[Mkguild] Healing Wounds in Arabarb (12 of ?)

[C. Matthias]

Healing Wounds in Arabarb
By Charles Matthias


April 9, 708 CR


Quoddy left shortly after first light the next morning. Before he 
left Pharcellus drew him aside and the two chatted amiably until the 
seagull could delay his errand no longer. The dragon begged him to 
bring word of his friendship to his younger brothers the cormorant 
and puffin, then the two gently hugged, and the bird flew out the 
window into the crisp dawn air.

The air was decidedly colder that morning, with low, gray clouds 
portending a late snow that day. Lindsey regarded it with a sudden 
hopefulness; a light snow would discourage Calephas's soldiers who 
were likely sick of it after a winter of nothing but white and bitter 
cold, but it would not hamper their travel. Also, he realized with 
chagrin, children loved snow, and he had to remind himself that he 
couldn't waste his time in throwing snowballs or building snowforts, 
even if they had enough fall by evening.

Gerhard brought them a meal of plank fried fish and eggs which both 
boy and faux teenager ate gratefully. The woodsman tended his dogs 
and cleaned up the messes they'd left in one corner of the room 
before announcing that he would be returning south. "I have things 
that need tending before I can return to help. Eli willing, we will 
see each other again soon."

"Thank you for your help, Gerhard. May Yahshua bless you and your 
kin." Lindsey bowed and tried to appear dignified for a ten-year old. 
The man's lips twitched as if contemplating a smile, but none 
appeared. After he finished gathering his things, he and the dogs 
went back down the stairs and the two were left alone.

A few minutes later, Elizabaeg, once more attired in the guise of a 
burly, gray-bearded trader, came up the stairs and instructed them to 
gather their things and follow her. Her voice was husky and bore no 
trace of either feminine gentleness of motherly fire. They had long 
since gathered their gear and so after they slung their packs over 
their shoulders they followed down the stairs and out into the 
stables. An unfamiliar wagon was already hitched with a pair of 
horses and to this she directed them. The back of the wagon was 
enclosed, but not nearly so tall enough to allow even Lindsey to 
stand without crouching at his waist. But it was long enough for them 
to lay down, and the bedding of fresh straw and blankets that must 
have been draped near a fire welcomed them with a humble comfort. 
This waited for them in a recessed interior that could easily be 
concealed if necessary. Lindsey wondered how often his mother had 
been forced to use it.

There they lay, the front of the wagon bed open to the buckboard 
where Elizabaeg sat with sword and axe in ready reach. A long bow 
with a quiver of iron-tipped arrows nestled beneath the seat. One 
side of the wagon's interior was filled with marked casks. 
Foodstuffs, Lindsey knew. Above them, draped across wooden supports, 
were several tanned hides from elk and bear. Once Elizabaeg closed 
and latched the back of the wagon, the only light came in from the front.

"There is a hatch beneath you," she said as she came around the front 
and smiled to them through the fake beard. "If we run into trouble I 
want you both to escape. Do not put your lives at risk for me. 
Lhindesaeg, please, you are willing to risk your life. Let me risk 
mine. I cannot get to Calephas but you might. Do you understand me? 
Do you promise?"

The very thought of leaving his mother to die horrified him and he 
found himself trembling and shaking his head back and forth. But 
Pharcellus put a hand on his back that he could swear had claws. 
Still, it warmed him in a unexpected manner and the fear that the 
very suggestion of his mother's death had brought faded. And even 
though the horror remained, he slowly managed to force his head to 
nod. "I promise, Mother. We will escape if we can. I hope and pray we 
won't have to."

"As do I," Elizabaeg let out a long slow breath, and pulled on a 
heavy bear-skin cloak. The head was still attached and this she drew 
over hear fake hair so that the bear's snout and glass eyes seemed to 
snarl at the world. Lindsey pondered for a moment the idea of his 
mother being transformed into a real bear by Metamor's curses.

She gestured at a little lever in the flooring above their heads. 
"Until we leave Vaar I'm going to lower the false floor and close the 
front of the wagon. Don't make any noise until I open it again. If I 
am searched, you should be safe. It is cramped, but it will only be 
for a little while."

"We won't make a sound," Lindsey promised. Pharcellus echoed him a 
moment later.

"Good. We have a long road ahead of us. And do not fear. I will tell 
you all we discussed last night once it is safe." Wit that she 
gestured for them to pull the lever. Pharcellus did so, and the 
flooring draped with the skins pulled down over top of them, 
confining them in a darkened interior. Light seeped in through a 
series of holes bored out of the wooden frame in front of them, but 
it was dim and what air came through smelled heavily of horse. They 
heard a latch close and Elizabaeg shuffling on the buckboard, as well 
as the snorting of horses and the muffled activity of the town.

And then a moment later the wagon lurched and they began their 
journey. Lindsey closed his eyes and tried to keep as still as 
possible. The warm blanket and Pharcellus's proximity kept him from 
feeling too nervous. The air flowing through the holes in front of 
them turned cold and crisp, but it didn't smell just of horse 
anymore. It also smelled of the refuse that littered the city 
streets. Not for the hundredth time Lindsey was grateful that he grew 
up in the forest and spent most of his days away from cities. Even 
Metamor despite its remarkable drainage system still managed to stink 
in ways he had never gotten used to.

The sounds changed around them much the way they had the evening 
before, until at last the wagon came to a stop and the sound of a 
soldier's voice accosted them. Lindsey listened and remained as still 
as he could as his mother grunted of her business. Her voice was so 
masculine and husky he couldn't recognize her at all.

The guards were not bored enough to search her things and they were 
allowed to leave the village without being searched. Still, it was 
several long minutes before they heard the latch to the front of the 
wagon open and his mother's voice calling, "You can lift the floor 
again. It's safe."

Pharcellus pushed on the lever and light flooded their little hiding 
place as cool air rushed in to greet them. Lindsey pulled his legs up 
close and forced himself to sit up. Beyond the buckboard he could see 
tall trees and brooding sky. No snow yet but he knew it wouldn't be 
much longer.

"Are you two okay back there?" Elizabaeg asked.

"We're doing all right," Lindsey replied. "This looks like it took 
some effort to build."

"Your father made it," she replied after a moment's pause. "Right 
after we were told that Andrig had died. Alfwig meant the hiding 
place for me; he was afraid Calephas's soldiers might kill him and 
rape me. That's when I started training my voice and disguising 
myself. There are few of that monster's soldiers who are low enough 
to take such interest in a man."

Even with the dragon gently pressing a hand that at times felt more 
like a paw to his back to comfort him, Lindsey still spoke in the 
voice of a frightened child. "Do you... do you know what happened to Father?"

She sighed and shook her head. She did not look at him, but kept her 
focus on the road ahead. "I wish I knew. He took on work as a tanner 
outside Fjellvidden; the master there knew him and they pretended to 
be master and journeyman. I still ship his wares to Vaar and other 
villages along the way. Two months ago, while I was here in Vaar, one 
of the monster's captains complained of a tear in a coat he purchased 
from Master Ture. Ture wasn't there, but Alfwig was. The took Alfwig 
and we never heard what happened to him."

Elizabaeg's voice caught and Lindsey knew it to be tears. His heart 
clenched tight and he said nothing. The horses clopped along the old 
road. Birds chirped and sang in the trees as they made their nests. 
All else was quiet.

For several minutes they road in silence before she regained her 
voice. It was quieter but firm, resting on a foundation that even 
Calephas with all his foul deeds could not upend. "The apprentices 
told Master Ture, and Ture told me what happened when I returned. 
Even the few brave souls who risk serving in Fjellvidden castle knew 
nothing of Alfwig. They said only that he was taken to Gmork. I... 
fear he is dead."

"That is one more crime that Gmork will pay for," Lindsey snarled 
through clenched teeth. "Are you sure you can trust Ture? What if he 
betrayed Father?"

"Then he would have betrayed me too. But, yes, I do not trust him the 
way I once did. I will not be taking you to him. There are others 
near Fjellvidden that can be trusted. I believe."

"You don't know?"

She shook her head and her shoulders slumped beneath the bear skin 
cloak. Seeing her only from the back made her look just like a 
Keeper. "There's no way to be certain about anyone's loyalties 
anymore, my... son." She turned her head, destroying the ursine 
illusion, and smiled with one eye. "I knew you had been made a man by 
Metamor, but I still think of you as my daughter."

Pharcellus grunted as if he wanted to say something, but when Lindsey 
looked at him, the teenager shrugged. Lindsey turned back to his 
mother and shrugged as well. "I've been a man for a long time now. I 
remember growing up your daughter, but I feel more like a son now. 
For a long time I wanted to be a woman again, but..." Memories of his 
brief time as a kangaroo flooded him and he flinched from them. Why 
couldn't he have become that so many years ago? "I don't think I do 
anymore. I want to stay a man now."

The smile in Elizabaeg's eye faded, but she did not contradict him. 
"Son then. But wasn't there a man you loved? Zhypar? What of him?"

Lindsey closed his eyes and fought not to cry. He truly did, but even 
the mention of his name felt like a dagger piercing his heart. 
Pharcellus's arms wrapped about him and held him close. His bout of 
weeping made Elizabaeg turn completely around and peer down into the 
shadowed wagon. "Lhindesaeg? What happened?"

It was Pharcellus who replied for him. "Zhypar Habakkuk died a few 
months ago. They were on a great quest to defeat an evil whose 
origins are ancient even to dragons. Zhypar gave his life to defeat 
that evil and he saved Lindsey and many others." The dragon's eyes 
lowered. "The pain is still too near for Lindsey. Their love was... 
fodder for tragedy." Pharcellus put his chin atop Lindsey's head to 
still it from trembling before adding, "I cannot explain it any 
better than that."

Elizabaeg's eyes widened and she reached out a hand and stroked 
Lindsey's smooth cheeks gently. "Forgive me. I will not say his name 
again. Cry now. Pharcellus, please take care of him."

At his mother's touch, Lindsey finally let the tears he'd been 
struggling against to come free. All he could see was that red-furred 
kangaroo bounding through the halls of Metamor, smiling, waving his 
ears, lifting a mazer at the Deaf Mule, writing in his books, and 
lost in the nightmares of his visions. How much Lindsey wished he'd 
been able to shoulder some of the burden that Habakkuk had reserved 
for himself.

And his heart ached anew when he recalled that foul night when he and 
Habakkuk had begun undressing each other in the swamps of Marzac, 
only to see and be reminded of how the Curses had separated them so 
completely and made a mockery of their love. The wail the kangaroo 
had given at seeing that Lindsey was a man still roared around her 
like the rush of waves at high tide.

Lindsey rocked in the dragon's arms, glad for their warmth and 
strength, but locked in a whirligig of unpleasant reverie. He passed 
from the tent to the long descent into the bowels of the Chateau, 
hand in paw with Habakkuk, through a stairwell that seemingly had no 
end and gave off no light, through a hallway elegantly carved yet 
macabre in purpose, until they reached the Hall of Unearthly Light 
where they saw the nullity of the crack Yajakali had rent. And there, 
Lindsey gasped in horror at the Marquis's twisted warping of his flesh.

Pharcellus put his face against his own, the beard tickling his 
cheeks, finally rescuing the boy and sparing him having to relive the 
horror of the carnal union the Marquis forced them to commit atop the 
profane Dais. He thrust open his eyes and spasmed as if leaping away 
from the memories themselves.

"I've got you, little brother," Pharcellus whispered in his ear. 
"They can't hurt you anymore, little brother."


The snows began gentle and light about an hour after they left Vaar. 
The flakes landed in the bear-skin coat but quickly melted. Those 
that landed in the wagon melted even faster. They saw no one else 
along the road and for a time traveled in silence.

To help Lindsey feel better, the more mischievous side of the dragon 
emerged. Once the boy had calmed down and stopped weeping, Pharcellus 
began making silly faces. At first they were no more than contortions 
of cheek, eye, and tongue. Eventaully though, as Lindsey's grin began 
to widen, the dragon allowed the magic keeping him human to fade ever 
so slightly on his tongue. What flopped from his mouth and dangled 
was a brilliant blue and wiggled around like a stuck eel. Elizabaeg 
looked back once then quickly looked away in horror.

But once the snows started they stopped and watched it fall. Lindsey 
rolled onto his back, put his hands behind his head, and stared into 
the sky. Boughs of pines and alder already beginning to gleam with 
their fresh white gowns competed with the gray sky for his attention. 
He sincerely hoped that Quoddy was not having any trouble flying.

He sighed and finally managed to say, "I'm feeling better now, Mother."

"I'm sorry I brought you pain. I didn't know it would hurt so much."

Lindsey frowned but glanced quickly at his 'older-brother' propped on 
one elbow looking out into the snowy air. Pharcellus didn't look down 
at him, but his presence was enough comfort. "I didn't either. I 
think the longer I'm a boy, the more like a boy I'm becoming. If that 
makes sense."

"No, it did not. How long have you been a boy?"

"A week now. The spell will last until I will to change back into a 
man. I won't do that until I'm in Calephas's presence. That's when I kill him."

"If it were anyone else but you, I wouldn't do it," Elizabaeg replied 
with a tremble in her voice. She no longer attempted a man's basso 
rumble but allowed her voice to be that of a worried mother. "I 
wouldn't do it."

"It may be our only chance."

She lowered her head. "I know."

Lindsey exchanged a quick glance with Pharcellus, then rolled over 
onto his stomach and climbed up behind the buckboard to put a hand on 
his mother's shoulder. "I want to do this. For you, for Father, for 
Andrig. I want to do this. Don't be afraid for me. Just pray and help me."

Elizabaeg clenched her eyes tight, letting go of the reins long 
enough to put her hand on his own and hold it tight. She let go a 
moment later and turned her face briefly to his to smile. "I will. I 
promised you I would and I will. I love you, my little one. My Lhindesaeg."

"I love you too, Mother." Lindsey hugged her gently, then sat back 
against the wagon top. The road was winding through mostly level 
terrain, though he could see that it dropped sharply away only fifty 
paces to their left. Everything beyond was obscured by snow. "What 
happened after we left last night?"

She shook her head and turned back to the road. "Oh, the men argued 
as men always do. They didn't like that I'd been lying to them, but 
Brigsne and Gerhard brought them around in the end."

"So they'll help us?"

Her eyes grew distant and she didn't answer for several long seconds. 
His cheeks and hands began to feel the cold of the snow. "Not as much 
as you would like. They will follow us to Fjellvidden in a few days 
with what weapons they can find but they assured me it won't be much. 
They did promise to ask those in the surrounding villages to join 
them, but they won't compel them."

"We really need a few dozen men," Lindsey pointed out with a scowl. 
He tucked hands into his armpits. "At the very least. A hundred or 
more would be better but I doubt we'd be able to conceal that many. 
Whoever can come will have to be enough. Maybe Quoddy's brothers will 
have better luck."

"They don't think you will succeed. They've promised to stay in 
Fjellvidden only a few days. You have to strike at your first 
opportunity and succeed."

Lindsey mulled that over for a moment before deciding it was too 
cold. He climbed back into the wagon and laid down in the recessed 
bed. Pharcellus draped the hides over him and smiled. Lindsey set his 
chin on his hands and sighed. "How long will it take to reach Fjellvidden?"

"Four days. If the weather remains pleasant."

That sounded right to him. He grunted and lay quietly, lifting his 
eyes to watch the snow. Only in Arabarb could that be considered 
pleasant weather.

They paused to eat a little salted pork around noon, then continued 
after letting the horses rest for not quite an hour. They passed a 
gloomy trader in the middle of the afternoon but otherwise they saw 
no one else that day along the road. The occasional elk or moose 
risking a crossing, but nothing else.

To pass the time, Pharcellus described some of the missions he had 
undertaken for Metamor. Most of them were courier missions, each of 
which he embellished with draconic flair until it seemed the whole 
world hung in the balance with each message that he carried. But 
those few where he actually went into combat against Nasoj's forces 
were given special attention and intricate detail. Lindsey laughed 
frequently as his companion expounded on his daring feats and 
mischievous confounding of the enemy.

Elizabaeg seemed to enjoy them, but whenever she spoke it was to ask 
Lindsey more about life at Metamor. The boy did his best to describe 
what it was like living in a city of animals that walked and talked, 
children that, like him, were truly adults, and especially those who, 
also like him, had once been the other gender and the challenges they 
faced. His mother listened patiently, and even though she'd met 
Quoddy the night before, she seemed to have a difficult time 
imagining what a city of animal-men must be like.

"Was Quoddy the first Keeper you'd ever seen?" Lindsey asked after 
she shook her head in wonder for the tenth time.

"No," she admitted, half-turned back so the illusion of bear 
remained. "I did see a tiger who was being led into Fjellvidden last 
year in chains. But I never met any of the spies that Metamor sent 
until Quoddy."

"One day you'll have to come see it," he told her, the hope in his 
voice plain. "It's like nothing else you've ever seen."

She demurred at the suggestion and asked him for other details. He 
obliged, disappointed, but relieved to try to describe the place he 
now called home. He did not speak of the home he'd visited only two 
days before, nor did she ask of it. Pharcellus didn't speak of it 
either, preferring instead to speak of places far away in the 
Giantdowns where none of them had ever been.

The snow slackened toward evening and the clouds broke up completely 
by twilight. They passed up staying in the two villages they passed 
along the way and opted instead to sleep in a little culvert off the 
main road where they wouldn't easily be seen. Pharcellus promised to 
tend to the roads to hide their tracks through the fresh-fallen snow 
while Lindsey and Elizabaeg continued into the culvert.

After lighting a lantern and hoisting it on a pole above the wagon, 
Elizabaeg led them between a narrow fissure of rocks and across 
ice-encrusted stones. The horses snorted as their hooves broke the 
ice in patches, but they never ventured into the stream. Lindsey 
gazed behind them and watched as his friend grew into something that 
blocked all sight of the road. He chuckled and turned back to his mother.

"I didn't want to mention this, but we found Father's secret box."

Elizabaeg guided the wagon beneath an outcropping of rock where it 
would be protected from the elements and casual inspection. She took 
the lantern down and frowned. "You did? Alfwig hated being parted 
from it. I'm surprised you remembered where it was."

"He showed me one time." Lindsey sat cross-legged on top of the wagon 
and grimaced. "We only found figures in wood of each of us, 
Pharcellus, and... Zhypar. And, I didn't want to say this, because it 
hurt him so badly, we found Pharcellus's egg shells."

She turned and gave him a strange look, opened her mouth to say 
something, but then turned quickly away. "Aye, that would have hurt 
him. Don't speak of it again."

And if Lindsey knew his mother at all, it apparently hurt her too. 
"What is it?"

"Just do not speak of it again." Elizabaeg jumped down from the wagon 
and took out a bag of feed for the horses. "No good can come of it."

Lindsey blinked and looked back at the shadowed outline of a dragon 
crouching in the woods. Little bursts of light from the other end 
made him shimmer with silver radiance. "I won't. I promise."

----------

April 10, 708 CR


Quoddy was relieved when the snow storm broke the previous evening. 
While he was no stranger to flying in such weather, this late in the 
year he was used to warmer weather and if there were any clouds, it 
was only the rains which were rarely torrential. The thunderstorms 
always came at night and he never liked to fly at night anyway.

Still, it cost him time and he had to exert himself to reach the 
headwaters of the Arabas river before nightfall. The sun was setting 
in the ocean to the southwest, casting an orange glow on everything. 
The whitewashed lighthouse standing atop the largest of the bluffs 
overlooking the sea glowed like burnished bronze. Quoddy gasped in 
relief and glided in for a landing atop its flat cupola.

He waited there for ten minutes preening himself before he saw a 
familiar black shape winging up from across the river to the north. 
Quoddy turned and lifted his wings as if he were drying them off like 
his brother needed to do, then leaped from the lighthouse and soared 
to the forests just south of the village. On an isolated bluff 
shielded from the town and from the fishermen he waited for his brother.

The cormorant swooped down a few minutes later and shook his wings 
for a moment before both of them grew to their most human and 
wing-hugged. Lubec's bright eyes fixed him as he tilted his head to 
one side. "I wasn't expecting to see you for another two days. Is 
everything okay, big brother?"

Quoddy puffed up his chest feathers and cawed, "Aye, and perhaps 
better even. Metamor has sent some one to kill Calephas and Gmork." 
Lubec's eyes widened. "We're to have our contacts bring as many 
weapons and men to Fjellvidden as we can. In just one week, 
everything could be over if the plan works."

Lubec bounced from one webbed foot to the other, long neck craning up 
and down. "Oh that is good news! What's the plan?"

The gull laughed and slapped his wings against his back. "It's 
ingenious. Lindsey hasn't told me all the details, but he'll be able 
to reach Calephas where he least expects it."

"Lindsey? Who is that?"

"He was on the timber crews at Metamor. He used to live here in Arabarb."

The cormorant nodded at last before shaking his head instead. His 
golden and black beat cracked in an almost avian shrug. "He sounds 
familiar, but I don't remember ever meeting him. But it is good that 
he's from here. My contact will be more likely to help knowing 
Lindsey is from this land." He folded his wings along his back and 
then glanced at the night sky. "What of your contact?"

Quoddy glanced back to the south and then returned to his brother. 
How he always felt better every time he saw his younger brothers. 
Truly they would spend the next year together at Metamor if he had his way.

"My contact is already gathering those he can and heading to 
Fjellvidden. I'll meet them there. But first I have to let Machais know too."

"Of course," Lubec bobbed his head up and down and then cawed softly. 
"I will let my contact know and we'll be waiting for you in Fjellvidden."

Quoddy hugged him again and the two birds rubbed heads together in 
brotherly affection. "I know you will. Now, I'm famished. Is there 
anything we can eat?"

Lubec squawked in laughter. "At this hour, it's fish the old fashioned way."

The seagull gave his cormorant brother an amused look. "Do you want 
me to get you one too, or do you want to dry your feathers off all night long?"

----------

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

Charles Matthias


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