Beached
Land lay ahead.
Alfryn could make out the jagged shore covered in yellow sand and
Bent grass. White capped mountains rose from the pine forest that
loomed behind the dunes.
She had not been
this long with her shoulders out of the sea since accompanying her
father to visit an uncle who was half human and preferred to live on
land rather than beneath the waves – and better still, since he
could live on land unlike his full blooded sea elf relations who
could only survive out of the water for as long as suns only moved a
few spaces in the sky above. Or moons as it might be. Eustar and
Austar beat on her golden head and a briny breeze swept across the
surface of the water, spraying her with droplets.
“We will lay him
on the beach and leave, Alfryn. Do not linger.”
“What, Dae?
Leave him for the shorebirds and land crabs?”
“Other humans
will find him. They will care for him.”
“At least lets
make sure there are other humans. Otherwise how will they find
him and care for him before the birds peck his eyes out. Please,
Dae.”
“All right, sea
devil. As you will have it.”
Alfryn porpoised
and swam ahead of her companion until the water became shallow. She
shifted her shape so that she could stand in the surf. Out of water
her body felt heavy as if the ocean were trying to pull her back into
its depths. Her legs wobbled and her feet stumbled when she waded to
shore. The deserted beach stretched to the west farther than she
could see. To the east it curved inward and dunes hid the landscape.
Dae waded to shore
after her, dragging the human behind him. The young sea elf laid the
man on the sand and rolled him onto his back. Alfryn had already
scurried up the dunes to survey what lay beyond. There she saw a
small building, the type where humans and gnomes and dwarves and the
elves that lived on land slept and ate and kept their trinkets. Her
uncle lived in such a structure though this one was much smaller than
the one she remembered.
The thatched roof
sagged in the middle. An arched door lay splintered on the steps and
the wooden jam cracked in half on both sides. Round little windows
set between gray stones looked down upon the front garden. And the
colors. They reminded Alfryn of the Anda Skerry with its variants of
blues, yellows, greens, reds, purples, and oranges that bloomed from
the ocean bottom or flitted among the corals.
The only signs
that someone still lived within the ruined home were a large set of
footprints overlay with two small pairs that led from the homestead,
up the dune and following the beach where it rounded easterly.
Alfryn slipped
down the dune toward the house and turned to look back. Elf and human
could not be seen from this point. How would anyone find the
unconscious man hidden on the beach. She strode toward the water,
determined.
“There you are.
I wondered where you had gone. Let us go now, Alfryn.”
“No, Dae. There
is a house beyond the dune. We will leave the human there.”
Dae closed his
gills and expelled air from his lung.
“As you say, but
you will have to help me carry him. Out of the water he weighs more
than I can lift.”
They each took the
man under an arm and dragged him across sand and grass to the beach
house where they laid him in the trampled garden. Alfryn could not
help her curiosity and slipped between the broken timbers that used
to be the door frame and into the dark interior before Dae could stop
her. A small cottage meant for small beings. Gnomes perhaps. Friendly
to humans. She found a likeness hanging above the hearth of a male
and female with their arms about one another and another likeness of
a third small being with gnomish words scrawled beneath.
“Til mine gode
venner Dunder og Kizzy.” she read aloud. She held the other
likeness in her hands. “These two must be Dunder and Kizzy.”
“Alfryn, come
out. We have to go.” Dae stood at the threshold fearing to enter.
He'd never been in a land dweller's home. Alfryn watched him poke at
the floor with one toe as if it were alive and might swallow him at
any moment.
“Dae, come and
see this living place of gnomes. The little land dwellers of
Euneria!”
Florals splashed
the wall above the hearth and framed the sides. The colorfully
painted flowers made their way up to the ceiling and circled the
room. Above the coals a black pot swung, smelling of ingredients
Alfryn could only imagine.
Furniture had been
upended and pieces of pottery littered the floor and in the center a
hole led down into the dark. Dae stepped inside avoiding the pit.
“What do you
think happened here, Dae?”
“I do not care
to know. Let us go home, Alfryn.”
“But what if ….”
“No more what
ifs. It is time to go.” A groan from the garden got their
attention. “The human. He wakes. We must go, Alfryn.”
But too late, the
young man swayed in the doorway blocking their escape.
“Ou suis je?
Quest il arrive?”
He fell onto the
floor. Alfryn ran to him and cradled his head on her lap. The young
man opened his eyes and looked upon her. In his she saw the black of
the deepest ocean where even sea elves do not dare to tread. Ringlets
of dark hair clung to his face like wigeon grass. She put her hand to
his face to touch the short stubs that grew there. Sea folk did not
have hair on their cheeks and chin and beneath their nose as this
human did. He looked about Dae's age though she knew humans counted
their time on Euneria differently. He was taller and wider than Dae.
Muscles flexed beneath his wet clothes. Alfryn reached out to touch
his bicep and it jumped under fingers.
So many questions
she wanted to ask him. Was he a pirate? Her knowledge of the human
tongue was limited, though, only what her uncle had instructed.
“Je ne comprends
pas,” she spoke hesitantly hoping it meant what she remembered.
“Alfryn, please
come away.”
“Parlez vous
elfique?” she asked, ignoring her friend.
The man shook his
head. He raised his hand to her ear to the gills behind them. Perhaps
he had never seen her kind. Maybe he thought her one of the merfolk.
“Sea elf,” she
said pointing to herself. “Qua'edele. Je suis appele Alfryn.” She
pointed to him and said in his own language, “Humain … ?”
“Gerard du Mains
de Pierre,” the man laid his hand on his breast.
“Are you a
pirate? Um, le corsaire?”
“Non, du Mains
de Pierre.”
“What is he
saying. Is he a pirate?”
“He is of the
Stone Hands.”
“I knew it!
Alfryn, we need to go home. If the Taurn Cora hears that we have
aided a pirate there will be grave consequences for the both of us.”
“He says he is
not a pirate.”
“Of course he
would say that because, Alfryn, Stone Hands are the worst of them.
He would not admit to it.”
Gerard closed his
eyes.
“I think he's
gone to sleep.”
“Good. Let us
leave him.”
Alfryn acquiesced
at last. Her skin already thirsted for the briny ocean that was her
home. She pulled her legs from beneath Gerard's head and laid him on
the cool tiles.
“You are in
Dunder and Kizzy's hands now, Gerard.”
Dae pulled her to
her feet and tugged her toward the shore and their home beneath the
water. She glanced behind only once and made up her mind to come back
to this place without him. Just to see. To make sure the man-boy
called Gerard of the Stone Hands had been cared for.
His Father's Boy
Mando licked his
chops. His wolf-shaped fur-covered chops. If he didn't lick them now
they would be sticky and stained with blood the rest of the day.
“Is this farm
truly ours, Arturo? Now that we have eaten both of its residents?
Does it belong to us? I always wanted my own farm. I used to help my
mother in the garden. Those were the best days before – you know –
before I transformed. Father hated that I gardened. It was womanly he
said.”
In this form –
half man, half wolf – Mando's voice growled. It was amusing Arturo
to hear such a voice consider gardening.
Mando stopped
licking his paws long enough to look around the farmhouse. The loft
where the girl had slept. Her father's bed with a trunk against the
foot. A cooking fire with a pot dangling above it and a stool and
bench on either side. Basil, lavender, rosemary and thyme dried in
bunches from a roughly hewn ceiling beam. Along one wall a row of
jars covered with cloth beside woven baskets and empty buckets. Above
those hung a shelf filled with clay and wood dishes. The room and its
contents made him long for his humanity and his body transformed in
response. He stroked the scruff on his chin. Of course, this
farmhouse looked nothing like the manor house he had grown up in.
Nothing like the finery he had been used to before his change.
“Your father
sounds like he needs to be eaten.” Arturo slumped to the floor
and leaned against a stone wall as cold as his dead body, rubbing his
full blood belly.
“He is a good
man, Arturo my friend. Strong. Smart. Brave. I was just – not the
son he expected me to be. He does not deserve to be eaten.”
Mando sniffed in
the direction of the loft. He could still smell her. The girl. He
paced the room, touching objects the girl may have touched when she
lived, picking them up one at a time to sniff them.
“Maybe a bite or
two then.”
“No, Arturo. If
you keep saying such things I will not allow you to accompany me when
I go to see my sister.”
“Remind me
again. Why are we visiting people who treated you so badly when you
were human?”
“My mother did
not treat me badly. Nor my sister. I miss them. My sister is just six
or seven or eight now. I forget how many years I have been away. Just
a quick visit and then we will come back to the farm. We will plant
and – .”
“And what are we
planting? I do not eat
vegetables or grains.”
“Nor do I. Flowers then.” The wolf man slumped to the floor
beside his friend.
“What are you going to do with flowers?”
“Smell them.” Mando grinned.
“I know what you will do. Pee on them. Dig them up. Eat them
and then throw up.” Like the dog he is, Arturo mused.
“If I feel like it. I also like the smell of them and the colors.
So many colors.” He paused in thought. “I could take them to
market and sell them.”
“Well, aren't we the little entrepreneur.”
“Is that the royal we or are you saying you will help?”
“I will help you pee on them, but that's about all.”
“But you have so much time on your hands. Farming will take your
mind off drinking everyone.”
“Nothing
will do that, my friend. Get some sleep. Tonight we travel to visit
your sister and mother. I will behave, but I swear if your father,
this ... Ambassador …,
says one thing against you he will be too dead to wish he had not.”
That evening, after the sun slid beneath the horizon, they hitched an
old mare to a tired looking wain and headed for Sable Blanc near
the Eunerian sea, the hamlet where Mando's family lived and the place
where he had been born. Neither knew how far they had to travel. Time
and distance no longer concerned them. The wolf-man knew the
direction they must go and that satisfied them both. They packed no
food for they both preferred fresh kills. Mando brought the only set
of clothing the unfortunate farmer had owned – a pair of short
woolen breeches, a loose wool tunic and leather boots, a mantle of
wool cloth that fell from his shoulders to the tops of his legs,
though on the farmer it would have hung a foot lower. Most
importantly Mando packed a leather belt for which to keep his
breeches about his waist. For the deceased father of Mando's almost
lover had a goodly sized paunch and his pants were big enough to
accommodate the whole of its girth.
“We never talk about your family, Arturo. Tell me about them. Are
they still alive? Do you have siblings?”
“No, I drank them.”
“Did you? I never thought of eating my folks. Nor my sister. Why
did you do it?”
“Because I didn't feel about my people the way you feel about
yours. And hunger.”
Their voices made the mare skittish. Aware that she pulled something
other than normal as cargo, something to be feared, her ears flitted
with every word they spoke and she tried to dance out of the yoke.
With much herding had they even gotten her into the harness and
fastened to the wagon. She wanted nothing to do with either of them.
“If you don't stop, you stupid hoofer, I'll come down there and
suck you dry.”
“Then we'll have to walk, Arturo.”
“Either of us could pull the wagon faster than this stupid bovine.”
“A bovine is a cow, my friend. A horse is an equine.”
“Stupid as a cow, though.”
“Perhaps.”
They bantered about the stupidity of horses and cows all along the
road to Sable Blanc with only the moon and stars to light their way.
Finally upon reaching the hamlet by the sea – the hamlet that bore
him – Mando nearly cried out in joy for there before him lay the
place of his most happy memories.
“It looks the same, Arturo. All except for that statue of a
Minotaur in town square. Whatever possessed them to put that there I
cannot reckon.”
Mando pulled the mare to a stop before the gatehouse of his father's
home.
“This is it, Arturo. This is my home.” Mando jumped from the
wagon bench and strolled boldly to the guard manning the gate. After
a brief conversation, he returned to Arturo whose eyes scanned the
fortified structure that had once been a seaside estate around which
a hamlet had emerged.
“The hour is early. They have not yet risen. I told them not to
wake the household. We shall loiter in the drawing room until someone
rouses. Are you hungry? Never mind. They would not serve any kind of
breakfast that would satisfy you – bacon fume and fresh oeufs,
crispy fried galette and dark roasted cafe. No fresh blood, I fear.”
The guard called a servant to escort them and they settled themselves
in the parloir on a fine upholstered divan made of oak and waited.
