Aid

OF GODS AND MEN

Chapter 33: Returns

          The dark of the midnight hours placed its all-consuming hand outside of the Good Shepherd Tavern.  Nothing of the outside world could be seen from the small windows at the front of the place, though there was no one looking through them to begin with. 

The room was dim, in both appearance and spirit; no fire lit the hearth, and the little lamplight that shone on the wooden shepherd’s face reflected a somber melancholy.  The few shepherds drinking, who filled only a quarter of the once bustling bar, were mirror images of their wooden namesake.  Like him, they existed in utter stillness.

            That gloom was everywhere, infecting the living company who drank with downcast eyes.  They all sat ruminating over the same questions; reeling to and from the same terrors: for Malthanon, the greatest city in all of Arden, had fallen.  What could that mean for its border villages, such as Briarden?  And what happened to Malthus, GodKing of the realm?  Had he been overthrown?  Had he been slain?  And if so, who or what could possibly slay a god…their god?

            Most of the folk in Briarden had fled immediately after the castle fell: folk who’d spent twenty years or more raising their families there and making it their home, had suddenly disappeared in the middle of the night.  They left no trace of themselves behind, and a transient shepherding village would not remember them.  All that was left of Briarden’s villagers were now in this room, and had been, since Malthanon fell a fortnight ago.  They came and went at will.  Some had not left the tavern since that fateful night, and Madeline the barmaid offered them blankets and an open floor on which to sleep.  Nevertheless, every evening they all gathered together to drink the night through.  Yet they did not speak to each other.  There was nothing to say, really.  They just sat, and drank, and thought…alone in a sea of like minds.  This was their home: where they belonged.  There would be no leaving for them.

            They all heard the door open and close, yet not one of them turned to see who had come in at such a late hour.  The large man, armored in stained silver and adorned by a sullied white cloak, made his way to the bar and took a stool.  Among such a common crowd of shepherds and laborers, he was a marvel.  Holding up his cloak, on both shoulders, he bore the medallions of the KingsGuard: a sunbeam, without beginning or end, narrow at the top, but widening toward the bottom. 

            “Welcome milord,” Madeline, the barmaid, offered meekly.  She approached this new patron with the same bowed head that all the other patrons bore.  She placed a mug of dark brown beer at the gauntleted hands of the man.  “Ale’s all we’ve got, I’m afraid.  We make it here, ya see.  Won’t have nothin else for…till things settle down some.  No charge yer worship.”

            “Thank you Madeline,” the deep voice echoed throughout the quiet room.

            Madeline raised her head and smiled at the sight of the man.  He wore no helm, and though his face was leaner and more haggard than she remembered it, there was no mistaking Drake Mathix.  She looked around to all the others and noticed they too had recognized the voice, and were now looking up at the greatest man to have ever lived in Briarden.

            “My lord…you’re alive,” she said to him at last.

            Whispers of “Drake” and “the young Mathix” cascaded through the room, and the feeling of despondent hopelessness that had plagued the Good Shepherd before was momentarily lifted.  The captain of the KingsGuard had survived, and he had returned.

            Drake did not turn to address them, but kept his eyes fixed on the ale that Madeline had offered him.

            “I’m sorry,” she said, blushing as she reached for the tankard.  “Ya don’t drink…”

            Drake placed his hand overtop of the cup, stopping her from taking it back.  Madeline looked up at him in surprise, and slowly pulled her arm back. 

The knight raised the tankard, and held it still before his lips.  It seemed to Madeline that he was studying the ale: weighing it.  Then, with a few long draughts, he emptied the cup.  He gently reset it on the bar, raised his head to the barmaid, and smiled.  “Still good.  Even after all these years.” 

            Madeline felt shaken.  There was something unsettling to her about seeing Drake smile - about seeing him drink.  The last time she saw him like this was when they were all children.  But Drake pulled away from them early.  Once he decided he wanted to be a knight of the KingsGuard, he gave up the fun and folly of their youth and embraced the rigorous training and dedication of a soldier.  But this was not Drake the soldier that sat before her now.  “Drake, tell us what’s happened.  Please.”

            “As you wish,” Drake replied with a slight bow of his head.

            CLINK, CLINK, CLINK

            Madeline looked down to see Drake’s armored finger tapping on the rim of his empty tankard. 

“But first…” the knight intoned.

She quickly took up his cup and refilled it, setting the fresh ale down before him.  Then, without thinking, she placed her warm hand over one of his cold gloves.  “Milord?”

“My lady…” Drake began, eyeing her hand on his with a curious expression that she could not decipher.  With his other hand, he took up the tankard and brought it to his lips.  “If you’ll excuse me.”

Madeline removed her hand from his and stepped back, watching him drain the second tankard just as quickly as he had the first.  With less gentility than before, he set the cup down and pushed it toward the barmaid.

“One more I think!” Drake enthused.  The listless sorrow he exuded when he came in was giving way to an intoxicated vivacity.

The barmaid obliged, only she did not set his newly filled third cup before him.  Instead, she held it just out of his reach and offered him a piercing glare, “Sir Drake, please…what’s goin on out there?”

“Chaos, Madeline,” Drake said with an uncharacteristic smirk.  “What else would you expect when the world has come to an end?”  He tapped a finger on the bar before him, signaling her to set the ale down.  “…or when our god has died?”

“Died?” Madeline led the charge on a flurry of repeaters throughout the room.  “Malthus is dead?”

“Or he’s fled,” Drake answered easily.  “Either way, his city was a symbol of his power…and his city is crumbling.  Ergo, he is gone.  Whether dead or fled makes no difference.”

Madeline brought the tankard of ale, shaking in her trembling hand, to the spot that Drake had designated and let it fall.  It landed upright on the bar, some of its contents spilling out over the rim and splashing onto the already stained gauntlets of Drake Mathix.  No one paid it any mind.  They were all focused inward again; inside their mental reflections of a world on the very edge of order, about to fall into chaos.  Drake had just confirmed what they all had most feared, and now…now they sat and watched, with their minds’ eyes, as his words took on an ominous shadow of a hundred different hells yet to come.

“The world’s not ended yet,” a boisterous voice called out.  “Pardon me lads, just tryinn’a get to the bar.”

Drake turned to the direction from which the voice had come.  At the end of the bar, a crowd of men and women were suddenly smiling as a figure moved through them.  From the corner of his eye, Drake spotted the table in the back of the Good Shepherd where he, Tarsus, and Finnian used to sit as younger men: where they sat together again only a year ago.  It was empty now.  He briefly wondered what happened to those men he called friends once upon a time.  He gave a thought to where they were now.  Were they even alive? 

At the end of the bar, those smiling men and women shuffled to make room for the man to get through.  Drake heard him trip on something, and as one the group huddled in to help him.

“You alright lad?” an older, white haired man asked.

“I can get it for ya lovey,” a woman offered.

“No need to make a fuss,” the voice told them exuberantly.  “I am a grown man, after all.”

They parted some more, and he finally clawed his way to the bar.  Drake saw that he had shaggy hair, and a beard that was coarse but thin.  He looked filthy, too, clearly not having cleaned himself in days.  The man turned to look back at Drake, and when the knight saw those eyes he recognized them well enough.

“Finnian Pell,” Drake sternly affirmed.