Jeffrey Quyle - The Healing Spring

Kestrel nodded.

“Did you hear her in your heart?” Silvan asked.

“With my ears,” Kestrel corrected. “At first she was a little old lady at the inn. She gave me a room assignment, then sent me to the spring. When I got there she was a beautiful girl.”

“Kere took a direct interest in you? She declared you one of her chosen?” Silvan was sitting forward.

“She said she would protect me when I deserved it, when I was within her area to protect,” Kestrel tried to remember exactly what the goddess had told him. “She said I would have a mission to rescue someone, a girl who had mixed blood like me.

“At first I thought she meant the sprite, but then I remembered the part about mixed blood,” Kestrel explained. “She never said I was one of her chosen; she said I was unusual to be under both sets of gods.”

One of the two candles guttered out, and the room grew even dimmer and murkier. Kestrel found it harder to see Silvan’s features.

“What sprite are you talking about?” Silvan asked. He was leaning far forward on his elbows, but the candle light reflecting brightly off his eyes was the clearest thing Kestrel could see.

The story of the wolf, and the healing spring, and the confrontations and conversations in the hotel room followed, interrupted frequently by many questions from Silvan.

The second candle flickered, them died, and the two men sat in the office in the darkness, each of them silent. Kestrel heard a scraping noise, and saw a shadow arise from behind the desk, there was a thud and a gentle curse, then the sound of movement. The door to the hallway opened, letting in a stream of dim light, but within a moment the light was blocked by the shadow of the guard in the hallway, filling the doorframe.

“You’ve been in consultation for a long time sir, is everything alright?” the guard asked.

“It’s fine Giardell. Would you fetch a fresh candle for us?” Silvan asked. The guard left, and Silvan returned to his desk.

“Kestrel, I’d like you to stay here in Center Trunk for a few days as my guest while I check on a few things; enjoy the city. I imagine we’ll have you serve as a courier to take a message back to Elmheng,” Silvan explained. “When we have some light I’ll write orders and a chit to arrange for lodging and board for you here in the city.”

They waited until Giardell returned with a lantern, allowing Silvan to write temporary orders for Kestrel to have free reign of the city. “Giardell, take Kestrel down to the checkpoint and have a guard show him to his quarters, then return here,” Silvan directed. “Thank you Kestrel, for the delivery of the message and the rest of your story. I’ll have something to discuss with you in a few days. Enjoy your free time — the city celebrates the king’s birthday for the next couple of days, so have a good time.”

Giardell returned to Silvan’s office soon thereafter, after he had handed Kestrel off to another guard at the front door to the building. “Giardell, send a pair of guards back along the trail to Elmheng, and check on reports of our courier coming through in the past couple of days. Have the reports brought back here immediately. The boy has some interesting stories, but I’d like to hear some corroboration,” he spoke with his usual understatement, letting the guard know that something extraordinary had happened on the trip.

Kestrel followed his guide to a plain building, one built of brick and stone, with a first floor set only a few feet above the ground. “Any vacant room is yours,” the guide told Kestrel. “The chow line in the commissary will be open for just a few minutes longer, in the low building across the way,” he motioned. “If you want something to eat, get over there and show them your chit from the spies.”

“Spies?” Kestrel asked in surprise. “Colonel Silvan is a spy?”

“I think the polite word is ‘intelligence,’” his guide replied.

“Who does he spy on? The humans?” Kestrel asked in astonishment.

“You’ll have to ask them; I don’t know, and I don’t want to,” the guide said with a hint of disdain. “I’m happy to carry a bow and shoot at whoever they tell me to. Which is why I’ll be in the archery contest during the festival tomorrow. Do you need anything else?” he asked, clearly prepared to part ways with Kestrel.

“No. Thanks,” Kestrel lamely replied, then watched the guard quickly leave the building.

Kestrel went to the upper floor of the building, found no obvious empty rooms, then came back downstairs and settled for a lower room that at least was on a corner, with windows on two sides. With his bag lying on his cot, he left the building and walked across the dim yard inside the military base to where he hoped to find some dinner — food of any sort was appealing in his state of hunger.

Kestrel sat alone at a table in the empty commissary room chewing desultorily on the food that the server provided as he wondered at the notion that he had been sent to carry a message to a spy, and had sat in a room with one, talking candidly, revealing all of his new secrets. He would surely be seen as some kind of freak, a part-human, part-elf plaything of the supernatural powers, unstable and dangerous, Kestrel surmised about himself.

He wondered darkly how long he would be held in Center Trunk while the spies tried to decide what to do with him. There was no telling what he was going to face, and the unpleasant irony of his situation was that he had gotten himself into it by successfully putting out the forest fire that the humans had started. He rose with a sour disposition and returned to his room, where he settled into an uneasy sleep in the strange quarters that were to be his home for some time to come.

When Kestrel awoke in the morning, he felt tired. His sleep had been fitful, disturbed by dreams that he had turned into a spy himself, sneaking round among the humans to find out what plots they had planned to launch against the eastern elves. He shook his head, which failed to clear any of the cobwebs away, then lazily trudged to the commissary, where he was one of the first to have a plate of hot food.

He looked around and saw a table of four soldiers wearing red hats, but they glanced at him with a cold, unfriendly stare that drove him away. Instead, he sat alone, and listened to the conversation of a different nearby table, where a half dozen guards of both genders discussed plans for the festival day.

“We have to work late shift on duty,” one complained, nudging his partner. “There’s no point in us starting the archery competition.”

“We’ll shoot a couple for you — the ones that miss!” another guard jeered.

Kestrel listened with interest. He was a good marksman among the elves of Elmheng; his human heritage gave him strength to draw a stronger bow than the other elves, giving him an advantage that grew in value when the distance to the target increased. He had no plans for the day, or for the next several days, and felt a sudden, impulsive boldness sweep through him. “Can I go with you?” he called to the adjacent table.

All heads in the other group turned to look at Kestrel, and he saw nothing in their expressions warmer than curiosity, though there was no outright hostility as the guards examined his humanesque features.

“Who are you?” one of the guards asked.

“Kestrel, from Elmheng,” he replied. “I came here as a courier and have to wait for my new assignment.”

There was a round of glances exchanged. “Are you human?” one of the women at the table asked.

“Partly,” Kestrel answered. “Mostly elf,” he added.

“A bow isn’t a human weapon; they use swords,” another guard chimed in.