by Daniel Huber
Avalon walked beside her, his pace deliberate and regal next to her casual saunter. Heads began to turn as they made their way through the crowded street, many eyes falling on the statuesque man who seemed to capture attention by simply existing. Clea was used to it, and paid the attention no heed. No one would remember seeing him later anyway. As they walked, Avalon glanced about the people in the street, seeming in search of something, but when Clea began to talk, he listened intently.
"So why did you pick just now to come see me, in this crowded street?" she asked, leading him to stand within the shelter of two merchants' carts. "It's not very often that you make so public an appearance." She took his hand and held it between both her palms, running her fingers over the pattern of bones along the back.
"Whenever the need arises Clea, I shall seek you out wherever you may be. This should come as no surprise."
"No, not a surprise, just an observation. Why were you seeking me then, if not to hear my news?"
"The time is drawing near, Clea." Avalon moved his hands to cover hers, squeezing them tightly as if to punctuate his words. "Sooner than you know you will be called upon to take your place in the grand scheme of things. All that I've told you all of your life…do you remember it?" Clea huffed a laugh and pulled her hands away.
"Remember? Surely not! Why should I remember something I'm not a part of? Grand scheme of things indeed, Avalon! My destiny is mine to make, as is everyone's. I've no place in this prophecy you continue to harass me with. How many times must we revisit this topic?"
"Until you choose to embrace it, my Clea."
"Ah, then harass me ever!" She spun a circle and collapsed against the post that held the merchant's cart opposite of where he stood. "I don't believe in destiny, Avalon." He shook his head at her oft-spoken words and stepped toward her, reaching to finger the chain of bells around her waist and a lock of hair fell across his face as he looked down.
"The events set in motion will soon be upon you Clea, and you need to be aware of all that's to come."
"And you need to be aware of something too," She reached to push his hair back from his face, but the breeze blew through just then, displacing it again. "I made a deal with Ryder Deluka today. For ten thousand chid, Avalon." When he looked up at her face he saw that it was filled with thrill, with proud accomplishment. She whispered it again, "ten thousand!" The corner of his mouth crooked into a smile, and he reached his arm around her, pulling her against him.
"Impressive, my Clea. You are indeed without peer." He sighed deeply as he held her, for that brief moment putting aside the topic she resisted most. "Accolades to you on achieving that which you have worked so hard to accomplish. I hope that someday my persistence will prove as worthwhile for me as yours has for you."
"The thing I need to consider is the fact that Ryder's shifty." Avoiding Avalon's hinting sentiment, Clea instead chose her deal to center on. "He takes me for a novice, so he'll surely try to pull something underhanded. Of that much I'm sure." She leaned away from his embrace, taking his hand and pulling him back out into the street to walk again. "It's just one of those feelings I get."
"Your instincts and intuition have always been your gift, my Clea. Listen to them and you will always know when someone seeks to deceive you."
"Well, this was a fairly easy conclusion under the circumstances. Of course I cannot assume my feelings are always telling me what's true."
"If you know something to be true, then it is," he replied simply. They walked in silence for a minute, until they were nearing the area where she had parted ways with Trina. Avalon continued to peer over throng of people, looking down an offshoot of the main road, apparently seeing something of interest. In the distance over Avalon's shoulder, Clea saw Trina walking in their direction, glancing about the crowd as she searched for her friend.
"Oh, here comes Trina," Clea said, bringing her gaze back to Avalon's face. "Any chance that perhaps today will be the day to reveal yourself and dispel my reputation as a delusional daydreamer with an overactive imagination?"
Avalon stared far off toward another end of the Marketplace, now studying something intensely. He looked back down to her, and brushed his finger over her cheek.
"I'm sorry Clea, but I cannot right now." He smiled serenely at her disappointed frown, and held her stare for a moment as he turned, but he spoke with great purpose as he did. "There is someone else who I need to see."
Avalon always knew when it was the right time to walk among the people. He did it less frequently as the years had gone on and on, and now only stepped forth through the masses on rare occasions, reserving his time for a more important cause, the cause that had brought him out today in the first place.
For the moment, though, he strolled through the thinning edge of Sigh Marketplace, glancing casually over all those who turned their heads to him as he passed, the women's eyes wide with adoration, the men oddly fascinated with his presence. What they saw as a tall and handsomely built man would fade with the moments, however, fade and diminish to a dreamlike memory for some, and into nothingness for others. But there would be one today; one who would gain inspiration from gracing the presence of the Muse.
Avalon spotted her before she saw him. A middle aged, work-worn woman sitting alone on a tree stump, a blanket laid out before her with rows of handmade bracelets and jewelry, as she strummed a beaten and well used guitar. She was obviously struggling with what music she attempted to make. Once, she had been a rising performer, had played her guitar and sang songs beautiful and haunting each year at the Twilight Bloom. But of late, her music had left her, and the fire in her heart was dimming to mere embers along with her inspiration that song had once provided.
Avalon stood before her, looking over her selection of beaded necklaces, and watched her fumble on the strings of the instrument for almost a full minute before she even saw him standing there. She muttered bitterly to herself as the guitar betrayed her fingers, the strings having no tune and no harmony, and her voice something that she dare not sound over the volume of a whisper. Suddenly, something washed over her, and she looked up to see a tall man standing before her.
He was a spectacular creature to behold. The wind played lightly around the waves of his hair and his creamy skin was luminous, an eternally youthful glow radiating off his flawless flesh. His eyes were all at once intense and kind, large and almond shaped, the deep green color accentuated by long dark lashes which he blinked in a drowsy manner. As she stood, somehow attempting to take in the entirety of this ethereal man who had come to look on her goods, his full, wide lips spread into a warm expression.
"Good afternoon," he said to her. His voice was deep and disarmingly intimate. But he gazed at her with the innocence of one who has no sins and no secrets, and who would claim no ill toward any living thing. The woman accidentally dropped her guitar as she walked toward him, and he watched it hit the ground and raised his eyebrows in amusement.
"Careful or your guitar may cease to yield you music."
"Oh," the woman finally spoke, tearing her stare off of him for a moment and looking down to the fallen instrument. "I'm afraid that's happened long ago."
The touch of his hand on her cheek brought her eyes back to look at him, starting with his long, lean waist and slowly working up across his broad chest and gracefully muscled arms, over his strong jaw and long straight nose and finally to the emerald pools of his eyes.
"Music is your gift," he said gently, the deep, sensual tone in his voice weaving right through her, the shimmering tingle of his touch on her face hypnotic. "It will come to you again if you search your soul." He reached his other hand to smooth back her graying hair, and her face tilted up toward him reactively. "Search your soul," he repeated, his eyelids lowering, locking deeply with her rapt stare.
"Search…" she mumbled, caught up in the dream state moment of his inspiration, reaching out to lay a seeking hand on the thick leather belt that circled his waist. "The Muse…you're…"
"Shh…" he
hushed her, placing a finger against her lips which almost caused her to swoon. The woman laid a second hand on his belt, pulling herself into him as he stood cupping her face in his large, strong hands. He tipped her chin up so she would open her eyes again, and he stared, his kind eyes focused on her. "We'll not have it be that Twilight Bloom goes by without your talents being heard by all. Now," he said, moving close, and brushing a tender finger over her jaw. "Take your gift and use it well."
With those words, he bent down to retrieve her guitar from the ground, and he placed it in her hands as she stood, still mesmerized from the affect he had on her. Every pore on her skin zinged with life and sensation, and her fingers felt electric with energy that she'd never before experienced. When she grasped the neck of the guitar in her hand, a new feeling of enlightenment came over her, and suddenly she knew again what it meant to feel the music flowing through her. She sat down, focused and determined, and the melodies came without hesitation, without thought. Midway through writing down the notes of her first song, she puzzled for a moment and looked up and around her, trying to remember what it was that she'd seen or done to recapture the ability to play her instrument in this manner after so long a spell of hopelessness. In her mind's eye was a vague memory of a most striking man, but there was no evidence of him now, and her song was running so rampant through her soul that she didn't care to pause on what caused it to come to her so freely, but merely to enjoy the sheer elation that she felt from it.
It had been a profitable day for Trina; thirty-five chid had jingled in her pocket, and twenty five of that she'd given away, to merchants or to those who seemed to need it, either by secret deposits to their gaping pockets as she walked by, or from generous tipping for routine services.
As they left the dwindling hum of the marketplace, Trina saw, off away from the carts and the merchants, a shape that she'd seen before, that she'd helped before. Clea glanced over to Trina's face, following her intense stare as she looked over behind a barrel of fresh cut flowers, to see a very old man sitting alone, whittling at a piece of smooth bark, though not watching his hands as he did. Wordlessly, Trina made her way toward the old man and Clea followed. As she approached, she was sure to make plenty of noise with her feet, because she knew that the old man was blind and would not see her coming.
"Hello," Trina said warmly, leaning down toward the old man who appeared to be trying to carve the wood into something. "How goes your afternoon my friend?"
The old man looked up toward the voice that addressed him, and there was acknowledgment on his face but no focus in his stare. "Ah! The young artist and her fair faced friend!" he said. "The afternoon goes well. Another beautiful day."
Trina's eyes knit together in hopeless sympathy. The man was all alone, and she ached to see him sitting on the dirt. She glanced to Clea, who knelt beside her, a bit more detached than her less traveled friend.
"What's that you're carving?" Clea asked, trying to distract Trina's bleeding heart.
"Oh, this," the man said with a dismissive wave. "Once, many years ago in my youth I carved kava flutes. Carved them and played them. I sometimes revisit the hope that one day my sense of touch will be so polished that I can do it without visual aid." He turned the whittled wood over in his hand and laughed. "I don't think today is that day, though!" He threw the wood over his shoulder and shrugged.
"Well at least today you keep all ten fingers," Clea chided. "It's a brave man who wields a knife like that with no eyes to guide it." Trina shoved her lightly with surprise at the bold comment, but the old man laughed along with Clea.
"Bravery or foolishness? Hard to tell the difference these days," he said. A breeze blew through the air, evidence of the coming night.
"Where will you go tonight dear sir?" Trina asked, tightening the shawl around her neck and feeling guilty for having it when he had none. "Won't you call on the assistance of the kingdom to give you a warm bed and meal?" Her voice was hopeful, gently persuasive.
"No, my dear. I've a home of my own. Modest, but adequate. I camp in the north wood, close enough to the sea that I can hear the crashing breakers on the shore below, and catch the occasional scent of salt water on the air." The old man stood, brushing off his dirty clothes. "I should be getting back now, in fact. The air is beginning to chill."
Trina felt the inside of her shawl for the last several coins from her day's earnings, and untied the woolen garment from her neck.
"Can we escort you?" she asked. "How do you get home from here?”
The man shook his head and hobbled toward a donkey cart nearby. "No thank you, dear. My friend here, the flower merchant, drops me close enough that I find my way. You get home yourself, before night falls, now."
Trina walked up next to him, threw her shawl over his shoulders and handed over her container of mushroom stem soup. "Have these, then," she said, securing the tie around his neck, and wrapping his fingers around the tub of stew. "It will do me good to know you've had a warm meal and a cloak around you for the ride home." The man started to protest, but Clea chimed in.
"No point in arguing kind sir. She's very stubborn." He smiled, his grin strange from missing teeth.
"Thank you," he said simply, nodding his head.
"What is your name, gentle man?" Trina asked. "I never know how to address you."
"Lamont," he replied. "And I know you must be the artist Bel’ah. I can smell the oil of pastels on your hands." He had reached the cart that would take him home, and he waved goodbye to the two young women who stood nearby. Trina sighed, troubled and distressed. Clea put her hand on Trina’s arm, steering her toward home.
"You cannot protect them all, Trina."
"But I must," she replied as they walked. "They are my people. My responsibility."
Clea sighed. "He will have a warm sleep and a full belly tonight."
"Yes," Trina replied, "but tomorrow is another day."
"People like that live day to day, Trina. Today has been a success for him. Be content with that because it is true. People choose their own path and believe me," Clea shook her head from the images in her mind. "The very worst here on Bethel is paradise compared to the best on lots of other planets."
"So I'm told," said Trina and she looked at her friend with sadness.
CHAPTER 5
Trina dropped her supplies on a chair in the corner and stooped to look in the mirror before she walked out of her bedchamber. Her hair had almost dried on the walk from Clea's house, but it still seemed a bit dull from the rinse that she'd given it that morning. Dark was nearly fallen though, and perhaps no one would notice until she had the chance to wash it out thoroughly later on. She turned and headed out the door, down the stairs and along the hallway toward the place where she knew she would find her father.
The Courtyard of the Moons had long been known as the Keystone's favored spot for reflection, and he took time on more evenings than not to walk its spacious grounds, and think on things of importance. As the moons of Bethel rose above the circular wall of the courtyard, their muted light bathed the area with a perfectly even glow. It seemed that the night blooming flowers and plants craned toward the moonlight as much as the day plants stretched toward the warmth of the sun, and the energy within this particular area of the castle was balanced and invigorating. Stone paths and low, braided wood fences made a decorative maze through the gardens, and had been laid along the path of the moons as they moved around the planet, so that one walking in the garden would, if he walked slowly enough, be following the natural movement of Bethel. As Trina entered the courtyard from the heavy wooden double doors of the castle, she paused for a minute to watch her father. The Keystone stood, facing east and looking to the sky. Trina looked up to see what he saw. The moons had risen over the Courtyard, one full and one with a shadow creeping over its perfect circle. A billion stars twinkled shyly as the darkness grew deep, and the gentle wind rustled through the leaves of all the plants. For a moment, Trina thought twice about interrupting him. He
was dressed in his lounging clothes, and seemed very strong and serene from this distance as he looked to the sky. His presence was something so large and so great that it could hardly be contained by the walls of this courtyard, and even out of the more formal ceremonial attire he would don for his consultation the next day, he still seemed a person of immense wisdom and knowledge, far beyond his youthful years. She stood quietly, admiring his proud posture, his height and his noble demeanor, and wondered if she would ever be able to emulate it accurately. So lost in her own thoughts Trina started when, without turning or even gesturing, her father spoke.
"Come stand with me, my daughter," he said, his voice clear and deep on the evening air, his old-world accent something that Trina had always loved. "Tell me what weighs so heavily on your mind this peaceful eve."
Trina walked slowly across the expanse of the courtyard, noticing the beauty of the foliage, aware of the life force the surroundings held, a thing her father had always instructed her to do, to be conscious of. It had never been a difficult thing for her to remember.
The Keystone reached his hand behind him as she approached, and Trina took it, the warmth of his skin a pleasant and calming familiarity. The Keystone stood upon a bridge that was built over a large pond, and the aged wood and stone creaked beneath her feet as she walked over the sturdy, carefully laid logs. It was just wide enough for two people, and her father squeezed her hand before he released it, and made a motion toward the patch of hyacinth flowers that grew next to the water.
"The flowers seem eager this year, for the Twilight Bloom," he said. Trina looked at the bush, at the tightly swollen blossoms that appeared to be ready to burst from their size.
"I'm starting on the horses tomorrow," she said. "I might have to paint them all three myself this year. I'm not sure if Quade or Clea will be here in time to do theirs." The Keystone smiled, then finally looked to his daughter.