After a time I turned my head and peeked at my companion. The yellow firelight played over his face as he gazed into the flames, lighting up his high bronzed cheekbones and hollowing the area beneath them. It made him look grim. I shuddered, shifted my gaze, and saw the black backpack he’d been carrying lying off to his left.
“What’s in your, uh, carry-sack?” I asked.
He startled, surprised the silence had been broken.
“Stuff like clothes, soap, a couple of bricks of jerky of some kind, plus a few other things from Quiris,” he replied in an off-hand manner. But then he said, brightening, “Oh, hey, maybe you can tell me what this thing is?”
He pulled his burlap backpack onto his lap, and the first thing that came out I recognized as an unstrung short bow. Flint and tinder followed them, and then a mass of black straps and shiny metal rings.
“Do you know what this is, Paladin?” he asked as he hefted it in his sturdy hands.
I got up and came around to his side of the fire, took it from him, and studied it. I realized from my times going to renn faires and the pictures in my storybooks what it had to be.
“It’s armor,” I said.
“What?! What do you mean, armor? That can’t be armor. It doesn’t look anything like the stuff in comic books or history books!” He frowned.
I shrugged, causing it to jingle a little as the armor rings clashed against one another. “It’s armor. It’s not as good as mine, but it’s better than nothing.”
Jason looked dumbfounded.
“Here, take off your cloak, and I’ll show you,” I said with an airy confidence that I didn’t quite feel.
He struggled with the cloak’s clasp but managed to undo it without help, then took the cloak off. Taking the mass of leather back from me, he did as I directed. I had to help a little with the mini-sleeves, but soon he was encased in a thick strap-and-ring short sleeved shirt that came down to just below the tops of his thighs.
I tugged on the bottommost strap to make it straight, tightened a couple of buckles at his side, and then stood back to check the overall fit.
“There. That may not stop an arrow, but it will stop a knife or sword blow some,” I said, pleased with myself that I’d been right.
Jason ran an uncomfortable finger under the neck strap. “This feels strange, but whatever.” He took off the armor and dropped it to the ground. “You want to see what else I got?” he asked.
Without waiting for my reply he pulled out a quiver of arrows and some knives smaller than the ones at his belt, maybe throwing knives. Beneath those were a cloth-wrapped chunk of scentless soap, a whet stone, a water skin, some spare bow strings, and a quantity of dried travel rations that he’d mentioned earlier. Seeing that they were real cheered me up.
Looking at the contents of the bag now spread on the grass, I asked, “Why are your bow and quiver full of arrows in your bag? Why aren’t you wearing them?”
“I don’t know how.”
“Do you know how to use them?”
He lifted one shoulder. “I’ve seen them in action movies and read a little about them in comic books, but never tried one myself.”
I thinned my lips. What was he doing with a bow and arrow if he didn’t know how to use them? I had a small bow tied to the side of my saddle, but at least I knew how to use one from all the time I’d spent at renn faire archery booths.
“Ah. I, uh, do not know what those things you mention are, but you should wear the bow and quiver if you want to be able to use them at a moment’s notice. Though if you’re not familiar with either, maybe it would be best after all to leave the bow unstrung, unless you want to learn.”
“Nah. I’m good, Paladin,” he said dismissively.
I showed him how to string the bow and wear both it and the quiver anyway, thankful I knew how. When I finished explaining, he took them off and unstrung the bow again.
After Jason put everything back in the bag and closed it up, I said, “It’s been a long day. Maybe we should go to sleep now? I don’t know about you, but I could use the rest. But I don’t think we should both sleep at the same time as the area may not be safe.” I still felt guilty for having made him walk all that time, so I added, “I’ll stay awake and guard for a while. You get some sleep.”
Jason had no argument with that. I knew he had no bedroll in his pack, so I gave him one of the two wool blankets that Caelestis had given me. He folded it into a pillow and tucked his cloak about him for a blanket. He closed his eyes, and I turned away to put the fire at my back and look at the encroaching darkness beyond. Behind me I heard Jason’s breathing transition into sleep pretty quick. When he was safely asleep, I started thinking. Should I just leave quietly while he slept? But no, I couldn’t do that. That wasn’t me. And traveling at night could be a recipe for a broken horse leg. Would Jason be a help or a hindrance as I—we—traveled? His plusses and minuses seemed pretty even. I decided that until something more negative happened I’d stick it out with him for now.
CHAPTER 8
I was thinking about throwing another stick on the fire when I heard the sound of a snap from somewhere out in the darkness. I shoved myself off the boulder, nervous as I gripped my pommel and looked around.
“Ssshhhh! They will hear you!” came a scratchy whisper.
“Dolt! They probably have already heard you; you are so loud!” a different voice complained.
“Shut up already!” said a third.
I moved to toe Jason in the ribs. “Jason. Trouble!” I whispered.
I had to give him credit; he woke up fast and rolled to his knees with his belt knives already in his hands.
“What is it, chica?” he hissed, alertness in his brown eyes.
I said in a low tone, “I dunno. Voices where there shouldn’t be any.”
“Aw, they heard us. Now we will have to do this the hard way,” said the first voice at a more normal volume.
Around the boulders a short, grey-green-skinned creature stepped out. He had scraggly black hair, a huge nose, squinty eyes, and came up to about my shoulder. He carried a broad short sword that looked to be in better condition than his ragged armor. I could just make out a symbol of three blue wavy lines painted on the chest piece. It looked weirdly like the waves from an ESP deck in my world. Two more just like him, though slightly smaller, followed. But they were still three to our two, and I didn’t like those odds. I gulped.
“You any good with that sword, Paladin?” Jason asked me casually.
“Decent,” I replied with false confidence, hiding my nervousness as I unsheathed my saber.
“O-ho, so you think you can best the warriors of Bascom, do you?” interrupted the biggest one.
“Nah, I don’t think so,” screeched one that I thought might actually be a girl.
The other one said, “It was a stroke of luck to stumble across these two healthy looking creatures. Hey, Jongo, think these things will get us back into Bascom’s and Morsca’s good graces?”
“I think they might. Maybe they will let us come home again after all,” said the one called Jongo.
“I would not count on going home with them,” came a new voice.
Everybody’s head swiveled to look up the hillside that rose to my left. A large black and green monster came scuttling down it. It was the size of a short horse with knobbly-looking skin and no tail. A large lizard-head perched on its broad shoulders, and the claws of its six legs handled the scree on the incline with ease. On the saddle on its back rode a figure dressed in blacks and greys similar to what Jason wore, though the rider also had armor consisting of hammered pieces of over-lapping metal, likely stitched to sturdy leather. I could see white hair flowing out from under a helmet, and that something else white was fastened to his right shoulder. He rode with a tall spear somehow attached to his saddle, so he was at least armed. Riding down to our camp, he took up a position to the side that was halfway between us and the creatures. When the rider was closer, I saw that his skin was pale
like an albino’s and that he looked something like Caelestis in the face. He had to be an Elf.
Our three assailants drew closer together for a moment and whispered, and then the biggest one stepped towards the newcomer. “Hey! You cannot be here. This is our fight, sire, and we saw them first!”
“There will be no battle this night, Goblins. I suggest that if you wish to depart with your skin in the same condition as it is in now that you turn around and go find some others to bother. I am placing these travelers under my protection,” he said to them.
To make this kind of a statement without even asking us if we wanted it annoyed me. Who did this guy think he was, anyway? But I couldn’t deny I was grateful that he was on our side and not the others’.
The faces of the creatures looked puzzled, but my thoughts were echoed by the creatures’ leader, Jongo. “Who do you think you are? You do not give us orders. Only Bascom does!”
“Or Morsca!” the girl added.
The Elf jumped lightly off his saddle. “I am a Champion of Quiris, and my weapon gives me that right.”
Without even looking he reached backwards and withdrew the spear. It had a silver head, with silver chasing down the black haft all the way to the end. He spun it in his hands, and the metal caught the fire’s light. It was beautiful, but it also looked deadly.
“One, two three—get him!” Jongo yelled.
The Goblins spread out. Two held swords; one spun a sling with something in it. Jason and I braced ourselves, weapons in hand. Silver flashed as the champion surprisingly used his spear more like a staff, beating the Goblins about the head and shoulders as he blocked their sword thrusts. The sling bearer let fly what looked like a misshapen grey metal sphere, but the spear blocked it and accidentally sent it spinning our way.
“Jason!” I screamed in warning as I ducked, and he whipped his head to look at me.
Oops. I shouldn’t have done that.
The projectile hit him in the temple and knocked him out. I dropped to my knees to see what I could do to help him, but I’d never had any first aid training. All I could do was drag him away from the fight. The champion sent the Goblins running off crying into the night. I sat down on the ground and lifted Jason’s head carefully onto my lap. I smoothed back his black hair, and wished I had some ice to put on the lump developing on his head.
The champion spun his staff once more for good measure and then holstered it back on his saddle. He took off his helmet, freeing his white hair, and came over to crouch beside us.
I stuck out my hand for him to shake. “Wow, that was great. Thanks very much!”
Up this close I could see the white spot on his shoulder was actually a white rose. The champion looked in confusion at my hand, and then glanced into my face. Excitement filled his amber colored eyes.
“You! I saw that you had white and gold colored armor from up above, but you have to be the unusual one! Are you not?”
If you’d Googled the word ‘confused’ just then, I’m sure you would have seen my picture as part of the description. I let my arm drop.
“Me? I’m the unusual what?”
He raised one pale hand. “First, let me ask—are you really a Human? You look something like the descriptions I have read, but I want to be sure.”
“Of course I’m human, and so is Jason!” I said, indicating the unconscious teen on my lap. “There’s lots of us around, aren’t there?”
He shook his head with a slight smile. “No, I am afraid there are not. I believe you to be the first Humans in these lands for more than a thousand years, at least according to all the histories of the Disjoin as I know them. How have you come to be here?”
I was shocked into silence. It had never occurred to me that there wouldn’t be any other Humans in this world. I’d read tons of stories about Humans being taken into the fairylands, and just assumed there would be people like me somewhere else around. But now here was an Elf who was telling me that Jason and I were alone. Tears welled up in my eyes, but I swiped them away and stuffed my emotions firmly back down.
It took a moment for me to find my voice. “I’m sorry, Mr. …?”
“Call me Arghen Spinam,” he said with an elegant bow from his crouched position. “And you are?”
“I’m, uh, Paladin. What–why are you here?”
The Elf smiled and brushed his white hair back from his face. “Let me explain. As you heard, I am a Champion of Quiris, one of those people who choose to do Her bidding. The stately and beautiful Goddess Quiris sent me on a quest up from the Sub-realms to aid the ‘white and gold unusual to the Sub-realms’. That must be you.”
I blinked at hearing the name Quiris again. That was the Goddess Jason had mentioned.
Arghen continued, “Though I am of the Sub-realms, let me assure you that I have renounced their godless ways and worship the Divine now. I have come to the surface at the Goddess Quiris’ invitation and command. You are unusual in that you are a Human in a land that long ago banished them to beyond the Disjoin. You are also dressed in the colors of Caelestis – the colors my Goddess told me to look for—and you are right near where I exited from the cave tunnel in accordance to the map of the underground that my Goddess gave me. So it therefore follows that you are whom I have been sent to protect and aid.”
“Why would Quiris send you to protect me?” I asked.
“But, Paladin, surely you know that Quiris assists Caelestis. And what One does, the Other knows about. They have something in mind that we are to accomplish and have set things in motion to see it so.”
“Ah. I see.”
He smiled reassuringly at me as he asked, “What is the task that you are to accomplish out here?”
“I’m on an errand—or quest, I suppose. I have to find some people who are locked up illegally somewhere, and do something about it.”
Just then Jason stirred on my lap and groaned. “What happened?”
“You caught the business end of a metal slug or something, and it knocked you out,” I told him.
He raised one hand to his head and gingerly felt the lump growing in his black hair. “Oh, yeah. You screamed something, and then it was lights out. My fault for not paying attention in a fight. Estupido de mi,” he muttered softly to himself at the end.
“How’s your head?”
“Hurts. Whaddya think?” Then he caught sight of Arghen. “Hey, who’s this? Is this that same guy who was posing before?”
I decided to do a proper introduction. “Jason, this is an Elf named Arghen Spinam who seems to think he’s supposed to help me on my quest. Arghen; this is Jason Vasquez, another Human who is presently traveling with me.”
Arghen bowed his pale-skinned neck in acknowledgment of the introduction.
“Although my type of elf is called Under-elf by most,” he said to Jason, though I would have sworn his words were directed at me.
Jason grimaced at him. “Yeah, I know that already. So you’re from Quiris, huh? Of course you are. You look just like her. You’re here to keep an eye on me, aren’t you?”
“What do you mean, ‘keep an eye on you’, Human?” Arghen said with surprise.
“My name is Jason, Elf. Or Under-elf. Whatever. I’m also sure that that mujer Quiris told you she wanted you to check up on me, right!?”
I raised my eyebrows.
Arghen frowned. “All I know is that my Goddess sent me to aid the ‘white and gold unusual for the Sub-realms’. And since your companion here is unusual for any realm, is dressed in white and gold, and is very near the tunnel from which I came up, I am assuming She meant her.”
“You mean you’re here for Paladin, and not for me?”
“Yes. Though now that you have told me that my Goddess has some doubts about you, I will be keeping an eye on you.”
“Gran,” muttered Jason to himself, hunching his shoulders forward in an unconscious manner.
The Under-elf, after one last level glance at my unwanted companion, turned to me. “Since I am here to
aid your quest, may I have a space by the fire?”
My mind raced. Caelestis had said that I would be getting help from unlikely sources. And if Quiris really worked for Caelestis, then this made sense. Should I just accept this Elf, or rather, this Under-elf? If I did, he could be a buffer between Jason and me. Or would he make me slip up and reveal myself to Jason that much sooner? But seeing how well the Elf had fought pretty much tipped the scales in his favor.
I nodded. “Of course, Arghen. Be welcome.”
“Thank you, Paladin. I will settle my dranth now.” Arghen gave me a pleasant smile over his shoulder as he went back to his mount.
While the Under-elf got his saddlebags, I helped Jason to sit up.
“How bad is your headache?” I asked.
“I’ll deal with it. Hey, why’d you invite him to come along?” he asked in a low tone.
“I think that if he says Quiris sent him, why not believe him? After all, he didn’t have to save us from those Goblins,” I whispered back.
Jason frowned. “So you trust him?”
I shrugged. “I didn’t say I trusted him. I don’t know him yet. You’re a stranger to me, too. I’ll just have to see how events play out.” Changing the subject, I asked, “Oh, and by the way, what did you mean about that whole ‘check up on you’ thing?”
Jason rubbed his hand across his chin, and then lowered his brown eyes. “Well, it seems I wasn’t supposed to ‘cross over’—I think that was the term she used—with that chica Analise to here. Wherever here is. How Analise managed to do it, I’ll never know. That’s why Quiris sent me to find her, I’m pretty sure: to make sure that I had a keeper.”
I nodded to myself. That fit with what I was thinking earlier—I was supposed to help him, not have him help me. So, okay; I’d keep him around until he felt more comfortable in this world, and then I’d cut him loose.
Jason continued, “Maybe since she was able to open this ‘mist gate’ it’s okay for her to be here or something, but I’ve been told I’m definitely an accident. But I wanted to find her for myself, anyway, so that was all right with me when Quiris told me which way to go.”
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