by Eric Vall
“Alright,” Erin said as she emerged from the pilot hold. “Let’s get this show on the road.”
The orange-haired pilot pulled a small lever on the side of the cabin area, and the boarding ramp lowered down to the ground. Golden sunlight spilled into the cabin, and we filed down the ramp into it until our feet hit grass.
“Gryff,” Layla gasped, “you said it was pretty, not the most beautiful place in existence.”
“Uh, I guess I did?” I replied uncertainly. “The lighting helps.”
It was early autumn in Mistral, and the sun began to take on a rich, buttery, golden color as it descended in the sky. Dappled light filtered through the nearby maple and oak trees, and the village of Njordenfalls looked like a miniature town painted in bronze at this distance.
“There’s an inn here, right?” Cyra asked.
“Of course,” I answered. “Though, there was only one when I was growing up. Maelor and I knew the innkeeper pretty well, actually. It could still be the same single inn, so I wonder if she’ll remember me.”
Layla suddenly grasped my arm in excited delight as her eyes blazed with anticipation.
“I can’t wait to get some juicy details on Gryff’s childhood,” the petite summoner gushed. “This is going to be amazing.”
“Alright, alright,” I chuckled as I lifted my hands in surrender. “Let’s go, I want to be ready for searching around the forest early tomorrow morning.”
Clumps of long grass swayed in the gentle breeze and brushed against our knees as we walked. Sparrows chirped quick notes to each other as they swooped over the field and through the trees. The grass began to thin as we approached the river, and I could see signs of trails from people and animals that walked alongside the water’s edge.
The river itself was calm, and it was neither particularly deep nor was it shallow. The hidden bed of soil below wasn’t very rocky, so the water was dark without much white foam or rapids. I knew it was a different matter up north by the falls for which the village was named, but we would have to cross through town to get close to there.
The girls gawked at the surroundings as we walked, and Layla stopped to touch a mossy rock before she ran to catch up to us.
Finally, the roughly hewn trail began to transition to tamped earth and rock-lined paths. The village was too small for proper cobblestones, and they had no reason to suit the streets for carriages, so even the main thoroughfare was just wide enough for two hand-carts to pass side by side.
A few people walked through the streets as they got to their late afternoon errands, and we did earn a few stares, but I wasn’t sure any of them recognized me. To be fair, they only looked familiar to me, and I could hardly recall any of their names. Small town life revolved around many-generational relationships, but Maelor and I only spent a few years here.
“It’s too bad Gawain can’t see this,” I commented lightly. “I’m sure he’d have a laugh riot at what a podunk it is.”
“Actually,” Cyra said with wide eyes, “I think his jaw would hit the floor at what a pretty town it is. I can’t believe you didn’t insist on bringing us here for vacation.”
“Well, I do like it,” I admitted with a helpless shrug. “I thought it was just my own tastes, though. The Wilds always seem nicer to me than living in Enclaves, but I can understand most people prefer safety.”
“Not over this,” Erin cut in. “This isn’t just some corn fields and bushes, this is serious scenery.”
“Glad you think that,” I snorted as I shook my head in bemusement. “Now, if I remember correctly, the inn should be just down this turn.”
I led my team through the dirt street and toward a medium-sized, wooden building with a metal sign out front. The cast-iron sign read The Roaring Cat, and there was a simple silhouette of a sitting cat etched into the metal below it. I smiled as I remembered how I used to practice reading the sign when I was very young.
“Is it the same inn?” Erin asked.
“Seems like it,” I said happily. “We’ll see if the owner is the same.”
We opened the door and went inside, but nobody was in the bar room. There were only four tables with benches, and the few bottles along the back wall didn’t make for a very impressive stock of alcohol, but I didn’t care.
I took a deep breath, and the whole place smelled of old wood and spice, just like I remembered from long ago. Maelor loved a good drink, and he would bring me here even when I was too young to have anything but milk or water.
“Hello?” I called into the empty room.
There was a muffled clatter from another room, then the door to the kitchen swung open as a heavyset woman in her late fifties bustled out.
Her brown hair was stick-straight and graying, and she wore it very short at just a couple inches in length. She hadn’t changed much since I last saw her over seven years ago, though her wrinkles were a little deeper, and she had on a new floral smock. Her apron was the same, and the little embroidered cat at the corner made me smile.
“Oh, visitors!” she exclaimed. “Why, let me get you five set up with warm meals and some drink, hm? I’m so sorry about that delay.”
“That’s fine, we weren’t waiting long,” I assured her.
After I spoke, she blinked and peered at me with an interested expression. After a moment, her eyes widened, and she put a hand over her mouth.
“Gryff? Is that really you?” she asked.
“Sure is,” I confirmed with a grin.
“Well, come here!” she demanded with excitement. “I need to have a good look at you. My eyes aren’t what they used to be, child.”
“Your eyesight was always bad, Tabby,” I assured her as I walked across the room to lean against the bar counter.
“Oh, posh, I had eyes like a hawk when you were little,” she argued as she leaned in and examined me from head to toe. “Beside that, don’t call me Tabby. It’s Mrs. Righting to you, or Tabetha. Maker, but you’ve grown up!”
“Just a bit,” I admitted.
“You must be eight feet tall, if you’re an inch,” she insisted, then her eyes traveled over to my teammates with interest. “Who are these beautiful women you’ve brought with you?”
“Ah, we’re all here on a mission,” I explained as I tugged on my dark blue summoner’s cloak. “I’m an Academy mage, now.”
“Well,” Tabby said, and her eyebrows rose as she looked at me, “I suppose you are, aren’t you? I hope old Maelor isn’t taking it too poorly, is he?”
“No, no,” I assured her. “He’s absolutely fine with it. Says it wasn’t a good path for him, but he’s glad I’m doing work for the world.”
“Good,” Tabby asserted. “He always was so stubborn, it’ll do him well to relax a little.”
“Oh, he’s definitely relaxing,” I chuckled.
“He should be,” she huffed. “That man, always going off on grand adventures instead of settling down. You two should’ve stayed here until you were an adult.”
“I turned out fine,” I assured her. “It was good for me to travel.”
“Bah,” Tabby harrumphed. “We’ll agree to disagree. Now, introduce me to your friends.”
I turned to gesture my team closer, and they walked up to the bar to join me and Tabby.
“This is Ashla, Erin, Cyra, and Layla,” I explained as I pointed to each of my teammates, and they nodded and waved in turn.
“I’ll be expecting you five to need some rooms for tonight,” Tabby hummed thoughtfully. “Am I correct?
“Three rooms should do it,” I agreed with a nod.
“You’re in luck, I’ve got three of my six rooms open,” Tabby told us. “I’ll be right out with your keys, if you want, but would you five like a hot meal and something to drink? I’ve just got steak and potatoes, but I can bring out a fruit basket if you’d like.”
“That would be lovely,” I responded. “Hot meals for all of us, I think, and a beer for me.”
“And I’ll have a beer, too,” Cyra a
dded.
“Wonderful,” Tabby chirped. “Now, sit yourselves down at a bench, and I’ll be right out with some dinner.”
She hurried away through the door into the kitchen as she hummed a simple, off-key tune to herself.
We chose a table in the corner, and as soon as we sat down, Tabby hustled back with a plate of baked potatoes still hot from the oven.
“You may want to hold off on yours, Gryff,” Tabby hinted with a wink at me. “I’m making up something special for you.”
“Ah, you don’t have to,” I assured her, but she simply smiled and hurried away again.
As Tabby went through the kitchen door again, an orange cat slipped out and twined its way through her legs as it entered the bar room. He meowed and trotted over to greet us with his tail held high.
“Cute cat,” Cyra cooed as she leaned over to pet him.
“If I’m not wrong, his name is Shameless,” I said as I smiled at the orange cat. “He was pretty young when I left, so I think it’s him.”
“He does seem pretty shameless,” Cyra observed with a laugh. “Came right over to beg for petting.”
“I may have spoiled him a little when I was a teenager,” I admitted sheepishly. “Every time I came in, I’d spend more time petting him than eating.”
“Let’s get to the real point, Gryff,” Layla accused. “You never told me you had an innkeeper for a mother.”
“She’s not anything like a mother to me,” I said with an embarrassed smile. “She and Maelor were friends, so we knew each other well, but she always insisted she was never good with children. No motherly instinct, nothing like that.”
“Hmm,” Layla said suspiciously.
“She might not be good with kids,” Cyra added as she gestured at me with her beer bottle, “but she’s definitely good with you.”
We were interrupted again when Tabby came back out with a large tray of five juicy steaks. The aroma of pepper and lemon filled the room, and my mouth watered as Tabby set the steaks down in front of us.
“There you go,” she said. “One rare steak for each of you. I’m afraid they’re not the prettiest, but I never learned how to dress ‘em up fancy like they do in the city.”
“It smells delicious,” Layla gushed. “We don’t care about how it looks.”
“What a dear you are,” Tabby said happily. “Gryff, you’ve found yourself some nice friends, here.”
“I know,” I responded with a grin. “I don’t deserve them.”
Tabby moved to leave us, but Ashla stopped her with a hand on her arm.
“Don’t go,” the ice mage insisted. “You and Gryff are so close, you should eat with us. We want to hear some stories about him when he was young.”
“Ah,” Tabby chortled, “I’m sure you do. Gryff was quite the precocious child. Are you sure you want me eating with you all?”
“We do,” Cyra added in eagerly.
“Fine, fine,” Tabby agreed. “I’ll come sit once I’ve got my own dinner. I’ll just be another minute in the kitchen.”
“Take your time,” Ashla offered lightly.
Tabby hurried off, and I shook my head ruefully.
“I can’t believe you’re going to ask about me,” I groaned.
“It’s a moral obligation,” Ashla spoke seriously. “We have to know, or we’ll die of curiosity. This is only fair.”
“Fine,” I mumbled reluctantly. “Just keep in mind how young I was. Don’t judge me for whatever you hear.”
“Ooh, this is gonna be good,” Layla giggled as she tucked into her steak. “Delicious food and an embarrassing storytime all at once.”
Tabby came back, set up her own chair at the end of our table, and tucked into a small steak and potatoes meal of her own.
“Now,” she started with a laugh. “What would you like to hear first?”
“Start with the beginning,” Cyra requested. “When Maelor found him and all that. I bet Gryff was a cute kid, huh?”
“I suppose he was,” Tabby replied thoughtfully. “To tell you the truth, I don’t think very highly of most children. I wanted nothing to do with Gryff when I first saw him.”
“Sounds like you,” I snorted.
“Hush,” Tabby told me. “Anyway, Maelor brought him back from the Njordenfalls forest, and we all went into a tizzy trying to figure out who he belonged to.”
“The forest?” Cyra asked. “Didn’t Maelor find him after Gryff’s village get destroyed in a fire?”
“Oh, hmm, well … “ Tabby stalled as she twisted her hands nervously around each other. “To be honest, nobody can be sure what happened to Gryff.”
“What do you mean?” I asked as I frowned in confusion. “I thought he found me in another town.”
“Afraid not,” Tabby admitted, and her expression grew pained. “I’m sorry, I thought he would have told you by now. You were only about four or five years old when Maelor found you in the woods here, and you insisted your village had been destroyed by monsters.”
“It was,” I insisted. “I remember it burning, I remember the monsters. It was in ruins, I swear.”
“I believe you,” Tabby told me kindly, “but I’m afraid we just couldn’t find any answers about where you came from. Njordenfalls is quite far from other towns, and we never heard stories about any nearby open rifts.”
“I don’t understand,” I told her as I shook my head in confusion.
“I’m very sorry, Gryff,” Tabby replied sadly. “I thought he would have told you about the confusion in your past. It doesn’t change anything, really. Maelor decided to let you believe what you wanted, and the mystery of your hometown has persisted all these years.”
“I … ” I mumbled as I fought to gather my composure. “I guess that makes sense. I’m sure he didn’t mean to hide it from me.”
My friends looked a little stricken with worry as they shifted their eyes from Tabby to me. I gave them a reassuring smile as I fought to put this new information behind me. Maelor probably thought nothing of the way he’d simplified his story, and I knew I wasn’t wrong about my village being destroyed by monsters.
“I might still have my diary from the day Maelor brought you in,” Tabby suggested as she gave me a guilty pat on my shoulder. “I could look to find that, if you’d like? I wrote down quite a few details from everything you said when you were little. We wanted to find your hometown very much.”
“I’d like to read that,” I said honestly, and my heart throbbed with worried uncertainty. “I hadn’t realized there was much mystery to it.”
You seem distraught, Sera whispered. You’re normally so fearless, yet this bothers you?
It wasn’t really about the details of how Maelor found me, it was more about the fact I had believed in a false story for so long.
Poor Gryff, Sera purred, I could help you find more about your past, you know. You just have to let me take control. Free me, and I’ll tell you all about your home and your parents. Better yet, I can create for you the family you’ve never had. We can be close, truly close. Don’t you want a child with me?
I didn’t believe for a second she could really tell me anything. So, I slammed my mental walls down and blocked her out to refocus on the conversation at hand.
“Are you okay, Gryff?” Erin asked worriedly.
“I’m fine,” I responded with a strained smile. “Just a little surprised, that’s all. Anyway, Tabby, why don’t you tell them about the time I fell into the river?”
“Ah,” Tabby said, and she looked relieved to have a way out of the discussion. “When Gryff was, oh, about ten, he and Maelor went rowing on the river for the first time. Of course, Maelor only brought one paddle, because he never thinks ahead … ”
Her voice grew distant to me as my mind wandered off. I couldn’t stop thinking about how I’d just been found in the forest here, not in a ruined village at all. Was I wrong about my parents and the fire? I prodded at the mystery like I was picking a wound. No matter how much it hurt, I felt
compelled to examine it further.
Why would Maelor hide this from me? He was clumsy, brash, and forgetful at times, but I didn’t think this was an accident. How could I possibly know if the story of him finding me in the forest was true, either? What else was he lying about?
“How long were you down there in the water, Gryff?” Tabby asked. “Half a minute? Less?”
I blinked as Tabby’s voice interrupted my spiraling thoughts.
“Uh, must’ve been around five seconds. I didn’t keep count, but I didn’t even start to worry about how much air I had.”
“Five seconds, then,” Tabby agreed. “Then Maelor went jumping in, and I swear he dove so fast, nearly half the river came out as he did.”
“It was one hell of a cannonball,” I agreed with a shake of my head.
“When he came out, he looked like a drowned beaver,” Tabby chortled. “But anyway, Maelor pulled Gryff right out and plopped him on shore. Then he nearly smothered the kid with hugs, he was so worried.”
“He was frantic,” I remembered with a wry expression. “It was pretty funny to see him change his tune. He tried to go back to gruff and uncaring right after, too.”
“Ridiculous,” Tabby huffed. “He didn’t convince a soul.”
“Nope,” I agreed. “He’s always been pretty transparent.”
I fell silent for a moment as I considered exactly what kind of a man Maelor was. He wouldn’t lie to me without a good reason, and he always made sure to protect me even when he was encouraging me to lead an adventurous, fulfilling life.
I decided to put my worries about Maelor behind me. I could ask him my questions when we got back to Varle Enclave, but I couldn’t let it affect my leadership in this mission. I trusted the man who had raised me, and I would give him the benefit of the doubt until I heard from him.
We all finished with dinner quickly, and Tabby got up to clear our plates. As she walked away, Ashla leaned in and gave me a worried look.
“Are you okay, Gryff?” the ice mage asked.
“Completely fine,” I assured my friends. “Just surprised, that’s all.”