possible. The experience had changed him.

  When he had looked down at the shraels preparing to dive into the water after Cano, a reaction had taken place deep within his psyche. It had been as though his consciousness had been pulled through a tunnel to observe reality from the shadows at the other end. He had witnessed everything, but it had been a different version of himself that had violently destroyed the shraels. Though he was a portly man, like all Massoniel, he was solid and strong. Still, he had never imagined himself capable of such strength and speed or the battle wrought skill that he had possessed. In some ways it frightened him to know that he was capable of such force. All his life he had been a gentle person, completely devoid of aggressive instincts. To incite an impassioned response from him, someone would have to cross a significant moral boundary. If he believed in something, knew at his very core that the cause was right and just, then his claws would come out. But today had been different. He had enjoyed the aggressive side that had saved Cano’s life. He wondered if it had lain dormant within him all these years or if it was simply an effect of the fruit's innate gifts.

  “I’ve got to tell ya, lad, I never pegged ya as a fighter,” Cano said through a yawn.

  “I told you already. It was the fruit,” Jerron answered quietly.

  “The fruit…yes…ya said it healed ya, made ya strong, I can see all that.” Cano seemed to be taking the long way around to his point. “Thing is, ya fought like a veteran soldier. Fer heaven’s sake, I don’t even think a skilled soldier could’a done what ya did today.”

  “Like I said, Cano, it was the fruit.”

  “Maybe…Maybe,” Cano said thoughtfully. “But what if it wasn’t.”

  “It had to have been. I’ve been in about two fist fights in my life. That’s it. I’ve never swung an axe, or a sword. Go ask around the farm when we get back, people will tell you what a lousy shot I am with a bow.” Jerron felt like he needed to be defensive. He wasn’t sure what Cano was getting at.

  “Oh I don’t doubt ya on all that, lad,” Cano said. “Thing is…well how do I explain it? Ya see my wife, she didn’t believe in the Creator quite the same way that I did. She had this…well I suppose ya’d call it a theory, see. She thought that everything that happened was already decided. That we’re all jest puppets dangling on the strings of fate. Me, I’m a man of God. She gave us all free will to go out and do as we please. Those of us who done right get to go to heaven. The rest of ‘em, all the murderers and thieves and such, well I don’t want to know what happens to them. My wife and I used to argue fer hours bout it. Sometimes it would get real heated. She would storm off, and we wouldn’t speak again fer days.” Cano paused to take a deep pull of his pipe. “Lately though, I’ve been thinking, more and more, bout what she said. I keep looking at all the things that have been happening to me and wondering if it's all some grand design -- a series of planned coincidences. Maybe it goes all the way back to the gills. Like…maybe I got the gills because somewhere along the way I would need em to find this dagger I’ve got, fer instance. Or to save an important young girl's life. Ya see what I’m getting at.”

  Jerron silently considered what Cano had said. Much like his friend, Jerron considered himself a man of God. His belief in the Creator and all of her virtues was absolute. He didn’t like the idea of fate and the puppet strings. He wanted to believe that every man made his own choices in life.

  “I don’t know Cano. I suppose it’s something to think about, but what does that have to do with me?”

  “Listen, I didn’t say I believed in any of it, alright.” There was a hint of frustration in Cano’s voice. “Its jest that, yer a young man, a boy still really. What if our meeting wasn’t jest by chance? Take the other day fer instance. I remember ya saying ya was out there on the road hunting fer conies with yer father?”

  “That’s right,” Jerron replied.

  “Well I’m the first to admit I don’t know much bout hunting. Fishing I can tell ya bout, but I haven’t done much hunting in my life. But I do know that conies love carrots and things like that. If ya live on a farm, why were ya so far into the woods? Wouldn’t the hunting be better closer to the tree line?”

  Jerron opened his mouth to reply, but suddenly found himself at a loss for words. Why had he and his pa gone so deep into the forest that day? They never went that far in when they were after conies. He tried to think back to that morning when his pa had told him to grab his bow. He could clearly remember his pa telling him they were going to hunt off the road, but he couldn’t think of any reason why. In fact he couldn’t even remember another occasion in the past when they’d gone that far into the woods to hunt conies.

  “I don’t know why we were out there, Cano,” Jerron answered.

  “Well maybe ya had some reasons ya can’t remember right now, or maybe ya was jest out there by some coincidence. Truth be told, I sure am glad ya was there,” Cano said.

  “Still, I don’t see what all that has to do with me?” Jerron asked, feeling a tingle of intrigue.

  “Maybe it hasn’t got anything to do with ya, lad,” Cano yawned. “Or maybe what happened to ya today, all that back there at the cliff, was jest the beginning fer ya. Could be that yer like me. Not a fishman or anything. No, no. Maybe ya got a talent that’s all yer own, and fate’s jest been waiting to pull the right string.”

  “I don’t know, Cano,” Jerron said doubtfully. Even though the whole idea was far-fetched, he was feeling a rising excitement as his imagination began forming visions in his mind of all the incredible possibilities.

  “Don’t worry yerself about it, lad,” Cano yawned again. He sounded as though he were talking in his sleep. “It’s all jest talk, anyway. Get some shut eye.”

  Jerron threw out an absent goodnight, but his mind was racing with absurd childish fantasies. As Cano’s snoring rang out into the night, ripping apart the eerie silence, Jerron lay awake for some time thinking about what his friend had said. When he finally fell asleep, he dreamed beautiful dreams about a woman dressed all in white, telling him that if he believed in himself, nothing was impossible.

  ******************************************************************

  Yennit sat in a comfortable chair by a large bay window that looked out onto the front of his vast estate. The strange girl, Maehril, lay asleep in an elaborately gilded four post bed beside him. Her sleep seemed peaceful. Her face was perpetually calm.

  It had been some time since he had been in this bedroom. At one time it had belonged to his only granddaughter. When she had come to visit over the years, as she had done often, the beautiful little girl, his jewel as he liked to think of her, slept in this room. His granddaughter was all grown up now, and it had been many years since her last visit. Still, he always ordered his staff to keep the room in pristine condition on the off-chance that her travels would one day bring her back to his estate.

  Cano had seemed so certain of this young girl. He had known the man with gills for many years now. Though Cano didn’t visit very often, they had forged an unlikely friendship through their shared passions. Thanks to his incredible gift, Cano was able to dredge the ocean floor for treasures, often uncovering items long thought lost to history. Yennit had been wise to take an interest in the prickly old man. Thanks to their friendship, Yennit had been able
to hold the greatest prize he could ever have imagined: Thalson’s Dagger.

  Yennit was just a young man when the woman who would become his wife, first told him about the Harvens. The tale had fascinated him to the point that over the course of his life, the Harvens had become his obsession. He took his first trip into the Harven Mountains, to the lost valley of Kaemthoren, the long forgotten home of the Harvens, when he was twenty. Standing among the ruins, overgrown with vegetation and torn down by years of harsh wind and weather, Yennit had felt a peace unlike anything he had ever experienced in his life. It was as though his journey to the valley had been pre-ordained, the will of a higher power. During his years of advanced schooling he had sought out every last book or parchment he could find that contained even a small allusion to the Harven race. It had been a study done discreetly, since Desirmor had outlawed all history texts that predated his own claim to the throne of Fandrall. Books and texts had been difficult to come by, but with his family's vast resources, Yennit had turned himself into perhaps the world’s foremost authority on Harven history. Through it all, Thalson’s Dagger had been the ultimate prize. In his wildest dreams, Yennit never believed he would actually hold it in his hands.

  Who was this girl? There was nothing spectacular about her. She seemed small, drab, and mousy. Cano had said that she was a mute. Was she devoid of intelligence or was it due to something psychological, a traumatic episode as a child perhaps?

  Cano had always been more of a curmudgeonly loner than the valiant father figure. Yennit had believed Cano incapable of caring. He seemed to be a man broken by the sins of his past, forever on the run from his own insurmountable grief. Was this some sort of play for forgiveness? Was Cano looking for absolution at the hands of a helpless girl?

  The prophecy had begun. Yennit had only seen snippets, a line here or there of the actual prophecy, the complete translation was said to be kept by the mythical Librarian, but he knew two lines.

  Let the mountains shake. Let the oceans rise. Let the skies cry out for the Forgotten.

  A crown of chiefs, a blade of light, a hand chosen to wield a path of silence.

  Yennit knew these lines by heart. He never imagined, the day he first read those lines, that he would live to see the prophecy begin. With luck, he would live long enough to see it fulfilled, to see Desirmor die at last, and to see what the world could look like when men made their own choices and light prevailed over darkness. The thought gave him hope.

  Desirmor had killed his son. It was many years earlier when Yennit served on the Council of Nine. Desirmor had just finished destroying a small rebellion near Nal’Dahara and ordered a new livestock tax on the lowest levels of society as a punishment for the rebellion. His son had made an impassioned plea on behalf of the good people that worked his lands. As a councilman, Yennit knew that arguing against one of Desirmor’s orders was not only useless but potentially dangerous. Desirmor had no patience for dissent. His son was found murdered only a few weeks later.

  Yennit had left the council after that. He retired to his estates and tried his best to stay out of politics. The whole situation had left him feeling powerless. His son’s murderer was known to him, and yet there was nothing he could do. If he even made mention of his suspicions and word got back to Desirmor, he would be stripped of his wealth and lands. Then he would be sold into slavery, an example to all people of wealth and nobility that Desirmor’s authority was absolute. Perhaps that made Yennit a coward. Most days that’s how he felt. A coward who valued the comfort of his life over the honor of his own son.

  It was late in the morning. The sky was marred by a dark gray cloud that hung over the estate, stubbornly resisting the easterly breeze that pushed gently across the land. Yennit looked out at the sloping tall grass sliding gently down toward a wall of beech trees that marked the boundary of his personal estate. In truth his lands stretched out across leagues of countryside all the way to the Lerner Hills where he made the bulk of his fortune mining the salt that lay deep within the rock. As he casually watched the treeline, thinking glumly of his son-in-law, he spotted a movement right at the edge of the forest. His eyes weren’t what they had once been, but he had managed to avoid the need for an eyepiece or spectacles. It was difficult to precisely make out what it was, but it moved with a graceful stealth that spoke of predatory instincts. He followed it closely, watching it weave around several trees before hunkering down beneath a thick low bush.

  Then Yennit saw another one. This creature was a short distance from the first, gliding along the grass in front of the treeline. Just as the first had, this creature spotted out a nice concealment in a wide divot beside a small boulder. Were they rovers? Yennit hadn’t seen a rover in some time and could scarcely remember what they looked like.

  “Harriet!” he called out over his shoulder, to his attendant who was never far away.

  A thin middle-aged woman immediately rushed into the room and came to his side.

  “My Lord?” she asked.

  “Find me Mueller. Tell him to come to me at once,” Yennit ordered.

  Harriet didn’t hesitate. She turned on her heels and hurried off to find the head of Yennit’s personal guard. Yennit sat forward in his chair straining to watch the forest below. Having turned his attention away from the window, it took him several moments to spot the two dark forms crouching in concealment at the forest’s edge. A third form caught his eye. It was trotting along the tall grass a good distance away from the others. This time Yennit was certain it was a rover.

  “You called me, my Lord?” Yennit heard Mueller ask from the doorway. The guardsman had responded quickly.

  “Come here, Mueller,” Yennit waved him over. “I want you to take a look at something.”

  Mueller walked over to the window and crouched down beside Yennit’s chair. The guardsman was an aging man, rugged and scarred, with a quiet dignity that spoke of his years in the Imperial Army. Mueller had headed up his personal guard for nearly ten years now, and Yennit trusted the man completely.

  “Look down there along the treeline,” Yennit said pointing the way. “Are those rovers?”

  Mueller studied the landscape with no expression. As he began to spot the dark forms Yennit pointed out, he began to slowly nod.

  “There are five out there by my count,” he said, continuing the search.

  “Five! I only counted three,” Yennit said.

  “Five, my Lord. There are two more up the rise, lying in the grass,” Mueller said, helping Yennit find them.

  “I thought rovers kept to themselves. They don’t usually congregate this way, do they?”

  “No, my Lord. They’re known to be loners. I don’t like the look of this.”

  “I don’t like it either, Mueller. I give you full authority. Get the workers out of the fields and take care of this problem.”

  Mueller nodded solemnly. “I’ll see to it, my Lord.”

  Yennit continued watching the forest after Mueller left. Two more rovers appeared amongst the trees, finding a spot to hide and watching the estate just as the others had. Yennit had a growing feeling that something was wrong. In the bed beside him, Maehril suddenly thrashed about, her sleeping face wearing a pained expression.

  *******************************************************************

  “Did ya see that?” Cano cried out. “That damned horse jest tried to bite me.”

  “He didn’t go anywhere near you,” Jerron sighed with exasperation.

  All morning long he had put up with this. When they were getting the horses ready to ride after they had broken camp, Jerron’s horse had nipped Cano’s arm. In fairness, Cano was trying to unstrap the feed bag, and he had insisted that he didn’t need help. His horse, Starcryer, was simply reacting to Cano’s rough, untrained hands. Since then Cano had spouted off at every movement the horse made. Any motion, any look even remotely in his direction and Cano started hurling accusations about.

  “I told ya yesterday the infernal beast couldn’t
be trusted. I told ya he looked shifty.”

  Jerron simply rolled his eyes and let the old man complain. Sooner or later he would get tired of talking and shut up. Hopefully sooner.

  Jerron hadn’t slept well. He awoke in the middle of the night to the sounds of the horses nickering nervously. Something had spooked them. Jerron stayed awake for a good while after that, cautiously watching the shadows, but nothing tested the camp, and eventually the horses calmed down. After that he had a hard time getting back to sleep as the verocity of Cano’s incessant snoring kept him up. Now he felt achy and cranky, and Cano’s foolish paranoia was only fueling his mood.

  It was just after noontime now, and by Jerron’s best guess they had another two hours till they got out of the forest and into Yennit’s grounds. The sun shone brightly in the sky, and the air was warm and comfortable. If circumstances had been different, Jerron would have called this the perfect day for a ride. Then he noticed the darkening sky ahead, well off in the direction of Yennit’s estate. It shouldn’t have made him feel uneasy, but it did.

  “Ya know something lad,” Cano said cheerfully. It was nice to hear something other than accusations and complaints coming from his mouth. “They’re going to call ya a hero.”

  “Who?” Jerron asked.

  “Everyone. Ya killed all them shraels. Yer a hero now, my boy.”

  “I guess I never thought of it like that,” Jerron said with a wide smile.

  “I’ll bet they’re all lined up waiting fer our return. Probably throw a feast in yer honor,” Cano told him with a wink.

  “A feast in our honor,” Jerron added. “I didn’t do it all by myself.”

  Just then, something moved in the trees beside them. Both men noticed it and pulled their mounts to a halt. Cano pulled his dagger free, tightly gripping the shaft until his knuckles began turning white. They scanned the underbrush, hearts beating loudly in each chest.

  A black form emerged from behind a thick green bush. A rover. It studied them with hungry eyes, saliva dripping from its massive jaw. It was much bigger than either of the rover’s that had attacked Cano a few days earlier. Jerron pulled a small dagger out of the saddle bag. It was his only defense now, since he had decided not to go back for his bow, and his axe was sitting on the ocean floor.