Distant Rumblings

by John Goode

  He cocked his head, confused, and it made all the harshness vanish from his face for a second. He was incredible. I could see now he was in better shape than I had noticed before, he filled the jacket out perfectly, confirming that it had to have been made just for him. His jeans were well worn but it looked from actual age rather than style. They looked ancient but well cared for, which just added more questions than answers.

  “I don’t understand. Of course I’m real,” he said hesitantly. “Do you have dreamlings here?”

  “Have what?” I asked, the certainty I had that he was real fading again.

  “Dreamlings,” he said again. “Wandering nightmares?” He gestured with his hands. “Walking dreams?” I shook my head silently. “It’s unimportant,” he said, dismissing it. “You saw me yesterday.” Not a question but a fact. I nodded all the same. “How?”

  Again, I understood the words but not the question. He seemed frustrated, but I felt no real anger. There was a difference between an unknown wandering my house and this very real person standing in front of me. I considered his question and then opted for the truth. “My eyes?”

  His eyes narrowed in frustration. “I don’t have time for your insolence, boy!”

  It was the “boy” that struck me a like a slap across the face.

  “Excuse me?” I said, finding my voice. “You stabbed me in the heart yesterday, so I’ll be as insolent as I want to be, thank you! By the way, you don’t look a day older than me! Don’t call me boy again,” I threatened.

  He stood up straighter and glared, looking like something out of Method Acting 101 Affronted Indignation by Ms. Brody. “I will not be addressed like that.”

  I took a step toward him. “Look, you may think you’re hot shit, but trust me, you don’t impress me.” It was a lie, but there was no way I was going to admit he was exactly my type.

  The whole haughty demeanor look faded for a second as he asked, “Why would I think I am heated excrement?” A small pause. “Is that what your kind finds attractive?” he asked with barely disguised disgust on his face.

  “My kind?” I demanded. “Is that a crack about being gay?”

  More confusion. “You’re happy? I don’t understand. What does that have to do with anything?”

  Now I paused. “What?”

  “You said, is that a crack about being happy. I assume crack is a word for statement, but why would being happy matter?” he countered.

  “I said gay.”

  He nodded. “Yes, happy.”

  “Gay!” I shouted. “As in, I like other men.”

  “You like…,” he began to say and then stopped. “You mean as in…?” He made a gesture that I didn’t understand, but I nodded anyway. A few seconds passed and then he seemed to get it. “Oh, you enjoy males more than women,” he said excitedly. “And that is what makes you happy? Why didn’t you say so? I find males much more pleasurable as well. Are you trying to initiate sexual activities now?”

  “Yes. Wait, no. I mean… hold on,” I said, closing my eyes and taking a second for the blush on my face to diminish. “I am saying the word gay.”

  He nodded. “Happy.”

  I looked suspiciously at him to make sure he wasn’t joking with me. “Yes, gay can mean happy, but it means other things too.” His face reflected his bewilderment. “You know that, right?”

  “Happy means happy?” he asked, his earlier arrogance gone. He reached up and began fumbling with a small-jeweled earring I hadn’t seen under his hair. “I think this enchantment is corrupted,” he grumbled under his breath.

  My first thought was that he was crazy, but in this town, crazy had several different levels, and he was barely scratching the surface, which meant in Athens, he was just eccentric. There was an artist who lived on the outskirts of town who thought she was a vampire. She honestly believed she was an undead, blood-sucking vampire. She only came into town in late afternoon, and she had a cloak and everything. She was crazy. This guy just seemed confused, like English wasn’t his first language. I stepped closer, eying the jewel.

  “Is that a radio?” I asked. “Are you talking to someone?” I reached up to touch it, and he slapped my hand away.

  “What in the nine worlds is a radio?” he asked, snapping at me. “By the gods, make sense!”

  “Me?” I exploded, rubbing my hand. “Dude, you are the weirdest person I have ever met! Trust me! In this town, that’s saying something!”

  “What are you?” he asked suddenly.

  “Kane,” I shot back. “Kane Vess. And you?”

  He blinked a few times in confusion before answering. “I am… I am called Hawk.”

  “Hippie parents too?” I asked with some sympathy. After all, my best friend is named Jewel.

  He scrunched his face again. “Hippie?” He sighed, shaking his head. “This is hopeless,” he said, sitting down on the stage. “They warned me that colloquialisms and idioms would remain unchanged, but none of your people seem to want to speak proper English at all.”

  My people? Okay: second level of crazy.

  I knelt down. “Let’s try this again.” I started slowly. “Where are you from?”

  He looked up at me, and I felt my heart skip a beat as those eyes looked into mine. “A long way away.” And then in a lower voice as he looked back at the stage, “And I’ll never get back.”

  My common sense told me not to trust him. Everything that was rational in my mind screamed at me to walk away while I could. It was obvious he was crazy, I just didn’t know how crazy yet. I don’t know if it was because he was so incredible looking or because he seemed so sad, but I knew I couldn’t just walk away.

  “Do you need help, Hawk?” I asked. “Because you seem like you need a friend.”

  He looked up at me, expressionless but with pleading eyes. “Do I look that pathetic?”

  I shook my head. “No. You just look lost.” I held out my hand. “Let me help.” And then I added, “Please?”

  He hesitated for a second, and then, with a smile that made me swoon inside, he reached out and took my hand. I took it back and squeezed it firmly.

  And that was the moment my life changed forever.

  Chapter Four

  “SO YOU want to tell me who you are, and what’s going on?” I asked, sitting down next to him, knowing I was going to miss first period but somehow not caring at all.

  He was hesitant to start, which told me whatever it was he thought it was important. In my experience, I had found that people who answer too quickly are usually lying. He came off so lost, which of course hit all my buttons because who doesn’t dream of finding an incredibly hot boy and fixing him? Straight guys may have cars and gadgets, but girls and gay boys, we like to fix broken boys.

  And Hawk was so beautifully broken.

  I forced myself to remember that this was the same guy who had shoved a knife into my heart not even twelve hours before, but it wouldn’t take. However, instead of remembering the cold triumph in his eye as he stabbed me, I just seemed to recall his embarrassment afterward as he apologized. I was praying my instincts were right, and I wasn’t just some insecure creep willing to forgive anything a hot guy did because I wanted to kiss him so badly.

  “I am not from here,” he said, tracing a pattern in the stage floor, not making eye contact. I waited for him to say more, but it was obvious even that much was an effort for him. This was like pulling teeth he was so reluctant. Even getting him to look up was impossible.

  “I knew that,” I said, trying to encourage him verbally. Now he looked up, those devastatingly blue eyes boring a hole through me. Obviously, I had said the wrong thing, so I clarified. “I mean, I know everyone in Athens, so I kind of guessed you weren’t from around here.”

  Visibly relieved, he sighed and began chuckling to himself. “No, I’m not from around this town,” he said, the tone of his voice making it clear that what I had said wasn’t even close to what he had meant.

  He fell back into silence, and
I prodded him again. “So then, where are you from? Narnia?”

  He cocked his head, his hair falling in front of his eyes, and my breath caught a bit. “I do not know of this Narnia. Is it one of the nine worlds?”

  “Nine?” I asked slowly. “As in the solar system?” The confused look on his face made it clear he wasn’t talking celestially. “Um, it’s a fantasy world, ruled by a white witch….”

  His eyes lit up. “You know of Niflgard?” When I said nothing he added, “Ruled by Queen Pudani?”

  I had no idea what in the world he was talking about.

  “Um, no. I was talking about the book?” He looked at me blankly. “Narnia isn’t a real place, it’s a story,” I said slowly. “There is no such thing as a white witch, right?”

  He nodded quickly, his eyes growing wide with excitement. “Yes! I mean, she is not white through her magic, but it is her color in battle.” He seemed to consider the words carefully. “You know of Niflgard?” he asked, and then said more to himself, “Then it’s possible there has been communication between the realms.”

  I knew from watching TV that if you ran into a crazy person the worst thing you could do was try to disagree with their crazy. I knew I should just nod and walk away slowly. But again, I felt the desire to stay. I trusted him. That was the crux of it, I trusted him with no reason whatsoever. It was jarring, as it was unusual for me, yet there it was, absolute trust in him.

  “You do know Narnia isn’t real, right?” I began carefully. He glanced back up at me, and I felt that stare hit me again. “It’s a book.” He didn’t seem to get it. “A story, like a fairytale.”

  We stared at each other for a few seconds, each one looking as if we were waiting for the other one to say, “Just kidding!”

  Neither of us said, “Just kidding.”

  “It’s a tale about my home?” he asked when he saw I wasn’t joking. “But I already said I wasn’t from the ice lands.”

  He had that look again, as if he didn’t quite understand English.

  “I said fairytale,” I repeated slowly.

  He nodded. “Are you speaking of my home or yours, then?”

  Now I looked like I didn’t know English. “What?”

  “You are saying it is a home tale. Are you speaking of my home or of your own?” he asked, speaking as slowly and clearly as I had.

  I shook my head. “Fairytale. I’m talking about a fairytale, not a home tale.”

  “You said home tale twice.”

  I put my head down. “‘Who’s on First’ wasn’t this confusing,” I mumbled to myself. I took a deep breath. “Fairy,” I said, prompting him to respond.

  “Home,” he answered promptly.

  Fairy, home. Gay, happy. What was going on here?

  “What is the name of your home?” I asked.

  “Faerth,” he said, the word sounding so foreign rolling off his tongue.

  “Okay,” I said, starting over. “Repeat after me.” He nodded.

  “I.”

  “I.”

  “Am.”

  “Am.”

  “From.”

  “From.”

  “Fairy.”

  “Home.”

  A ha!

  “You heard me saying ‘home’?” I confirmed, realizing the problem.

  “You didn’t say that?” His voice sounded surprised and more than a little worried.

  I looked at his ear and at the earring again. It didn’t make any sense, but I knew somehow that earring was the cause of this confusion. I reached up toward it, but he quickly grabbed my wrist, stopping me. He wasn’t rough, but it was obvious he was way stronger than I had thought.

  “Trust me,” I said softly.

  “Why?”

  His question was simple, but there was obviously a multitude of feeling behind it. It was the same question I had been asking myself. Why should I trust him? He wasn’t asking about my hand or the earring or any of that. He was like a prisoner of war and was asking me why he should trust me since I was the enemy. I had no idea where that thought came from, but it seemed to fit the circumstances. At first, I didn’t know how to answer him, on the surface, he had no reason to trust me. We didn’t know each other, he tried to stab me, and I had no idea what I was doing here. Yet there was that bond, that feeling I was almost certain was going both ways.

  My answer came to me as if I had already heard it in a dream. “Because I will never hurt you.”

  The grip on my wrist loosened, and I unfastened the earring from his ear. It looked like an oversized emerald that had been carved down to resemble a cat’s eye. There was a glimmer, I don’t know if it was from the stage lights or what, but it looked as if it had a light inside of it. The setting looked like silver with a sharp needle and fastener that screwed on the back. I felt a tingle when I put it up to my ear and slipped it in. In a fit of teenage angst, Jewel and I had had our ears pierced last summer. I had let mine close up when school started again, but the hole was still there. I felt the sharp sting of pain and then connected the back.

  “So talk,” I said, making sure it was in.

  “I am Hawk’keen Maragold Tertania, prince and heir to the Arcadian throne.” His voice was now clear and rich without a hint of accent in it.

  And I knew everything he had just said was the absolute truth.

  “Wait, what?” I asked in confusion.

  Which was when they attacked.

  Chapter Five

  HAWK HAD to admit he was a little smitten with the boy.

  There was a poise about him that his mother would have respected even if she would also have had him killed for touching his person.

  Hawk hadn’t been sure what was wrong with the enchantment on the bauble, but the boy had instinctively known it to be the source of their confusion. Again, he had to wonder how much Arcadian knowledge had been lost on this side following the Abandonment? There should be no academies for The Arts, so there were no Shapers or Crafters on this side, so how Kane knew about something that looked like ordinary jewelry but wasn’t remained a mystery.

  He had to remember that this was not his world, and Arcadia’s customs and laws did not apply. Slowly, he let his hand go and allowed Kane to remove the bauble.

  The boy pricked himself when he placed the bauble in his earlobe yet barely flinched from the pain. Hawk’s eyes had teared up when the Crafter had thrust the device into his lobe. His ear still felt sore almost a month later, so Kane’s silent endurance seemed an impressive feat. Even more surprising was Kane’s apparently calm pause for the enchantment to take hold. A slight shiver across his shoulders was the only indication that he’d felt anything at all. “So talk.”

  This was it.

  Hawk remembered one time his father had taken him on a walk through the halls of the main palace. As they had paced, examining the conditions of walls and flooring, the king had begun to explain to him the onus of leadership. His robes had trailed behind him as they walked; his voice was deep and commanding as befitted a lord. “Son, there comes a time in any endeavor where the risk and reward must be weighed against each other. Where you have to wonder whether what you have invested is going to be worth what you potentially get out of it and then decide right then or there what to do. In other words, do you want to fish or cut boat?”

  When it was clear the older man wasn’t going to elaborate on it unless questioned, Hawk had asked what the saying meant. His father explained that it meant that a leader must sometimes make the hard decisions: was it wiser to keep employing the crew of an unprofitable fishing boat in hopes that they might eventually turn a profit, or to cut the boat in half, sinking it and beginning again.

  He had asked, “With the crew on it?”

  “Of course,” his father had replied, looking out over the vast ocean that connected to the cliffs behind the palace. “They failed in their tasks. There is no reward for failure.”

  It had been an eye-opening talk.

  “I’m fishing,” he told himself as h
e took a deep breath.

  “I am Hawk’keen Maragold Tertania, prince and heir to the Arcadia throne.” He knew the enchantment would not just translate his words into English but would convey the veracity of the statement as well. Since a literal translation would be useless in cases like this, the Crafters made sure the enchantment also carried the intent and tone of the speaker, making it an excellent tool for separating truth from fiction.

  The boy was about to respond when Hawk heard them from behind.

  He cursed himself as he dove for his discarded satchel. He had been so wrapped up in his and Kane’s conversation he had let his guard slip. The bag lay on the ground, the top unfastened, and a trail of pens and a book on the stage. Concentrating on his blade, he called, “Truheart” under his breath and felt the hilt of the weapon solidify in his hand. The Magics of the bag prevented anyone from finding anything that had been concealed within it unless they knew and could imagine precisely what they were reaching for. As he pulled Truheart free from its scabbard, Hawk could feel the power pulse through it, the blue glow on the blade already bright.

  That meant magic.

  “Behind me!” he called out to the boy, making it an order rather than a suggestion.

  He was pleased to see Kane move rapidly away from the forms moving out of the shadows at them. For a second, he wondered what abominations the Dark had sent after him and then banished the thought for another time. Battle is time for action, not idle thought. He saw three uniforms move into the light and paused in surprise.

  They were empty uniforms. Empty pant legs fluttering in the wind they created as they crossed the stage.

  Hawk wasn’t certain if the owners of the uniforms were invisible and present or being manipulated from afar, but the shirts and pants floated toward them, a sword hovering where a hand would normally clutch it tight. He didn’t recognize the army battle color or regiment decorations, since none was dressed like another, but frankly, he didn’t care. The Dark were sadly mistaken if they meant to impress him with that trick, and he shouted out, “For Arcadia!” and charged the first with all his strength.