“Happiness, health, togetherness, wealth, harmony, lust, and . . . endurance,” my bride quoted, looking at me knowingly. “I believe we have it all. Just have the memories reflect those elements, and we’ll be fine.”
And so it was. The next morning saw us skulk back to our carriage, where our porters were only mildly concerned about our additional passenger (and the woodmen were positively spooked). Thence back to Gilasfar, where Ithalia enchanted the minds of our barge crew after enjoying a delicious meal with us: with Palia serenely serving the crone’s incredible cuisine it was almost a celebration. There was even singing. She passed up the meat courses, but was delighted to try the vegetables as they were prepared, voicing a fascination for humani culture.
At last, near nightfall, she had Captain Turic put her to shore at a deserted landing downstream, so she might continue her journey. She waved at us from the bank and sang her spell, and then disappeared into the thickets.
“She’s a nice girl, for a Tree Folk,” Alya sighed. “I suppose she’s a little mortified about her grandmother, but everyone has family issues.”
“Hey! Is that a blow at my folks?” I asked. I knew that relations between my Riverlands artisan family and her Wilderlands farm family customs had been strained, but then Mama wouldn’t have found the Duchess an acceptable mate for me. Particularly, I reflected, after she’d met one.
“No, actually, at mine. Just wait until you really get to know my sister. She’ll be living near us in . . . Sevendor?”
“I’m looking forward to it. And yes, Ithalia is a nice girl. But I thought she would never leave.”
Alya looked at me stubbornly. “You want to get started already?” she accused.
I shrugged. “Sooner we get to it, the sooner its over. I thought you’d appreciate that, in your condition.”
“There’s just so much to get through, though,” she complained, as we headed back down to our cabin. I cast a magelight for us to see by. “Let me at least take off this cloak,” she complained good-naturedly, “and if I don’t pee now, I’ll just have to in five minutes, and that’s bound to throw you off,” she observed, unfastening the clasp.
“I’ll be fine,” I promised, “you just do what you need to so you’re comfortable. This is going to last a good long time, I’m afraid.” I looked around the cramped cabin until I found the accoutrements we would need. I added a bottle of Cormeeran brandy as an artistic necessity. The liquor hamper was almost empty, I noted – we would have to stock up in Banajistal.
“All right, I’m ready,” Alya said. “Let’s get this started. I’m tired and I need sleep – real sleep, not the honeymoon kind.”
Five minutes later we were both furiously at it – writing down every scrap of memory we could about our experience: the knowledge about the Alka Alon, the Tower of Refuge, the tree knights, the three trolls, the Sorceress of Sartha Wood, the battle with Brinthildin and his subsequent death, the nature of the Enshadowed Faction and what it would mean, how they were probably working with Sharuel, and every other little bit of recollection we could remember went into that account. It took up two bottles of ink and both sides of sixty sheaves of parchment, after we included some drawings, by the time we were finally done. Piled up in front of us on the bed, two days later as we were coming in to Banajistal, it looked impressive.
“That’s just one little account of a week,” Alya said, a little dazed from all the hard work. “I’ve had entire weeks that could have been described in a page. Or a sentence. You sure make life interesting, my lord husband.”
“And you sure make life pleasant, my lady wife,” I said, kissing her on the neck. “Want to wager our last sheet on our wishes to our future selves?”
“I don’t know,” she said, uneasily. “That was so sweet I may vomit. Again. Give me that quill,” she commanded, and then she carefully wrote out a note to me before folding it so that I could not read it and gave it back. When the ink was dry, I wrote my own note, imagining the youthful bride before me five years older, wiser, and with far less patience for my ineptitudes.
“Now let me wrap this up,” I said, removing the final bottle of mead from its waxed leather case, removing the straw padding, twisting the sheaf of parchment around the bottle, and carefully settling it back within. I closed the bronze buckle with a little ceremony, and then spellbound the case with a very specific charm. “Now we can be blissfully ignorant for the next five years, until we enjoy this on our anniversary.”
“I wonder what it will be like, opening it up and realizing that all of this went on?” she asked, twisting a lock of her hair adorably. “Knowing that we decided to let our minds to be remade, rather than bear the burden of the truth?”
“We don’t even know if we’ll be alive in five years,” I said, a little more pessimistic than I actually felt. “It was probably pointless. It will get stolen, or stepped on and discarded, or something, and make the last few days a waste . . . and our honeymoon an utter mystery. If the Alka Alon knew about it, they’d flip their little manes over it.”
“So the Tree Folk really don’t use writing?” Alya asked.
“Not really. Only to humor us. They think anything important enough to write down should be important enough to remember. Needless to say, they aren’t like us. Which is why they won’t likely consider that we might write all of this down and hide it from ourselves. That is not a very Alka Alon sort of thing to do. But you have to admit, it is kind of romantic.”
“That’s what I thought,” she agreed with a devilish snicker. “I can’t wait until you read what I wrote for you. Now strip off the rest of your clothes, slide in beside me, and keep me warm! We make Banajistal tomorrow, and then all of this won’t even be a memory!”
I considered a snappy retort, but honestly my hand was cramped from writing and I was eager for our union. Knowing it would be forgotten made it somehow even more passionate. I kissed her, as I unbuttoned my jerkin, and tried to ignore the baby in her tummy for a few moments. I sat back to appreciate her, her youth, her beauty, and what promised to come with age and experience.
As the temple bells of Banajistal got louder in the distance, there was an intensity to our lovemaking that was breathtaking. What we had been through, what we had chosen to forget, what we had written down as a promise of future happiness – I wanted everything in that silly honeymoon poem, I realized, more than I wanted fame, fortune, glory, titles, or gold. Even magic.
This, I decided as I slid my body over hers, kissing every inch along the way, was all the magic a sane man needed in his life. And if I was going to forget about it in a few minutes, I wanted to make this moment that would transcend mere memory, and burn the bliss I was feeling into my very soul. And I like to think that I did . . .
. . . until I rolled over on the bed, and in a moment of passionate flailing, my hand came into contact with the last Gutbuster wand I’d made. Alya had hidden away behind a basket, in case of dire emergency, and then – ironically – forgotten it. It was only dumb luck that I hit it, instead of her – it could have been extremely unfortunate for our baby. As it was, the effect on my physiology was fleeting but pronounced. When my gut finally stopped spasming, my swirling eyes were locked on the tastefully erotic portrait of Ishi staring at me while I floundered for control of my bodily functions, and I swear she was laughing.
“That,” I said dully, wiping vomit from my mouth, “was certainly worthy of forgetting,” I said, as my bride laughed so hard that she cried.
Not a bad way to end a honeymoon. Vomit and all.
The End
Special Thanks to Tim Faherty!
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The Spellmonger's Honeymoon: A Spellmonger Novella (The Spellmonger Series) Page 17
