194) The Salvation of Eden, Chapter 27 -- Smitten in Annuvin
Kohra and Dominic sat together, staring at the mild pink pastel of the eastern sky, Kohra imagining the little farms that must dot this land of gently undulating grasslands, sparse forests and quiet streams. The morning sky was beautiful, lifting her spirits as she wondered what life had in store for them today. Without much commotion, everyone still tired and emotionally worn out from the day before, they slowly awoke, stretched, and sat in silence, watching the lightening sky. After a brief snack of now-quite-stale bread and the last slivers of strong cheese, they shouldered their packs and set off across the yellow-green fields, finally heading to the bustling town of Annuvin.
* * * * *
Kohra’s first impression was underwhelming. She thought that the destination they had been traveling towards ever since showing up in Gorb’s wagon would be more…distinctive? Impressive? At least, promising? But the nondescript dirt road leading into a triangular cluster of low, wooden buildings shimmering in the heat of the day didn’t exactly shout “land of milk and honey.”
The people of Annuvin (who called themselves “Hammerites” for some reason, Devona informed them), were mostly farmers, ranchers, or labourers, although at the moment the town was abuzz with people from the caravan who had arrived late last night. Kohra walked along beside Gorb, toward the market loading area where he said Beacon would be. She scanned the crowd eagerly for her Klliik friends, but to her great disappointment, found no sign of them. She was hoping to at least say goodbye.
Gorb found Beacon exactly where he expected to and threw his arms around the old girl’s neck. She’d been with him a long time, pushing thirty years. Knew her way around these parts better than he did. He scratched her in all the familiar places, inhaling the oaty-scent of her breath as she nuzzled him. It was nice to feel like himself again, even for a moment, to feel who he had been before.
He’d been mostly silent since the cave. He didn’t know who he was anymore, how he was supposed to be with these young ones. Some chaperone he was — practically getting them killed. More than once! Losing control of himself in the worst possible way. To think, yesterday at this time, he was leading them confidently on a Quest like it was some grand adventure. Now, Devona had suffered only the Gods knew what. And could even still call himself a LightSinger, now that the Light had abandoned him?
No, he was now just a murderer. And all because of his stupid Quest. He didn’t know what to do with all of that, didn’t know how to make sense of how he could have gotten them into that situation.
But no! “He” hadn’t gotten them into any situation! The Light had! All he was doing was following the Light. Every step of the way…except for one second.
This was a test, he decided. That was the right way to see it. It was a test of his faith. His commitment. Even if the Light would no longer hear his Song, he would keep Singing. And under no circumstances, he decided, would he ever again abandon the Light. He would pay his penance, no matter what it took.
That was what this lesson had taught him. He had to fully commit. No holding back. No relying on his own reasoning or logic. Follow the Light. No matter what. That’s what Faith was, right?
“Gorb! Woo-hoooo, Gorb!” Lenny was tugging on his arm. He realized she had been trying to get his attention as he absentmindedly pet Beacon.
Beacon, good ol’ girl.
He turned to get some oats; she deserved them. He didn’t know what he’d do without her; she’d been his companion for….
Lenny was pulling at his arm again. Oh right, she was trying to talk to him. He didn’t want to face this. Whatever was coming, it wasn’t going to be good.
Lenny smiled at him with her “imp grin,” or at least that’s how he’d come to think of it. This was the non-serious persona Lenny adopted when she wanted to be serious, as though simply being serious, for real, was something she just couldn’t tolerate.
“Lenny wants to tell the LightSinger that he is the best chaperone ever! You are very unlike most adult-persons. You trust us, and we trust you.” Before Gorb could respond, Lenny threw out her arms and spun around in a circle like a demented top, laughing. “And now, we are in Annuvin! Just like you said we would be.”
Gorb simply stood there, confused. She should hate him right now, he figured. He’d let them all down. He would normally have fired back with a grizzly old grandpa-bear chuckle, all warm and growly-like, but he just didn’t have it in him right now.
Lenny didn’t let him speak anyway. “SHHHHHHHHHHH!!” she whispered, loud enough to be heard at thirty paces. “All that matters now is that we find food! Help us! Help us, wise leader! We need sustenance!”
Kohra and Dominic stood off to the side, laughing at Lenny’s ridiculousness (while Devona sat in the dirt, staring at nothing). When he turned to them for clarification, confused as to how to deal with Lenny when she was like this, they snapped to attention, saluting. “Yes, Great Leader,” Kohra laughed. “We beseech you for consideration of our empty bellies.”
He appreciated their efforts to cheer him up, rallying as well as he could for their sake. After all, he was their leader. He was responsible for them! Ms B was financing this whole journey and had given him his Quest, and one way or the other, he intended to carry it out. What his young charges needed was leadership. Strength. They needed to see that he could carry the weight of responsibility, he could be depended on, that even though he had made a terrible, terrible mistake back in the cave, he was not a terrible person. He was not going to give up on himself, nor on them.
“Aye, ‘tis about time we filled our gullets!” He motioned toward the market. “Come, I’ll take ye to some o’ de finest cuts ‘o meat dis side of a Klliik Rrrrroasting! Annuvin’s famous ‘rrround ‘ere.”
“Famous?” Kohra asked. “For what?”
“MEAT!” he cried triumphantly, his old gregariousness sparking back to life.
“How can you be famous for meat?” It seemed like a reasonable question. “Don’t they have meat everywhere?”
Dominic looked kind of sideways at her. “Kohra, you need to get out more.”
Kohra looked over at Devona, who still stared at the dirt.
Lenny nodded sagely, “Every granny makes the best cookies.”
Well, whatever. I guess you can be famous for meat, why not? Kohra found this sort of thing happened more frequently for her than it seemed to for anyone else — these moments of feeling completely clueless, like other people somehow Knew Things about the world that Kohra had never learned. When did they learn all these things? Who taught them? It felt like everybody had some secret manual, “How Everything Works,” but somehow, she was never given a copy.
Anyway, it felt good to be in a town again. Her last visit to a market seemed like another life someone else had once lived, in a town that was just a story.
She scanned the crowd again, finding no Klliik, but spotting several familiar faces from the caravan. She let her eyes pass over without acknowledging them. The last thing she wanted right now was to have to explain to people why they were traipsing around the market, muddy and bloody like they just staggered in fresh from the battlefield. Which was pretty much exactly what they had done.
Gorb bought them a basket of ripe-looking striped pears, an heirloom variety from the local farms. A few minutes later found them all sprawled in the shade of the Dragon statue in the very center of the market, pear juice dribbling down their chins, watching the passing crowds and ignoring the many strange looks that were thrown their way. Frankly, they just didn’t give a damn.
Annuvin’s entire downtown was arranged around the central market square, or more accurately, triangle. She could see two-thirds of the town’s shops and businesses, more or less, from where she was sitting, at least in the brief intervals when someone wasn’t walking past her and blocking the view.
To her right, Kohra noted a blacksmith off the far end of one corner, this one looking a lot more like the stereotype — large, burly, hairy man, ordering his assistants about like a drill sergeant, all of them dripping with sweat and hammering out a non-stop metallic cacophony. In a long strip of narrow shops, she noted a fletcher, a couple of potters, weavers, two wood carvers, a few seamstresses, a cobbler, three bakers, and several others.
Along the left, she saw an apothecary with the front window full of colourful bottles of exotic shapes and designs. The shop beside the apothecary was fronted by an absurdly ornate sign for Madame Mystere, offering “psychic readings and spiritual healing.” Next was a small pawn shop – Gregory’s Goodies — and a large wooden building that looked like a barn with a simple hand-painted sign — Corvin’s Fine Furniture. The rest of the shops were obscured by the crowd, and Kohra simply wasn’t interested enough to stand up in order to see better.
The end of the town roughly opposite the blacksmith’s was dominated by a spectacular temple, built in a triangular fashion with white marbled steps leading up to three different entrances (although they could only see two from their vantage point), each framed by gleaming marble pillars that supported elegant archways. It looked like three temples, combined into one pyramid. At the bottom of each staircase stood a statue of a house: protected on one side by a giant mare and the other by a giant owl.
Devona pointed to the statues. “Athena, Demeter and Hestia — Goddesses of wisdom, farming and the home.”
Kohra nodded nonchalantly, trying to make it seem like oh yeah, she knew that.
“I studied ancient religions a couple of years ago,” Devona added, seeming like her regular self once again now that she had something to explain to them all. “As far as we know, these three goddesses were originally worshipped by a people once called the Chinese, which is the oldest culture we know of. They lived in a kingdom, or maybe an empire, called Loss Vaygus, before the Lost Age. It is said that they were so powerful the citizens didn’t have to sleep, and they burned a million torches at all times of the day and night so their land was constantly illuminated.”
Kohra loved Dev’s stories. She had received such a good education, so much better than any of the rest of them. The regular school system focused on the standard stuff everybody needed to know, but Dev’s private tutors had taught her so many more fascinating things, bits of knowledge that regular people just didn’t have access to. Kohra wasn’t sure what a person did with all that knowledge, but it sure made for interesting conversations.
Sometimes she was jealous; it seemed Dev knew everything and Kohra nothing. Her key role in their friendship seemed to be to mainly listen and murmur an appreciative “mmm-hmmm” and “Wow!” every now and then. But mostly, she enjoyed hearing about it all. It was kind of thrilling to be such a close friend to Devona. Kohra felt special, like she’d been “chosen” by this great person. She watched Dev’s curls bounce as she animatedly described the ancient Chinese people and their great city of light — Loss Vaygus.
Sitting innocuously under a large maple tree behind the temple, almost unnoticed in the bombastic beauty of the much larger structure, a little wooden hut waited to catch the eye of those who looked past the obvious and noticed the smaller details. It was tiny, not much bigger than an outhouse, but it was far too beautiful for that comparison to ever spring to one’s mind once they saw it, decorated as it was with flowers, covered with vines, and highlighted by a delightful community of butterflies flitting around. A wooden sign stuck out of the ground, black writing burned into it. “Welcome, Avatar.”
Kohra motioned toward the sign and bizarrely beautiful little hut. “What’s that all about?”
This time it was Gorb who replied. “’Tis one o’ dos cults o’ d’Wild, I t’ink. Dey t’ink d’Avatar is some grrrreat god who can contrrrrol all d’elemental powers.”
“How’s that different from the Druids?” Lenny asked.
Gorb shrugged. “Maybe dat’s why it’s just a cult.”
Lenny laughed, “I wonder whether this ‘Avatar’ would agree. If I ever meet her, I’m gonna ask.”
Anchoring the third corner of the market, sprawled a large, three-story public bathhouse. Steam shot out of several pipes, sticking out of it like a bloated, smoking pincushion.
The third side was hidden by the crowd. But there was no mistaking it composition. The pungency of roasting pork, clouds of steam smelling like gravy and long-simmering goat meat, the nostril-burning spiciness of hot sauces mixed with the acrid, comforting smell of fire-grilled steaks and sauce-slathered ribs — were unmistakable. Kohra started to get a sense of how important meat was to this town.
“Sleep now,” Lenny mumbled, slumping droopy-eyed against Kohra’s shoulder.
“Okay, hold on.” Kohra scanned for Gorb, who was back with Beacon again, talking to her.
“I’ll be right back.” She propped Lenny against the cool stone of the dragon statue and hurried over, placing a hand on his shoulder. “Hey, Gorb? Do you have a second?”
“Aye.” But he averted his gaze, looking intently at the horse like he was inspecting her.
“Gorb,” she spoke gently; he still seemed awfully upset. “We’re going to find a place to stay for the night. Maybe check the prices at Juanita’s Inn, you know, the one we saw coming in? It looks pretty nice, and we’ve got some money left over from before we met you. That’s where we’re going ok? Will you meet us there?”
He nodded. “T’anks, lass. Juanita’s is a good choice. A bit prrrricey but de food’s wort’ it.” He managed a wry grin. “I’ve eaten dere myself coupl’a times.”
Reaching into the folds of his cloak, he handed her a small leather sack tied with a braided draw-string and jangling with coins. “Get two rrrooms. Say yer wit’ me. She’ll give ye a discount.” Leaning in close, he murmured privately to her. “T’ank ye. I’m no’ myself today.”
“Gorb, I believe,” she faltered, not knowing quite how to say what she wanted to convey. “I believe you’re a good man, Gorb, and a great LightSinger! I believe the Light will hear your Song again. I do.”
He sighed heavily, turning back to Beacon as though he didn’t want Kohra to see his obvious tears. “Go, get some rrrrooms, ye scamp. I’ll catch up wit’ ye later.”
* * * * *
Kohra fell in love with Juanita’s Inn as soon as she stepped inside, laughter skipping around the room from the small crowd gathered at the bar, swapping gossip and enjoying a few pints on a dusty summer day. The interior of the Inn was a bohemian whirl of colour and music and dancing, which, it turned out, was a reflection of the Innkeeper herself.
Juanita swept them into the dining area with a bright smile, her intricately-braided chestnut-brown hair spilling around her shoulders. She wore a simple white blouse and very tight, almost elastic, grey pants. Kohra found it difficult not to stare, although a brief glance at Lenny confirmed she wasn’t the only one.
People sure do things differently in these parts.
Kohra blushed, realizing how they must have all looked, dripping dirt on the floor like they had just crawled out of their own graves.
Juanita didn’t bat an eye. “Let me tell you a story,” she winked, settling them around a table, promptly regaling them with a tale about her Uncle Jorge who kept a pet catfish in his bathtub. (She insisted it was true.) Before they knew it, they were laughing like she was an old friend, sipping cups of hot tea and devouring a basket of warm buns and soft butter. This was followed by what Juanita simply called “goat curry,” but which Kohra knew must be secret code for Eternal Bliss Food of the Heavens.
She looked around the eclectically-decorated interior while they ate. It seemed Juanita had been everywhere; she must have lived quite a life before settling down with this Inn. The walls, any spaces of which weren’t adorned with paintings, sported shelves displaying the many treasures Juanita had gathered from her travels: sea-shells, colourful stones, little sculptures and knick-knacks, a large collection of guitars, and several masks of demonic-looking birds.
They were quiet during their meal, everyone lost in their own thoughts and feeling a bit…empty, after everything that had happened. After an excellent flowery tea to finish off the meal, Juanita showed them to their rooms.
While the others got ready for bed, Kohra, after washing up and changing her clothes, decided to go back to the bar area, telling the others she “needed some head space.” Which was true, more or less. She was pretty desperate for some privacy from the others, to be sure. But the main reason, which she could never tell anyone, was that she just wanted to sit there and fantasize, to allow her mind’s eye to float and flitter through all the fun, and danger, and romance, that surely had been their vivacious host’s wild life. And she wanted to listen to the banter of the locals sitting around the bar, join their raucous laughter in her own silent way, and pretend that somehow, she was part of it all.
The dinner rush was over, and for a while, there were only a couple of regulars who were, as far as Kohra could understand, debating the relative chances of Tommy Bennett (the favourite, and reigning champion) in the upcoming bare knuckle match against Jay Irving (the upstart challenger from the other side of the Chimera River). People didn’t generally favour Jay (he was, after all, the outsider), but they grudgingly admitted that he was the toughest challenger Tommy had faced in a couple of years. Kohra listened to the debate until Juanita stopped by her table, gracefully squirming in beside her with a smile.
“They’ll be at that for a long while,” she laughed. “So I hope you don’t mind if I get to know one of my mysterious new guests?” Kohra blushed furiously, but Juanita was so warm and reassuringly friendly, Kohra found herself laughing, delighted, truly, truly delighted, for the company, and settled into one of the most WONDERFUL conversations she could remember having. Ever.
“I’ve lived here 17 years this summer. This town has good bones. For a long, long time it’s been a close-knit community. It’s hard to describe for outsiders, and Hells, after 17 years I’m still a fernal outsider!” She laughed. “But yeah, true outsiders have a hard time understanding the magic of a place like this.”
She smiled, touching the back of Kohra’s hand momentarily; it was like an electric shock ran through Kohra’s body, but Juanita didn’t seem to notice. “You know how people who live on islands have a real Islander Identity? Like, they really Know Who They Are?”
Kohra nodded. She hadn’t actually known that, but nodding seemed like the right response. Besides Juanita was smiling at her, and Kohra’s mind couldn’t manage much else right now except entranced agreement.
“That’s how Annuvin is. We’re all alone out here. Too close to the Swamp to have many neighbours. The forest can’t be settled; it’s far too Wild. And North of here, nothing but mountains and cold. Well, and barbarians, giants, ice dragons and the Gods-only-know. But THIS, this is our land.” She laughed merrily. “We have it all to ourselves. Even Anthor’s arm doesn’t reach this far anymore.”
“What do you mean?” Kohra asked. “I thought the Borderlands had always been free of Anthor. Isn’t that why they’re the Borderlands?”
Juanita threw her head back with abandon, snorting with laughter. “Borderlands! I always get a kick out of that. This land, honey, we call the Anvil. And Annuvin is its largest town. More of a farming community, really, but still, it’s the largest trading hub anywhere between Anthor and the Eastlands.” Kohra wanted to ask why they called it the Anvil, but Juanita simply talked too fast for her to formulate the question quickly enough.
“It’s a nice town, you know. Nicer than its dusty exterior might lead you to think!” She tapped Kohra’s shoulder (another electric shock), smiling. “A lot of people find Annuvin a little underwhelming when they first arrive.” Her smile, if possible, grew even warmer and friendlier as Kohra felt herself melting into the woman’s eyes. “But once you settle into the local vibe, you realize, this is a lovely place. People help each other here in Annuvin. There’s a long history of communal living in these parts. I guess it’s farming, I don’t know. But it’s special here. People work together, share everything — tools and equipment, knowledge and muscle, food and shelter when times are tough. And we stand together in battle when times are toughest.”
She put one callused-but-somehow-still-soft hand on the back of Kohra’s again. Kohra blushed a deep crimson, wishing that right now, right in this moment, she could stop time forever.
“This is from before my time here, of course,” Juanita continued, wiping her brow with the back of her other hand. “But in the Great War, Annuvin is the place where the Dark Knights made their stand. You know about them right?”
Kohra shook her head. History had never been much of an interest.
“You need to read some books there darlin.’” Juanita laughed. She had a warm laugh, easy and unguarded, the kind of laugh that held no guile, making you feel that you were talking to a Real Person.
“Yeah, they made their stand right here on the Anvil. Turned the tide, they did, rallied the Races against the Hordes. It is said that if Annuvin had fallen, the Hordes would have swept over all of Eden. Then the EastLands too. And eventually consumed all the worlds, although personally (she gave Kohra an indecipherable wink), I don’t think they’d ever have gotten over the Elves’ Green Wall. But anyway, we held firm, or rather, the Hammerites’ ancestors did. It was the blood from that battle that formed the Great Swamp, they say.”
Another customer came in, clearly one of the regulars, and walked over to seat herself at the bar. Juanita signaled that she’d be right there, and left a jug of pear juice on the table. “It’s fresh; help yourself.” Kohra started to politely decline, but the vivacious host simply breezed away with, “It’s on the house!”
Kohra took the jug and her cup out of the main dining area, and into a smaller side-lounge that was decorated like a little seaside cafe. It looked out of place in the dusty plains town. But maybe that was the point.
And it was certainly authentic to Juanita. Having grown up by the ocean, she loved to tell old stories of the sea, sing sailing songs, and swap jokes with some of her customers who themselves had a connection to the sea, filling the little Inn to the rafters with the rosy warmth of their salty camaraderie. Kohra found herself constantly gazing (trying, unsuccessfully, to hide her admiration), at the woman as she bustled about; she seemed so happy here, living in the little farming town, even though she clearly still loved the sea. Kohra wondered how her heart had learned to be happy despite being separated from what it loved.
She imagined the walls of this building, absorbing all these conversations, all the laughter and gossip and tall tales, the never-ending banter, the natural ebb and flow between people with deeply intertwined roots. She felt like she was in the middle of a choir, but all she could do was listen because she didn’t know the song. Which was fine, really. It was a good song.
Juanita carried her up to the room after she’d been asleep at the table for a good twenty minutes, depositing her gently into one of the beds and pulling the comforter over her. She mused as she walked back to the dining area. The girl didn’t wake up once; poor thing was exhausted. That other one, the dark-haired girl, she barely even turned from the window when we came in. Something is definitely up with this crew.
She had her suspicions. She had seen something like this before. It was the same look she saw in the eyes of Kylryvyn, the man who’d survived The Reaper, the look of being only half-here, half-somewhere-else.
The Reaper. Juanita shuddered, thinking of that terrible Beast still slinking unseen through the forests, killing whenever it wanted. Nobody even knew what it was.
There were lots of theories. Some said it was a demon who had been summoned into this world and let loose, now delighting in random bloodshed. Some said it was an insane dark wizard, others a psychotic shape-shifter who liked to terrify the innocent. Most, however, believed it was a Harbinger, a sign sent from the gods to warn them that the End Times were coming.
Well, Juanita didn’t know much about Reapers or the End Times. But she did know that the people of this town tended to believe a lot of fantastic stories that probably weren’t true. And she was far too busy to waste her time with fantasy.
Regardless of what this motley crew with that Klliik-LightSinger had been through, she always believed that a good sleep and some hearty home cooking would make a world of difference. She smiled as she returned to her regulars.
This is why I run this place. You never know what a little kindness might accomplish.