The Hero of Varay Read online

  The end came quickly. The elf’s sword bit into our keg, and while he was freeing his sword and wiping beer from his eyes, I swung Dragon’s Death in a flat arc that took his head completely off his shoulders. But while I was doing that, his sword came free and the tip ripped into my abdomen.

  I felt a tugging, and then a fire, I spun away and through a complete circle, but it was too late to avoid damage. The elf’s head bounced off the splintered keg and came to rest on our table, right side up, eyes open and facing me, a fierce scowl frozen to the face. I lowered my blade and leaned on the hilt like a crutch, fighting against the waves of pain that were flowing up from my gut.

  The elf’s eyes were moving, looking around. The mouth opened.

  “Before you die, I give you the greetings of my father, the Elflord of Xayber,” the elf warrior said. Then his jaw dropped, his eyes closed, and he died.

  I pressed my hand against the tear in my gut, futilely trying to hold in my blood. It wasn’t the sort of homecoming I had planned at all. …

  I had returned from my goodwill tour of the buffer zone that afternoon. I had learned something new about myself. My stock of goodwill wasn’t enough to hold me through a three-month goodwill tour. A long diplomatic gig wasn’t the kind of job that would normally be given to a Hero, but I was also heir apparent to King Pregel, so I was stuck with the job. I did my best to weasel out of it, but when Pregel insisted, there wasn’t much I could do but smile and accept the inevitable. My great-grandfather might be 128 years old and in questionable health, but he was still in charge, and when he said go, I went. He told me that the tour would be part of my continuing education about life in the seven kingdoms.

  He was right, though perhaps not entirely in the way he meant it. I learned that nobody in the seven kingdoms had running water, decent plumbing, or a common magic to fend off lice, bedbugs, and assorted other pests. The buffer zone has a lot of little creepers never seen back in the real world, and the bites or stings of a few of them can produce downright peculiar effects. The only other thing I learned was that appetites and meal sizes seemed to decrease in proportion to the distance from Fairy. I wasn’t sure what the hell that meant, and my survey was hardly scientific, but it was obvious. At Basil and in the northern border fortresses of Varay, people pigged out as often as they could and nobody got fat. In my tour through the four kingdoms west of Varay—Belorz, Caderack, Montray, and Telemon, in that order—I found that the farther west and south I went, the less food people had to eat in order to get by. And in the far southwest (the Titan Mountains took a big bend to the south, so much of Montray and Telemon was farther south than anywhere in Varay), obesity was an occasional problem.

  During the last two months of my tour, I had plenty of time to consider that phenomenon. After all, the actual diplomatic nonsense rarely took more than a few hours every now and then, since we were on the road most of the time, and I couldn’t spend every waking moment swearing that I would never let myself be suckered into such an extended stay in the buffer zone again. I was too far from the magic doors to zip back to my own world for an occasional shower and the other amenities. The primitive life is a great place to visit … as long as you can get back to civilization now and then.

  When I got back from my tour, I had been the official Hero of Varay for three years and a couple of months. On the whole, they had been peaceful years, and I had managed to divide my time between the buffer zone and my own world, with the emphasis on the latter. After facing the Etevar of Dorthin, we had quite a stock of fresh sea-silver left, so I put it to good use, setting up quite a few new magic doorways to let me gad about a little more freely. Now I had an apartment, a condo overlooking Lake Michigan, in Chicago; a small castle in southern Varay, a simple tower with no bailey or curtain wall or anything, like the castle in that movie The War Lord; and magic doorways connected all of my places to Basil and to my mother’s house in Louisville. Yes, she still lived there, most of the time. Twenty-odd years of electricity and modern plumbing had spoiled her for the full-time primitive splendor of Varay too.

  Heading west on my tour, I had been on horseback. Lesh, Harkane, and Timon had accompanied me. Letters had been sent ahead months in advance, setting up what arrangements could be made in the seven kingdoms. There is virtually no postal service in the buffer zone, particularly not between kingdoms. The occasional wandering merchant or minstrel would be hired to take letters along and find a way to direct them closer to their goal. Sometimes a letter might pass through five or six different messengers before it reached its destination. Remarkably, none of the letters setting up my tour got misplaced. The tour took us to each of the capitals and some of the other major towns and castles in the kingdoms west of Varay. In between stops, we often spent several nights in a row camped out or bedded down in village inns that were infested with a variety of unpleasant bugs and rodents.

  At least getting back to Varay once we reached the far west was faster than the trip out. We hired the largest coastal trading ship available and sailed the Mist home. We started out on the west coast of Telemon, sailed north around a peninsula shaped something like Iberia, then east, all of the way to Arrowroot. The sailors of the buffer zone were cautious men, though. They sailed by day and tied up on shore every night, afraid of being blown too far out into the waters of Fairy. Even though I was in a hurry to get home by then, I kept my impatience at bay. I wasn’t entirely comfortable about the voyage. Other than a couple of short day cruises, I had never been on a boat before. At least we didn’t run into any storms or rough seas. The Hero of Varay did not disgrace himself by getting seasick.

  We docked at Arrowroot after twenty-three days at sea, got our horses and luggage unloaded, made arrangements to pay the ship’s master the remainder of his fee, and went to the castle to transfer back to Basil. I grabbed a flagon of beer as we passed through the great hall, something to drink on my way up to King Pregel’s private quarters. As usual, Baron Kardeen was aware that I had returned almost before I was. He always seemed to know just who was in the castle and where. The chamberlain met me before I got to my great-grandfather’s rooms.

  “How is he?” I asked, a normal question.

  “Not bad, considering,” Kardeen said. Considering—Pregel was 128 or thereabouts, so the standards for “not bad” weren’t extremely high. The king’s health fluctuated quite dramatically at times. He could go from chest-thumping health to critical condition and back again almost overnight.

  Kardeen and I went in together. Pregel was sitting up in bed reading—a book, not a scroll. Mother had been bringing him large-print books for years, something to keep him occupied. Occasionally, I brought him a few books I thought he might enjoy, things Mother would probably never think to get for him.

  “Ah, you’re back,” he said when he saw me. He marked his place carefully with a Garfield bookmark and set the book aside. “Is it just three months?”

  “I wouldn’t say ‘just,’” I said. “The way I itch and all, it feels more like a couple of years.”

  Pregel chuckled. “Any difficulties along the way?” Even though he was in bed in the middle of the day, Pregel seemed to be at the top of one of his health swings.

  “Nothing special, I guess. Nobody tried to tar and feather me or anything like that.” I gave him the stack of letters that the various kings and lords of our western neighbors had sent for him. Pregel tossed them aside without a glance.

  “That’s good. It’s been far too long since we’ve done a tour of our western neighbors. I haven’t felt up to that kind of trip for years.”

  “I can see why. Is it okay if we hold off on the full report for a day or two?” I asked. “I’d like to spend some time soaking in a hot tub and start feeling human again.”

  “Yes, I imagine you would.” Pregel chuckled again. “What was her name again?”

  “Joy.” I shook my head to keep from grinning. Pregel might be old, but he wasn’t completely out of touch.

  “Ah, yes, a wo
nderful name for a young lady. Yes, we can wait a few days before we ask all the questions. That will give me time to read all these letters. As long as there’s nothing urgent.”

  “There isn’t. Nobody’s declaring war or anything.”

  “Must have been dull for you. You’ll have to bring your young lady by to say hello one of these days.”

  I just nodded. That was easier than admitting that I hadn’t told Joy word one about the buffer zone or my job. I wasn’t sure about telling her yet. It isn’t that I wasn’t sure of Joy, I just hadn’t come up with a way to tell her about Varay without either convincing her that I was crazy or scaring her out of her gourd. Joy was special enough that I didn’t want to take any stupid chance of spoiling our relationship.

  Most times, I enjoyed sitting around and chatting with Pregel. His mind was clear, his sense of humor surprising. But that afternoon, I was itching so badly that I couldn’t wait to get home and soak myself until I looked like a prune, maybe baste myself liberally with baby oil or whatever it was going to take to get rid of my itching and discomfort. While I was soaking, I would call Joy and set up something for the next day. It wasn’t just that I wanted to let the anticipation build, I had a prior commitment for my first night back.

  I got out of the king’s room as quickly as I could and went around to see if Parthet had popped in while Kardeen and I were with the king. The chamberlain had told me that Parthet hadn’t been at Basil since breakfast, which was quite in keeping with the wizard’s habits. He rarely took all three meals in the castle. At lunchtime he could more often be found in one of the various pubs that met his approval. He had used some of that excess sea-silver too.

  “He knows you’re due, so he’ll be along early for dinner,” Kardeen said as we headed toward his office. “He’s been looking for you for the last week or more.”

  “I should be back by supper,” I said. I was developing a feel for time in the buffer zone, even without a watch. “Maybe I won’t be here at the start of the meal, but I’ll be along in time to eat.” I had a solid two hours, closer to three, before supper would begin in the great hall, and it wasn’t as if I would lose time in transit. Kardeen and I nodded each other off, then I headed for my bedroom in Castle Basil to go home. I left Lesh at Basil to get an early start on the evening’s drinking, dropped Timon off at my Castle Cayenne in the southernmost part of Varay, then popped through to my Michigan Avenue condo in Chicago.

  My place in Chicago is thirty-eight stories up, on the east side of the building, looking right out over Lake Michigan—a classy home in a classy neighborhood. I took frequent guilt trips over it, but the Hero of Varay has more money than he can possibly spend sanely, and gold from the buffer zone spends very well in the “real” world. So much for turning away the Elflord of Xayber, so much for defeating the Etevar of Dorthin, plus never-before-claimed bounties for killing two dragons, and a monthly salary to boot. Baron Kardeen’s chancery clerk kept very strict accounts even if the entries would send a CPA into fibrillation. I didn’t even have to draw on my status as heir for money. On top of everything else, I also drew a small income from Dorthin. Duke Dieth did his best there, but not all of the feudal lords of Dorthin had accepted the new hierarchy yet.

  The master bath in my apartment is appropriately decadent for such an upscale Gold Coast address. The tub will do everything but scratch your back, and it comes close to doing that with directed jets of water circulating just the way you want it. I showered, rinsed the tub out, then filled it for that long soak. While the water was running, I phoned Joy.

  Joy Bennett and I had been going together for a year before my goodwill tour. Being away from her for those three months was the main reason why my goodwill ran out before the tour did. Joy had been near the end of her last semester for a B.S. in computer science when I left on my tour—about the same point in her studies that I had been at when I stumbled into my new job and kissed college goodbye. Joy told me that she was going to be exceptionally busy for the last few weeks of school, so she didn’t object too strenuously when I told her I was going to be gone for ages on a mysterious mission that I couldn’t tell her about. She joked about it now and then during the ten days between the time I told her that I was going and the time I left, but I’m pretty certain that she halfway thought that I was working for the CIA, just the way I used to think that my father was a spy because of his periodic disappearances.

  I had offered Joy the use of my condo while I was gone, but the dorm at school was more convenient through the end of the semester, and she decided that she would rather use the time after the end of school to go home for a visit with her parents. I promised to call her as soon as I got home, and she promised to get on a plane to come back to Chicago the next morning. We were in that deep about each other. Marriage hadn’t quite been discussed, but we had talked around the fringes of the subject now and then, and it seemed to be a likely prospect … if I managed to get the subject of Varay across without scaring her off, at least. I knew I couldn’t put that conversation off much longer.

  The phone in St. Louis rang four times, then a fifth. I had a sinking feeling that no one was home, but then Joy answered. After a round of long-distance greetings that I wouldn’t dare confide to paper, I said, “I’m home.”

  “It’s about time.”

  “Way past time,” I told her. “I’ve missed you so much.”

  “Not even a postcard in three months.”

  “I wasn’t anywhere I could count on mail service,” I said.

  “Oh? I didn’t see you on campus.” A private joke.

  “Still coming back to see me?” I asked.

  “I’ll be at O’Hare fifteen minutes after noon tomorrow.”

  “You have the schedule handy?”

  “Don’t need it. I memorized it weeks ago.”

  “Twelve-fifteen. I’ll be there. I love you, Joy.”

  “After three months, you’re going to have to prove that all over again, you know.”

  “Ummm. I can hardly wait.”

  No, the bathtub wasn’t overflowing when I got back to the bathroom. It can’t overflow. It says so right on the guarantee. An electronic eye shuts the water off when it gets to the fill level. Other sensors adjust the hot and cold water to whatever temperature I set the thermostat for. And there is a panel just out of reach of the faucets that gives me a telephone, intercom to the front door, five-inch television, and speakers to bring the comfort of my stereo into the comfort of my tub.

  I listened to the elevator music of WLAK while I soaked—relaxing music to help me unwind. It put me to sleep, as usual. But I didn’t doze for long. My danger sense won’t let me be when I fall asleep in the tub. The instant I start to slide down a little, it wakes me with an annoying little jerk. And then my stomach started growling, so I knew it was time to head for supper.

  My entryway to Castle Basil is in the hall closet of the apartment in Chicago. Leaving my bedroom there takes me to my bedroom on the fifth floor of Castle Cayenne. Going from dining room to kitchen takes me to my mother’s home in Louisville. And the kitchen-dining room direction takes me to a small office I keep on West Washington in Chicago’s Loop. I only keep the office as a place for the doorway, a shortcut to get downtown. We had a lot of sea-silver left after my foray into Xayber, and the stuff is useless if it isn’t used within three months after it’s harvested, so we used it.

  I went through Cayenne on my way to Basil to pick up Timon again. The Hero of Varay must be properly accompanied. Timon was still my page. And I had to appear fully armed as always. Most times I didn’t worry about wearing both of my swords. The elf blade, Dragon’s Death, had stood me in good stead when I needed it, and during the intervening years I had practiced extensively with the claymore until it was almost second nature for me to use it. Besides that, it was a much more impressive weapon. A big part of the secret to avoiding trouble is making people think that you can return more than they can serve up.

  There were already
people eating when I reached the great hall of Basil. I took my customary seat at the head table, and Timon started dishing up the food for me. I didn’t accept that kind of service in my own castle, but in “public” I had to put up with it. Varay can be very tradition-bound about some things.

  Naturally, Uncle Parthet was one of the people who had started eating as soon as the first platters and pitchers were hauled in. He waved a spoon my way when he saw me coming in, but our dinner talk was severely limited. Our mouths were always full. Someday, I’d like to do a real study of just how much food people eat in Basil. As the roughest estimate, I’d say that people eat their weight every two to three weeks—and that might be overly conservative.

  Weight Watchers would find no business in Varay, though. I asked Uncle Parthet about all of the eating once, back while I was recovering from my injuries after the battle around Castle Thyme. “It’s all the magic, lad,” he told me. “The energy has to come from somewhere, and mostly it comes directly from the people who live here.”

  At just about any dinner at Castle Basil, you’ll find beef and pork roasts; ham; sausage; chicken and/or turkey and/or duck and/or goose; potatoes fixed three or four different ways; a selection of vegetables, salad items, and fruits—fresh in season, canned, dried, or otherwise preserved the rest of the year; bread, rolls, and desserts—usually fried or baked desserts, as fattening as possible; beer, wine, and coffee; and on and on, including “side dishes” of stew and soup. The buffer zone is a glutton’s paradise. Just sampling everything at a meal puts your calorie count well into four digits, and nobody “just” samples it all. It’s like having Thanksgiving dinner three times a day, every day, and the cooks of Varay have never heard of things like low-fat, cholesterol-free, salt-free, “light” foods, sugar substitutes, margarine, and the like.

  People don’t drop dead young from heart attacks or strokes either. Go figure.

  Dinner takes time when it’s that full of treats. Ninety minutes, even two hours, isn’t rare for a meal in Basil. It was dusk before Parthet, Lesh, and I broke away from supper and headed for the main gate. The “welcome home” bash was on me.