The duelist 2, p.21
The Duelist 2, page 21
“Ooh, I love shopping,” Shay gasped with a big smile on her heart-shaped face. “This will be a good lesson, sister of my heart, in how us wives execute important matters of the estate.”
“I look forward to your tutelage, but first, you are going nowhere on that foot until you rest,” Zoie said with her hands on her hips like a disapproving mother hen. “I can’t believe you insisted on walking up all these stairs.”
“I told you I was fine!” Shay argued even though she was still using my arm for balance.
“Is this what it feels like whenever I tell you I am ‘fine,’ when in reality I’m not?” Zoie asked me point blank, and I couldn’t help but throw my head back and laugh.
“Now you know how it feels!” I laughed harder when she only stuck her nose primly in the air with a ‘humpf.’ Then I pulled her in even though she resisted on principle, and I chuckled into her neck so I could also kiss her soft skin.
“I have missed your laughter,” she said and tugged my chin playfully. “Come back to us with your mind settled.”
“I shall,” I promised. She was right, I needed to get to the bottom of the tornado twisting around in my head, and I hoped the wise ram-lord could shed some light.
“Come, Shay,” Zoie then ordered before she turned around, crouched, and held her arms out to the sides. “No arguments.”
The intention was clear: jump up.
“Oh, darling!” Shay sang as if the stoic cat-woman was the most delightful thing in the universe, and then she hopped up on Zoie piggy-back style. “You are irresistible when you pout, thus, how could I possibly argue.”
Zoie blinked her blue cat-eyes and tilted her head.
“She’s right, you’re cute when you make that face,” I chuckled and then pecked her on the nose so it would do that scrunchy-uppy thing.
“I feel as if I have been ambushed.” Her nose wiggled, and Shay and I exchanged fond looks. “Yet, I am strangely at peace with this like the dawn makes peace with the day.”
“I must make a book of all the things you both say,” Shay mused and twirled one of Zoie’s ebony locks around her finger. “I shall like to turn them into poems one day.”
I put a hand over my eyes as if it was actually painful to look at my two gorgeous brides. The whole tableau of the crimson-haired phoenix-woman rhapsodizing about poetry and lovingly petting the strong and stoic cat-woman was one of those things that made me deliriously happy and terrified I was dreaming all at the same time.
“How are you two even real?” I groaned to myself, and then I lowered my hand from my face even though it was like looking into a supernova. “Okay, well, you two have a good time, and I’ll find you later. Now, get out of here before I do something stupid like just pile us all back in our carriage and go home.”
My wives simply laughed in concert, and Zoie came close enough for them to each kiss me on the cheek before they left to go run their errands.
Only after I watched the flame of Shay’s hair zip out of sight did I face the large silver doors of the temple with a small pit of growing unease in my stomach.
When I made it inside, I noticed the place was a lot different from the last time I was here. For one, the beautiful stained-glass windows had been replaced from when they’d all been shattered during the demon scourge not too long ago, and I was glad the resplendent colored glass remained intact after yesterday’s red sun event.
The spiral staircase that used to be in the center of the temple was gone, and as I looked around to see what might have happened to it, I suddenly worried I was in the wrong place.
To be fair, last time I was too busy catching the little scourge-mite chasing Mec’s deer-daughter, Meera, to really appreciate the marvel of the temple’s architecture, but I definitely remembered racing up endless stairs until I thought my lungs would explode.
Before I could wonder any more about the staircase, the ground started to rumble, and the center of the stone floor began to rise and revealed said staircase as it ascended to the ceiling. Since I was the only one in the temple, I figured this was as good of a sign as any, so I jumped on the next stair available and let it take me up.
Now that the windows were restored, I noticed how the sun threw rainbow shadows all over the walls, and I gasped when I noticed what the artist intended.
The walls of the chamber were painted in idyllic nature scenes, which were pretty to be sure, but what made them a true work of art was the way the sun cast the silhouettes in the windows against the walls like shadow puppets. So now, instead of the stained glass and murals being two separate works of aesthetic beauty, they were able to come together as one.
Rolling green hills now had little blue shadow-sheep grazing on them, and under a suspiciously heart-shaped bower of branches, two magenta lovers embraced each other and kissed. All of the murals were now populated with flickering stained-glass figures, and even though the staircase was constantly revolving as it traveled upwards, I couldn’t help but keep my head on a swivel so I could try to absorb every scene.
About half way up, the murals changed from being idyllically pastoral to something darker. The shadows on the wall showed silhouettes of people engaged in a fierce battle, and I finally understood that each mural was actually part of a story I only knew a little bit of. It reminded me of the murals back in Ithaca’s stone garden where Zoie had repeated one of her favorite Aventoll origin stories, and I missed having the cat-woman by my side so she could provide commentary now.
Finally, the rising staircase came to a halt at the top, and I walked out on the eight-sided catwalk structure so I could reach the corridor that wrapped around the circumference of the mosque-like chamber. Most of the doors leading to different sections of the temple were closed except for one that led outside into the golden midday sun.
When I stepped out in what appeared to be a low battlement that extended to other sections of the temple, I had to shield my eyes from the dazzling light. Up here, the sun striking off all that gold paint was almost enough to blind even a blind man.
“Alex!” A high cascade of childish giggling rang out right before a little ball of rambunctious energy plowed right into my knees.
When I looked down, all I could see was a mop of curly brown hair with a pair of fuzzy Bambi antlers peeking through, and I couldn’t help but smile down at the little fawn-girl.
“Hey, Meera,” I said, and she only grinned up at me while she continued to do her best octopus impression around my right leg.
“Are you here to see Daddy?” she piped in her sweet voice.
“I’m trying to find him,” I said and tousled her bird’s nest hair. “Do you know where he is?”
“Mmhm,” she said and then unwrapped her arms from around my leg so she could raise them up in the universal signal of ‘pick me up, please.’
I chuckled, swung the little deer-girl up in my arms, and dotted her white freckled nose until she let out more of those adorable giggles. “Show me, then, clever girl.”
“That way!” she hollered with all the enthusiasm of a state fair and pointed toward the end of the battlement where a doorway led to a turret.
“Does your Daddy know you sneaked away?” I asked the little imp in my arms and headed in the direction she set for us.
“I dunno.” She shrugged, but I wasn’t buying her innocent freckled face for an instant.
“You’re just a bucket of trouble, aren’t you?” I rolled my eyes when the only thing she did was stick her fingers in her mouth to try and muffle her bubbly laughter.
“More like a whole boat full of trouble,” Mec’s voice echoed from above us, and I looked up from where I was standing into another tower with a staircase leading evermore upwards.
“I found something that belongs to you,” I said with a grin up at the ram-lord’s exasperated face.
“Has our little one been found, husband?” A vaguely familiar voice floated down to us, and Meera sucked in a breath and buried her face in my neck.
“Mama gonna be maaad,” she whispered with another laugh, and I suddenly hoped my future children weren’t going to be this much of a handful. However, if my future kids were as cute as her, it wouldn’t matter because I would be doomed either way.
“Yes, she has, wife,” the ram-lord said with a hopeless smile at his mischievous daughter. “Let us retrieve her so we might sell her for a good price at the market.”
“Nooo!” the little girl squealed at the sight of her father bounding down the stairs with a playful growl, and I had to remind myself this ridiculous man was the number one Badass Duelist, and subsequent King of the Island.
When he finally made it to the bottom, Mec then plucked his errant child from my arms and proceeded to tickle her relentlessly as her shrieks of glee ricocheted off the tower walls.
“Have you learned your lesson, Daughter?” the ethereal doe-woman with the stunning white antlers and long platinum hair said as she descended at a more sedate pace. She was dressed in a tangerine robe that reminded me of the sunrise, which was fitting because I remembered her name was Dawn.
“Yes, Mama! Make Daddy stoooop!” Meera cried out as the fearsome ram-lord blew raspberries into her plump little tummy.
It was such a wholesome scene, even Hallmark would have puked, but I couldn’t help but grin at this family’s antics. Maybe it was because of all the revelations I was forced to come to terms with the past few days, but for the first time, I could actually picture myself in a similar situation of domestic bliss. Now, the image of a family wasn’t just a nebulous cloud with cardboard cut-outs as place holders. Now…I actually could fill my ideal family with people.
“Alright, my darling ones,” Lord Mec rumbled in his rolling thunder voice. “I shall see you later, but first our friend Alex and I have important matters to discuss.”
“Have a pleasant day, Asher Brightwood,” Dawn said regally as she tipped her antler-adorned head.
“Bye-bye, Alex!” Meera said from where she was perched on her mother’s hip, and she waved her chubby hand at me.
“Don’t get into too much trouble, you,” I said and booped her nose.
She went cross-eyed and then squeaked as she hid her blushing face in her mother’s robes.
As the Asher Lord’s wife passed, I tipped my head to her in respect. “Milady.”
“Don’t linger too long, husband,” the doe-woman said as she walked out of the tower with their giggling daughter.
“Oh, such lovely things,” the ram-lord sighed with his big palm against his bearded cheek, and I couldn’t help but snort.
“You’re intimidating on the outside, but you’re really just warm mush on the inside, aren’t you?” I couldn’t help but tease.
“I have no idea to what you are referring,” Mec said and inspected his nails.
“Sure.” I rolled my eyes and then punched the big guy good-naturedly on the shoulder. “Why did you summon me?”
“Of course, let’s ascend to the tower’s balcony, and I shall explain why you are here,” the ram-lord said and gestured to the stairs he’d just come down from.
“You guys sure love your gardens here on Nata,” I commented when I made it up the steps and out into yet another perfectly manicured garden, complete with a large circular pool about the size of a basketball court in the center.
“Nature is the thing that reminds us we are all just dust in the end,” Mec said in a wise tone of voice. “We should spend as much time as possible surrounded by it.”
“Ashes to ashes and dust to dust, sort of thing,” I murmured as a solid blanket of peacefulness settled over me like a mantel.
“Indeed.” He nodded his shaggy head, and we continued on in silence, shoulder to shoulder first around the edge of the circular pool, then down the small walkway jutting out through the middle, and finally stopped on the platform located in the very center of the calm water.
“What is this place?” I asked.
“This is the oldest tithe pool in all of Aventoll,” the ram-lord intoned, and it seemed as if we were inside a bubble where the sounds of all life faded into resonate silence. “It was here the first Asher Lords came to honor the Goddess’ sacrifice.”
“She gave her own heart which turned into the sun for your people, right?” I asked in a low voice as if too many decibels would cause the still surface of the glass-like water to shatter.
“You know your history, so that means you know the Goddess then blessed their offerings by turning their blood into the tithe stones we use to purify our drinking water.”
I nodded and then followed suit when he sat down on the warm stones.
Since it was ‘mid-epoch’, or what I assumed was Aventoll-speak for high noon, the sun was directly overhead and beaming down on the pool, and because we were sitting on the ground, I could see how the surface of the water shimmered just like a bright gold coin.
It was such a serene atmosphere, I jolted lightly when Mec continued, and then I swallowed at his expectant expression.
“How have you been, Alex?” The ram-lord narrowed his bronze-colored eyes as he searched my face.
“I’ve been…” My sentence dropped off when I couldn’t manage to make myself brush off the question with a disingenuous ‘good,’ and instead I looked out over the glittering water with a frown. “I don’t really know how to answer that question, actually. My honest answer is: different. I’ve felt different.”
The ram-lord made a noncommittal noise in the back of his throat as his amber eyes continued to gaze intensely at me.
“Different or… Awake?” The word reverberated so deeply I could actually hear what sheer authority sounded like, even though Mec’s ‘Call’ powers were nowhere near as dialed up as they probably could be.
My memory briefly went back to that day after the races when Mec took me down to the palace dungeon in order to confront the would-be assassin. He ordered me to tell him how I knew the man who sold Bala Ren the poison he used to infuse his blade with, and I was… not forced, but strongly compelled to tell him what I knew.
However, instead of feeling the oppressive compulsion to answer his question like I did in the palace dungeons that day, Mec’s voice only seemed to imbue more meaning into the simple word as if it was just bringing the word Awake to life, and suddenly something clicked.
“Awake…” I repeated to myself in a murmur, and a ripple of something ancient, powerful, and deep within me arched its back like a contented house cat before it curled up and laid dormant once more.
And just when I was trying to find my footing again, the ram-lord asked me a question that made me feel like I was suddenly knocked out of orbit and spinning wildly through the vacuum of space.
“How are your dreams lately, Alex?”
“Why would you ask me that?” I tangled my hands in my hair as some metaphorical latch blew open on the tightly locked chest of things labeled ‘The Unknown,’ and the swirling tempest in my head intensified.
That dizzying carousel was back playing over and over in my mind’s eye like the first time I had the same dream, only more intense now that the memory sharpened into crystal 4D clarity.
Jenner, Arvid, and Zoie were all frequent characters in the dream flashes as they walked through various stages of life while Ithaca flourished with prosperity. Now, however, I recognized Shay’s presence strewn throughout the carousel of flashes when her face hadn’t registered as being anything other than a random dream-person my mind had conjured before I really knew her.
But now that she was in my life, I remembered more from the flashes with her laughing and smiling and growing older with glints of silver streaking her crimson hair just like Zoie…
And one memory, newly uncovered like the lost Ark of the Covenant, stark and dazzling as the Goddess Sun, rose to the surface and left me shaken because there was Shay standing on the garden terrace looking at a sunset, with her hands cupped around her pregnant belly…
The flash was almost too painful to look at, and it left me knocked hard for a loop given I knew what Shay’s reality was. She told me herself she couldn’t have children, which only made this newly revealed vision distressing considering it was the dream that stood out most among all of the remembered flashes so far.
The dream that started me down the rabbit hole of my current existential crisis since I woke up this morning, was the one of Rylan weeping on the floor of the barn with a broken leg…
A broken leg I dreamed he had before it actually happened.
Which meant, what, exactly? What were these flashes? Did they predict the future? But how could they? And did I want them to?
No. Yes. Maybe.
What was happening to me? All I knew was I felt like my brain was boiling, and I was no longer anchored to solid ground.
“Alex.” Mec’s large hands carefully clasped my wrists, and he tugged my hands away from where I was still tangling them harshly in my hair as I struggled with reorganizing everything I knew about myself.
This polar shift was… a hurdle, to say the least.
No matter what shit I went through, or how many homes I was foisted upon, one thing always kept me anchored while the world changed around me. It was the indelible fact that I always knew who I was and what I was about regardless of my circumstances.
Example one being the fact that being literally torn out of my universe and plopped into another one wasn’t so bad because at least I knew I was the same old, normal Alex when I looked in the mirror.
Even the time-trance ability, while still new, didn’t faze me quite like this did when I finally connected the dots of my unsettling dreams to the possible realities they showed me.
Maybe it was because when I was dreaming, I wasn’t really an active participant, so this felt as if even my subconscious dreams were being taken captive by the unrelenting and little-known power residing within me. It felt foreign, and it left me feeling like I was standing on shifting sands without any purchase.
So, yeah, okay, maybe I was freaking out just a tad.
