The Healing Spring tisk-1

by Jeffrey Quyle

  “Looks like you’re going to fit in,” Gion said conversationally as they left the building and turned right.

  Kestrel looked at him inquisitively.

  “Well, Belinda gave you the seal of approval, said she’d watch your things for you. Cosima will do whatever she tells him to; whether he knows it or not — she runs this place, you know,” Gion explained. “So if you want something, just let Belinda know, and she’ll take care of it for you.”

  They continued to walk through the camp, about the size of Elmheng’s, and reached the armory after only a few minutes. “There’s the commander,” Gion pointed across the room, where several pairs of guards were practicing using large combat staffs to battle one another.

  Having completed his assignment, Gion left Kestrel at the armory so that he could return to his guard post, and Kestrel stood by the door alone, watching the swift movements of the poles that the combatants poked, swung, and levered at one another as they practiced their weapon work. Kestrel had never seen staffs used in combat before, and he found the work being done fascinating, as the blurred movements produced clacking noises and furtive motions.

  “You, come over here,” one slender staff wielder called as he pointed his pole at Kestrel.

  “I’m here to see Commander Casimo,” Kestrel explained, as he stopped at a safe distance from the contests on the practice pads.

  “I’m Casimo,” the slender man said, stepping off the pads towards, Kestrel, then holding his hand out.

  Kestrel started to place his message tube in the man’s hand, but Casimo slapped it away. “No, no, you can surely shake hands hello first,” he laughed. Kestrel hesitantly stuck his free hand at the man, and felt a hearty shake and a firm grip.

  “Very good! Now, give me the message tube, then take my staff and get out there to start practicing,” the commander shocked Kestrel by telling him, holding his staff out towards the newly arrived messenger.

  Kestrel cautiously took the staff as Casimo twisted the tube open and began to walk over towards a window as he pulled the paper from the tube. Kestrel looked at the practice mats, where a partner awaited him while other pairs continued to whack and clack their staves against one another’s weapons.

  He approached the elf who was awaiting him, but he no sooner got within range than the end of the other elf’s staff poked out at his feet and tripped him up, so that he landed on his back.

  “Come on,” his putative partner said, extending a hand to help him up. “That was just for fun; I couldn’t resist.” Kestrel grasped the extended hand and felt himself lifted upright.

  “I’m Arlen,” the elf told Kestrel, who examined the man as he held his hand. Arlen looked at least ten years older than Kestrel, and was built stout and solid. His eyes were purple, and Kestrel stopped looking at anything else or thinking about anything else as he stared at the extraordinary color of Arlen’s irises.

  “You’ve not seen anything like these before, I take it?” Arlen asked as they released each other’s hands.

  “No, never,” Kestrel affirmed.

  “You’ve never been up north here, or over near the Water Mountains?” Arlen checked.

  “Never,” Kestrel agreed again.

  “Not many southerners do come up to our part of the kingdom, though of course we seldom leave it to come down south — why should we when we’ve got the best part of the forest to live in, eh?” Arlen said. “Now, are you ready?” He took a stance that looked dangerous to Kestrel.

  “I’ve never used one of these before,” Kestrel spoke hastily, holding the staff uncertainly before him.

  “I can see that,” Arlen laughed. “Why don’t you go over there?” he pointed with his staff, “and put on some padding.

  “You’re going to need it.”

  Kestrel strapped on the padding with those ominous words ringing in his ears, then returned to the practice mat. He glanced over and saw Casimo still standing in the light of the window, reading Silvan’s message. With a sigh he took a defensive position, and spent most of the next hour getting knocked down, over and over again.

  “That’s enough for today,” Arlen said at last, music to Kestrel’s ears.

  “I’ll be sore tomorrow,” Kestrel said as he started to unstrap his pads.

  “Not as sore as you think,” Arlen commented. “I never actually hit you hard. That was part of today’s lesson — it only took gentle taps in the right places to knock you down. You’ll learn how to do that yourself — how to leverage the impact of your blows to get the biggest impact for your effort.”

  “Come with me Kestrel,” Casimo called from the doorway, “after you put your equipment away.”

  Kestrel obediently went to the racks where he hung up the pads, and returned the practice staff to a slot on the wall, as others continued to energetically practice their skills with the simple wooden poles.

  “See you tomorrow Kestrel,” Arlen said cheerily as Kestrel walked out the door with Casimo. Kestrel waved uncertainly and then fell in step besides the commander.

  “Have you ever been to Firheng before?” Casimo asked as they began to walk.

  “Never, sir,” Kestrel replied.

  “I’ve been to Elmheng a time or two — that’s where you’re from, isn’t it?” the commander asked.

  “Yes sir. I was only in Center Trunk for a day before I came here. The rest of the time I lived in Elmheng,” Kestrel affirmed.

  “We don’t get many trainees from Elmheng, none at all in the past years that I can recollect. Isn’t that odd?” Casimo mused. “It’s practically as close to human territory as we are; you’d think the two would produce the same number of recruits.”

  “This is our headquarters, as you know,” Casimo explained as they began to climb the steps of the building Kestrel had visited before. “Belinda will get you settled into quarters and arrange for meal chits. You’re welcome to leave the base anytime you’re not engaged in activities,” he said.

  “You’ve already met our new member, I take it?” the commander said to Belinda as they entered her office, and stopped in front of her desk.

  “Yes, and he seems like he’s going to be a delightful boy to work with,” she replied, giving another of the dazzling smiles that Kestrel found so enticing.

  “So you’ve already sweet-talked Belinda and swept her off her feet, have you?” Casimo turned to Kestrel. “That was excellent tactical judgment. You’re going to be a success, I can tell. Come on in and we’ll talk a little bit, then you can flirt with Belinda and get your plum housing assignment arranged.”

  The two elves walked into the office behind Belinda, through the door she guarded, as she smiled and winked in a friendly manner at Kestrel, as if to let him know that Casimo’s sense of humor was nothing to worry about.

  Kestrel took a seat, wondering what the threads of the afternoon were going to tangle him up in, suddenly convinced that nothing said or done so far during his visit to Firheng was without purpose and that his visit to the outpost would be longer than he anticipated; his return to Elmheng began to seem like a very distance hope in his future. “Am I being assigned here?” he blurted out his question.

  Casimo studied him momentarily, then smiled a smile that was both conspiratorial and sympathetic. “If you’re bright enough to ask that question, you’re bright enough to know there was no point in asking.”

  Kestrel sighed, wondering what Silvan had in mind. “How long does he want to keep me hidden here? When can I go home to Elmheng?” he asked.

  “My report from Colonel Silvan says that I am supposed to put you through both the first and second stage training courses we carry out, immediately and simultaneously; it’s going to be a while before you’ll be done here, and where ever you go after that, I’m pretty sure it won’t be just Elmheng,” Casimo told him. “On the positive side, and there is one, if the Colonel wants us to devote that much attention to you, he must have some very significant plans for you, and some high expectations.

  “A
s you undoubtedly know,” Kestrel saw Casimo watching him closely now, no pretense of casual attitude about Kestrel’s presence at his camp.

  “I only met Colonel Silvan less than a week ago; I just talked to him twice,” Kestrel replied. “And I am just an ordinary, everyday guardsman from Elmheng; this is my first trip away from there.”

  Casimo’s eye’s narrowed. “Colonel Silvan is shrewd, and canny, and he plays his cards close to his chest, but I wouldn’t second-guess him for a minute. Whatever it is, he sees something in you that he intends to use.

  “Now go out there and ask Belinda what arrangements she has made for you. Show up first thing tomorrow morning at the armory, and we’ll start your training.”

  “What am I going to be trained in?” Kestrel asked.

  “In the armory, you’ll be trained in the use of the staff and the sword. Your classroom work will be human language and culture, and human geography,” Casimo said as he stood up.

  “Oh no, he really does think he can make me a spy!” Kestrel felt a knot of fear sink to the pit of his stomach.

  “That’s why you’re here, Kestrel. It’s what we do better than anyplace else in the kingdom. We’ll give you as many tools as we can to fit into the human world, and looking at you, it’s obvious why Silvan is interested in you. There are a few issues to deal with, but those aren’t my responsibility,” Casimo told him as the commander walked around the desk.

  “But for the things I can teach you, I will make you as good at the human arts as any human you’ll run into,” he added as they reached the door, Kestrel in a daze, and entered Belinda’s office.

  She was no longer behind her desk, but stood near the door to the hallway. “That was lucky timing,” she told them. “I was about to finish up.” She walked back to her desk and picked up an envelope, on which Kestrel saw his own name prominently scrawled in a looping, feminine hand. “Come with me and I’ll show you where you’re staying and where you can have meals,” she beckoned him. “Will you need anything else?” she asked Casimo.

  “Make sure you show him where the infirmary is. He’s going to want to visit there the next few days until he gets his training under control,” the commander added, and then they were out the door.

  “You know where the armory is now,” Belinda pointed behind them in the direction that Casimo had led Kestrel from. “This is the infirmary, where I’m sure you’ll never need to visit,” she emphasized the word ‘never’ as they passed a tall, single-story building with large windows. “And this is the visitors’ quarters,” she motioned to a tall, round building with stairs on the exterior, climbing to doors that were as much as four stories high above the ground.

  “You’re in luck; attendance is low right now so we’ve got two rooms on the top floor,” she informed him, referring to the higher rooms that elves preferred as a replica of staying among the lofty branches of a tree.

  “Here’s a meal pass,” she handed him a small wooden tablet with colorful markings. “You can use here on base at the commissary,” she motioned down the street, “or you can use it in town at most of the food vendors, especially the ones closest to the base.”

  Now, I have to hurry home and fix dinner for my husband, so I’m afraid I have to leave you here,” she said as they stood in front of the stairs to the guest quarters. “You run up there and get a room for yourself!” she smiled her dazzling smile once again.

  “Belinda,” Kestrel said before she could turn away. “How long will I be here?”

  “Most of our guests are here for about a half year,” she said, “but it varies from person to person.

  “However long it is, we’ll do everything we can to make your stay a good one,” she assured him, then turned and walked away. Kestrel watched for over a minute as she went to the gate and left the base, then he turned and climbed the stairs up to the top floor, where he selected a room on the east side of the building to be his new home.

  It was a large room, with a bed, table, and four chairs, as well as a stand and a hutch. He pulled one of the chairs out through the doorway and sat on his small porch, looking out across the wall of the military base at the city beyond, where he watched people go about their business on the streets. He momentarily detected a faint smell, one that was unfamiliar and made him wrinkle his nose, but then the wind shifted and he only sniffed fresh air once again.

  He didn’t know what to do, or what to say, or even what to think. Somehow, in delivering a message to Firheng, he had become a candidate to be a spy, something that he would never consider on his own, something he had never even really heard anything about before he arrived in Center Trunk just a few days ago. Had Commander Mastrin suggested it to Silvan in the first message that Kestrel had carried, or had Silvan come up with the idea on his own? Nothing made any sense to Kestrel. He watched the shadows across the city lengthen as the sun set at the end of the day, then he climbed down the stairs and went to eat dinner at the commissary, and returned to his room for a fitful night of questions and sleep.

  The next morning Kestrel awoke as the sun rose in the east and its rays shone into his room. He groggily left his bed and went to the commissary for juice and a meat roll, then returned to the armory, where he heard the sound of clashing weapons already in action as he opened the door.

  “Welcome back, sunshine!” Arlen said brightly when he recognized Kestrel standing at the door. “Go put on pads, then come over here to start,” he directed.

  And with that, Kestrel’s education began. He suffered several days of painful instruction in the use of the staff and the sword before he began to establish some basic sufficiency with the two weapons. Elves seldom used the weapons, which required close proximity to an opponent, and which penalized the slight frames and weight that characterized elves, but Kestrel’s partial human heritage and his sturdier build helped him to adjust to both weapons, and to show enough promise with them that he didn’t despair of becoming competent eventually.

  Learning the human language was a much more difficult lesson, however. It sounded fluid and musical to Kestrel, and he actually looked forward to speaking the long, languid consonant-rich words, but his mouth resisted making the shapes and sounds.

  “Make a ‘ssshhh’ sound, not a ‘cckkk’ sound,” Artur, his instructor repeatedly said during lessons, as he tried to learn the pronunciation.

  After a week at Firheng, Belinda told him he was entitled to write one message a week to be sent through the couriers of the guard, and after careful consideration, he wrote a message to Cheryl at Elmheng, and left it with Belinda for delivery. The following day she informed him that it had been examined — she didn’t say by whom — and determined to tell too much about his future prospects as a spy. He rewrote the letter with little real information left in it, and submitted it again for dispatch.

  The letter to Cheryl was a composition that made Kestrel uneasy with guilt. He felt guilty that he had come so close to kissing Lucretia on the same day he had met her, and he felt conversely guilty that when he had to pick to write a first message, he had chosen to write it to Cheryl instead of Lucretia. When his second opportunity came to write a message, he wrote it to Lucretia, and then felt uneasy that he might have misinterpreted how closely they had come to one another during their one-day acquaintance.

  He flipped back and forth, week by week, writing to Cheryl and Lucretia, though no response came back from either; he had been told that none would be allowed during his first three months of training, so that he would focus on his classes and weapons. He was left to wonder how his news was received by the respective recipients. Writing the letters was cathartic; even though he wasn’t able to write down his feelings or express uncertainty about going through spy training, in the process of considering his messages he was able to focus his thoughts on the doubts he held, and to consider how he was going to address those doubts when the day came for him to do so.

  After two months of training, he received a surprise. During the first two months,
he had done nothing but train. Every hour of every morning was spent in the armory with the two human weapons, learning the techniques and gaining familiarity with them. Every afternoon was spent with his tutor, Artur, who drilled the human language into his brain and his mouth.

  “Congratulations,” Arlen told him at the end of one morning’s training. “Kestrel, you’ve made it through two months of training. You haven’t flunked out of the system. In fact, you’re doing much better than most of our students do at this stage; it helps that you’re built like a moose, or maybe I should say human.

  “So today we are going to reward you by adding another lesson to your curriculum,” Arlen said as they stripped off their pads. “Something that I guarantee you’ve never done before, or even thought about.”

  Kestrel’s response was a feeling of curiosity and excitement. He trusted Arlen, who had been a hard, but fair and patient, teacher. “Let’s go,” Arlen said, leading the way out of the armory.

  Chapter 12 — The Hostile Ally

  Ferris spent a great deal of time thinking as he began the march back northeast across Hydrotaz, his squad and other squads of the nation’s forces accompanied by Graylee’s forces. He had spent his whole life warily thinking of Graylee as the large, potentially hostile neighbor on the west, and to now have their forces easily walking through Hydrotaz, observing the villages, learning the roads, consuming Hydrotaz’s resources in the process, made his hackles rise. It would all be great, he hoped, when the time came in battle against the elves, and Graylee’s militia would shed blood and die on behalf of Hydrotaz’s cause.

  But in the meantime, Ferris stuck to his squad, and stewed. He had been soundly criticized by Nicholai, the seneschal of the palace, for the failure of his squad’s effort weeks earlier to start their own fire in the Eastern Forest, and he had stoically accepted the criticism, because no one who had not been there could understand the unholy appearance of the storm that had appeared from nowhere and doused the forest fire before its flames could kindle and consume a broad swath of territory.