The Inner Seas Kingdoms: 01 - The Healing Spring

by Jeffrey Quyle

  “What? No. No thanks.” Kestrel answered. His mind was racing, trying to guess what had caused Kai to speak to him. He knew the feel of Kai’s touch on his soul, and there was no mistaking the source of the voice.

  “My lady, what can I do for you?” he asked silently.

  “Wait patiently. Let the engraving begin. I will do the rest when the circumstances are right. Just relax,” the voice soothingly said.

  “Alright; let’s begin,” the artist spoke, and Kestrel saw his hands move, then felt the process begin. The pain was not bad; each prick was worse than annoying, but not unbearable. There was pain, though it was tolerable pain. But it was constant. Every few seconds the pain was renewed. It slowly spread as the design work on Kestrel’s chest widened.

  “What is it you are creating on me?” Kestrel asked at last, following what seemed like hours of needle pricks.

  “Well, here on the right side we’re putting the portrait of a sailing ship, a symbol of your rank as a Captain of the Fleet,” the tattooist told him as he pressed another needle into Kestrel’s skin. “I’ve virtually got it finished.

  “And over on the left, above your heart, we’re putting the symbol of your role as the Champion of the People of Estone,” he explained.

  He poked a needle into Kestrel’s right breast, then sat back. “There, the ship is finished. In a couple of days when the blood is wiped away and the swelling goes down it will be a beauty.

  “Now,” he said, and Kestrel felt a needle prick on his left breast, directly over his heart. “Here we go starting the crest.”

  “And what exactly does the crest of Estone look like?” Kestrel asked. There was a sudden noise from outside as a gust of wind blew loudly around the chapel structure.

  “For you, it will be personalized – quartered on the left, and whole on the right. On the right we will silhouette a yeti, the monster that you bested. On the left the upper quarter will bear a star, the north star that leads travelers to our land, and the lower quarter will bear...”

  His words were drowned out by a stone-rattling crash of thunder, as the interior of the chapel suddenly dramatically darkened. All heads looked at the windows, where large drops of rain began to splatter loudly against the panes of glass, falling faster and harder with each second.

  “That’s quite a storm moving in,” someone said loudly. The building lit up as lightening streaked across the sky outside, and then another flicker relit the interior again, as another bolt struck very close by, shaking the building and crashing so loudly that one assistant placed his hands over his ears.

  There was another crashing lightning strike just as close on the other side of the chapel, that struck so hard dust fell from the rafters above, and then a third strike seemed to hit the chapel itself, the deafening noise making the inside of the church ring, and streaks of light ran along the joints between the stones in the wall, multiple streaming snakes of light that traveled downward, and then congregated together and produced an explosive burst of light and another, bell-like ringing sound.

  When the sparks from the explosion faded away, a tall regal figure stood in their place, a woman who glowed faintly. The golden halo was a gentle light, but as she began to walk towards the stunned tableau of men at the front of the chapel, each footstep she took left behind a golden glowing print on the polished marble floor.

  “Gods above preserve us!” the tattoo artist screamed, rising and backing away from his seat next to Kestrel, joining his assistants who were huddled together against the wall.

  “Kestrel, today you commit yourself to me,” the woman said aloud in a resounding voice.

  He lay on his board, preternaturally calm, his head raised, looking up at the approach of Kai, the Air Goddess of the Humans.

  He started to rise from his board, so that he could kneel. “No, do not rise. Lay back down,” she commanded him as she approached.

  “Where are your manners?” she asked the frightened men against the wall. “Do you not bow down to your goddess?”

  All four of them immediately prostrated themselves on the floor, their heads touching the ground.

  “Kestrel, you have prayed to me, and you have called upon me for help. I have heard and accepted your prayers. I have granted you favors that you wanted. I have directed your steps at times, so that you might grow and learn in ways that please me, for I have plans to use you for the good of humanity, and for my own needs,” the goddess spoke as she reached Kestrel’s side. He looked directly up into her face, staring upon holy perfection, beauty beyond anything he had ever imagined, and found his sight went blind the instant he perceived how beautiful the goddess was.

  “Here is my hand,” he felt her press her hand upon his chest, directly above his heart, where the crest of Estone was about to be tattooed into his flesh. There was a sudden searing pain that was intense freezing and fire both, and neither, or more, where her palm and fingers spread across his chest. He felt the pain, exquisite and excruciating, penetrate his skin, and sink into his chest. His heart could no longer beat, and then the pain delved further through his flesh and muscle and bone, all the way to his shoulder blade beneath, where it felt like his skin was burning from the divine encounter on his chest. He knew that he was dying; his heart was not beating, his blood was not moving, and unconsciousness was only seconds away. “Done,” she whispered. He felt the pressure of her hand released from his chest, and then the pain was gone, as his heart began to beat again, a wild, fluttering staccato pulse of restored life.

  “This is my mark upon you. With this mark you are truly bound to be the champion of the people of Estone. In times of trouble, when only you can save them, you will feel the crest grip your heart to compel you to go forth and do battle for the people of the land,” the goddess spoke words that were burned into his brain.

  “You four,” she spoke to the men in the back, “will go forth into the court and the palace and the city and spread the word of what you have seen and heard here. You will tell Estone that Kestrel is the champion of the people. And the Doge will confirm that he has dreamed this.

  “Kestrel, you will go on journeys, and travel widely, but when you feel the crest burn you, you will know that you must battle for these people, whether here in this land, or elsewhere, when some distant threat to Estone, or all of humanity, has arisen. Do you accept your responsibility to fulfill this?” she asked.

  “I do swear to serve as the champion of the people,” Kestrel solemnly answered, thinking of Merilla, and protecting her from whatever threat might hover over Estone.

  “Then our covenant is sealed. I will help you when needed, and you will answer the call when it comes,” the goddess’s voice grew graver. Then it sounded one last phrase inside his head, so that only he heard: “You will be the champion for me and for the old order of gods, standing up for us as well if ever we reach dire need for your help.”

  And then there was a clap of thunder within the chapel, and the goddess disappeared in a rising column of sparks that circled about the ceiling and then floated up into and through the rafters.

  As the sparks of divinity disappeared, Kestrel’s vision returned. He looked about, and saw the faintly glowing traces of the goddess’s exit floating above, and he saw the still glowing footprints that traveled up the aisle of the chapel. He turned and saw the four witnesses, still stretched out on the floor behind him.

  “Get up, all of you. Get up, she’s gone,” Kestrel told them, as he sat up. He tried to look down at his chest to see what she had done. The image was upside down, and seen from a sharp angle, so he could discern no details, but he could tell that the image on his left side was shiny like fish scales, while the image on his right looked dull by comparison. The bright, shiny image had colors that seemed as vivid as a window of stained glass. He looked over at a window and saw that the sun was shining brightly outside, the storm having passed.

  There was a banging at the door, and then a small group of palace guards entered the building.


  “It looked as though the chapel was on fire!” one of them cried as he stood on the threshold and looked within. “The storm came out of nowhere and formed right here. The lightning struck and the windows glowed from within as though there was a white hot fire!”

  “There was,” the tattoo artist spoke, rising and approaching Kestrel. “There was a holy fire in here. We were visited by the goddess Kai herself! See,” he pointed at the floor in front of them. “There are her footsteps!”

  He reached Kestrel and examined the mark on his chest. “This is a miracle!” he exclaimed. “She has chosen you! She has marked you as the true champion; it’s not just a title.

  “This is extraordinary,” he murmured as he bent and looked at the details of the new crest. “It’s so detailed and lifelike. These colors are exquisite!”

  Kestrel sat in a daze, unable to immediately recover from the force of the encounter he had been subjected to. The goddess had done nothing of malevolent intent to him, but the exposure to her unconstrained presence had been more than he could comprehend. He heard the voices around him, but their meaning flew over his head.

  “Look at his back!” one of the tattooist’s assistants said, pointing at him.

  The artist peered around to his back as the soldiers arrived and circled around. “It’s her handprint!” he exclaimed. He gently prodded the raw, burned flesh with a finger, and the pain of the touch got Kestrel’s attention, snapping him out of his trance at last.

  “Ow!” he said as he flinched, while he swatted at the poking hand.

  The assistants were talking to the guards, each of them telling the story of what had happened, as Kestrel sat and swung his legs over the side of the cot, then stood up. His legs felt weak, and he felt dizzy, both lingering further side effects of the visitation from the goddess. He looked around and saw his shirt, which he grabbed up, and pulled on. It rubbed and chaffed the handprint on his back before he even had it pulled down over his stomach, and he quickly yanked it back off.

  He looked around at the small clusters of guards and tattoo attendees, talking volubly to each other, and he tried to comprehend everything they were saying to each other, but his mind still primarily dwelt on his experience, the voice and the sight and the touch of the goddess who had materialized solely to give him an assignment to protect the humans of Estone. It was incomprehensible, unthinkable.

  Without comprehending anything, he walked down the aisle of the chapel and out into the small garden that insulated it from the surrounding palace. He held his shirt in his hand as he looked up at the cloudless sky, the sun beginning to set on the western horizon. He didn’t know what to do, or where to go. He walked away, unnoticed by the others within the chapel as they continued to retell their tales and thoughts.

  Many noticed the man without a shirt who walked through the palace, but no one stopped him as he wandered to the gate and left the palace grounds, his mind beginning to churn more and more as he tried to pull himself back into the real world, and to consider the implications of the divine direction he had received.

  Did he need to permanently reside in Estone? Should he consider himself only as a human henceforth, and forget the elven heritage that he lived all his life? Was he meant to stay in this city, and should he woo Merilla to be his wife after all (assuming the gods would allow), when her widowhood was over? How could he turn his back on the elves, who needed him to gather information for them, to protect their race? Could he return to the elves who had tricked him and used him? Would he ever experience such a visit with the human goddess again, and did he even want to? It was so vastly different from the visit Kere had made, when she had directed him to the healing spring; that had been a warm and intimate encounter, a friendlier experience altogether.

  The sun was set and the sky was dark, he realized. He must have walked about the city for hours in his contemplative daze. He was in front of the inn where he and Merilla and her boys were staying. He no longer held his shirt; he must have dropped it at some point in his existential musings. With a sigh, he opened the door and walked straight across the foyer then up the stairs, unconcerned about his state of partial nakedness.

  When he opened the bedroom door the room was dark. Merilla was already in bed, asleep. He sat on the mattress and pulled off his boots, then his trousers, and slumped forward, sleeping on his stomach to protect the painful deep burn on his back.

  “Kestrel?” Merilla sleepily called.

  “I’m back,” he said comfortingly. “Are the boys asleep?”

  “They are,” she assured him. He heard her yawn. “How did the auction go?”

  “I’m not sure,” he said recollecting for the first time that the auction of the yeti goods had occurred while he was at the palace.

  “That’s good; we’ll talk in the morning,” she murmured as she fell asleep again, and after a long time of lying in the bed and thinking, Kestrel fell asleep as well.

  Chapter 22 – The Auction Results

  Kestrel awoke with a gasp. He felt something cold being spread across his back. Upon opening his eyes he found that the morning was well underway, the sun had risen far above the horizon, and Merilla sat beside him, carefully slathering a pot of ointment on the handprint that was burned into his shoulder blade.

  “Were you at the palace yesterday afternoon?” she asked as he raised his head.

  “Yes,” he grunted. After the shock of the chill from the ointment, he felt relief, as the substance numbed the painful evidence of his encounter with the divine.

  “There are strange stories in the city today,” Merilla told him. He heard her clamp the lid back down on the ointment jar, and he sensed the strain in her voice.

  With a grunt Kestrel raised himself up on his elbows and twisted himself to look at his caregiver. She gasped as his chest came into view, and stared silently for long seconds, then tentatively reached out her hand and touched the vivid, shiny crest emblazoned on his left side.

  “They say a goddess came to the chapel in the palace and worked her powers on the champion of the people,” Merilla said. She raised her eyes to look at his face. “It’s true, isn’t it?”

  “I’ve never experienced anything like it before,” he replied, turning further to sit up straight and face her directly. Her eyes were glued to his chest, flickering back and forth from one side to the other.

  “I’ve met one of the Elven goddesses, and I didn’t even know she was a goddess at first; she tricked me. But Kai was overwhelming; I went blind from looking at her face, my mind is still scrambled from her words, and you see what her touch did to me,” he tried to organize his thoughts, for he knew he had to talk to her.

  “Thank you for treating my back,” he added. “It hurts, but your ointment made it much better.”

  “That’s my mother’s own special brewed painkiller,” she said.

  There was silence between them.

  “I am going to go to Castona’s this morning, and find out how the auction did. I’ll collect your funds and deliver them to you,” he told her. “Then, I need to go someplace and think.

  “The goddess has laid a charge on me, and it frightens me. I don’t know what to do,” Kestrel said.

  “Kestrel, you must do whatever the goddess told you to do,” Merilla said softly. “You don’t have a choice.”

  “I, I know,” he stuttered. “I just don’t understand where I must go, or how many masters can give me orders. I don’t know who I am any more Merilla,” his voice almost broke.

  She sat silently and waited for him to say more.

  “I’m going to go back to the forest to think. I don’t know what makes me so special; I don’t know how to be a champion. I know the goddess says I am one, so I must be, but I am scared and confused, not proud, not confident, not comfortable,” he said.

  “Are you going to leave today?” Merilla asked.

  “Yes,” he answered.

  “Do you,” she hesitated, “Do you need a companion to go with you?” Her ey
es stared at his.

  He knew what he wanted to say, but he sensed that the goddess did not foresee the same thing. Dewberry’s untimely appearance had made that clear. “I want a companion, but I do not think I should have one right now,” he told her.

  “I understand,” she said bravely. “In that case Kestrel, I am going to start packing the boys and myself up, so that we can move into my parent’s home, while we wait to buy the home with the leather shop. My mother does not think it is proper for us to be sharing this hotel room, and there’s no need to spend further money at the inn.

  “Could you come there to meet us when you return from the merchant’s shop?” she asked, with eyes that were bright with unshed tears.

  “I will bring everything directly to you,” he assured her. He rose from the bed and began to gather his own belongings. “Merilla?” he asked, as they each silently went about their packing, “Would you help me put this shirt on over the ointment on my back?”

  She walked over and placed a patch of gauze on his back, then stood in front of him, carefully tugging the cloth down over his raised arms, their eyes constantly staring at each other’s as she fixed the shirt in place. They each seemed on the verge of saying something as they stood, then there was a racket in the other room, and the boys came bursting into their room, breaking the moment.

  Kestrel picked up his knapsack of supplies, and carefully slung it over his right shoulder, along with his bow and quiver of arrows. “I’ll see you in a little while,” he told Merilla, and was quickly out the door without a backwards glance at the rooms that had been a family home so happily but briefly. And just like that, Kestrel felt they had parted ways.

  On the streets his still bandaged head drew attention, but he suspected his fancy court hat would also garner looks were he to use it to hide the bandages, so he stopped and bought a plain, ordinary slouch hat, one that covered the material around his skull, and thereby allowed him to walk inconspicuously to Castona’s shop.