Tags
Arkmar, Dream World, dwarf, Dylath, Edgardo, elf, fantasy, healer, Lovecraft, Oriab, Ryel, Shrine, Tolkien
Ryel woke in the twilight and got up. She was naked, and she felt great in spite of a persistent low level itch all across her back and shoulders. She looked down at the bed, where she could just make out a naked man sprawled on his back. She could not see how she had shared a bed with him. But her body was in no doubt that she had.
Ryel set about finding her clothes. Pants; socks; boots. Ah, the shredded shirt. She searched about and found her backpack, in the corner with her short bow and her quiver. She pulled out a spare shirt, unable to tell if it was green or brown in the gloom. She pulled it on, then remembered her lost jacket. “Gonna go shopping,” she said.
Then she looked at the bed. She could see Edgardo’s eyes gleaming.
“Good evening, Doctor,” she said.
“Leaving again.”
“Oh, don’t start, Edgardo. I have a mission. I have things I have to take care of. You want someone who can be with you all the time, you want—I don’t know. What do you want?”
“I only wanted you,” he said.
“Oh please. Edgardo. Don’t make it more difficult.” Her words were sounding familiar even as she said them.
He sat up and swung his legs off the bed. “I wouldn’t want to make your life difficult,” he said.
“Look,” she said, “you want a long term commitment. You’re not going to get it from me. I told you that. I never once deceived you about what to expect.”
“You made me fall in love with you,” he replied, “and I did, I fell hard. Hard.”
“Well, that’s not my fault.” Definitely an echo in here, she thought. She pushed that away. “I’m sorry you fell hard. I’d help you more, really, except that you’d just fall harder.”
“It doesn’t make it feel better. Even if you’re right. And you don’t know you’re right. Your place could be right here with me. Or you could take me with you. On this mission.”
“You don’t understand,” Ryel replied. “Do we have to open this all up again? We had our pleasure. Honor that.” She turned away and looked out the window, slapping herself mentally while he went on whining. She knew what the echo in here was.
Glosvar’s words to her: those were the words she was speaking. Her words, pleading to Glosvar to stay or let her go with him on his quests: Edgardo was speaking her lines.
“You’re of the pure blood,” Edgardo was saying, just as she had said, “You’re of the high kindred.” He went on, as she had, “Doesn’t that make you more serious about affairs of the heart?” He stood up, so he could get near her and let his male scent surround her. “Because you live forever?”
“I’m not going to live forever,” said Ryel, as Glosvar hadn’t, wouldn’t ever have, said. “I’m not immortal. I’m just not going to die of old age. That’s different.” She picked up her pack and her quiver and her bow. “Now you want a kiss, or not? I’m going to roust out the dwarf.”
“You’re not fucking him.”
“Wash your mouth out with pipe degunker. No, I’m not fucking him. You want the kiss?”
“Yes, I want the kiss,” said Edgardo.
Several minutes later, Ryel staggered out of the room and found Arkmar dozing on a bench. She paused in front of him, pondering. Wake him and take her leave, or let him sleep and take her leave? Whatever. She had things to do, places to be.
The dwarf opened an eye. He grinned. “Ah ha ha ha, Miss Elfstone. You look much better. The healer’s ministrations, I take it, were efficacious?”
“Ask him about my ministrations on him,” she said huskily.
“Going somewhere?”
“Yes, Arkmar, and I was going to say—!”
“I should come with you? But of course. Who would save your no doubt very attractive Elven posterior? Not that I know anything about Elven posteriors.”
“You had a mission of your own,” she said. “Remember? Stealing the strangely cut sapphire of the Lord of Winds?”
“The blue diamond,” he laughed, “of the Shrine of the Clouds. It can wait. I find you much more interesting and potentially more remunerative.”
“Oh balls. A strangely cut blue diamond all to yourself, versus—what have you got so far? Some gold coins and a ruby you had to smash to pieces? Split between the two of us.”
“And a map,” said Arkmar. “You forgot to mention the map. Ryel, Ryel, it is true I am not like other dwarves. But I do know what is and what is not remunerative. You may give me lessons, if you like, on what Elf males and Elf females think of one another’s posteriors, because that is something of which I know little, but do not presume to tell me what is and is not going to make me money.” They smiled guardedly at one another, and then he added, “And I think you are going to make me money. I think you are shaking the big tree, for whatever reason you shake big trees, and I am fairly certain that among other things, much gold is going to fall from it.”
“Arkmar,” said Ryel, “you are not going with me.”
“Ryel,” said Arkmar, “I am going with you, or I am going behind you. Either way works, though the first will be a little cheaper, a lot more secure and might afford the possibility of interesting and informative conversation.”
“Arkmar. You don’t know where I’m going. And I’m not going to tell you.”
In response, Arkmar said nothing, but smiled that irritating smile of his as he held up the parchment with the map on it.
Ryel and Arkmar were out on the street in a minute. They walked along side by side, not talking, each smiling, the elf tolerantly, with resignation, and the dwarf with sardonic triumph. They strode along for two blocks away from the walls of Dylath, and then Ryel, without a word, turned sharply right toward the wharf a block away. Arkmar did not miss a step. Halfway down the block to the wharf, Ryel said without looking or stopping, “Where am I going? Do you know?”
“I am going to guess the great isle of Oriab,” Arkmar replied.
“Are you a spy? What makes you think that?”
“Interesting the order in which you ask those two questions. I think that because the map has a big red star in Baharna. And that is on the great isle of Oriab. And besides, almost the first thing you said to me was, ‘ever been to Oriab?’ So. That’s my guess. Am I right?”
“You’re right.” Ryel was about to say something else but suppressed it. Arkmar took full note of this, too, with a smile. They came out onto the Fore Street of Atyannath, and faced a wharf full of ships at rows of long docks. The City of Dylath-Leen was as dull as a poor man’s graveyard, and in other ways similar, but its docks, and those of its subordinate ports, exhibited a variety of shipping so bizarre it was difficult to classify it all as shipping. The elf and the dwarf stood gawking at the array of schooners and triremes and cutters and galleons and tall five-masted sailing ships and big fat old junks and dhows ranging from puny to colossal to city-size. And then there were the exotic craft, of which no two were alike, though one that appeared to have physical appendages in place of oars, like a boat-sized crustacean, stuck out in particular.
“You don’t see that every day,” said Ryel.
“Never liked boats,” said Arkmar.
“You can stay here,” said the elf.
“Good luck on that,” said the dwarf. “So, just looking for a ship to Oriab?”
“Looking for a particular ship,” said Ryel. “Skipper owes me a favor.”
“Any particular kind of favor?” Arkmar asked with a grin.
“Oh,” said Ryel, half smiling back, “both kinds.”