CAUTIOUS JUBILATION? (Pt. 2)

by Jay Squires

FROM PREVIOUS CHAPTER: “Jed, I want you to do something for me, will you? I’m going to ask you a question. If you understand it, briefly close your eye, and then open it. Here goes. Son, do you remember why you must stay awake?”
          His eye closed, then opened.
          “Wonderful! This time, son, if the answer is yes, do the same again with your eye.” He watched me. “Is there less pain now?”
          Again, his eye closed, and opened.
          “Okay, last question ... Do you want me to shut up and give you more water?”
          This time, accompanying the eye closing and opening, the corners of his mouth twitched.
          “Very funny,” I said.

BOOK III
(Chapter Twenty
(Part 2)

Over the next six hours I had to fight sleep along with Jed. Garvin tried to convince me he should stay up too, but it made no sense to me. He was obviously more the expert on the narcotic we had given Jed than I, though he admitted no one knew much about its effects. He also would have to change the bandages later and make other decisions I couldn’t make about ministering to Jed. I pulled rank on him and explained he could best serve us by getting some rest. Before climbing onto his cot, he told me to use my own judgment on when Jed was ready for the broth, but to proceed very slowly.

So while Garvin curled up on his cot, his blanket completely covering him, and snored softly, I was testing the heat of the broth on my wrist, as any good parent would. It was less than lukewarm. I licked the residue from my wrist and realized how long it had been since I’d eaten.

“Do you think you can take in a little broth, Jed?” I only asked him questions he could answer with a “yes”. He closed his eye and opened it, but I also noticed he made a few tasting movements, and then the corners of his lips twitched to a brief smile. Just as quickly, it vanished, but it was enough that I caught the intent of it. I smiled. How much energy it must have taken him just to do that. He had such a need to communicate, even in this abbreviated fashion, to make me smile.

“Okay, son, I’ve already tested this, and it’s not too hot. So, here’s what I want you to do. I’m going to give you a small taste of the broth. We’ll let it go down, and if you want another taste of it you let me know with your eye. Or would it be easier with your mouth?”

He made several movements of his lips.

“You got it.” I tipped the canteen so just a little dribbled on the inside of his lower lip. He brought both lips together and worked it around. I thought I recognized ecstasy in that eye. “Was that pretty good? Here, I’ll give you just a little more.” I had to go slowly. I didn’t want him to choke on it and throw up whatever nourishment, and probably most of the water, he’d received, not to mention complicating the injury to his back.

I continued that process for about a half-hour. I was sure he’d have let me go on for twice as long, but it seemed prudent to rest his stomach. I told him we’d let the broth settle a while.

Reminiscing seemed a good way to pass the time while ensuring less likelihood one or both of us would fall asleep. It was not as easy as I’d anticipated. I was going to share my memory of the comic incident where Klipal Lesn bent over the huge stone that no one had been able to hoist, and while rendering everyone gasping in laughter over his high-comedy antics, he raised it with ease overhead. I started to tell that story, but it might have reminded him of Lesn’s lover, Shennalen Morz, who for no reason, literally exploded. And everything—all of it—had been entangled in Glnot Rhuether’s magic. I didn’t think having his mind go in that direction would be healthy.

I realized how little I knew about Jed’s life before he joined the military. Now would not be a time to scout through memories of his childhood, schooling, parents or any of that. Not much personal history can be conveyed through the movement of an eye. I needed to do the talking.

Choosing to be more generic in my memory selection, I thought back about the evenings in the southern province. “I remember, Jed, when we used to stand outside our tents while most of the troops were asleep and there were all those pink flowers as far as the eye could see. You remember. Of course you remember ... and the time we listened to the chorus of men humming My Kabeez and you confessed how the melody moved you.”

I wanted, so much, to tell him how close I came to denying his request to volunteer for the AIM program. I was afraid of losing the companionship of one who was already a son to me. Someday I would tell him.

“Hey, buddy, let’s try you on a little more broth, okay? Are you up to that?”

He made a moist little movement with his mouth and I tilted the canteen toward his lips. From the cot, Garvin snorted, and then settled into a soft, rhythmic snore. I tilted the canteen a second time. I didn’t know if it was my imagination or the results of my wishing, but he seemed just slightly more aggressive the way he worked the broth from his lips down into his mouth and swallowed it. Before, the swallowing had seemed more reflexive, which was the reason I’d been careful not to overdo it. Now, though, he seemed to—I wasn’t sure how it could be, but—he seemed to have more personal control over guiding it down. Was it time to step it up some?

“What do you say I pour in a little more this time, Jed? Not a lot more, but listen! I don’t want you to choke, so anytime you feel like I’m giving you more than you can handle just blink your eye a few times. Can you show me that so I know—” He started blinking rapidly before I finished. “Good, good ... Let’s go then.”

The progress was even better than I had anticipated. Over the next hour, which included about a ten minute resting period, he had gone through about three-quarters of the broth, and I was already wondering whether I was going to have to wake Garvin to get some more prepared.

Something else was weighing on me besides keeping food and water in him, and sleep away from him.

I had to ask.

“Jed ... How are you feeling, son? I mean—is any of the—the pain coming back?”

I watched his eye intently. It didn’t close; it stared straight at me. Then, I heard a raspy, “No ...”

My sharp intake of air must not have gone unnoticed, because his lips spread in a thin smile.

“What? Jed, what—no, never mind—what?” I was not ready for this. I found myself grinning so widely my jaw hurt.

“Broth...” was his scratchy response to my babble.

“Broth! Sure! Don’t talk, son.” My smile left, but as quickly returned “Broth, broth, here.” I found the canteen beside the bed where I likely dropped it when his voice rendered my grip useless. Happily, I must have capped it before I asked him the question. I uncapped it and held it to his lips. For the first time he puckered over the opening. I still acted as gatekeeper of how much would go into his mouth. I pulled it back, waited, and put it to his lips again. At this rate, there would be at the most three swallows left.

I turned to the snoring under the heap of blankets. “Garvin ...” I waited, and gave Jed another swig of broth. “Garvin,” I said, louder.

“What? Huh?” He seemed to be having a wrestling match with his blankets. “Doctrex,” he said, tossing the losing blanket on the cot and rounding the foot of the bed. “Sir... What? Sir, you’re smiling!” He looked at me, then at Jed, and then back at me.

“We need some more broth, Garvin.” I grinned.

“I didn’t—I mean, there was a whole—”

I kept my grin and added a nodding head to it. “Gone, Doc. And he wants more.”

He glanced again at Jed, then kept his eyes on him as he walked behind me, and stared down in his face. Jed’s eye steadied itself on him. “He looks good.” Garvin turned to me, then moved to the other side of me, away from Jed, and whispered in my ear, “He’s okay? Is the pain coming back?”

“No,” I answered, full voice. I shook my head and laughed. “It just dawned on me, Garvin. I asked him the same thing. Was he in any pain? It was not a yes answer.” I laughed again, noticing the strange look Garvin was giving me. “I’d only been giving him questions he could answer with a yes by closing and opening his eye. That was why he answered no the regular way.”

“He said it?”

“Yes. Hoarse, but he said it.”

“Sir, that’s good.”

“Yes! When he asked for broth—”

“What? Excuse me, but what?”

“When he asked for broth ...” When I saw his expression, I had to force the grin off my face before I could finish. “That was when I woke you. We’re out of broth.”

“Sir, I’ll go get more. This is good sir.” And to Jed, “This is good, Jed.”

He scurried across the room and through the door.

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CHARACTERS AND TERMINOLOGY

GENERAL DOCTREX: Protagonist, General and Leader of Kabeezan Army.
MEDIC BRAIMS GLASSEM: Doctrex's Chief Medic. Headstrong.
SPECIAL COLONEL EELE JESSIP: He and his men are reason for Doctrex's mission to rescue them.
CAMP JERRI FIBE: The Last Kabeezan outpost. Center for training & weapons.
CROSSAN: Equivalent of a horse
RAIN SPIRIT II: Doctrex's crossan
PLAIN OF DJUR: Where All Kabeezan Armies were to reconnoiter before final attack on Glnot Rhuether.
GLNOT RHUETHER: Master Magician who intends to conquer Kabeez
PALACE OF QARNOLT: Where Glnot Rhuether lives with his aleged bride-to-be Axtilla, Doctrex's love.
PROFUE BROTHERS: Knew Doctrex before he was General. His closest "brothers" in army.
GILN PROFUE: The oldest Profue Brother (Lieutenant)
SHELECK PROFUE: The youngest Profue Brother (adjutant Lieutenant)
ZURN PROFUE: Adopted brother to Profues. Mentally challenged.
POMNOT: A huge beast (Rhuether's expendable Killing machine)
POMNOT (2ND MEANING): To Kabeezans the equivalent of the bogeyman, threats of whom parents used to use to discipline children
AXTILLA: Doctrex's love, who is Rhuether's prisoner, and alegedly his bride-to-be.
GOTZEL: One of the soldiers who, along with medic Braims, heard voices (Rhuether possessed.)
ENGLE: Doctrex's courier after his first courier became an AIM: Advanced Intelligence Men, who were trained to do surveillance and espionage work for the Kabeezan army.
LESN: One of the officers of the Kabeezan Army who, when possessed by Rhuether, performed impossible feats of strength. Committed suicide when lover, Morz, died.
MORZ: former officer, Lesn's lover, died when he exploded.
PHANTOM BIRDS: Gigantic "Magical" Birds that dropped fire eggs on the troops.
ARZ MAKEL:An AIM (Advance Intelligence Man) who died while spying and whose head was "magically" in the talons of one of the phantom birds.
STAND CAPTAIN ARVAL BREENZ: The first of the Kabeezan Army to lead his troops to the Plain of Dzur.
JED: Doctrex's original courier, who later got permission from him to become an AIM.
KARULE BARSACH: Expert and co-inventor of the automatic crossbow, is allowed in front ranks with Doctrex.
SUPREME COLONEL ARKLYN ZARBS: Commander of one of Glnot Rhuether's outposts, and Doctrex's captor.
GARVIN: Medic under Supreme Colonel Arklyn Zarbs. Tries with Doctrex to minister to Jed.

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Keep the Dancing Somber

A chapter in the book THE TRINING Book Three

CAUTIOUS JUBILATION? (Pt. 2)

by Jay Squires

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