by Adam Carter
“I caught dinner,” Asperathes said.
Crenshaw looked at the fish the apepkith dropped on the ground before him. The company had camped for the night in the open and had a fire crackling before them. Even though he ate his food whole and did not need to eat for at least another few days, Asperathes had taken charge of hunting their meals. He claimed it was so he could keep his skills sharpened, but Crenshaw knew he was avoiding Moya. To mention it to Asperathes, however, would have only caused an argument and so long as Asperathes wasn’t pushing the issue Crenshaw was willing to let it go. After all, very soon he would be back with Maria and Asperathes would likely go wherever home was for him.
With everything that had happened with Moya, Crenshaw could not say he would be sorry to see him go.
“Ooh, fish,” Moya said. She took the fish and set to cleaning and eviscerating it. Crenshaw had taught her how to do this several days earlier and she had been very quick to pick it up. Watching her now, it was as though she had been doing it for years.
“Find anything else?” Crenshaw asked as Asperathes sat on the ground and resumed whittling a spear he had been crafting for some days. While out hunting, the apepkith kept a close eye out for signs of trouble, but there had been no sign of anything bad since leaving the town.
“Nothing,” Asperathes said. “How long until we reach your wife?”
“By my reckoning, about four days.”
“That soon?”
“You all right? You sound afraid.”
“No. Not afraid.”
“What’ll you do when we get there?”
“That depends on what we find.”
Crenshaw did not respond to that. It had been a while since Asperathes last suggested that Maria would have married someone else or moved out of the area, so his resurrection of that belief was hardly welcome. “Do you have family, Asp?”
“Family? No, no I don’t have family.” He continued to scrape his spear, his steady rhythm not affected by the conversation.
“There’s a story there,” Crenshaw pressed.
“Not really. Apepkith don’t keep families as humans do. We generally make our own way in the world. You didn’t know that?”
Like most humans, Crenshaw knew precious little about the apepkith. They were usually so aloof they seldom deigned to speak to humans, and never about private affairs. That was not to say they were all filled with snobbery, but even Asperathes seldom spoke of personal matters. Crenshaw often wondered whether the snake men could feel the entire range of human emotions, or whether they had some unique to their own species. Certainly he had never known for an apepkith to admit to love.
“If you want to stay with us, you can,” Crenshaw said. “I was thinking of buying a little farm somewhere, live a quiet life for a change.”
“Do all soldiers dream of buying farms?”
“Everyone dreams of something, Asp. Even you.”
“Oh, I dream, Jobek Crenshaw. I dream of returning to my life as a bounty hunter.”
“You’ll have to get appropriate clothes, then.”
Asperathes glanced at his attire. It seemed funny now, but they were still garbed in the clothes given them at the tavern. They had been mistaken for the group who had attacked the baroness’s castle and had played on that for a while. After the soldiers caught up with them they had abandoned that notion, although had not spoken with enough people in the past week to make the change in their plans official.
“Have we still heard nothing about the baroness?” Moya asked. She had finishing preparing the fish and was now positioning it over the fire. “I mean, we need to find out whether she’s still after us. It wouldn’t matter so much if we intended to keep moving, but once we find your wife, Joe, we won’t be going anywhere. If the soldiers really are still looking for us they’re going to find us eventually.”
“Then you intend to stay with me and Maria?” Crenshaw smiled.
“I think you missed the point of her statement,” Asperathes said. “And she’s right. Maybe you two should go on ahead. I could drop back, see what I can find out, and meet you at your home.”
“We don’t even know whether she survived the attack,” Crenshaw said.
“Which is the first thing we should ascertain.”
Crenshaw wanted to believe Asperathes was saying this for the good of the team, but there was every chance he just wanted to get away from Moya. So long as he was doing something useful, Crenshaw saw no problem with him doing whatever he wanted.
“Maybe I should go with him,” Moya said.
“Go back?” Crenshaw asked. “Karina, that’s ridiculous.”
“You haven’t seen your wife in years, Joe. How do you think she’s going to react when you turn up after all these years with a twenty-three-year-old on your arm? Besides, wouldn’t you prefer some time alone with her?”
That much was true, although he felt uncomfortable that Moya was even suggesting it. He had a terrible feeling that if he allowed her to go off anywhere with Asperathes, something bad would happen to her.
“She has a point,” Asperathes said slowly, “but I agree with you here, Crenshaw. She’ll be safer with you; and besides which I work best alone.”
“Maybe we should all go back,” Crenshaw said.
“That defeats the object of having come all this way,” Asperathes said. “Have a little faith in me, Crenshaw. I’ll do some digging, then come back and tell you everything’s all right. That way you can live your fairy-tale ending as happy as a maggot on a corpse.”
“You make some weird analogies, my friend.”
“And I’m usually right.”
“If this is what you want, Asp, I’m not going to stop you. Just promise me it has nothing to do with Karina.”
“It has a little to do with everything, Crenshaw. It’s just something I have to do.”
“What exactly do you have to do?”
Asperathes did not reply; the silence stretched so long it became uncomfortable.
Moya broke it by standing. “I’ll leave you two alone for a while,” she said.
“Karina, wait.”
“It’s fine, Joe. You and Asp have been friends for a long time. Then I step in and everything changes. You have a lot to talk about and it’d be easier if I wasn’t here eavesdropping. Plus he’s afraid I’ll kill him, which, you know, is something I could do.” She looked directly at Asperathes. “If I wanted.”
Crenshaw said no more as she departed. Asperathes had stopped whittling his spear and was looking at Crenshaw with raised brows.
“She’s a good woman,” Crenshaw said.
“She’s manipulative, is what she is. Jobek, I think she’s been playing us from the beginning.”
“What are you talking about? She broke us out of that cell.”
“She needs us for something, or at least she needs you.”
“You’re saying she planned her capture?” He smiled. “Yeah, I’ve considered that as well.”
“And do you believe it?”
“I don’t know. You also think she’s controlling my mind, Asp.”
“You mentioned a love potion.”
Crenshaw laughed. “We’re heading out to meet my wife, Asp. Dosing me with a love potion and then being introduced to my wife isn’t very clever.”
“Then you don’t love Karina?”
“I love my wife.”
“That wasn’t what I asked.”
Crenshaw knew full well it had not been the question, but it was not a question which should have needed to be asked. In his long years of confinement the only thing that had kept him going was the image of Maria. To throw all of that away now he was free was a ludicrous idea. While it was true that Karina Moya was a young, attractive woman, Crenshaw felt nothing towards her in that fashion. He cared for her, yes, but she was his friend and he was allowed to care for his friends. Otherwise he might have abandoned Asperathes a while back.
How to explain all of that to an apepkith, however, was a cha
llenge.
“This will all work out, Asp,” he said. “You’ll see. Now, what’s this thing you need to sort out?”
“Just some questions I need answering.”
“About Karina?”
“Best not to ask.”
“I don’t want you snooping around in her past.”
“Why? It’s all gone. Her family’s dead; if she’s telling the truth she has nothing left to uncover.”
“Then you think she’s lying about everything?”
“I think I’d like to be sure, Jobek. If I’m wrong, I’m wrong. I come back, apologise to her and beg her forgiveness. Then we all drink to honesty henceforth. But what if I’m right?”
“You’re not.”
“But what if I am?”
Crenshaw bit his lower lip. He should have continued to defend Moya, but the truth was he had the same suspicions. “Then I’ll need you to be honest with me,” he said.
Asperathes smiled, clearly thankful for the answer. “I want you to do me a favour, Jobek.”
“Which is why you’re calling me Jobek. Yes, I noticed that.”
“And you’re evading the issue.”
“What’s the favour?”
“If she ever kisses you, kill her.”
“Kill her? Asp, you have no idea about anything, do you?”
“A beat-up soldier with a ruined arm and no future prospects other than the vague dream of one day owning a farm? No offence, my friend, but a woman in her early-twenties with enough power to level a city is not romantically interested in you. So if she kisses you, it means she’s after something else.”
Crenshaw could feel his eyes narrowing even as his blood pumped. He wanted to strike Asperathes, wanted to shove his snake tongue all the way down his throat. But he also knew what he was saying was absolutely true.
“I’ll be careful,” was all the compromise Crenshaw was willing to make.
It seemed to be enough for Asperathes, for he nodded and took up his spear. “Then I’ll be going. Take care, Jobek. I mean that. I don’t know what’s going on here, but nor do you. Just bear that in mind.”
It was not until that moment that Crenshaw fully realised his old friend was actually leaving him. They had spent so long together he had never given much thought to what it would be like to finally lose him. It surprised Crenshaw how much he didn’t want Asperathes to go, especially since he was not convinced the snake man intended to return. But they were free now, and if he forced Asperathes to remain with him he would be just as much a captive as if they had never escaped.
Crenshaw extended his hand. “Good luck, my friend.”
Asperathes looked at it warily. A handshake was not a custom the apepkith had much taken to, mainly because even though it was a symbol of each party being unarmed, humans tended to be holding a knife in the other hand. That day, however, he clasped the offered hand and held the grip firm.
“I’ll say goodbye to Karina for you,” Crenshaw offered.
“If you must.”
It was with a heavy heart that Crenshaw watched his old friend go. It was the first time in years they had truly been apart.
“You all right?” Moya asked. He had not heard her return, but was glad to see her. “I take it Asp’s gone.”
“He’s gone. He says he’ll be back.”
“And you don’t believe him?”
“He’s never broken his word to me before.”
“But you still don’t believe him.”
Crenshaw did not reply. He no longer knew what to believe.
“The fish is almost ready,” Moya said, changing the subject. “We should eat, sleep and make an early start. We’ll have you home in just a few more days, Joe. Isn’t that what’s important?”
It was his priority, Crenshaw silently admitted, but there were so many other things that were important. Yet with Asperathes gone he was no longer certain he had the necessary strength to complete everything.
“We’ll get through this together,” Moya said, hugging him tightly. “Whatever we face, Joe, we’ll find that strength together.”
She was comforting, and Crenshaw at last began to believe she was right. So they ate, they talked and they slept. It was only as Crenshaw was on that bleary journey between wakefulness and slumber that he thought about the words she had used. They had been so specific, it had almost been as though Moya had read his mind.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
There was a river before them and Crenshaw knew it well. The river was less than a mile from his home and was where Maria always came to wash their clothes. He scanned the riverside, hoping to be able to see her, but there was no one there that morning. There was something else different about the river as well, for there was a mighty stone bridge spanning it. Crenshaw well remembered the bridge, of how old and perilous-looking it always seemed. Every time he saw a heavy wagon drawn across, he always expected it to collapse, but of course it never did. The bridge had become something of a joke amongst the people of his village; there were even bets taken on when the thing would collapse, with more morbid people wagering on how many people it would take with it.
“In the last five years,” he said, “it looks like the damn thing collapsed. I wonder whether Maria made any money off that.”
Beside him, Moya smiled. “You’re ten minutes from being reunited with your wife, Joe, and you’re getting emotional over a bridge.”
“Oh, that was more than a bridge, Karina. We used to come down here when we were young, all the couples did. The stone on the underside was carved with so many initials, it was difficult to find a bare spot to put your own mark. But everyone always found one. I can’t think of anyone in the village who didn’t have their mark on that bridge, it was like a vow of marriage. For that bridge to have fallen … we’ve lost so much of our history.”
“It was a bridge, Joe. No matter how much sentimentality there was to it, it was just a bridge.”
Crenshaw knew she was right. It seemed everything Moya said was right, for she had that strange way of being able to comfort Crenshaw in any problem he had. “Maria’s going to love you,” he told her.
“I sure hope so.”
“Does that mean you intend to stay on?”
“I have nowhere to go, Joe. If Maria will have me, I don’t want to do anything else.”
In that moment Crenshaw could not have been happier. Now he just needed to make good on his assurance, but that would not be a problem. Maria would love Moya just as much as he did, and things would be perfect.
Setting foot on the bridge, Crenshaw liked to believe it had the same feel as the old crossing, but it did not remind him of home in quite the way he expected. He and Moya crossed slowly, carts trundling along beside them. Crenshaw called a good morning to their drivers, although only one returned a wave.
“There was a time,” Crenshaw told his companion, “when folks were a whole lot friendlier around here.”
“Maybe they don’t trust strangers, Joe. It’s been five years, remember.”
He refused to let it get him down. The bridge led them to the dusty, well-travelled road leading into the village. As they approached, he began to see familiar sights at last. The village was formed of around two hundred homes and a great many utilitarian buildings, and Crenshaw smiled as he watched the smoke rise from the chimneys. He recognised Old Geoff’s crooked house, still with its garishly painted drainpipe; he smiled when he saw Mildred’s place, the walls overgrown with even more ivy than when he had last seen it. But Tanner’s house was gone entirely, replaced with a smaller building which seemed to be some type of communal storage shed.
“The well’s gone.”
At the entrance to the village there had been a well, an ancient eyesore which no one ever used because the water had dried up before Crenshaw had been born. There were always people petitioning to get rid of the thing, but the petitions were met with equal fervour to keep it. In its place there was a fountain, surrounded by a display of flowers and overshadowed
by a stone mermaid flowing water from her hands.
“At least it’s pretty,” Moya said.
“You see the upside to everything, don’t you?”
“Joe, your wife is about five minutes away and first you complain about a bridge, and now you’re moaning that an old well’s disappeared.”
He forced himself to relax and continued walking.
The streets were busy but Crenshaw could not see anyone he recognised. He tried to put names to faces, but even most of the names he had known escaped him. Old Geoff and Mildred he had only remembered because their houses brought back such vivid memories, and he was debating on knocking on their doors just to verify he was in the right village.
He passed a shop which had not been there five years earlier. It seemed to be doing a lot of business and sold all manner of things; and Crenshaw had a sudden inclination to buy his wife something beautiful. Flowers, he decided. He would turn up on her doorstep with a rich bouquet and she would cherish the memory forever.
Telling Moya of his plan, they headed inside together and gazed in wonder at all the goods on offer while they queued. It was not a large shop, and there was only one woman working the till, so it was taking her some time to measure quantities of everything the customers wanted.
While he waited, he listened to the other customers talk. There were two women in the queue behind him, complaining about the nature of the shop.
“She needs to keep with the times,” one of the women was saying. “Over the valley in Thistleton they have baskets.”
“Oh I know,” came the reply. “It’s the way forward, people picking their own shopping. So much quicker, too.”
Crenshaw could not understand why anyone would possibly want to shop that way, but he did not get into a confrontation with the women, nor did he comment to Moya about the strangeness of the concept. He patiently waited his turn and eventually he was at the head of the queue.
“Flowers,” he said. “Daisies, if you have them.”