Jeffrey Quyle - The Healing Spring

Kestrel weighed the aspects of the situation, and concluded that he had no choice but to turn his small piece of cargo over to the doorkeeper.

“Remain here,” the guard spoke as soon as he held the tube, in a careless tone that nonetheless indicated that he would tolerate no disobedience from Kestrel. He opened the door behind him and slipped into the room, so that Kestrel stood alone in the short hallway on the third floor.

He felt as though he waited an interminable time. He passed through nervousness, restlessness, then boredom, before he was startled by the sudden opening of the door and the return of the guard. Kestrel watched expectantly as the guard pulled the door closed behind him, then resumed standing at attention once again, without any acknowledgement of Kestrel’s presence.

After a moment of expectancy, and then confusion, Kestrel decided to ask what to do.

“You remain here and wait,” the guard answered without deigning to direct his eyes toward Kestrel. A servant came along the hall silently lighting candles mounted in scones on the wall, then passed from view when his duty was complete.

Resigned, as well as frustrated and angry, Kestrel continued to stand in his spot in the darkening hallway for nearly another hour, until a door a few feet away opened suddenly, and a kindly, grandfatherly appearing elf, one who had more hair growing out of his ears than on the top of his head, glanced down the hallway. “Come in here Kestrel,” he said, then disappeared, leaving Kestrel with the impression that the man had hardly looked at him at all.

Kestrel looked at the motionless guard, but received no hint of direction. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and stepped over to the open door, then entered the room behind it. The room was even darker than the hallway, with only two dim candles in hurricane glasses set on a desk, where the old man already sat, patiently watching Kestrel as he examined the room. “Take a seat here,” the man gestured to a chair in front of the desk, then picked up a roll of paper, and smoothed it out flat, laying in on the desktop and placing small weights on the four corners to hold the paper flat.

The rolled character of the paper told Kestrel it was the contents of his message tube, the cylinder that had brought him to Center Trunk, through his unlikely adventures along the course of the journey.

Kestrel was seated, and his eyes looked up from the paper to the officer, who was studying him closely, he realized.

“My apologies for asking you to wait for so long,” the officer said, though Kestrel wasn’t sure if he was apologizing for making him wait, or for making him wait for such a long time. “I’ve read the extraordinary report you’ve brought. It’s an interesting and disturbing story that your commander tells. I’d like to hear your version of it, if you’ll be so kind,” the grandfather spoke in a gentle voice; Kestrel appreciated the kind way in which the order was given, and he wanted to cooperate.

“Are you Colonel Silvan?” Kestrel asked, just to confirm the identity of the man he was with.

“I am Colonel Silvan,” the officer agreed. “I’m disturbed by this report of coordinated attacks by Hydrotaz’s forces, using a feint to try to distract us from the fire that was set. The report indicates that you were the guard who detected the fire.

“We’re fortunate that the rainstorm happened at the right time, in the right place,” Silvan added. Three code words in the message had indicated that there was much more information available from this courier, information that the commander had not wished to put in writing. Silvan was extremely interested to learn what the hidden news was, and he scrutinized the messenger closely, noting the boy’s obvious mixed blood, a heritage of humanity written noticeably in the body structure and the face, especially his ears. The codes had not indicated any treachery or dishonesty in the boy however; the information would not reveal that the boy was a traitor, or any additional negative aspect of the fire that Silvan needed to know, and the colonel was glad of that; there was something appealing about this youth. “What can you tell me about this situation?”

Kestrel thought back — back through the journey and the sprite and the healing spring, back through the Goddess Kere, and the militia ruffians, back to the broken arm and the fire and the Goddess Kai. It had been less than a week ago that all those incredible events had begun to descend upon him. How much of it was he supposed to tell this officer, he wondered. Commander Mastrin had trusted this officer, had told Kestrel he was a trustworthy person to whom Kestrel could reveal his full story; or at least, Mastrin had thought Kestrel could reveal all of his story that the commander knew about. The rest of the story, the encounter with Kere and the sprite, seemed even more fantastic and unbelievable than the first part, and Kestrel’s mind whirled with conflicting considerations of what to reveal while retaining some credibility.

“The rainstorm was more than good luck,” Kestrel replied. He would tell his story and judge his listener as he went along, he decided.

“I said a prayer to the human goddess, Kai, asking for help, and she created the storm that put the fire out. She made it rain, such a rain as you’ve never seen!” Kestrel spoke enthusiastically momentarily.

“You prayed to a human goddess? Where did you learn to do that?” Silvan asked.

“I taught myself,” Kestrel answered. “My mother taught me to pray to the Elven gods and goddesses, and that’s what I did. But as I grew older, I just felt a calling to try something different, so I started trying to pray to the human gods; and Kai responded. So when I spotted the fire, well, the smoke from the fire, and when I prayed to Kai, she answered me. She told me I would be in her debt, and someday I would have to repay her favor.”

“The human goddess worked against the humans’ own plan to burn the forest? She did it for you?” Silvan sounded skeptical.

“Yes,” Kestrel affirmed.

“Did you pray to her in the humans’ language?” the colonel asked.

“No, I don’t know their language,” Kestrel told him. “I just used my own words and prayers.”

“So the human goddess counts you as one of her own. That’s interesting, in the extreme,” Silvan said softly. “Well, don’t let me interrupt your story,” he said. “Go on.”

Kestrel continued, telling of his broken arm, and his meeting with Mastrin that had sent him on his way to Center Trunk.

“And so then you had a quick, uneventful trip through the eastern forest to Center Trunk,” Silvan finished the story for Kestrel, and looked back down at the paper report. The candles were burning low in their holders.

The boy looked at the officer, his tongue frozen as his mind scrambled to find the proper answer.

“There were one or two things that happened on the way,” Kestrel answered.

“Oh? Such as?” Silvan felt obliged to ask, as he studied the paper and let the wheels in his mind turn, absently evaluating the usefulness of a half-human/half-elf guard who communed with human gods.

Kestrel told the story of his beating by the militia. He noted that Silvan’s attention to him grew as the story unfolded, and he detected a sympathetic expression on the officer’s face.

“You seem to be in good shape for having been beaten so badly,” Silvan commented.

He was going to tell the story of the visit from Kere, Kestrel decided, since Silvan was paying attention.

“There is a healing spring outside a small village on the way here. The goddess Kere told me about it and told me to go there,” Kestrel said, watching Silvan as he spoke.

The colonel sat silently, staring first at the wall behind Kestrel, then directly at Kestrel. “The goddess of fortune spoke to you, gave you direction?”