by Dean Cadman
Byron glanced out of his office window on several occasions during their long conversation, and Lusam had simply presumed that he was checking to see if the people outside had dispersed yet. He had just returned to the window yet again, when Lusam announced that it was time they should be leaving soon.
“Where are you intending to stay tonight?” Byron asked.
“We were hoping to find a room at the local tavern,” Lusam replied.
Byron grunted. “Well, I’d be sharp about it, if I were you, lad. It looks like they might be very busy tonight,” he said, looking in the direction of the tavern. Lusam stood up and went to join him at the window. The large crowd had indeed dispersed, but now the street outside was filled with people carrying timber and other supplies instead. They appeared to be collecting it from various warehouses along the docks, then either by hand or loading it onto carts, were transporting it all towards the far end of town.
“What are they doing?” Lusam asked as Neala came to join him.
“I’d say they’re planning a large celebration. Looks like you might not get much sleep tonight, lad.”
“A celebration of what? … Oh, no!…” Lusam said, as he suddenly realised what was happening.
Byron chuckled. “Are you sure you wouldn’t like another glass of brandy before you go, lad?”
“I might,” Neala said under her breath, as she too realised what was about to happen.
They spent another hour by the window, watching the seemingly endless procession of people transporting goods towards the tavern. Lusam and Neala contemplated spending the night elsewhere, including Byron’s office, but they soon realised two things. The first was that the locals would no doubt go looking for them if they didn’t show up for the celebrations, and would likely be very upset if they couldn’t find them. The second, and even more important, was the fact that they might still need the goodwill of a Fairport Captain to take them to their destination, should Captain Waylon refuse to do so without payment. The unavoidable truth was, they simply couldn’t afford to upset the locals by not attending their celebration. And with that in mind, they bid Byron farewell, and headed—reluctantly—towards the hive of activity at the far end of town.
It was already dark outside when they left Byron’s office but the glow of freshly lit bonfires illuminated their path. The distant sounds of fiddles and flutes could be heard mingled with joyous laughter as they approached the festivities. People danced in pairs around the large bonfires, casting their long shadows onto the surrounding streets. And the smell of freshly cooked food drifted tantalisingly on the cold night air.
Neala swore under her breath when she saw the number of people in the square outside the tavern. “It looks like they’ve started without us,” she jested, taking hold of his hand.
“I don’t suppose they could finish without us, too, could they?” Lusam replied.
Neala chuckled. “Come on, let’s just get it done with. If we’re lucky, it will all be over before we know it. Besides, after a few mugs of ale, who knows, we might actually enjoy it.”
“Hmm, maybe… and that food does smell good,” Lusam replied, grinning and snuffing the air like a hound dog. Neala rolled her eyes at him, but remained silent.
As they entered the light of the first bonfire, people immediately began to recognise them and stopped what they were doing. Neala pulled Lusam closer and linked his arm with her own.
“Smile a little, they look terrified of you,” she whispered, through clenched teeth.
“I know how they feel,” he replied in a whisper, forcing a friendly smile onto his face. The effect was immediate, and much to his dismay several people came over to thank him for what he had done for them and their families. His new approachability didn’t go unnoticed by the others there, either, and soon they were surrounded by people offering their thanks and eternal gratitude for what he’d done.
After fifteen minutes of trying to slowly edge their way towards the tavern entrance, they all but gave up. At one point, Lusam had been tempted to levitate himself and Neala out of the throng of people, but when he realised that an open show of magic would only likely serve to increase their interest in him, he decided against it. Instead, he began to resign himself to the strong possibility of remaining where they were for the rest of the evening. That was, until a female voice bellowed out above the ruckus of the crowd.
“MAKE WAY! … MAKE WAY, I SAID!”
The noise and commotion of the celebrations died down instantly, and the crowd began to part to let her through. Lusam was expecting to see a mountainous woman, clad in full armour and carrying a deadly weapon of some sorts. But instead, the woman who emerged through the parted crowd couldn’t have been further from his vision. She stood less than five feet tall with unruly red hair, and wore only the modest outfit of a barkeep. She stood with her hands firmly on her hips and a look on her face that dared anyone to challenge her.
“What in the Seven Hells are you folks thinking? Our friends here saved all your ungrateful hides, as well your kin’s, and not one of you have had the decency to provide them with a drink of ale, let alone anything to eat. You should be ashamed of yourselves!” she said, meeting anyone’s eyes who dared to even look at her—but very few people did. “Now, you folk get back to your drinkin’ and dancin’, while I ensure our friends here get something inside them. And don’t even think about coming inside to bother them, or you’ll have Mouse to deal with. And while you’re at it, someone best make sure they have somewhere to sit when they do come back outside, unless you intend for them to stand up all night.” Unsurprisingly, no one argued with her, and a moment later the fiddler started playing and people started to dance once more. The barkeep beckoned Lusam and Neala to follow her with a nod of her head, then spun on her heels and vanished back inside the tavern.
“Actually, I think I might feel safer out here,” Lusam whispered in jest. Neala tutted and gave him a playful slap on the arm, before grabbing his hand and pulling him towards the tavern door.
The tavern was warm and welcoming inside, with well-polished floors and two large open fires: one at each end of the long room. The thick curtains were closed against the cold and dark outside, and the entire room was lit by a dozen oil burning lamps hanging from the ceiling. A massive grey dog lay asleep in front of one of the fires, seemingly oblivious to what was going on around it. Besides themselves and the barkeep, only six other people were inside the tavern, and none of them paid much attention as they entered the room. Lusam guessed that they might be from out of town, and only staying at the tavern while their business in Fairport was concluded. But whatever their reasons for being there, he was glad for their lack of interest in them.
Lusam had to bite his lip to stop himself from smiling when the barkeep offered them a drink. She could barely see over the counter, let alone reach the glasses above her head.
“My name’s Alicia, but most people ’round here call me Ali. And you must be Lusam, and Neala, I presume. I’ve heard a lot about you, and not just what you did to those Empire ships. You seem to have made quite a name for yourselves throughout Afaraon,” she said, wiping clean two flagons with her cloth.
“Yeah, unfortunately,” Lusam replied, taking another look at the enormous grey dog.
“Mouse…”
“What?” Lusam replied.
“That’s his name, Mouse. On account of his colour and how small he was when he was a pup. Trouble is, someone forgot to tell him to stop growing,” Alicia said, grinning. Lusam watched as the huge dog lifted one eyelid to see who was talking about him, then went swiftly back to sleep again.
Neala chuckled. “I was wondering what you meant outside when you said they’d have to deal with Mouse if they came inside to bother us. Now it makes a lot more sense. Although, he doesn’t really look like much of a threat to me.”
Mouse suddenly stood up and stretch out lazily on his front paws, yawned widely, then shook himself. Neala expected him to curl back up in front of
the fire, but instead, he locked eyes with her, and in three giant bounds she found herself face to face with the enormous hound. Mouse was taller than she was, and towered above her as he snarled menacingly only inches from her face. His forepaws rested heavily on her shoulders and his claws dug uncomfortably into her skin. Neala froze to the spot, terrified to move, or even make a sound. She could feel his hot breath on her face, as the huge animal continued to growl and snarl at her menacingly.
Lusam was shocked by the dog’s sudden surge of aggression towards Neala. His first reaction was to blast the animal away from her with his magic, but instead, he looked at Alicia to see if she would intervene herself. He was appalled to see her standing there with a smile on her face, seemingly enjoying what was happening in front of her. Realising that killing her dog probably wouldn’t do them any favours with the locals, Lusam instead chose to try and calm the animal with his magic. He sent out powerful waves of calming thoughts towards the beast, trying to reassure it that neither he nor Neala, was a threat. Lusam couldn’t believe what happened next. Instead of reacting to his influence and backing down, the huge animal seemed to lean to the side and look over Neala’s shoulder directly at him. The intelligence he saw in its eyes stunned him. The massive dog then turned its attention back to Neala, and gave her face three sloppy licks of affection.
Alicia laughed openly at the look of shock on their faces, and Mouse simply dropped to the ground and slowly walked back to lay in front of the fire again, as if nothing had happened. “Mouse said he likes you, Neala, but he’s not sure about the loud one. He doesn’t like being shouted at,” Alicia said chuckling. “I have to say, though, you’ve certainly surprised me. It seems you have some Gimorn blood in you, boy.”
“What? … I mean… how… how can you talk to a dog?” Lusam stammered, looking between the massive grey hound and Alicia.
“Why not? You just did. Or more to the point, you shouted something at him. Actually, now you come to mention it, what was it that you tried to say to him?”
“Say to him? I didn’t try to say anything to him. You can’t talk to animals. All you can do is project basic feelings towards them. I tried to calm him down, that’s all.”
Alicia chuckled, shaking her head. “Of course you can speak with animals, if you know what to say to them. Or at least you can if you have the ability, like we do. Mouse here is a little different, I’ll be honest, but the principle remains the same with any animal.”
“So you’re saying that you can actually talk to him?” Neala asked, gawking at the large snoring dog.
“Yes, I can. And sorry for scaring you like that, but you were never in any real danger. I just told him what you said about him not looking vicious, and asked him if he’d like to prove you wrong. For a dog, he has a wicked sense of humour,” Alicia replied grinning at her.
“Yeah, hilarious,” Neala replied sarcastically.
“Wait a minute. What do you mean he’s a little different?” Lusam asked, still trying to come to terms with what Alicia had just told them. He had always been able to communicate with animals, ever since his grandmother had taught him how as a young boy. But no matter how hard he had tried to have a meaningful conversation with any of them, all he had ever managed to achieve was to convey basic emotions to them. He could project feelings of security and safety, or promise of food or reward. He could even project fear and make an animal flee, but never had he been able to gain a direct response from an animal. As far as he knew, from what his grandmother had taught him as well as his own experiences, that was simply impossible.
“Mouse is different because I bonded with him as a small pup, so he’s had time to learn our ways, and even our language to a certain extent. But it’s still possible to communicate with most other animals, if you know how and what to say.”
“Bonded?” Lusam asked.
Alicia paused for a moment, as if trying to find the right words to explain. “Have you ever met someone that you instantly took a liking to?” Lusam immediately looked at Neala. “No, not like that,” Alicia said smiling. “I mean just a friend or associate?”
Lusam tried to think of someone, but apart from Neala, he had never felt that way about anyone. Even when he’d first met Renn, it had taken time to get to know and trust him before he was able to truly call him a friend. Alicia must have seen him struggling to understand, and decided to try and explain it a different way.
“Okay, let’s use Neala as an example then. When you first met her, I presume you took an instant liking to her. So imagine you felt the same way about a particular animal, and it felt the same way about you. Well, obviously not the same way you felt about Neala, but I’m sure you get my meaning,” Alicia said grinning. Lusam nodded, but still didn’t really understand where she was going with the conversation.
“So, if a human and an animal share the same desire to mentally bond, and spend enough time with each other, it becomes possible to share certain thoughts and feelings with each other. Of course, the human has to have the ability to share their thoughts in the first place, and the animal has to be intelligent enough to do likewise. There would be no point, for example, trying to bond with a frog or a field mouse, because they don’t possess enough intelligence to share their thoughts effectively. Likewise, many domesticated animals, such as sheep or cows fall into the same category. As do many predatory animals, such as foxes, bears and cats, but the latter for very different reasons. Predatory animals are by their very nature solitary hunters, or live in tightly knit groups, usually within a hierarchy. Such animals rarely bond with humans, although it has been known to happen on rare occasions.”
“And you are bonded with Mouse?” Neala asked.
Alicia sighed. “Yes, although it wasn’t my intention at the time,” she said, then quickly added. “Not that I regret doing so now, you understand. When it happened I was in a very dark place in my life, and had all but given up on living. I was cold and hungry one day, and stumbled across an abandoned farmstead on the northern coast of Afaraon. There wasn’t much there in way of comfort, but I found an old barn with some hay still in the loft and took refuge there from the bitter cold outside. During the night I began to hear an intermittent whimpering noise, but it was far too dark to see where it was coming from. By the time the first rays of morning light had entered the barn, the whimpering had long since ceased. Or at least I thought it had. Just as I was about to move on, I heard it once more. But this time it was much weaker.
“When I eventually found him, he was all but dead from the freezing cold. His mother had already died from what looked like a snake bite. But before she had succumbed to the poison, she had somehow managed to drag herself back to her pups in the barn. It looked like they had suckled from her long after she had died, but it hadn’t been enough to save the rest of the litter. Only Mouse had survived, and even he was perilously close to death when I found him. He looked like he was the biggest of his littermates, but he was still tiny and easily fit in the palm of my hand. I was going to leave him there and let nature take its course. But I could feel his incredibly strong will to survive. He wasn’t ready to give up… even if I was.
“I felt him reach out to me, but at first I refused to let him in. I didn’t need any more complications in my life just then. And I knew what bonding with an animal meant. It meant sharing everything, and right then I had nothing to share, not even a will to live. But somehow, he pulled me back from the abyss. Whether it was intentional, or just his own insatiable appetite for life that spilled over into me, I’ll never know. But the days turned into weeks and the weeks into months. Winter fled, and the warmer days of spring washed away many of my darker thoughts. I couldn’t tell you the exact moment when we bonded, but I know everything would have been very different if we hadn’t—for both of us.”
Lusam still wasn’t sure that he understood, but one thing that Alicia did say grabbed his attention. She had suggested that he might have Gimorn blood in him. He had heard that name spoken befo
re when they had been chased by the Nylian trackers on their way to meet up with the Nauroe. Durlan had explained that the Nylian trackers acquired their sturdy little horses from the Gimorn, a people who lived in the far north of Podrana.
“So, you’re from Podrana?” Lusam asked quietly. He saw Alicia momentarily tense up, and even saw Mouse flinch out of the corner of his eye. He watched as Alicia scanned the room for any sign that they had been overheard, before returning her gaze back to him. Sensing her sudden discomfort, Lusam decided to erect a soundproof barrier around them so they could speak freely.
“Don’t worry, no one else in the room can hear us now. I’ve placed a soundproof barrier around us,” Lusam said. Alicia looked all around them, as if expecting to see some evidence of it. When she failed to see anything, she resorted instead to calling out to one of the patrons, who of course, never heard a thing. If she was impressed, she didn’t say so, and instead fixed Lusam in her gaze for a long while before she decided to answer him.
“Yes, I’m from Podrana,” Alicia said, reluctantly. “But I’d be obliged if you kept that fact to yourselves. People around here already think I’m a little strange. If they knew I was from Podrana, they would probably chase me out of town. People always fear what they don’t understand.”
Lusam nodded. “So, you came across the sea on the Ruf… Rufum?”
“Rufihm,” Alicia corrected. “And yes, I did.” She paused for a moment, then took a deep breath and continued. “That’s how I found myself on your northern shores in the depths of winter. And the reason why I felt my life was no longer worth living. You see, nine of us set off from Podrana, including my husband, mother and three sisters, but only I made it to Afaraon alive. The rest were…” Alicia shook her head, unable to finish what she was about to say. The painful memories were obviously too much for her to bear, and Lusam understood wholeheartedly.
“I’m sorry,” he said, with genuine feeling. She looked up at him with tears in her eyes and nodded, before turning her attention to pouring them two mugs of ale. She cleared her throat and continued as if the conversation had never taken place, and Lusam was happy to leave it that way.
