[Mkguild] Healing Wounds in Arabarb (11 of ?)

[C. Matthias]

Blessed Palm Sunday to all!

Healing Wounds in Arabarb
By Charles Matthias



The hours passed by quickly enough. The inn was quiet for the most 
part, with only two visitors crossing the hall outside their door 
during the entire stretch of afternoon and early evening. After 
collecting their gear, Gerhard left only twice, the first to procure 
some water for the dogs, and the second to obtain meals for all of 
them. The salted pork was meager and would have been better with mead 
to wash it down but it was enough to return their strength.

The sun lingered in the sky for many hours before a long twilight 
settled. The sky was awash in orange and crimson hues, darkening in 
the east like a cooling forge. Lindsey, Pharcellus, and Quoddy spoke 
quietly, trading stories of the many places they'd visited. Both 
dragon and gull were especially interested in the perilous trek 
through the Barrier mountains and into the cave city of Qorfuu. 
Gerhard listened quietly while they waited.

But before the day completed disappeared, the black bearded innkeeper 
entered by the secret door and bid them follow. Quoddy shrank to his 
animal form and let Pharcellus cradle him in his arms, webbed feet 
dangling in the air, as they descended the steps. At the bottom of 
the stairs, Brigsne motioned them into another door that looked on 
first inspection like a small closet, but which after moving a sack 
of grain aside, revealed another door handle. Beyond was a small room 
wide enough for a horse to stand nose to tail with a single table 
filling the middle.
Seated at the table were four men of various age. Two were older with 
gray streaked beards, a third was a young man with bright blond hair 
and short beard braids, while the last had a full-grown reddish-brown 
beard, a horned helmet, and several nasty scars down his left cheek. 
They all looked at the trio accompanying Gerhard and Brigsne with suspicion.

"All right," Brigsne said after inviting them to sit down, "we're 
here. We've revealed ourselves. Now what grand plan is Metamor 
scheming that requires us to risk our lives?"

Lindsey sat cross-legged at the table so he wouldn't look so much 
like a child. Pharcellus sat next to him after setting Quoddy down on 
the wooden bench. The gull grew back to his normal size and preened 
his wing feathers a moment before studying the faces opposite them. 
Brigsne and Gerhard lingered by the door, while the four men stared 
at them suspiciously. Lindsey noted their expressions, but felt 
particularly chilled by the second gray-bearded man. The eyes, ice 
blue, set amidst oddly angular cheekbones, felt familiar and alien at 
the same time. Their scrutiny was particularly intense and of an 
entirely different character than the other three. While they looked 
at both Pharcellus and Quoddy too, this one only studied Lindsey.

The boy swallowed and nodded to each of them in turn. "I am 
Lhindesaeg. I am a Metamorian now, but I was born here in Arabarb. 
And I've come to kill that vile usurper Calephas and his pet mages. 
And when I do, I'm going to need your help to keep anyone else from 
trying to control Fjellvideen or to mobilize Calephas's forces. We 
have to crush anyone loyal to him who might try to succeed him."

"And just what help do you expect from us?" the blond-haired one said 
in a voice not yet curdled by years of hard cold winters hoping to 
find some elk or bear to kill and feed his family. "We cannot even 
bring a pointy stick near that castle without being arrested and 
beaten by his thugs!"

Lindsey shook his head, a sickness growing in his stomach. "We'll 
never remove him if we do not risk. And you are a man of Arabarb. Why 
should you be afraid of a fight?"

"I'm not afraid of him!" the man seethed. "And I won't have a child 
question my courage! What have you seen? What courage do you have, little boy?"

Lindsey drew a deep breath, stood on the bench, and thumped his chest 
with one fist., eyes twitching and his voice quivering with fury. And 
despite coming from a ten year old boy, the fire in his gorge made 
his words strike like hammer blows. "I have fought the fairy folk 
with all of their powers and won! I have wrestled with evil dragons 
more ancient than our people and seen them die! I have watched entire 
castles explode in a fire brighter than the sun and lived!" The 
blond-haired man's expression paled slightly, while the others gazed 
at him incredulously. Lindsey lowered his eyes but continued with 
just as much verve. "I have held the one I love dying in my arms and 
there was nothing I could do to stop it. I have killed evils more 
insidious than Calephas and his brutish cronies. They are mere beasts 
compared to what I have contended against!"

He paused a moment before sitting back down. "Don't question my 
bravery again. Or my resolve. What I tell you is truth. And what I 
offer is a freedom you won't find elsewhere."

The scarred man crossed his arms, "Even if we believe you, why should 
we believe that you can kill Calephas? If you fail, it's all our 
necks and for nothing."

"And if we do nothing, your necks will all be his anyway. One day he 
will know you are part of the resistance and that will the end of 
each of you. I have several advantages that are not apparent and that 
I will not reveal. But you may count on my word as a man of Arabarb 
that I will find a way into Calephas's presence and it will mean the 
last hour of his life has come."

"You want to get into his bed, pretend to be one of his little whore 
boys?" the gray-beard who had not been studying him asked. "Rumor has 
it that he's been killing any boy he touches afterward. The monster!" 
He spat on the ground.

Lindsey shook his head. "He won't kill me. He'll never get a chance 
to touch me."

"How can you be so certain?"

"I will not say. But what I need is protection and a chance to be 
noticed and brought to Calephas. The rest, mobilizing enough of the 
resistance to prevent any of Calephas's cronies from consolidating 
power after his death I leave up to you. But for the sake of Arabarb, 
you must be ready."

"Metamor promised this before," Brigsne said with a caustic snap. 
"You three are the first Metamorians I've seen in a year. All the 
rest died when Gmork came. He'll catch you too."

"That is for me to worry about, not you. I am prepared for that."

"And you want us to do what if that happens? You'll betray us all to him."

"I will not," Lindsey insisted with another shake of his head. "I do 
have certain protections that should keep him from noticing that I am 
a Metamorian. And I will kill Gmork too when I am there. But unless I 
can reach Fjellvidden, it won't happen at all. I don't have any way 
of going there by myself, and not enough money to pay my own way. 
Please help me give you a chance."

"Everyone who Gmork captures betrays us," the scarred man said with a 
growl. "Everyone. My own cousin fingered me after he was taken and I 
only barely escaped with my life. And I can't risk staying in Vaar 
much longer either."

"Then you have nothing else to lose," Lindsey pointed out.

"And I'm known north of here. I cannot help you."

The only man present who had not spoken, the gray-bearded man with 
high cheekbones and blue eyes that seemed only to see Lindsey at last 
spoke, his voice light and familiar in a way that Lindsey felt his 
limbs go cold despite the Inn's warmth. "I can help you on your way 
north, Lhindesaeg. But first you must prove to me that you are who 
you say you are. Tell me of your childhood."

Lindsey stared a little more closely at the man, but despite the 
apparent familiarity of the eyes, he knew he'd never seen a man 
before with such a visage. "My childhood? Did you know my parents?"

"Perhaps," he replied softly. "Speak of them."

Lindsey swallowed, and at a reassuring nudge from Pharcellus, found a 
voice that had already become strained of childhood memory. He 
recounted in clipped, brief words the many events that their visit to 
his old home had surfaced. The other three men frowned but said 
nothing, eying each other and their fourth companion. Brigsne and 
Gerhard shared a few quiet words before both resumed watching 
impassively by the door. Quoddy and Pharcellus both watched the boy 
with sympathy.

And all through it the fourth man listened and asked pointed 
questions, revealing that he knew a great deal more than a stranger 
might, or even an occasional friend like Gerhard would know. Lindsey 
was unsettled by each but continued, hoping that he was providing 
enough details to convince whoever this was that he was who he claimed to be.

Eventually, he was tired of the questions and of laying bare his 
past. He waved his hands in the air and shook his head back and 
forth. "No more! Please, no more! I was just at my old home yesterday 
and found it abandoned. I do not wish to dwell on it anymore!"

The gray-bearded man blinked eyes that were suddenly remarkably soft. 
"No more is needed. You have more than convinced me. I'm sorry you 
saw your home that way, Lhindesaeg." And from the way the man said 
his name so fondly and with such gentleness, Lindsey felt his heart 
tense as he gazed with rapt curiosity at the man's face. The eyes and 
the face surrounding it should not have had a beard.

The man put a gloved hand at one corner of the beard and began to 
pull. The beard, so convincing and typical of a man of Arabarb, 
pulled free, with only a faint mucus between its false back the man's 
smooth cheeks. Everyone stared in dumbfounded shock, especially the 
natives of Vaar. Lindsey stammered in wonder as the wrinkled skin and 
grizzly beard gave way to a gentle but lined countenance. No man was this.

"Mother!" Lindsey gasped in recognition as soon as the beard was 
halfway free. The familiar face, lined and grayed with the decade 
that had passed, still managed a warm smile as she finished removing 
the counterfeit beard. She wiped the glue onto her sleeves and 
wriggled her lips and cheek to stretch them out.

Elizabaeg set the beard aside and smiled anew. "Aye, Lhindesaeg. You 
look... as you would have if you were a boy. But I thought in your 
letters you said Metamor had made you a full-grown man?"

"It did. This," he gestured at his youthful form, "is a more recent 
change. I will tell you more another time." He looked to the others 
assembled. "I take it you have kept this secret from everyone."

Elizabaeg glanced at the three men sitting next to her and smiled to 
each faintly. "Forgive the deception. But I am wanted by Calephas 
even more than any of you."

The blond-haired man had leaned as far as possible as he could away 
from her when she'd begun removing the beard. Now he pressed closer, 
shoving a finger in her face. "You lied to us! Who are you really?"

"The husband of Alfwig. The mother of Andrig who," she nodded to 
Lindsey, "I learned accompanied Calephas to Metamor two Winters ago 
and turned him over to the Keepers. Bitterly he escaped and when he 
returned, he sent soldiers after Alfwig and I. We've been in hiding 
since then. I took my place here in the resistance and began posing 
as a man." She turned back to the boy and smiled, though her eyes 
held a pain she did not disclose. "If not for Lhindesaeg's letter 
letting us know Andrig was a live, we would never have known to flee 
and both of us would be dead."

"It's true," Brigsne said with a grunt. "They passed through Vaar 
shortly before Calephas's soldiers came for them. This was before 
Gmork destroyed our network. But I didn't know the courier who took 
our old contact's place was the selfsame Elizabaeg. You are very good 
at disguises. I never guessed."

"Nor I," the gray-bearded man admitted. The other two grunted.

"What of Father?" Lindsey asked.

"Is Andrig posing as a tavern wench?" the scarred man suggested with 
crooked smile.

Elizabaeg took a deep breath and shook her head. "Alfwig stayed 
closer to Fjellvidden in hopes that he'd hear some word of Andrig. 
But we've heard nothing." She turned to the boy and shook her head. 
"Two months ago Calephas's soldiers arrested him. No one has heard 
word of him since."

Lindsey's chest tightened and Pharcellus put a hand to his back to 
steady him. He swallowed heavily and gripped the table. "We'll find 
out when we go to Fjellvidden. I will find out." He stared into his 
mother's eyes and lowered his voice, "Mother, please. Help me. Help 
me kill that monster."

Elizabaeg stared at him with obvious pain in her eyes. She then 
looked at the bird and dragon at his side and frowned. "Who are you 
that you would help my... boy?"

"You know me, Elizabaeg. It is I, Pharcellus."

She blinked and stared at him for several seconds. Her mouth hung 
agape a moment before she could finally say in stupefied wonder. 
"Pharcellus? The dragon?"

Now everyone stared at the young man posing as Lindsey's older 
brother. He smiled through his magically created beard and nodded. 
"It is I. I am... Lhindesaeg's older brother... Chellag. I am going 
to help him. This is my home too."

"My name is Quoddy," the gull squawked. "I'm here to help Lindsey too."

Elizabaeg licked her lips and turned back to her boy. "I will help 
you, Lhindesaeg. I will bring you to Fjellvidden. I don't like it at 
all, but I believe in you. I have always believed in you." She 
glanced at the men who regarded her with shadowed brows and frowned. 
"We will discuss what support we can give you when you kill Calephas 
and Gmork. In the morning we will leave Vaar and I will tell you then 
what we've decided."

They all breathed a sigh of relief. Lindsey climbed off the table 
bench and smiled. He longed to run into his mother's arms and bury 
his face in her cloak, but knew that would ruin any hope he had of 
winning the resistance's support. All he had was a mother's support. 
That would not be enough.

"Arabarb needs us to give up everything if we want to have anything 
left at all." Lindsey hoped they listened.

Pharcellus and Quoddy followed him as they left the room hiding 
behind the little pantry and climbed back up the stairs to their room 
where they were enthusiastically greeted by Gerhard's dogs. Gerhard 
also followed them, but he didn't shut the door behind them when they 
reached the room. Though cold with night and empty, Gerhard, drawing 
a long knife, checked every corner, the window, and the main door. 
Finding nothing, he bolted both door and shutters before putting the 
knife back in its goatskin sheath.

Dark eyes fixed Lindsey as Gerhard's basso rumble broke the silence. 
"I'll be back in a few hours. Sleep. Tomorrow you will start your 
journey to Fjellvidden. I truly hope you know what you are doing." 
With that he disappeared down the stairs. Pharcellus shut the door behind him.

"I should tell my brothers," Quoddy said as softly as his avian 
throat would allow. "They can gather whatever friends they have made 
and meet us in Fjellvidden. We'll need their help too."

Lindsey nodded. "Tomorrow morning. It won't be long now."

Quoddy nodded and settled down on one end of the pallet, shrinking in 
size until he was a normal seagull.

Pharcellus put one hand on Lindsey's shoulder and asked, "Are you okay?"

Lindsey smiled up to him; it was easy to forget that he wasn't really 
his older brother sometimes. "My mother is alive and my father might 
be too. I have answers long before I ever expected to. I'll be all right."

They laid down on the pallet, and drew the quilts to cover them. They 
did not bother doffing their garments. It was cold. The hounds 
clustered around them and helped warm them. As Lindsey lay there, 
pondering everything that had happened and feeling very much the ten 
year old he'd become, he rolled over and looked at Pharcellus and 
asked, "Did you know?"

The older teenager, just a man enough to have braids in his scraggly 
beard, rolled over and looked at him in the dark. "Did I know what?"

"That she was my mother. Through the disguise. You didn't look surprised."

Though he couldn't see it, he knew Pharcellus smiled. "No. The last 
thing I would have expected to see was your mother." He rolled back 
over and said nothing more.

Lindsey sighed, closed his eyes, and wondered what tomorrow would be like.

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May He bless you and keep you in His grace and love,

Charles Matthias


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