by Nelson, J P
I got up and walked around a bit, remembering. What were her words on that last night, so long ago it seemed? “… I want you to keep this, for all time.” She knew, deep down inside, it might be out last time together. She had been so brave. Riana did not deserve my anger, but my admiration, and Patriohr as well. It had been almost four years since she had last seen me when … when she committed herself to him. And I had liked Patriohr.
Tasting the brandy and holding it against the taste buds for flavor, I found it to be very good. Turning to look into Wesney’s worried face, I asked, “Do they … do they have a child?”
Wesney stood and with another deep breath said, “Yes sir, they do. A boy …” he said fondly, “… with red hair.” When he saw I was keeping calm he cautiously added, “He should be eight years old, I think. Yes, eight years old in a couple of months.” There was another hesitation, “And I understand there is a little girl, although I haven’t seen her, who should be close to three years old by now.”
‘The child, children,’ I thought, ‘they could have been mine … maybe.’ I asked, “Then, as far as you know, she is safe, well cared for, and her needs are well met?”
Wesney shuffled his feet a moment, shrugged his shoulders a bit, and then in a knowing manner said, “Yes, yes sir. I think that would be a good way of putting it.”
I took it all in, rolled it over in my mind, it was all so surreal. I hadn’t let my friends down at all, and they were doing well. In many respects, I had succeeded in what I started to do that day we all rode out for the Pyramid. Most guys would probably be reeling in anger and self pity. In fact, I had spent more than a decade doing just that. Wasn’t it time to let it go? What could I have expected her to do, live in despair and loneliness; to waste her youth waiting for me to return, not knowing if I ever would?
Chewing the side of my jaw I walked around the room. I could still remember her smell, the dancing and how she felt in my arms, her laughter … yes, her laughter. More than anything else, I wanted her to be happy. She was a queen, now, and I could easily see her as such. And she had held to the fire. Now she had a son and a daughter, something I didn’t know if I could ever give any woman.
With Wesney in my peripheral vision, I knew his main concern right now was in how I would take to the information. But he was giving it to me in honesty. I could take my anger out on him, and many would have done so … but wasn’t the time for anger past? Many men had died to my angry fists. Yes, we had been put there in the pits to kill each other, but there was a lingering in my mind that had I really wanted to … I might just could have gotten away. It was something I would never know. I had never tried, not until it was too late … not until after Debohra. Yes, Debohra.
I, too, had moved forward. It wasn’t the same as what Riana and I had had, but …
“Do they know about my fighting?”
“No Major. I write history, but only when I know things for absolute certainty. I wasn’t certain about you, for absolutely sure certain, until today.”
Walking closer, I solemnly raised my glass to him and gave a faint smile, “To King Patriohr and Queen Riana?”
He passed a relieved smile back at me and said, “To King Patriohr and Queen Riana.” We ticked our rims and downed our drinks.
Looking at my glass with favor, I then said, “Wesney, would you do me a favor? Please, call me Wolf. I’m not a major anymore.”
“It would be my pleasure … Wolf.” With that he poured us another glass and together we reminisced and paid memorial to the heroes of Keoghnariu.
Chapter 61
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“… SO THERE I am,” Wesney was spinning a tale through the brandy, “thirty feet up on this lattice work that I’m way to heavy to be on, holding on with one hand and trying to pull this kitten out of the vines with the other. The kitten is scared and is clawing me at the same time, so I have to get it by the scruff. The piece of wood my right foot is standing on breaks and the little girl down below screams. That scared the kitten even more …” Wesney pulled his sleeve up and showed me some scars, “… and it decides to dig into my arm with its hind legs.”
As Wesney and I were sitting on that leather couch, he was weaving one hand around dramatizing his story, while the other was holding his glass. It was amazing, he could hold his liquor better than any human I had ever met. I watched and listened intently as he continued his story.
His free hand imitated a threshing movement as he continued, “While the kitten is doing this bunny-like kick thing all over my arm, the lattice suddenly breaks loose from the wall. I fell, fall, across the way onto the roof of the Tandy Down Café next door, slid around to the back side, and into the water catch-tank on top of the roof. It collapses and a couple of hundred gallons of water and me, I, I come off the roof like a waterfall on top of the outside table where Captain Jha’Ley is eating with a town official.”
Wesney was in a half-drunken laugh as he remembered the incident. “Anyway …” he chuckled, “… I still have this, this drenched kitten, hanging by its scruff in my hand and a piece of lattice work in the other, broken wood is wrapped around my leg and I’m covered with vines. I’m sitting on top of the broken table, looking up at these men trying to decide what to say, when the little girl comes running around the corner saying she found her kitten underneath the porch.”
He paused as he relived the moment, “So I just hold this kitten up and I say, I ask the soaked captain, I asked, ‘Good sir, can I interest you in a kitty?’” Wesney closed his eyes in the absurdness of it all. “Can you believe … I can’t believe that I asked him that?”
Together we laughed and I shook my head, what stories he had to tell. His life was so full of good things, and history, Wesney was full of historical knowledge and more. He knew all kinds of stuff.
I asked, “So, did you get into any kind of trouble?”
He sobered a little, and then said, “No, I didn’t. Remember that emergency caesarian section I did to save those twins, in the middle of a storm, no less? It was the official’s daughter, the Lady Car-o-le-e-en. The next day I got a note from Captain Jha’Ley wanting to meet. He asked me for dinner aboard the Lohra Lai and asked me if I would like to sail around the world …” Wesney pointed a slightly wavering finger at me and added, “… sail around the world and write about it all … no less … and …” he burped with a whimsical expression on his face, “… and keep his crew healthy.”
Waving his hand in front of his face Wesney burped again, “Whew! Excuse me-e-e …”
Wesney sat his glass on his leg and leaned back for a moment, and then he looked at me with a hint of humor in his expression and said, “And now here I am, for the last few months I have acted as ship’s physician.” Downing the last of his drink, he visibly contemplated pouring another, started to reach for the brandy, and then decided against it. And then he asked, “What’s next for you? Where do you go from here?”
That was a good question. For a few moments I looked into my own glass and mused. With gradual contemplation I said, “I’ve been thinking pretty much of returning to my birth land …” I looked at Wesney, “There’s an old score I wish to settle, something I need to make right.”
“In the Ahnagohrs, you mean? You’ve been gone eighteen, nineteen, maybe twenty years? Would they still be there? It’s some pretty rough country. Are there any elves up there?”
“Not the Ahnagohrs …”
Wesney became sharp and took notice, “Then where?”
“Gevard.”
“Gev-, you were born in Gevard?” He squinted his eyes and tried hard to focus on the idea through the alcohol. It was as if he had trouble accepting I could come from the place. “Gevard is becoming the center of attention west of the Sahrjiuns. Their king keeps speaking of being the master race and all sorts of nonsense. There’s talk that some of the common people are trying to stand up against him, the government. I wasn’t aware there were any elves out there.”
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��There weren’t many, and my momma is the only one I ever saw.” I downed the remains of my drink, and then added, “My momma was a slave, a slave to House Fel’Caden.”
The shock on his face showed he had completely sobered, at least for the moment. “Lord Herrol’s House of Fel’Caden? You’re kidding me?”
I shook my head and for the second time in my life I told someone the story of my birth, the first being Hoscoe. I told of growing up within the walls of the main keep, keeping the gardens and apple trees with my momma, her music and they way she taught me. I talked some of Herrol, my momma’s death, working the fields, Stagus, all the way to Kiubejhan. I didn’t cover every detail, but enough of the highlights so he might understand.
As Wesney listened he chose that next drink, and I took another as well. We were quiet for a while as we nursed our brandy, but I could see he was caught up in solemn thought. Finally, he asked with concern on his face, “So, in your going back … is it to help those people who are being victimized by a tyrant, or to collect revenge?”
My eyes must have become hard, because his eyes became wide, but I said, “I want satisfaction for my momma. I want the whole plantation to go down, and Herrol with it. I want Herrol dead. I could care less about the rest of them. Everyone stood by, no compassion, no concern.” I shrugged my shoulders and said, “To Cherron’s Road with them.”
Wesney became somewhat agitated with my words, and after composing his own thoughts he turned in his seat and said, “But, after more killing, what then? The last I heard, you were considered an outlaw around Dahruban … with a huge reward on your head. They say you overcame a freight team, castrated and murdered four men, and then nailed a man to a tree and literally skinned him alive, and then covered him with honey and left him there. If you show up in Gevard rampaging, killing, and laying waste, it’s only going to heighten that image and you’ll be branded an outlaw across the whole continent.
“Sure, I know you want revenge. And I can’t tell you how that would feel because I can’t relate to that …” he rubbed his head, “… to your background, I mean. I had a good mom and pop, I went to the best schools and honestly don’t know anything about going hungry for days at a time. But I know you were personally trained by the greatest general of our time, maybe in the history of the whole world, and I know the kinds of things you can do. I talked to all of the men on our side who served in that campaign. I talked to all of the men who served in your command.
“General Val’Ihrus talked with me about his view of a possible worldwide escalation, and how he believed you would have a part to play in it.” Wesney ran his hand through his hair and closed his eyes, trying to touch on some words he thought would reach me.
He said, “I’ve been given liberty to bring aboard my own assistant, a Physician’s Mate … and …” Wesney smiled a kind of nervous smile, “… and Captain Jha’Ley, when I talked with him about you, he’s interested in you as well, if you are indeed the Wulf who was aboard the Faulta Whimn a few months ago. And I know you are; I talked with Carpenter’s Mate Jude myself. I knew in my heart it was you before you came up here. The Wulf that Jude talked about sounded exactly like the Wolf I knew.
“My point … my point is you probably have the right to go and kill all those bastards. But if you do you’re probably going to be branded an outlaw for life.” Wesney creased his brow, “I already said that, didn’t I?” He thought about it and said, “What I mean is you’ll, um, you’ll be branded an outlaw for a really long time, anyway; for three or four human generations, at least.
“But if you go with us … Captain Jha’Ley wants to sail around the wor-r-rld …” he exaggerated holding his hands really wide apart, “… that’s making history … and you’ve been all about making history.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Well … the Pyramid for one … then there’s that record in the Dahruban Coliseum; your string of wins as Gojai Dianbo is more than that of the second, third and fourth place records combined … and, and you and the other fellow on the road crew, uh, uhm …”
“Jared.” I said.
“… yes, Jared, the two of you were the first to break through that gap. This voyage is going to be huge. It could open new routes, expand exploration …”
“Wesney …” I said, emphatically, “… there’s no wa-a-ay to sail around the world. It can’t be done.”
He became excited and argued, “But that’s what they said about the Pyramid … it couldn’t be penetrated. But guess what? You did it; we did it. Wolf, the captain has maps, maps passed down from Captain Greybeard, maps from his ship the Kelshinua, they’re the most …”
“What … what did you say? The name of the ship?”
“The Kelshinua, Captain Greybeard’s ship was the Kelshinua; one of the finest ships of her time. An experimental ship, really. When she went down, these maps were among the few things saved. Captain Greybeard passed them to Captain Jha’Ley’s grandfather, who passed them to Jha’Ley’s uncle, who in turn passed them to him. They are indeed beautiful maps. I’ve never seen anything with as much detail and references to places no ship has ever been, at least, no ship we know of.
“We think they might have even been drawn by elvin hand. Maybe the first, the ones who history says first came …”
All I was hearing was the name, Kelshinua. How had a ship come to be named for her? It was an explicitly elvin name, and yet a ship had born the name as well.
Wesney was still trying to induce me into joining this Circumnavigation Voyage, and he picked up on my interest in the name without knowing why, “Captain Jha’Ley can tell you everything about her, as much as anyone knows and more.” He drummed his fingers on the sofa a moment or two, he was politely tenacious. But he was like that as a surgeon, as well. When he was cutting that sword out of me, he hadn’t wanted to do it, but once he started there was no turning back and he went into this zone of mentality you would have to see to understand. He could have been hit with a dozen knives and I don’t think he would have felt it. He had been the same way when we entered the Pyramid.
As scattered and overly animated as he seemed to be at times, he was a craiken good physician … maybe the best. And he knew the law, inside and out, of at least a half dozen countries. Listening to him and Hoscoe debate legal issues had been a source of entertainment for the troops, and they could really go at it. Wesney could come up with all kinds of case histories and issues of precedence and he knew how to press his points.
He was pressing his points now. Wesney went into an oratory piece of artwork which would have impressed any judicial gathering … the problem was, I didn’t hear any of it. I could only think of the name. It was like I had once more been brought back to see her face, hear her voice … I wanted to reach out and touch her. Was a ship bearing her name a coincidence? It couldn’t be, could it? Suddenly I needed to know. Hoscoe had indicated once that there was more to my momma than I knew, that she may have even been a warrior.
Had my momma ever been to sea? Was a ship named for her? But when? How much did I even know about my momma, other than her Tell Singing abilities? She had been over three hundred years old when she had been captured. My mind began to spin with possibilities of her earlier years.
“Wolf. Wolf? Have you been listening to what I have been saying?” He was leaning forward and looked to have been doing so for some time. Wesney took an exaggerated breath and apparently repeated in slow, punctuated earnest, “If you go with us on this voyage, and if your mind is still bent upon the issue, then I will go with you to Gevard upon our return and help you do whatever it is you decide to do.” He then leveled his gaze at me with full intent of waiting for me to make a decision.
“Can I meet Captain Jha’Ley first?”
His mouth opened as if to say something, and then I think my friend almost became aggravated, almost, but not quite. He closed his eyes for a moment, shook his head, and then managed the quirk of a smile. I got the distinct feeling he had already
suggested exactly that, maybe, probably, most likely more than once. “Yes, Wolf …” he said in a near deadpan tone, “You can meet the Captain, first.”
Leaning forward to sit on the edge of my seat I asked, “When?”
Wesney gave the slightest chuckle and brushed his chin and said, “How about in the morning, anytime?”
There was still three quarters of a glass of brandy in my hand. I tossed it off in one throw and winced at the alcohol, immediately *Self Healing* myself of the effects of the rush into my system. Wesney must have a steel constitution. If he was really drunk, more than just a bit tipsy, he didn’t show it. But there are a few humans like that. I said, “Then let’s do it.”
Up to that time I had never seen him happier. On the edge of his seat, Wesney leaned back and killed his drink as well. Then his eyes crossed and he shook his head. I couldn’t help but chuckle. “Are you okay?” I asked.
Smacking his lips together and licking his inner cheeks, breathed out and said, “Ye-a-a-h, never better.”
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Back in my room I couldn’t get the name of that ship out of my mind. I didn’t even undress for bed; I just took the sword out of my sash and laid down. My dreams hadn’t been pleasant of late, and I expected to have nightmares at the least. But as I fell asleep it was to the memory of my momma’s songs. My little hands once more reached up to hold hers as we walked among the flowers and apple trees, she would brush the hair out of my eyes and the birds would come perch on her fingers.
For the first time in months I slept soundly, and when I woke up, at first I didn’t know where I was. After washing my face and brushing out my clothing, I took my camping pot and put some water into it. Focusing intently, I finally made the water come to just this side of boiling and put a handful of coffee into it. I just didn’t want to go through calling the bell-hop, waiting for him to come upstairs, then waiting for him to go down, heat the water … you understand what I mean.