A Marriage of Friends

by Jeffrey Quyle

  Kestrel was looking nearly directly at the brides in contrast to his angled view of the grooms. Lark wore a gown that was lovely, one that managed to capture her spirited energy, and enhanced it. She looked mostly happy, though her eyes were not shining. She too looked at the audience, and when she recognized Kestrel he saw her face grow pale.

  Gail was already pale, looking drawn, but resolute. She wore a gown that was completely black, and it clung to her body and accentuated her womanliness in a way that Kestrel had never noticed before.

  Gail also spotted him, and he saw her eyes grow moist, shining brightly as a tear started to brim. She waved her fingers ever so slightly at him.

  As she did, a priest appeared on the stage, emerging from a curtain that hung behind the platform.

  Kestrel raised his hand slightly and waved back.

  “Today we will follow the dictates of Growelf for convening a wedding, and shall hew the brides to the grooms in marriage that shall last eternally, through all that life conveys,” the priest began to recite the words of the ceremony.

  “You came to this room once and set a lovely girl free, didn’t you tell us?” Tyle spoke to Kestrel in the softest of tones, her lips barely moving.

  “These unions shall be permanent, and shall bind the women to obey the wishes of their husbands,” the priest spoke in a powerful voice, one that penetrated to the far corners of the audience hall.

  “You could do it again,” Tyle said, “if you really believe that love is part of marriage.”

  Her words astonished him, and they snapped some element of self-restrain within him.

  Kestrel stood up, and the priest looked up in surprise at the unexpected motion taking place so close to the wedding platform.

  “I ask that one of these marriages not be complete,” Kestrel spoke loudly.

  All eyes were on him, and he realized he had reacted to Tyle’s prompting without consciously preparing to.

  “Kestrel, you’re so sweet,” Lark spoke. She took a step forward.

  “This is not allowed,” the priest said. “No mortal may interrupt the holy ceremony that has been sanctioned by the Temple of Growelf.”

  There was a loud rumble of thunder in the sky above the palace.

  “I don’t remember any clouds,” Kestrel heard someone in the audience whisper.

  “I am here to speak to Gail, to ask her if she will accept my hand in marriage,” Kestrel felt the words well up, and he blurted them out. They weren’t elegant words, nothing poetic or expressive of the love that had revealed itself to him the previous night.

  “This is outrageous!” Lucius spoke loudly.

  “Gates, Stuart, take our friend out of the hall!” he ordered.

  Kestrel saw movement in the front corners, and realized that the two guards were posted to watch over the ceremony. He saw the two men glance at each other, then look at him.

  “Begging your pardon, my young lord, but you’re asking us to handle the Destroyer, the friend who saved our lives countless times, as well as your own?” Stuart asked. Another rumble of thunder broke in the sky above, making the walls and floor vibrate.

  “Stop!” Gail wailed the word, adding to the extraordinary drama that was unfolding. “I thank you my lord,” she turned to Kestrel, and took a step towards him. “I do love you Kestrel, but my aunt placed all her efforts into this marriage; I owe it to her to carry out her wishes,” the girl was crying.

  Tyle suddenly stood next to Kestrel. “I have never put much weight in love as an important part of marriage, not for people who have roles to play in society, and not for important times when dynasties must be secured and the throne strengthened,” the duchess said.

  “But you two youngsters,” she placed her hand on Kestrel’s shoulder, “have made me think that perhaps love can be part of a marriage,” she said, making a wave of murmurs run back through the crowd. “If you want to marry this elf, you should,” she said.

  There was a brilliant flash of light on the wedding platform, one that made everyone on the hall jump or shriek in surprise, and when the glowing light diminished, Kestrel saw that it was Growelf himself, the human god of fire, glowing with a bright red halo, standing just a few feet away from his head priest.

  “By all the flames I’ve ever ignited, Kestrel may be an elf, but he’s done more for the humans of the Inner Seas than any human I’ve ever seen. If he wants to marry this girl, he ought to be allowed to marry her,” the god growled.

  There was another flash of light, and the audience shrieked again, as a towering Kai appeared, a warm golden glow illuminating her. “If the girl wants to marry our Kestrel, nothing and nobody in this hall should stop her. Let the girl have a say in the matter, Growelf dear,” the goddess told her husband.

  Another brilliant flash occurred, and Krusima stood glowering at the scene. “The boy did more than he had to. He deserves whatever he can get. I say they ought to be married.”

  Kere suddenly arrived. “I’ve never seen a marriage that made more sense, if you’ll pardon me adding my opinion here in these human lands. The lad is one of my own, a very special one at that.”

  There was a sudden crackling, ripping sound, and a pillar of stone erupted upward out of the platform, a pillar that had a face, and rudimentary arms – Corrant, the god of the gnomes. “There aren’t more than a handful of outsiders who know how to speak the language of my people, and even fewer of them who enjoy my folks, and our occasionally rough ways. He’s even gone through the Garrant Spark, and whole generations of gnomes have lived without suffering that. Girl, you’ll not find a sturdier mate to spend your life with.”

  Women were fainting, and men were fleeing from the remarkable convergence of deities that were congregating in Uniontown on Kestrel’s behalf.

  A streak of light bolted down the central aisle, and Kestrel felt a faint breeze, as his father joined the collection of gods.

  “You’ll not find a father-in-law better able to do his duties than having me to watch over Kestrel for you,” Morph told Gail, strolling over right next to the astonished girl. “You’ve got to see the sense of marrying my son.”

  “Gail,” Kestrel spoke again, stepping out into the aisle, and towards the platform where the gods stood loosely arrayed in a semicircle around the wedding ceremony.

  “Kestrel, will you marry me?” the girl cried. She dropped the bouquet of flowers she held, and leapt away from the side of the shocked Lark. Gail took three running steps then practically dove at Kestrel, who caught her in his arms, and hugged her tight.

  “Yes,” he said softly, his lips pressed directly against Gail’s ear so that she could hear him over the vast roar of voices in the auditorium. “Yes, I’ll marry you. Right now, as a matter of fact.”

  “You know where to go,” he heard Kai tell him. He looked at the smiling goddess, and nodded his head.

  “Stillwater!” he shouted. “Dewberry, Dewberry, Dewberry!”

  “We’ll see you there,” Morph told Kestrel, and then he was gone in a streak of yellow light. The other gods suddenly disappeared, popping out of existence one by one, leaving the priest and three of the four members of the wedding party standing alone, knees quaking, on the platform.

  The imps appeared overhead, and another wave of shrill exclamations swept through the hall.

  “I’m getting married!” Kestrel shouted to the two blue observers. “Can you take me to Kai’s temple in Hydrotaz?”

  “Married? Married? I have not approved of this!” Dewberry exclaimed.

  “Married to the nice one! Good for you, Kestrel full-heart!!” Stillwater laughed. He paused momentarily, and suddenly a dozen imps that he had called arrived in the ballroom air.

  “Married? To this one?” Odare asked, as a fair of imps came swooping down to fly past Kestrel and the astonished Gail, examining her as they circled around.

  “Today?” Mulberry asked.

  “Where?” Killcen enquired.

  “At Kai’s temple in Hydrotaz,” Kest
rel replied.

  “Hydrotaz?” Gail asked in surprise. “How long will it take us to get there?”

  “No time at all,” Acanthus answered.

  “Bring the duchess as well,” Kestrel nodded his head towards Tyle, as imps suddenly surrounded him and Gail, who was still held in his embrace.

  “We must go find all his friends,” Kestrel heard an unidentified imp say, as many blue bodies pressed against him.

  Then the transition began. The world turned gray, Kestrel felt the surprise shiver in Gail’s body, as they waited for the journey to end.

  “Oh heavens!” she breathlessly said when they arrived at the temple. There were a number of ordinary worshippers there, and Kestrel imagined that for the rest of their lives they would remember the day they just happened to be at Kai’s temple.

  The duchess appeared a second later. “Great powers! What has Gail gotten herself into?” the elderly lady said, her face pale.

  A second later, Alicia appeared, holding her baby in her arms. “Kestrel! What’s going on? The imps said I had to come immediately, and I didn’t need my tools.”

  “I’m getting married!” Kestrel shouted. “This is Gail, from Uniontown,” he explained.

  “Here,” a deep voice thundered from overhead, and the statue of Kai made grating sounds as the stones shifted and the goddess stooped down, then offered one of her great, pale marble hands, the palm held open to reveal a golden ring within. “This will allow your bride to understand the elven language, at least until she comes to learn your words and ways.”

  “Thank you, my goddess,” Kestrel said with gratitude, not having considered the language issue. He lifted the ring from the statue’s hand, then placed in on Gail’s finger, as she stared in wonder.

  “We heard all the stories about you, Kestrel,” the duchess said, staring at the moving statue in wonder as it rose to return to its original pose, “but to live in your world is almost more than my heart can bear!”

  A trio of elves appeared from the Northern Forest, Lucretia and Ripken and Aurelia. “Why have you summoned us, Kestrel?” Ripken asked.

  Kere was suddenly standing with the elves. “I told the imps to come and get you,” the goddess replied. “Kestrel is about to be married, and I thought you would enjoy participating.”

  And so it went for the next half hour, imps kept arriving, bringing humans and elves from all across the Inner Seas, Picco and Ruelin, Hampus, Whyte, Putienne, Philip and Yulia, Lucretia and Giardell, dozens of people – elves and gnomes and humans – whose lives had been intertwined with Kestrel’s, while the gods who had appeared in Uniontown arrived in Kai’s temple as well.

  “If he had just made a temple half as nice as this for me in the first place, we all could have avoided a great deal of trouble,” Krusima grumbled loudly as the gods lined up in front of the railing around the statue.

  The essence of Kai detached herself from the statue, shrinking down as a wispy figure until she was the size of a mortal human, then solid and material, standing next to Kere, in her grandmotherly form.

  “We will perform the ceremony jointly,” the two goddesses pronounced, everyone miraculously able to understand the languages they spoke.

  “There’s just one thing I’d like to do, with my bride’s permission,” Kestrel spoke up, drawing looks of surprise from both Kai and Kere.

  “There was something about Gail that she changed once, or that I changed for her, not because it was bad, but because it was foolishly disliked by the people on Uniontown,” Kestrel said. “If Gail has no objection, I’d like to undo that now, to let her true beauty be seen by all as it should be seen.”

  The girl turned a radiant smile towards him. “If you see no shame in being married to me as I have always been, I would welcome the change,” she told him tenderly.

  Kestrel placed his hands on either side of her head, then closed his eyes and focused his energy, before causing a wave of rich, deep auburn color to swiftly rise from the roots of Gail’s hair to the end of every strand. He removed his hands when finished, then opened his eyes, leaned forward, and kissed her forehead.

  “You are so beautiful,” he told her, before they both turned towards the pair of goddesses, who smiled and carried on with their ceremony.

  “You, Gail, will have to be a strong woman, one who is able to corral your husband before he goes off on crusades. You will have to teach him to set priorities, to remember to always come home, and yet to stay true to his nature of a good heart and noble intentions. You have the love and the heart and the charisma to teach and to lead him in the right direction. Will you promise to do these things?” the goddesses asked.

  “I will always try!” she promised eagerly.

  “You Kestrel, will have to remember that you will now have forever and always someone waiting at home, someone who delights in seeing you, and a family that will be raised depending on you as their father. You must not cease to spread your great powers and good intentions, but will simply have to harness them more effectively, as you and Gail travel together through life.

  “Will you faithfully remember to give Gail first place in your heart?” they asked him.

  “Always and forever!” he said cheerfully. It suddenly struck him that he was getting married, really truly married, and he felt his knees grow weak.

  “Kestrel?” Morph spoke up. “Kestrel, pay attention. Are you feeling alright? You look pale.”

  “I’m fine,” Kestrel gave a wan smile. He looked at his father, then looked at the goddesses, then looked at Gail. “I’m more than fine,” he said. “I’m the luckiest man in the world today!”

  “Far luckier than the crown prince of Uniontown,” Duchess Tyle spoke up.

  “Well Kestrel?” Kai said.

  “Well Kestrel?” Gail repeated.

  “What? Well what?” he asked.

  “Aren’t you going to kiss me, and declare me to be your wife?” Gail asked. She leaned slightly towards him, and rose up on the toes of her feet.

  Kestrel leaned forward, and gently placed his lips against Gail’s, a soft tender kiss that lasted for a second, until she wrapped her arms around the back of his neck and pulled him into a more passionate buss, one that left him breathless.

  The multitudes of imps that flew overhead suddenly broke into song, singing a rousing chorus whose words made Kestrel blush as he held Gail’s hand and looked up towards the ceiling.

  “That is our traditional wedding song!” Stillwater told Kestrel as he swooped down to explain the song. “We have never sung it for anyone but our own people until now!”

  “Thank you!” Gail spoke up. “It was an honor, and an inspiration!”

  Kestrel looked around in amazement as the crowd broke into cheers.

  “Now, we all need to give our newly married couple time to have a honeymoon,” Kai spoke up, quieting the crowd immediately.

  “Good friend imps, will you proceed to deliver all these guests back to their homes?” she asked.

  The guests immediately crowded around Kestrel and Gail eager to congratulate them on their happy surprise, and as a line formed, the imps started gathering around those who finished their turns speaking to the newlyweds, giving all the guests a chance to greet them.

  Hours later, the last guests disappeared. The gods had all silently vanished during the dispersal of the guests, and Kestrel and Gail found themselves alone with only a handful of imps.

  “Are you ready to go on your honeymoon?” Stillwater asked.

  “Honeymoon?” Kestrel asked in surprise.

  “We have spoken among ourselves, and we have decided there is a perfect place for you to spend your first evening as a married couple,” the imp explained. Odare suddenly laughed aloud, grinned, and vanished.

  “She will go gather the basket, and meet us at the wonderful location,” Killcen said.

  Kestrel had a sudden suspicion, but could ask no questions before the imps gathered around him and Gail, who wrapped their arms around each other,
and were carried into the nothingness that existed between places when the imps traveled.

  And then they were in a wooded glen, bright stars visible overhead, and murmuring water flowing through a deep pool of spring water.

  “What could be better for you than the waters of the healing spring?” Mulberry archly asked.

  Odare arrived, carrying a large wicker basket. “This is from your own kitchen, selected by your friends, who hope you enjoy your night here,” she said as she strained to hold the heavily-laden basket. She lowered it to the ground, as the imps all began to undress.

  “What is the meaning of this?” Gail asked in astonishment, as Kestrel easily lifted his friends and laid them into the shallow waters.

  “This water makes the imps fall asleep, and they remain asleep, deep in wonderful dreams, until they are lifted from the water,” Kestrel explained.

  “Well, they’ve set an interesting example,” Gail said. “Let’s take our clothes off too, and see if we have any dreams tonight,” she looked alluringly at Kestrel, then began to unbutton her dress.

  “I think that’s the perfect idea,” Kestrel grinned. “Let me help you,” he said, and they began their honeymoon, a perfect couple who had not even planned to wed each other just hours earlier.

  If you’re interested by other stories by Jeff Quyle, consider reading his earlier work, the ten volume Ingenairii Series, which follows the life of Alec the Healer. The sample below is from the first novel of the series, Visions of Power:

  Moments later there was a yell, and everyone ran over to see what someone had found. Alec craned to look over a shoulder. “What is it?” Alec asked, unable to see anything. Seconds later the group silently parted to give him a view, and one man pointed down. In the dust of the road was a human-sized footprint, with three long toes.

  “What is it?” Alec repeated. The group was silent. “Could it be a bear, or a mountain lion?” he asked.