“Just that, Jason?” she asked. “No, I’m glad to see you. Or, Drop dead. Just report! As if we were on a campaign?”
“I am on a campaign right now. Me against Felix and I don’t know which side you are on. Last I saw, the Watch was dragging me to the goal while you were running off with Felix.” He had to bite my tongue to not say what he really wanted to tell her.
“I suppose I deserve that. I can only apologize so many times and make the same promise again and again. I wish you could believe me.”
“Trust is earned with experience. Earn mine back with deeds and not words. There’s no sense ripping my guts out with our past. Start with Felix and why you left me in Immersea.”
“It wasn’t what you thought. I really was trying. For the last year we were together, I was faithful. I tried to make it up to you so everything Felix told you was in the dead past. I did it, but it was over and done.
“Ok,” she sighed, “We were in Immersea and you were drunk and I was apologizing again when I saw Felix looking through the window at us. I knew you were too drunk to take him and he’d kill you if you tried so I decided to do it myself.”
“You?”
“Yes me, dammit! I was angry. I had lost the only thing in my life that cared for me and he was the cause so I wasn’t thinking about my own safety, I just wanted him dead. So I went after him. But the Watch stopped me. They said that Felix had accused us of robbing him and we were under arrest. If I had let them arrest us, we’d both be in a cell, unarmed and helpless for when he came for us. So one of us had to be free and you weren’t in any shape so I told them that the woman they sought was using the chamber-pot and they let me go.
“By the time I got outside Felix was gone and they were dragging you away. I knew that without his testimony, they’d release you in the morning when you were sober so I returned to the tavern and paid the keep and one of the regulars to deliver you a message. I told them I was going to follow Felix and leave you a trail and to follow me as soon as you were able. Then I began to track him. I left messages and trail markings all over the country but you never followed.
“I didn’t know why but over the months I decided that you hated me too much and didn’t care anymore.”
Jason took another drink then snapped, “I was tossed into that cell and forgotten. I had to drink my own urine and eat rats and bugs to survive. After three weeks someone discovered me and let me go. By then you were gone.”
“I left you messages!”
“Yes, I heard what you said. But the day after I was arrested, the keep and a couple of his customers were killed in a bar fight. The killers escaped.” Jason didn’t know if this was a convenience that she was using to support her story or if it was a plot and he was being sucked in. “Continue.”
“I followed him for a year. I was always just behind him but when I chased him to Yugoslavia, I found Mislav dead. No he was tortured to death. Months later I tracked him to Germany and found Albrecht. He had been tortured to death a month before. I was seeing a pattern there so I rushed to find Erik our old sergeant and almost caught Felix. Erik was strung up, dying from his wounds but I had interrupted Felix who had escaped. Erik told me the Felix had caught him and tortured him to find where he buried the pieces to Merrick.”
Jason started at this.
“Felix bragged that he was going to take Merrick to Yugoslavia near Rumania to someplace called Wrath’s Keep or Wraith’s Keep or Rat’s Keep, I didn’t understand, and bring Merrick back to life. We have to stop him, Jason. If you still hate me, at least we have to do this then you can do to me whatever you want.”
jason thought for a moment and motioned for Diane to keep closer watch. Even the kids were looking around. “Felix is a Catholic peasant. In his entire life, Felix has shown no interest in magick. How does he expect to perform this necromancy?”
“I went to a Lodge and asked. That information cost me a lot of money. They said that a century or so ago, some Yugoslav warlord built a castle to stop the Turks. He was supposed to be a magickian and instead of fighting the Turks, he became obsessed with bringing his dead mother back from the grave. His failures were stuck in the dungeon beneath his keep. Then he died. They didn’t know if it was called Wrath’s Keep because he was crazy with anger or if that was his name. Or maybe they called it Wraith’s Keep because the dead still haunt the place. Or maybe Rat’s Keep because something was feeding all the rats that infested the place. What they could tell me was that even today, a century later, his ghost haunts the Keep. But they also said that the dead he brought back are still wandering the dungeon beneath and Saxons, what you call Orcs, moved into the upper ruins. They also said that a Dragon lives in a cave that connects to the dungeon. I think that Felix plans to somehow rediscover the Lord’s secrets and use them to bring Merrick back. He already has the body, head an arm and leg. All he is missing is my arm and eye and your leg and ear and Merrick can add those later.”
“This almost makes sense.” Jason mused, “BUT, as I said, Felix has no knowledge of Magick. How does he expect to bring Merrick back? Hope the ghost shows up and does the job? Or did he kidnap or hire a necromancer? Also you scared Felix away from Erik? The guy was good. I can take you down on the Field every time and Felix won more than half our matches so why would he run from you? No, Lys, this is a trap. For me it’s been a century so I’ve had time to calm down and think about this.
“My concerns are simple. Is this entire story made up to get me into a place where Felix can ambush and kill me? If so, are you helping him?” he stopped her protestations of innocence, “You may be actively helping him or he may be using you. I was never able to beat him at chess or outmaneuver him during the war games. So you may be a pawn. Why he wants me dead, I don’t know. I searched for you two for months then gave up. Even I get tired of wasting my time in futile revenge.
“So, the questions are; Is Felix hunting me and why? Are you helping him and why? Is Felix trying to bring Merrick back and how? Are you trying to get me alone for revenge? There are a lot of questions I need to ask. Let me think things over for a few hours and I’ll get back to you. Where are you staying?”
“We are wasting time!” she screamed. “Every minute we wait gives Felix more time. We need to go now!”
“I rarely take off without planning. It’s why I am still alive. Again, I need to think so where are you staying?”
“Here. Your daughters were kind enough to let me stay here. You haven’t changed, Jason. Not inside. I can see you are the same man inside, still kind, still suspicious, still cautious. But time is important here.”
Diane jumped in, “Let him be. He has to convince himself that the idea is his, not yours. He’ll come around soon enough.”
She stood to leave then turned to her former love again, “I hope she makes you happy because I love you enough to want you happy. Even it it’s with someone else.”
Diane waited until Lys was away before she hit the man across the head. “Will you stop doing that! You’re going to take my head off some day!” he cried from the floor.
“How could you treat her like that! You know her life. It was so hard and you were the one person who cared for her and the only person she could trust and now you….” She turned and stomped off inside. Donna just said, “Daddy, sometimes you are as dumb as a rock and sometimes as hurtful as mother was. I believe her. So pack your weapons while I make you something to eat on the road.” She then kissed him on the cheek, no mean feat with the man on his arse and whispered, “We know what you will do so do what you must and tell us only what we want to know.” Unlike her sister, Donna had no real curiosity about my other life and felt that ignorance would protect her from Interpol.
Jason sat on the porch rail and called, “Diane, I need some help here. Felix is too good. He’s a better fighter than me with many weapons, he is a better strategist and he is far more ch
arismatic than me so can raise an army easily.”
“Of course I’ll go with you and help you out.”
“No! I can take care of myself while I’m there. It’s the girls I fear for. We are being used and manipulated. Felix wants me at that Keep. But why? To kill me or to get me away and kill my family? It’s the latter I fear most. What I need is for you to remain here and guard the kids. If anything happens to them, I’ll die. But he’s good. Better than me so it will take everything you have to stop him if he comes and even then, you’ll need help, .. lots of help!”
She placed her arms around his shoulders and said, “I’ll call Fi and Slezdi. We’ll keep your family safe for you. Nothing will harm them. I swear by my life and soul that all will be well when you return. Just put your attention on staying alive for them if you meet Felix. And be careful, a jealous woman often slips a knife in her lovers back when he is asleep or bedding her.” Diane thought and added then, “I already have a ship of Amazons coming. They’ll be in armor and on duty while you are away and we’ll keep an eye for strangers passing through the Stargate. Worry only for yourself, NO ONE else and let us care for your family. Then come home to them and us alive.”
“So you’ve decided that I’m going?”
Diane laughed, “Was there any doubt? You need this! You’re underfoot and need some excitement. And you need closure with both Lyssandra and Felix. No matter what happens, well, Cass and Donna are my daughters too so if you die and hurt them, Fi and I will bring you back to life and fuck you over so bad there won’t be enough left for Cass to stomp.”
“Your expressions of love just gives me the fuzzy-wuzzies.”
“Jason, would you expect anything less? We are your family. I’ll always be there for you but I love you enough to tell you the truth. I’ve never lied to you, you just didn’t understand what I said. But I do know that while we live, your family will be safe and when I say ‘we’, I mean every person on this island including the Amazons and Kaz. And that Minotaur is worth a half dozen Amazons anytime. Go get your gear ready, I’ll tell Lyssandra.” For an ex-wife with benefits, she was overly accommodating at times. She used to scream at Jason if he looked at another woman, now she was sending him off alone with an ex-lover for whom he still felt something.
***
The hardest part about adventuring is choosing your gear. Which sword to take? Will you need a spear or just a bow? What about armour? Food and water? How much? A knife in the boot and behind the belt are a good idea but how many others do you hide and can you afford the weight? Which should you bring: a mace, morning star, war hammer or axe? Or leave them all behind and rely on one broad-sword? Medical kit is a must but should you pack it for sword wounds or dragon-claw or just a sprained ankle? And when you got it packed, you should carry it around town to see how long it takes to collapse from the weight and then thin it out some more.
In town there is a tavern that attracts RPG Gamers from Earth. Some come to haven thinking that it would be neat to meet real adventurers. They quickly loose that romantic idea. But somehow some remain and there is a table in the corner where a D&D game is in constant play. Even some of the vacationing Adventurers play, though arguments about “what the hell is a +7 holy sword?” and “No one can stop a dragon like that” often break out. One even posted on the wall a cartoon from a magazine that showed an adventurer and his horse loaded down with all the gear the Dungeon-Master thinks an Adventurer needs. Neither could walk under that weight.
So Jason spent too much time arming himself, preparing Diane, going over the household defenses and making plans until even the kids got upset. “Dad, the longer you wait, the more entrenched Felix will be so stop him now while he isn’t prepared.” Cass demanded. Then as the two rode away, she yelled, “And bring your kids big presents when you return!”
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JASON’S STORY
Lys and I rode to the Stargate at a decent clip. I had asked Kaz to follow under cover and I didn’t want him to be tired in case we needed him. Once through the Stargate, he’d return to the house or hang here, whichever he decided was best and safest. I admit I was scared. I was having flashbacks of returning to my home in Ireland and finding my house burned by the British police, my wife and children still inside, my neighbors hanging from the trees. My only hope was that between Diane and Kaz and the Amazons, they’d be safe, for Felix had no experience with a minotaur who was bigger and stronger than any human. I knew I was fussing and I knew I was being paranoid which is a mental illness but some things I simply cannot let go. My advantages here are that neither Lys nor Felix know me as well as they thought they did.
Lys looked at me and said, “When I look at you, I see two people, the man I fell in love with and the man you are now. You treat them like you used to treat me, with kindness and consideration and when they describe your past, I see my Jason in their eyes. But the man outside worries more than the one I knew.”
After a few more yards, she continued, “I know you love them. You have a family here. And what you’ve made this place into is what Arabel should have been. I also know you don’t trust me. You may not even love me anymore. But I never stopped loving you.”
I know she wanted me to talk back but I wasn’t ready yet. Pride or anger or fear, I don’t know. So I let her rattle on like I let Cassie talk, only half-listening.
“Diane is very beautiful and strong in character. I can see why you love her too but I don’t understand why you let her go.”
“It’s complicated,” I finally spoke up. “She was recently widowed and the woman I thought was my lover turned out to be using me so we were both vulnerable. We are great as friends and there isn’t anyone closer to me but when we are together at home, we fight all the time. Yes, we thought of marriage again but it would never work and we’d be divorced and hating each other in a month or two. It’s better this way with a country or a couple spouses between us. It allows us to remain friends but avoid doing something stupid.”
“Sometimes, Jason, when you relax, you can be the most wonderful and insightful person in the world. Too bad you have to fuck it up by thinking.”
“Is this a dig?”
“No, just an observation. You once said to me, ‘sometimes you have to stop thinking, put the worries aside and follow your heart and instincts’. I think you love Diane because you think you do but you are best friends because your heart tells you to.”
I didn’t answer because the truth was, I loved her because I was happy with her and I liked that feeling. I loved Diane because she made me feel happy even when we were apart. Diane and I and the kids had been through this before. They accepted it because they wanted me to remarry the woman Cass called ‘mom’. I accepted it because as an Irish Noble, I knew the difference between a political marriage with a lover on the side and romance. We had a good relationship with each of us trying to make the other happy and if that earth-shaking love that I had with Kore or the heart-felt love I had with Lyssandra wasn’t there, what we did have was a good trade. “Let me see that map you made again.”
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I looked it over and decided for the millionth time that Lyssandra may be very good with people but she had been illiterate until she was nearing forty and so her cartographic skills were somewhat lacking as was her spelling. It was sketched on a piece of used parchment and I could almost see the remains of what she had scraped off. Down the center was a mountain range. This was bisected by a horizontal line she labeled rieka or ‘river’ in her native Slavic. Where the river crossed the mountains was the word ‘keep’ and another river down inside the mountains. To the left on the road was a word “Iskandar’ and a road moved from Iskandar to the northeast. I assumed that the Keep was at a junction of two rivers and a mountain range, probably controlling a strategic mountain pass. Iskandar was probably a town at the junction of the river and road. She had made the map from desc
riptions given by that Lodge she visited. But it was clear that none of them had ever been there. “Where does the Stargate open to?” I asked her.
“About two days west of the village near the river. We can re-supply there then follow the river to the Keep. I’m not worried about the Saxons, they are only a few bandits and we can easily kill them or avoid them. I think Felix will be underground where the undead roam. They scare me. It’s almost like being back in that vampire nest in Dracula’s castle in Romania. Only this time we are alone.”
“What about that dragon?”
“Rumors. I don’t even know if it exists. We heard about dragons in Kosovo but never saw one. It could be a story spread to keep people away. Maybe the Saxons are robbing people and using the dragon story to keep the army from chasing them.”
By then we had reached the StarGate and I waited a few minutes studying the map and asking stupid questions like the population of the town, the number of orcs, if there were any soldiers, Slav or Turk around. I was killing time to give Kaz a chance to catch up and rest and scout in case Felix was waiting.
“Well, no sense wasting time.” I waited and she degaussed the StarGate with what looked like an amulet and as the charge built up, we led the horses through and the climate instantly changed. We left a hot muggy island and were now in a cool dark forest with water running nearby. I opened my Locator, placed it in an open area with a view of the sky, adjusted it to magnetic north and let it do its job as I sketched the location and appearance of the StarGate in my Journal. Good records are always a good idea but only if you write them in a language only you and a very few trusted people can read. I chose Irish-Gaelic for mine because it was a dying language kept alive only by a few artists and historians. “It’s getting dark, we should make camp.”
By the time the fire was going and the ground cleared, I knew where we were, had updated my Journal and was brushing the horses as Lys cooked a meal. I could and would eat almost anything myself but other people had expectations I couldn’t meet so they always made the meals.
Lyssandra & The Return of Lyssandra Page 11
