The Hero of Varay vm-2

by Rick Shelley

  "That's hard to say." I stopped and stared vaguely at Joy for a moment. "I've never seen him like that before, but 'always' covers something over twelve hundred years in his case."

  "You're kidding." Joy came out from under the blanket long enough to slip on panties and blue jeans-quickly, then heavy socks and tennis shoes.

  "I don't think so," I said. "He was only admitting to a thousand when I first came here, but one time I caught him talking about Charlemagne's court as though he had actually been there and he admitted it. That takes him back to A.D. 800 or thereabouts, and he claims to have known Merlin and Camelot, so that drags it back even farther."

  Joy stared at me, all thought of the cold shoved aside for a bit. "You're serious," she said. She turned to sit on the edge of the bed. "You're really serious."

  "I am. Get him talking about history sometime. You'll see."

  Joy stood up, raised the sweater to pull the jeans up where they belonged, snapped and zipped, then rearranged the sweater. I wished that we had more time. I would have liked to watch her take everything off again.

  "It's part of being a wizard," I said. "They live virtually forever unless something violent happens to them. But the price is sterility-no kids, no way, no how. And Parthet wants to initiate Aaron. I told him that Aaron's too young to make that kind of decision."

  "I certainly hope you told him. But… your uncle is really that old?"

  "He's probably a lot older than that even." I took a deep breath. There was something I hadn't planned on mentioning to Joy just yet, but… "Down below the cellar of Basil Castle, there is a crypt with the remains of all the kings and heroes of Varay. But there aren't any wizards buried there, not a one. The other tombs go back a couple of thousand years beyond what Parthet admits."

  "You think he's been around that long?"

  "I don't know. He never gives me a straight answer, and nobody else around here is old enough to remember a time when he didn't look the way he does now. The king is only one hundred and twenty-eight."

  "Only?" Joy got up and we shared a too-brief kiss.

  "Only. I'll go get Aaron," I said again. "We can have breakfast back in Illinois."

  Joy sat on the edge of the bed again to wait until I got Aaron. Aaron was still sleeping, so I just picked him up and carried him down from the sixth floor. Timon woke, but he's always been a light sleeper, afraid I'll want something and he won't hear me call the first time. Aaron didn't make a sound. I needed both hands to open the doorway to Chicago, but Joy held Aaron for the few seconds that took. Aaron was quite a load for her, though.

  As soon as we were through the passage, I took Aaron back. He still didn't wake. I laid him on my bed in Chicago. Joy beat me to the bathroom in the master suite, so I went out and used the other bathroom for a quick shower. Joy hadn't come out yet when I finished, so I turned on the television in the living room, volume low, to check out the morning news before we got too far away from the escape hatches to Varay.

  The Coral Lady was obviously still the main topic, and the damage done to western Florida. Main topic? It was the only story anyone was talking about. It was the traditional off-season for tourists in Florida, but traditional seasons don't mean as much in Florida as they used to. With the Disney complex not all that far away at Orlando, tourism wasn't nearly as seasonal as it had once been. There were still so many visitors around that it might be weeks before anyone could make an even halfway accurate estimate of onshore casualties. The Air Force had a lot of planes in the air checking radioactivity levels and the direction of drift of the radioactivity. Two full divisions of the Army had been moved to the perimeter of the affected area to deal with refugees, to try to cut down on looting, and generally to try to restore order. Many of the medical people who had gone to Chernobyl a few years before were gathering to help in Florida-except for one doctor who had been on the Coral Lady. Casualties were being airlifted to hospitals as far away as San Antonio and Baltimore for treatment.

  The press were getting frustrated at their inability to get camera crews into the area on the ground, and most of their aerial footage had to be shot from a distance as well. But there was finally some tape of the devastation: the missing span of the Sunshine Skyway Bridge, the wreckage of the remainder, the ruins and ashes ashore. Fires were still burning out of control around much of the perimeter of Tampa Bay. The "conservative" estimates predicted a minimum of sixty-five hundred dead, fifteen thousand injured or exposed to immediately dangerous levels of radiation, perhaps millions facing long-term health problems as a result, and two and a half million people displaced, either permanently or temporarily. The monetary cost had only the vaguest estimates yet, but they started at fifty billion dollars and climbed to over a trillion.

  "That wasn't a dream either," Joy whispered. I hadn't heard her come into the room.

  "No, no dream. It's going to take forever to clean up after this one."

  Joy put her hands on my shoulders. "This world will never be the same." I think she was talking about the nuclear bomb, but maybe she was thinking about her introduction to Varay too.

  "I'm afraid that the Coral Lady won't be the only case like this," I said. "The genie's out of the bottle and we may not be able to get him back in." Like when car bombs become so faddish. "It's a miracle it's taken this long. You remember that A-bomb they found in New York a few years ago?"

  "I remember."

  "It may have been the same batch of terrorists. Or different people with the same idea. There's tons of uranium and plutonium unaccounted for."

  Joy shook her head. "The sooner we get started, the sooner we get back," she said.

  I nodded. I was ready to change the subject too.

  "I just hope Eddie kept my car going the last three months." Eddie was the day man down in the building's garage. I paid him to run the car a couple of times a week while I was "traveling" to keep the battery charged.

  It was still too early for Eddie to be on duty, but my LeBaron started right off, so I knew that he had been doing his job. The odometer reading hadn't changed, but the low-fuel light started blinking as soon as I turned the key in the ignition. Aaron finally woke up while I was backing out of my parking space.

  "Where are we?" he asked, his voice still sleepy.

  "We're in Chicago, Aaron," I said. "We're on our way to Joliet now."

  "I'm going home?" I couldn't tell what he was feeling, disappointment, sadness, or a mixture of both.

  "Yes, you're going home," I said, and I had to be careful to keep any emotion out of my voice. But Aaron curled up as best he could under the seat belt in the backseat and he went to sleep again.

  We had got an early enough start to stay ahead of the worst of the rush-hour traffic downtown. I took Lake Shore Drive down to the Stevenson Expressway and got on that for the straight run out to Joliet. Traffic never got completely insane that morning, and even the inbound traffic across the median seemed a lot lighter than usual. I suspected that a lot of people had decided that it was a good day to play hooky from work, to keep up with the latest news… or just in case there was any more trouble like the bombing in Florida.

  Joy found Silver Cross Hospital marked on the map in my glove compartment, but I still had to stop and ask directions when we got to Joliet. The main entrance to the hospital was just opening up as we arrived.

  Aaron had slept the whole way out. I had to wake him when we reached the hospital. I didn't want to carry him inside and maybe cause misunderstandings.

  I hated every second of the hospital ordeal. A volunteer at the front desk directed us to Family Services. There were people waiting for us there-hospital people, a police officer, and a couple who introduced themselves as Aaron's aunt and uncle. Aaron went to them and started carrying on about the wonderful things that had happened to him, while it was all the aunt and uncle could manage to keep from bawling from their grief and their anxiety over Aaron. The uncle thanked me for bringing Aaron in and for taking care of him. When he asked where we ha
d found him, I repeated the story I had told on the telephone. The cop stopped frowning. I was worried that he would ask a lot of uncomfortable official questions, but he started listening to Aaron's tale of knights and castles and a funny old wizard and he forgot all about Joy and me. We were able to slip away like the Lone Ranger and Tonto, and we got out of the hospital almost as quickly as I had hoped to.

  Once we were out of the parking lot and on our way back to the Interstate, I breathed a lot easier.

  "They'll assume that his story is just a reaction to the shock of losing his parents," I said. "What else could they think?" When Joy didn't reply, I looked her way. She was just staring straight forward. Tears were running down her cheek.

  "He'll be okay, Joy. He'll do fine."

  She nodded a little at that, but she still didn't speak, so I turned on the radio and we listened to the still-continuous coverage of the Coral Lady disaster.

  The drive back to Chicago went a little slower than the ride out, but traffic still wasn't up to its usual rush-hour madness. Joy and I said virtually nothing the entire drive. She wasn't quite up to breakfast yet, so we went straight back to my place. Food could wait a little while. We pulled into the garage under my apartment building before nine-thirty.

  In the elevator going up to thirty-eight, Joy clung to me and I held her. She still wasn't talking.

  "We've still got time to make breakfast at Castle Basil," I said when we got inside the apartment. She just nodded.

  Before we left for Varay, I went through the place twice, making sure that I didn't leave anything turned on, making sure that I wasn't forgetting anything I might really want in Varay. It was almost as if I was leaving the place for good. That realization hit me, and I stopped abruptly in the living room. I forced myself to look around the room, almost casually. I did feel as though I might never see the apartment again, even though it was only a doorway away from Cayenne, Basil, or Louisville. I didn't say anything about the feeling to Joy, but it made me very uneasy. It wasn't exactly like a warning from my danger sense, but after the Coral Lady, I didn't need much to set me on edge.

  I was shaking my head when Joy and I stepped through to Cayenne. I needed to stop there before we went on to Basil.

  Since we had been gone for a while, I went to the door leading out to the hall and stairs, planning to go downstairs to check in, so to speak. But Lesh was waiting just outside the door.

  "I knocked before, lord," he said. "When you didn't answer, I figured you weren't back from taking the boy home."

  "We got him safely delivered," I said.

  "You told me to remind you about Harkane and Timon."

  I nodded. That was something that had come up during the goodwill tour. Timon was old enough to move up from page to squire. Harkane would become a full-fledged man-at-arms, ready to be knighted as soon as he proved himself in the interim capacity. Both would remain in my service, as my retinue continued to grow. But Timon's promotion meant that I needed a new page to take his place.

  "I'll speak to Baron Kardeen about them today if I get the chance," I said. "Joy and I are going through to Basil for breakfast. You want to come along, or is there enough to eat here?"

  Lesh grinned. "We'll manage, especially since you two'll be gone."

  I grinned back at him. Getting Lesh to loosen up had been difficult. He was still more impressed with my position than I was, but at least he was willing to open up a little now and then.

  "I'll send Timon right up for you," he said.

  I started to object, but quickly changed my mind. I had to have a page at Basil, probably two of them now that Joy was with me. Protocol. Tradition. Varay was basically feudal in nature, and anyone with any kind of social status had to have servants. "Then maybe he can help choose his own replacement," I said, and Lesh nodded.

  "What was all that about?" Joy asked after Lesh clomped down the stairs. I explained the basics as quickly as I could.

  "They put a lot of stock in formalities and rank and such here," I said. "I knighted Lesh three years ago. Sometimes I think he's still not comfortable with it-any more than I'm really comfortable with all the nonsense that goes with my titles."

  Timon came racing up the stairs so soon after Lesh went down that he must have been waiting for the summons. Timon was grinning all the way up the stairs. It was a big day for him, like making the move from grade school to high school, I guess-something like it anyway.

  Joy, Timon, and I stepped through to Castle Basil and made our way down to the great hall just as the sun was making itself visible for the day. I wore my knife and both elf swords, and Joy's arm was linked through mine. Timon stepped out in front as we reached the great hall to announce us.

  But I didn't hear one word he said I glanced toward the head table and received one of the biggest shocks of my life.

  Aaron was sitting up there next to Parthet.

  Parthet stood up quickly when I started hurrying across the great hall. He held up a hand like a traffic cop trying to get cars to stop.

  "I didn't do anything," he said before I got halfway to him.

  "What happened?" I asked, slowing down only a little. I could hear Joy hurrying to catch up with me. We went around to the head table. Two places were set for us.

  "Just what happened before, it looks like," Parthet said. "This time, he appeared right here in the great hall."

  "Where were you when you went poof this time, Aaron?" I asked.

  "Right there where you left me," he said. His voice sounded shaky. He had apparently been crying. He looked around, then looked up at me again. "Right after you left, Uncle Jake told me that Gramma was dead. I said no, she couldn't be. Then my head felt real funny and I was here again."

  "How many people were there with you?" I asked.

  "Uncle Jake and Aunt Sue. The policeman and two ladies from the hospital." He held up his hand and ex-tended a finger for each of them. "Five people." That many shocks in twenty-four hours, I'd probably have to count on my fingers too. It was more than any child should ever have to suffer.

  "Do you need any more proof that he belongs here?" Parthet asked softly. Family-they're the people who never, show any hesitation at saying, "I told you so."

  "I won't argue the point right this minute," I said. "But that also doesn't mean that I've changed my mind. I've got to think on it first."

  Servants had already started to bring in breakfast, so the discussion was easily postponed. Parthet is hard to distract at mealtime, even when it's something that's really got him hopped up. Joy and I took our seats and Timon did his best to keep our plates and mugs full. He really didn't have much trouble. Joy started slowly, though before long she was shoveling the food in almost as rapidly as anyone else in the hall.

  Not even deep thought can slow me down much during a Castle Basil meal. I can think and eat at the same time without any difficulty at all. And I had a lot to think about. Besides the panic in my world over the Coral Lady, there was the way that Aaron Wesley Carpenter kept popping up in Varay and the talking elf head that Parthet still had. And King Pregel was still sick.

  Of course, Pregel seemed to be sick as often as not. His health was precarious. He would get over one thing and be fine for a week or a month-even for three or four months running-and then he would get sick again. When my great-grandfather got sick, seriously ill, Mother would tear off to our world and bring Doc McCreary back for a long-distance castle call. Doc McCreary would do what he could without any of the equipment available in a modern hospital, and leave the day-to-day nursing to Mother and a few local women Mother had been training. The king would recover and the level of tension in Castle Basil would decline.

  By the time breakfast started to wind down, I had some ideas on precautions to take after Parthet's warning that there had to be trouble ahead for Varay and the rest of the buffer zone, but I still didn't have real answers. I asked Parthet if there had been any weird manifestations other than Aaron's two sudden appearances.

  "Non
e that I've heard of," he said. "But there are bound to be more. The disruptions are just too great for there not to be more." Then he pulled a small leather bag out of some recess in his clothing. "Here, I got these done last night. I couldn't sleep." I opened the bag and found a set of rings like the two I wear. I gave the new rings to Joy.

  "The eagle always goes on your left hand, the signet on the right," I told her. She slipped them on and they fit perfectly. That's not the kind of thing that Uncle Parthet was likely to make a mistake about.

  "These are the rings that open those doorways?" Joy whispered.

  "Yes, and they identify you as part of the royal family as well."

  "But I'm not, really."

  "You are in every way that matters. We can take care of the formalities any time you're ready. I'll have to ask the chamberlain. I don't even know how marriages are done here."

  "Was that a proposal?" We were both whispering by then.

  I smiled. "I guess it was. What do you say?"

  She blinked, but that was the extent of her hesitation. "I say that I think we've come too far to back out now."

  I grinned at her before I turned back to Parthet. There was still business to talk about.

  "I think I need to make a fast tour of the border castles to see if anything's happened, and to warn them to be careful," I told Parthet. "Find out if there's any unusual trouble with Xayber or warlords out of Dorthin." Parthet nodded around a mouthful of ham. I snorted. "Find out if there are any other kids like Aaron popping up around Varay." That caught Parthet's attention. He stopped chewing to stare at me, but Joy was at me from the other side.

  "How long will you be gone?" Joy asked.

  "Well, let's see," I said as I turned again."There are five border castles in the north and east, four more in the west. That makes nine castellans to talk to in Varay, and Duke Dieth over in Dorthin. I don't think I could possibly finish in less than three or four hours."

  Joy seemed to miss a beat on that. Then she swatted my shoulder. "I thought you were going to say three or four weeks."