Enaya: Solace of Time (23 page)

“Yes,” Leo said, staring back at the ceiling.

Nile said nothing else, and neither did Leo.

Chapter 31

Rats for Supper

Hours passed, and a large bell with peoriallites carved into the bronze rang from the nearest chapel, announcing suppertime. The crew left the inn to see the village of peoriallites heading toward a building with arched windows. “The Great Hall” was carved above the door, and that was where the feast was going to take place.

Bancroft had decided to join the group, seeing how they were all in this together. Ashera also did a lot of convincing before Bancroft would even consider. Bancroft, being the oldest of the group, looked at the other members as children. They were all in the same position—trying to figure out what to do next. The pain had sunk in deep with Bancroft, and he was at the point of total desperation. He felt empty, unfulfilled, and lonely on the inside. He just wanted to curl up and cry, but being with these newcomers seemed to bring some hope.

A group of females walked before Leo, wearing leather scraps around their chests and waists, showing off their backs and flat, athletic stomachs. Leo meowed, and they turned at Leo in disgust. Leo persisted.

“Come here, kitty, kitty, kitty,” Leo said.

“What are you doing?” Nile asked.

“I just want to pet them,” Leo said with a slimy grin.

The male peoriallites wore vests or fancy robes. Some had hair that covered their hands and legs and parts of their face. Some had long whiskers, and some just appeared fat and lazy. The fancier females were wearing fancy dresses in green, maroon and white. Some had their hair up, but most seemed to wear it down. Leo focused on the ones who wore their hair down.

“I might live here,” Leo said.

“If you do,” Ashera said, “I’m turning you into a mouse.”

Bancroft, Nile, and Locklin laughed. Leo’s cheeks reddened.

They walked down a street, past some houses, the courtyard, a courthouse and a cathedral, and went into the great hall to dine. There was a large tree at the center of the room where some of the peoriallites were lying. Tables were scattered across the room with seven seats around them. However, a table cleared from peoriallites was placed in the corner of the room with seven plates and seven tin goblets. Nile pulled a chair out for Ashera and then scoot her in. The others sat down and Charis ran to the table to join them.

“We’ve had enough of you for the day,” Nile said.

“I’m a good kitty,” Charis said.

“Why are you here?” Leo asked.

“This is my table,” she replied.

“Ashera, make her disappear,” Nile said.

Ashera threw up her hands and yelled, “Shazam!”

Everyone looked at Charis, who was patting herself and looking around the room. She then glared at Ashera and snarled. “That wasn’t funny!”

“I’m laughing,” Ashera replied.

“Well, you can join us, but you have to be nice,” Nile said.

“She is a dear child, just having fun,” Bancroft said, defending her.

“Thank you, sir,” Charis said.

“You don’t even know our names,” Nile said.

“Yeah, I do,” Charis said and then pointed to Ashera, “she is Ashera.”

“That is because Nile just said it, eh,” Locklin said.

Charis placed her hand back under the table. “All right, I’m sorry I was rude earlier.”

“We forgive you,” Nile said assuringly.

“I don’t,” Leo remarked. “Go sit with your father.”

“I don’t have a father,” Charis replied.

“Yes, you do. You were just talkin’ to him earlier.” Leo thought on the name, snapped his fingers, and called out, “Ishmael.”

“He is my foster father. My real parents abandoned me when I was young.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Nile said.

“I’m not. Now go away,” Leo said.

“Leo!” Everybody called except for Charis.

Charis looked down and her ears lowered. She began sniffing.

“That was taking it too far, Leo,” Ashera said.

Leo rolled his eyes and slapped his hands on the table. “All right, I’m sorry.”

“You don’t mean it,” Charis said, pouting.

“Of course I do.”

Charis smiled. “Leo, you’re such a girl.”

“You were acting?” Ashera asked. “That is pathetic. Now I will make you disappear.”

Charis jumped from the table. “No, don’t!” And she scurried away.

Nile looked at Ashera, “Can you really make people disappear?”

“No.”

Everybody laughed.

Nile spotted Ishmael sitting at a long table with other elder peoriallites. He stood up with a brass goblet in his hands with jewels forged around it. He held the goblet up high and said, “The feast is about to be upon you, so enjoy, and remember, right after dinner we have time to change for our celebration tonight. We have also a few guests who are sitting in the back tonight.” Ishmael pointed. “Wish them happiness, for they will be off tomorrow morning.”

All the peoriallites in the room turned and looked at them. Leo waved his hand for just a second before Nile reached up, grabbed his hand, and pulled it down.

Ishmael looked to his left, where a female peoriallite with black cat ears and a black tail walked out. She was slim and beautiful, with tan skin and black straight hair. She wore tight black pants, black high-heeled boots, a black button-up vest, and a puffy white shirt under it. She held a silver platter in her right hand and a container of wine in the other. She reached over Leo’s shoulder and set down the platter. She smiled and walked to another table.

Leo watched her walk away.

Locklin leaned over the table. “They only look at ya, because ya smell like a rat.”

Leo pulled the lid off the platter, revealing a thoroughly cooked specimen with leaves, sliced tomatoes, and cucumbers all around it. Everyone tried to figure out what they were about to devour.

“Is it chicken?” Nile asked.

“I don’t think so,” Ashera replied.

“Duck?” Leo asked.

“Nope,” Ashera replied.

And then an old female peoriallite with gray curly hair and thick glasses leaned over from her table and said, “It is rat!”

“Yummy,” Leo said, not exactly knowing what to say at that particular moment. He suddenly lost his appetite and pushed his plate toward the platter.

“That is one big rat,” Ashera said.

Locklin grabbed the fork and knife and cut it open. Everyone gave him a bizarre look, but he paid no attention to them as he cut off a chunk and slapped it on his plate. Locklin cut into the meat. It was thick and looked like rubber. Locklin’s mouth watered as the meat slid between his lips, tingling his tongue. He moaned in satisfaction, as if he hadn’t eaten in years. “Tastes like chicken.”

Bancroft then cut off a slice and took a bite. He pulled and tugged at it like a lion eating its prey. The meat was tender and juicy, and as he tore a piece off, he was slung back into his chair.

“It is good, my friends,” Bancroft said, assuring them.

Nile and Ashera moved their plates closer to the platter and at the same time they said, “I’ll pass.”

Charis came back to the table, chewing on some of the meat, and she sat down. Now everybody was already tired of her and wanted her to leave, but she sat there and finished her food, saying nothing.

In a bored tone, Leo said, “How can we help you?”

“Are you all going to the celebration?”

Nile nodded.

“Good, I hope to see you there.”

“Thanks,” Nile said.

Charis then looked at Ashera. “I’m sorry for the way I acted earlier, but I have some nice outfits for you to choose from for the celebration, if you’d like. We look about the same size.”

“I don’t know,” Ashera said suspiciously.

“Come on, and I’ll fix your hair,” Charis said. “I don’t have many friends, and I would love to have someone to talk to.”

“Do it,” Nile said politely, “you may have fun.”

Ashera agreed, “All right, I will.”

“Great!” Charis said.

“If you have any of the leather scraps that they wear,” Leo pointed to a table with beautiful peoriallites, “then dress Ashera up in those.”

“Gross,” Ashera said.

Nile looked at the peoriallites, smiled, and waved. They waved back and giggled, and then Nile turned to Ashera. “I would like to see it.”

“Nile!” Ashera said angrily.

“I was just kidding,” Nile replied.

“I wasn’t,” Leo commented with a smile.

“Yeah, but you’re an idiot,” Ashera said.

“Takes one to know one, man,” Leo said as he poured himself a glass of wine.

They talked a little more before a bell rang. The peoriallites went to change into more celebratory clothing for the merriment. Charis grabbed Ashera’s hand and pulled her down the street into a small opening through a limestone wall that separated two streets. And that was the last Nile saw of Ashera before the celebration.

Chapter 32

The Forgotten Season

The Peoriallites gathered outside as the bell echoed throughout the city. A jolt of excitement pierced down Nile’s back, not because he wanted to have fun, but because he was aching on the inside to see Ashera. He followed his friends and everyone else down a tight alley, then over the bridge that spread across a large gap. Nile rested his hands on the limestone wall of the bridge and gazed into the shimmering river below. As he raised his head, his eyes met a waterfall. The waterfall crackled and popped into the steady river below that sipped into the ocean.

Bancroft stepped beside of Nile and placed a hand on a shoulder. “What are you looking at, my dear boy?”

“Wondering what ocean that is,” he replied.

Bancroft looked at it. “I believe it is the Agrassi Ocean.”

As Nile looked out at the ocean, he felt a few slaps on his left arm. When he turned, he saw Leo staring wildly at something ahead. “What is it, Leo?”

“Look for yourself,” Leo said, and then pointed.

Nile turned around and his jaw dropped in bewilderment. Ashera was coming toward them. Her long brown hair curled at the tips, stretching over her shoulders. She was wearing a dark red dress that dragged against the ground. A silver vambrace twirled around her wrist in the shape of a rose, and the stem wrapped around her forearm and elbow. Nile’s jaw dropped in awe; he shook his head for a second to keep from staring. Charis was with her, wearing a green dress with crystal raindrops pouring down her arms.

“How do I look?” Ashera asked.

Nile could do nothing but stare.

“Beautiful,” Leo said, drooling as well.

“You look . . . you look like magic,” Nile said.

Ashera grinned, her face glowing red.

The courtyard was decorated with long tables and different-colored cloths. Bottles spun in yarn filled the tables and harvested baby’s breath. There was a table with fancy plates and a punch bowl and covered with a wide variety of food, where little starving hands reached for the biscuits and vegetables. Parents gathered up their children away from the table as Ishmael approached a small stage that was set up for the occasion. Sitting neatly behind him were musicians with harps, violins, trumpets, a piano, and other assorted instruments.

The band played.

It started with piano—slow. Then a violin echoed through the piano, creating a piece so magical that Nile came to a peace in his heart. Ishmael was directing them. He cracked a smile, excited to see a city so in love with the people and the peace that surrounded them. They had no idea as to what was going on in the outer realm of these woods.

“Do you want to dance?” Ashera asked, reaching for Nile’s hand.

His attention was pulled from the terrace, trying to think of what he was just asked. He ran his eyes up across Ashera’s arms, across her breasts, up her neck, over her painted lips, above her small nose, and into her eyes. She blinked, sending a message, but Nile forgot how to read women. In fact, he never knew how to.

“Do you want to dance?” Ashera repeated.

“I’d love to,” Nile said.

Ashera pulled Nile across the dance floor. Hardly anyone else was dancing, but she didn’t mind. She never really relied on other people to start a party anyways, because as she knew, people tended to wait until someone else began dancing before they got on the dance floor. Ashera was that someone else. She quickly spun around, catching Nile across the shoulders. She grabbed his right hand and directed his left hand to her waist.

“A woman who takes charge . . . whatever will I do with myself?” Nile said, smiling.

Ashera smiled back. “Enjoy?”

“I guess I have no choice,” he muttered, following Ashera’s steps.

Other villagers danced in around them. Ashera stepped in closer, placing her head on Nile’s chest. She then wrapped her arms around his neck, and Nile slithered his arms around her waist, pulling her body in tighter.

“I’m glad I came with you and Leo,” she said softly.

“So am I,” Nile said. “You’ve made this . . . easier, I guess.”

“Who did this?” Ashera asked.

“I don’t know,” he whispered, but he did know. It stabbed him like a knife in the dark. He knew who did it.
He
did it. He caused all this pain, all this suffering. It was he who’d killed all the babies, all the mothers and fathers. If he hadn’t used that thing called Enaya, then none of this would have ever happened.

The song shifted to a more upbeat song. All the couples broke away and began jumping and kicking and doing wild movements to the song, but Ashera and Nile just stared at each other for a moment longer. She reached for his hand.

“I want to sit out,” Nile said.

“You can’t, not tonight. Tonight, we have to celebrate.”

“Celebrate what?”

“To us and everything we lost. To our families, who are in better places that for as long as we live we will never know about.”

“I think I want to be alone,” Nile said. “Just for a minute.”

He turned, but Ashera grabbed his hand. Nile turned to her, tears in his eyes, and slowly pulled his hand away. Ashera watched as he disappeared into the crowd. She picked up her dress and ran off the dance floor.

“Hey, babe,” Leo said in his joking manner.

“Not now,” Ashera said, brushing past him.

Leo spun around and stepped in front of her, catching her at the shoulders. “What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know, Leo.” Ashera gazed up into his eyes. “I asked Nile who did this? He got upset and walked away.”

Leo swallowed hard. “Of course he did, Ashera. He has a lot on his heart.”

“So do you, me, Locklin, Bancroft especially,” Ashera argued.

“I wish I could be the one to tell you, but I can’t. In time Nile will.”

Ashera shrugged Leo’s hands off her. “Why? Why can’t you tell me?”

“Because you wouldn’t be able to understand.”

“Perhaps so,” Ashera said. “I dressed this way for him, just because I felt something for him.”

Leo glared at her. She looked like a million fireworks exploding off at once into the bright red, the kind of red that made everybody stop what they were doing and stare, the kind of red that immediately struck everyone’s taste buds. Ashera looked like that, a tasteful color of red that made all men quake in their knees, even Leo.

“You are very beautiful,” Leo said, getting lost into her eyes, “but Nile thinks you are too. Give him a few minutes and go talk to him. He may have calmed down by then. It’s hard to have it all one day and then wake up and it’s gone.”

“I’m an orphan, remember?” Ashera turned and walked away. Leo watched her disappear into the crowd of dancers.

Leo turned, and in the distance, a figure caught his eye. Nile was standing on the deck of the Ancrya, his arms resting over the railing, and he was lost in the depths below. Leo knew the pain of Nile, and as he watched him, grief struck him too. The music did not help.

***

The doors slid into the crevasses of the wall, echoing with their sleek metallic ring that reminded Nile of what he had done. Bancroft approached him. Nile glanced back into the water below, focusing on the waterfall that crushed into the pool of the river.

“You seem so sad,” Bancroft said.

“I’m always sad,” Nile said. “I’ve been sad for a few years now.”

Bancroft placed a hand on the center of his back. “Trust me. This morning I woke up the happiest man on the planet, and now I’m the saddest man of the heart. You think it is easy to stand here with you and pretend it’s all right when I lost my family this morning? It’s not! Things happen, Nile, and for whatever reason I do not understand. I have faith though. Faith has carried me through, and faith will carry me out.”

“Faith in what?”

“The Lord,” Bancroft said.

“Some Lord,” Nile mumbled. “I just wish things were back to normal.”

“What’s normal?” Bancroft asked.

“Before all this, when Dywnwen was alive.”

“Oh! Who is Dywnwen?” Bancroft asked.

Nile shook his head. “A girl I was in love with.”

Bancroft chuckled. “She is still with you, Nile.”

Nile looked up at Bancroft, defeated. “Where?”

Bancroft poked him in the center of his chest. “Here, you see, my dear son, there is a forgotten season. A season where we were once young and everything seemed to be great. There was a season when we could laugh and play and sing songs. Now, in this dark hour, everything has been ripped away from us. But the forgotten season is never forgotten as long as you keep it in your memories.”

“Some things I don’t want in my memory.”

“I was nineteen, Nile. I was nineteen and I served with my father. It was my dream to be like him, to fight like him, to love like him. He was a servant to the king and to the king’s people, but he died from a sword. I was on my knees in the battlefield; we had nearly won, and in the last moment a horseman rode through the field, sword steady like a spear and threw it. He didn’t throw it at a knight or at my father; he threw it at me and my father jumped in the way. All I saw then was a back of armor, a steel dragon pierced through it hungry like a wolf. My father fell to his knees and I caught him. The horseman rode off.”

Nile turned to face Bancroft, captivated by his story.

“I pulled my father up into my arms and held him. He told me he was proud of me, and that I was better than he ever was. I cried. I could cry now, my son, but I cried. He passed away on that field. The two months it took me to get home, I thought of him and his servant hood, and that if he were me, he would rejoice in the life that his father had lived. I had to tell my mother and three brothers that he was dead. At first, my mother blamed me and it took months, even years before she would look me in the eye, but the night she passed away, she grabbed my hand and held it over her heart. Nothing was said, but I knew and she knew that this was part of a plan that is greater than you and me.”

“I’m sorry, I had no idea,” Nile said.

Bancroft wiped away a few tears that strolled down his face. “You’re all right. Find that pain that drives you, search it out, and seek the plan that was made for you. A few moments ago you were dancing with the most beautiful woman here, and now you’re on this ship with an old man. What happened?”

“She said something that bothered me. She asked, ‘Who did this’?”

“And what’s wrong with that?”

“It got me thinking, that’s all. It got me thinking of who did this and the truth is—”

“Don’t blame yourself,” Bancroft interrupted.

Nile was relieved. He was about to spill his heart, confess that about Enaya, about what had happened, explain that Bancroft’s family was dead because of him, but Bancroft saved Nile the agony of telling the truth.

“Perhaps she left something great behind,” Bancroft said. “Maybe she had a love, or a little sister or a brother. We all have our pain, but you substitute that pain with joy and laughter and play. Now, you get out there and dance with her and confess how radiant her beauty is, because if you don’t, regardless of how this all plays out, you will regret this moment.”

Nile stared at Bancroft for a second, then lunged at him with his arms wide open. Nile was in tears, but he laughed, even chuckled. He stared into Bancroft’s old, wise eyes and nodded. Then he dashed through the Ancrya, only to come to a stop where he met Ashera standing in the foyer with her arms across her chest, rubbing each elbow.

“She’s beautiful,” Nile whispered to himself, surprised that he could even speak.

“Hey,” Nile asked softly, surprised to see her.

“Hey,” Ashera replied.

Nile approached her.

“I’m sorry for . . .”

Whoosh!

Nile grabbed her arms and pulled her in with such force that Ashera realized just how strong this man of hers might be. Nile kissed her. The music was soft and beautiful and faded through the walls of the Ancrya, but it could still be heard. Nile moved his lips over hers, and as he did, his hands slid down her arms, across her waist, and pulled her close. He kissed her passionately, tasting the paint from her lips.

Ashera’s hands crawled up Nile’s arms, over his shoulders, and played with his hair as she positioned his head for her to nibble on his lower lip. She pulled his head closer and kissed him harder.

The music outside changed.

“Ashera?” Nile asked.

“Yes?”

“Will you dance with me?”

Ashera pulled away and looked into his eyes. Nile stepped to the left, then the right, in small steps. He walked them in circles as he held her. The music outside continued, joining all instruments together for one beautiful melody that almost brought Nile to his knees, as he was letting this moment inspire him.

Nile extended his right arm, catching Ashera in a twirl, and brought her back to him, closely. They shut their eyes and rested their foreheads on each other’s, dancing as the violin outside took over the song for a moment. Nile giggled boyishly, which cause Ashera to burst into laughter.