by S. A. Hunt
“It looks like they’re tired of being immortal muses. They’ve turned on the universe,” I said.
I told Normand our tale thus far, beginning with my father’s death and on through my force-feeding of the Acolouthis and our battle against the Feaster and its corporeal avatar on Destin, the Unremembered Man. I told him what I could recall of the encounter with Hel Grammatica and the Silen Hel had called the Rhetor.
I told him about the mysterious entity trapped underneath the dakhmas that littered the Void floor, slowly growing powerful on the souls drilled through the rock. “The Sileni don’t just have the ability to tell you what to write,” I concluded. “They can tell you what to do. And now they’re telling people to do horrific things.”
Throughout my recollection, the King’s face had grown more and more grim. “Shadowy men, seeding chaos throughout the cosmos as reparation for a millennium of servitude. It seems that things have progressed just as Edward feared. I expect that his knowledge of the coming rebellion was why he was killed.
“With Ed’s and Hel Grammatica’s help, this Rhetor Logos could have possibly been stopped at some point. To our dismay and misfortune, Edward was murdered before he could be warned of his impending assassination and give you the information you needed. Fortunately for us, we had a hidden wild-card the entire time.”
“Eh?”
He pointed to me.
“Me? What do you mean?”
“You are Edward’s heir,” he said. “As you’ve already taken upon yourself, you have now assumed the mantle that Edward once wore. The mantle of the Messenger.”
“The Messenger?”
“Yes. The Sileni do not choose at random who they bring the waters of the Vur Ukasha. Your father was chosen to bring life to the world of Destin, as so many other men were chosen before him to bring other worlds to life. Such men are destined from birth to do so. They are referred to as the Messengers by the muse-creatures. And so, I now see, were you destined to take his place.”
I became solemn myself.
Normand reached out and patted me on the knee. “It’s good to have you back, boy,” he said.
A numb electric chill spread down my body, starting at the crown of my scalp. It took me several seconds to respond with a dry and insubordinate “...What?”
“Three,” said Clayton, as the midwife bustled back into the other room. He turned to his companions, a broad smile spreading across his face. “My third boy! Walter and Oliver, and now a third! Can you believe it? Oh, by the Wolf, what am I going to name this one?”
The scribe spoke up, adjusting his spectacles. “I have a book here I’ve been saving for this. I think it’s got the perfect name.”
—The Fiddle and the Fire, vol 6 “The Feared and the Free”
Trailmates in Time
“ED NEVER TOLD YOU?” SAID Normand, feigning amused surprise. “Haven’t you ever felt like you didn’t fit in, no matter where you were? Didn’t you feel like you belonged somewhere else? That you were from a different place and time?”
He stroked his mustache. “Why, you are a native of the country of Ain. You and your brother Sardis were born here. You were spirited away to Earth as protection, and your brother was taken by your mother to the land of Cice Jiunad. Given, the man you were being protected from is now gone, but that’s all water under the bridge.”
My mouth worked, but it took some measure of effort to get words to come out of it. “I was born here?”
“Right here in Ostlyn, in fact. Several months before the Great Battle.”
“To an Ainean woman?”
“No,” said Normand. “To a Cicean. The excommunicated Griever, Ardelia Thirion, the Heroine of Ostlyn. She is who fled to Cice Jiunad with your brother to protect you from Tem Lucas, as I returned from my journey to the heart of the Antargata k-Setra to kill the thing the Wilders called Obelus.
“Edward managed to escape to Earth with you, my daughter Noreen, and Clayton’s youngest boy Sawyer, just before Lucas led the No-Men to Ostlyn. The two of them rightly assumed that another plane of existence would be the safest place for you, and, as it turned out, he was right.”
Sawyer and Noreen were the epitome of silence. They stood there, slackjawed and unmoving, probably as numb with shock as I was.
“Funny fate,” said Normand, and he grinned. What he said next sounded very surreal in that rumbly wise-man-on-the-mountain voice. “To bring the three of you back to the city where you were born.”
The old gunslinger smirked slyly, and said, “Tell me—are you familiar with the term...co-inky-dink?”
I admit that I sat there, stunned, for what felt like a full minute. All of us did. Before I could regain my bearings, Sawyer seemed to have recovered first. He said, his voice low and accusatory, “Sir...this really isn’t a very funny joke.”
“It’s no joke,” said Normand. “No joke at all! No jest, no jibe, nor prank or foul.”
I didn’t even know where to start asking questions. All I could do was stare at him. Suddenly in my confusion, so far away from everything that I’d known, I felt very alone and useless, and put-upon.
“All three of us?” I asked. “How could you possibly know? I mean, myself, yeah, sure, maybe I could get behind that. Is Ed really even my father?”
“Oh, yes,” said the King. “Ardelia spent a lot of time alone with Edward, in those days, while I roamed Destin with Clayton, searching for my nemesis. Your father was not always the, ahh—the robustly-proportioned fellow he was when he died. He used to be quite the handsome companion, you know. So much so, that he is the reason why she broke her vow to the Forge. She took Sardis with her when she fled Ostlyn to seek reconciliation with the Ancress.”
He chuffed soft laughter. “She always did have a fondness for the bookish types. As for how I know who you three truly are, you had names when you were taken to Earth. The names you have now. Besides, you so much resemble your forebears that there’s no denying it.”
I had to admit that Noreen had inherited Normand’s cold blue eyes. She finally snapped out of it and looked down at the old man. “You mean...I’m the daughter of Normand Kaliburn?”
“Yes,” said the King. “And Sawyer here is Clayton’s youngest. The Chiral named him much like his two older brothers, Walter and Oliver. It was actually Eddick that proposed he name his boy after a character from a book he’d brought from Earth: Mark Twain’s Tom Sawyer. Clayton was fond of using names from Edward’s books. He said he thought it destined them for fame.”
“I have brothers?” asked Sawyer.
“Yes,” said Normand. “Oliver, named after Oliver Twist, and Walter here, named after Walter Mitty.”
“A fine surprise!” said Walter, and he grabbed the other, and embraced him in a big bear hug. I was amazed I hadn’t noticed the familial resemblance before: they shared the same long face, sharp nose, wide mouth, steely eyes. “A fine surprise indeed! I’ve lost a brother and now I’ve gained another! Life has replaced what it has taken away from us. A joyous day all around.”
With Walter’s olive sun-ripened complexion and wavy black locks versus Sawyer’s Earth-pale skin and short hair, it was an easy miss—especially when you’ve taken your friends for granted as I did.
“Yeah, that’s pretty cool,” said Sawyer, still looking a bit shell-shocked as Walter let go of him.
“I’m guessing Clayton never actually read The Secret Life of Walter Mitty,” I said.
Walter’s head tilted and he looked at me funny.
I shrugged. “I plead the Fifth.”
That’s when I realized that the vero nihil verius I had been feeling wasn’t a product of being in a place where the tabards and tunics weren’t mass-produced in China. It was the absence of homesickness. I was home, and my heart knew it.
Noreen slid down off the throne and hugged Normand around the neck. He made a noise of alarm and almost fell over, then put an arm around her and held her just as closely. I could see tears on her face before she buried it in his chest. He re
ached up and stroked her hair with one ancient, scarred hand, and said, “It’s good to have all three of you back. Especially you, my little princess.”
A faint memory rose to the surface of my mind. “It may not have been pure chance that brought us back together,” I said, recalling what Hel had said to Noreen in the tower of silence. “I think Ed’s muse has been a busy bee.”
“It is unfortunate that he is not here for me to demonstrate my gratitude,” said Normand.
“I wonder why we weren’t living with Ed...or brought back to Destin after you killed Tem Lucas?” asked Sawyer. The expression of dazzled astonishment on his face had become one of hurt confusion. “Why did we have to grow up with strangers?”
Here, Normand pursed his lips in regret and looked at the floor as he spoke. It was an odd gesture of humility from such a legendary figure. “There are reasons for both of your issues. The first one I shall address by allowing Edward a modicum of sympathy in that he simply could not afford to raise three children by himself. It ruined him to do so, but he had to give the two of you up to the authorities, so that you would have a better chance at life.”
His eyebrows rose and he tossed up a hand. “It may not have turned out that way, but he thought he was doing the right thing at the time. So it goes—as Ed himself was wont to say, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.”
He raised his brow, filling his forehead with worry-lines. “He regretted it until his last breath. Many times in the night he would come to me with apologies and kick himself until I reassured him that the future may yet bring you back to us. And now you know why he drank so much. He could not live with himself for having to give you up.”
Suddenly, everything came into focus, and Ed’s rampant alcoholism in my childhood made perfect sense. Now I knew why my parents had separated. Ed was simply unbearable to live with anymore. He was racked with guilt for having to relinquish his friends’ children to the adoption system.
It hit me just how intimately kind Hel Grammatica must have been, and how long it had taken him, to track them down.
No—in the end, it wasn’t necessary. Ed’s death had brought us together. I realized that Noreen’s car failure hadn’t been an accident. That had been Hel’s doing. Had it also been the Silen that had intentionally scared me into asking Sawyer to investigate Ed’s house? Did he know I would call my new friend for backup?
Or did Hel talk me into doing it himself without my knowledge? I smiled to myself. The manipulative little shit.
“Your second point,” said Normand, “I’ve already answered it, and I imagine you’ve already surmised the gist of it. From what Ed told me, the orphanages on Earth do not easily restore custody of children to their original guardians. He was unable to retrieve you after having to give you up.”
Noreen sat back down on the throne. I had to admit, she looked very regal sitting on it.
“Enough wailing and gnashing,” said the King, a warm, commanding presence returning to his bronzy voice. I could see where the loyalty of the Kingsmen came from—the man filled the room with himself just by speaking. Back home, they called orators like Normand ‘phonebook actors’. “You are home, and that’s what is important. We will confer on any further injuries and injustices later; right now you all look as if you’ve spent the last week lying in a ditch being worked over by buzzards. Get out of here and get some rest.”
_______
This late in the day, we had the dark bath-house to ourselves. There was no coffee to be served, but the water was still hot enough to raise goosebumps. We slid into the soap-milky water and relaxed. The uptown Ostlyn bath was set into the side of the hill so there were no windows, but a soaped skylight overhead dropped dim light onto the fog and created a heavenly glow. It looked like the set of an Indiana Jones movie.
We rested quietly, letting the heat soak in. I didn’t even know what to say even if I’d felt like being talkative.
Noreen broke the quiet solitude. “I still can’t wrap my mind around it.”
“It’s going to take a while to get used to, I imagine,” said Walter. He was sitting on the end of a wooden chaise lounge smoking a cigarette, a towel around his waist. He stubbed it out into a little metal cymbal dish and stepped into the bath with us. “I’m still coming to terms with the fact that I now have a brother I never knew. What I’ve learned today explains so much.”
“Same here,” said Sawyer. “I’ve never had a brother before.”
“I would be honored to have you by my side as a Kingsman one day, yeah?”
“Seriously?” asked Sawyer. “Wait—this means my last name is actually Rollins, isn’t it?”
“I expect so.”
“Sawyer Rollins,” he said. “I like it.”
“Do you know anything about gunplay? Were you a soldier in your world like Ross?”
“No. I don’t own a gun, I’ve never even fired one. Never could afford it. Hell, the road trip to attend Ed’s funeral broke me. If I hadn’t ended up here, I’d be freezing my ass off in my apartment living on Ramen noodles.”
“I’ll tell you what,” said Walter. “We’ll see if Normand’s got anything Ross can use and you can have my other pistol. Two of a kind, us! The Rollins brothers!”
“I see how it is!” I said, smirking. “Somebody new comes along and you forget all about me!”
“You jest, but King Normand’s got quite the armory. You’re getting the better end of the deal, savvy. You forget who runs the gun show around here.”
Noreen dunked her head underwater to wet her hair and started lathering it up. I took this as a cue to shave my beard, getting out of the water. I got a bucket from a stack leaning against the wall and dipped some of the water out of the bath, and started scraping my face and head with the straight razor Normand had lent us.
I grievously wounded myself with it several times, but managed to get most of the hair off without outright killing myself.
The tan I’d gotten and the weight I’d lost after the whirlwind ambush had been undone by the reparation of the narrative, after I’d been washed into the Vur Ukasha. I wasn’t bothered. I was home. I’d have plenty of time to get healthy again.
“We’ve been faffing about long enough,” said Walter, getting out of the water and drying off. “When you’re done here, meet me at Weatherhead, on the portico. It’s time we started preparing. This Rhetor character knows we’re topside and now he understands that after Ross rewrote reality, that we might be a force to be reckoned with.
“We don’t want to be standing around with our puds in our hands when the immortal and his brainwashed lackeys show up looking for a fight. The warriors of Destin do not expire easily. I want to make sure that when he gets here, all he finds are warriors.”
_______
When we caught up with Walter, he was arguing with a man. I assume it was a man, at any rate, because the closer we got to him the bigger he seemed. He wasn’t even as tall as his son, but Chiral Clayton was twice as big on the horizontal and looked like a bearded tree stump. The man was a brick shithouse. I could tell his sons got their looks from their mother and I’d never even seen the woman.
“I’m tellin you, boy—the lad’s gone. Eddie Brig couldn’t get him back,” he was saying when we walked up. “And who might you be?”
“I’m Ed’s son, Ross.”
“These are the ones I was telling you about,” said Walter.
Clayton looked like a craggier, meaner, balder, older Teddy Roosevelt. He was clad in a leather vest, corduroy trousers, and a collared shirt with the sleeves rolled up Marine-style. He looked very much like the quintessential Rough Rider.
He stepped toward us and tugged down his spectacles, inspecting me in the early evening sun over the rims of the lenses. Then he looked at Sawyer, and would have turned away if Noreen hadn’t caught his eye. He took his glasses off and put them in his vest pocket, took her shoulders in his bear-paw hands and squinted down his nose at her.
“I’ll be hung
out to dry,” he said. He looked at Sawyer again, then me. “—and folded up neat. It is you. It is you!”
He guffawed laughter and hugged the girl hard enough to make her grunt. She wriggled her nose at the old man’s briny aura. He was obviously more given to spending his coin at the tavern than the bath-house.
He reached over and took all three of us up in an embrace, clapping Sawyer on the back. He held his long-lost son at arms’ length and smiled. “Dear me, dear me, dear me,” he said. “Boy, it’s an amazin thing. I scarce understand it, but I’m glad to see you all back where you belong. By the Wolf, you’ve got Rollins blood, you do. I see it in ye. I see Normand in the girl, too. She’s got his spark in her eyes.”
Sawyer returned the smile half-heartedly. I could tell he was still spooked by the revelation.
“How did you get back from Zam?” asked Clayton.
“It was the Silen’s doing,” I said. “It might—”
Clayton resumed talking. He seemed not to have heard me. “Well, no matter how you got here, I’m happy to have you back.”
“Thank you, sir,” said Sawyer.
“What’s this sir shit? Call me Father, or Pa, or Da, or something.”
“Okay.”
The moment seemed to hesitate in the air. I got a weird vibe from the old man, who glanced at Sawyer out of the corner of his eye and pretended to notice something on his lapel and brush it off. He said at Walter, “So what’s going on? I’m gettin that feelin again, like you got somethin on the edge of your tongue.”
Walter stared back at him wordlessly for several long seconds and then said, “We are in dire circumstances. Ross was about to tell you about it before you interrupted him.”
“Oh,” said Clayton. “I thought he was done talkin. Shoot, boy, out with it. Give us what you got.”
“The Silen is dead,” I said. “By my brother’s hand, the same man that murdered my father. He is under the control of another Silen, an evil being called the Rhetor who looks to kill a hell of a lot more people. We came here to warn Normand and yourself in case he comes here to kill you, and to look for help dealing with the Sileni.”