| Fantasy Fiction posted February 22, 2015 | Chapters: |
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A Delicate Emotional Balance
A chapter in the book THE TRINING Book Three
Garvin's Painful Truth (Pt. 3)
by Jay Squires
FINAL FEW LINES FROM THE LAST CHAPTER:
“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.
BOOK III
Chapter Twenty
(Part 3)
The broth Garvin brought this time was heartier, he explained, than what Jed had finished. That first batch had been diluted to about half-strength. “But this one has a little more of the Kryunch in it,” he said with a grin while simultaneously flourishing a balled fist. “Yeah, this is where the Kryunch leaves his pack, if you know what I mean.” He turned his grin on me, nodding.
I nodded back and then gave him a tardy chuckle, allowing myself a brief, passing curiosity over why Kryunch hadn’t pappered. Pappering had become such an automatic occurrence any more that I never noticed any internal translation taking place. The meaning of this word was of no consequence anyway, so I pushed it out of my mind.
Jed took well to the new broth. I let Garvin feed him while I stood aside and watched, producing, I was sure, those little movements of my mouth that new parents make to facilitate the process.
Jed’s functioning eye appeared more alert. It moved with more relaxed fluidity from me to Garvin to the canteen. Unless it was my imagination, a brightness existed in his eye that wasn’t there before. So far, I was elated to not see that tell-tale slowing of his eye lid as it passed over his eye, signifying sleepiness. I found myself constantly recalling Garvin's pronouncement that the narcotic would relieve the pain so much his body would crave the sleep it lacked. Not so, at least now.
The fever had apparently broken, first with the intake of water, then the nourishment—and of course that insuperable variable, his will to survive. Did that mean his body was successfully fighting the infection?
Allowing time for the broth to settle in Jed’s stomach, Garvin moved around behind us to the other side of Jed’s bed, while I pressed in closer, ostensibly to give Jed encouraging words and praise, but also to monitor his expression as his bandages were removed. I was still having a hard time finding subjects that weren’t emotionally charged. Also, though he had articulated two short words several hours ago, he was not ready to carry his part of a conversation. I opted on just being there for him.
“You’re doing so well, Jed. You know, I told the doc how much heart you have, but even with that, you’re still amazing us.”
I looked at his eye for the affirmative blink, but he managed a smile instead; it brought one out in me, as well.
At this point, I didn’t try to stop my eyes from filling. “Look at the old man,” I said, batting them. “Bet you never thought he’d be such a—” my throat caught on the last word—“softy.”
I sniffed and wiped my eyes with my sleeve in time to see his head moving in a slow nod against his pillow.
“Okay, Jed,” Garvin said, kneeling on the other side of the bed, “time to change the bandage and put on some fresh unguent.” He smiled at me and then his head dipped down below the mattress and a garbling of syllables joined with the clinking of metal as I guessed he was preparing the unguent. “Let’s take a look,” he said, raising his head again and studying where to place his hands. His face was tensed in concentration.
I kept my attention on Jed’s face, though I was aware of the bandage being pulled away from his back, and the invasion of a too-sweet coppery stench. He blinked once, but his face seemed relaxed.
“Yes,” Garvin said, “okay, yes, this—this is better. You’re looking—better, Jed.” I turned from Jed’s face enough to see Garvin’s gaze hanging on mine an instant before attending once again to the bandage. I couldn’t quite identify the meaning I perceived there—only that it contained something different from what he conveyed to Jed.
After he finished the re-bandaging and came around to my side, he smiled at Jed. “You ready for some more broth?”
Jed nodded.
“And sir.” Garvin faced me. “Now that Jed’s got fresh bandages on, I think we can get along without you for a while. You need some sleep, sir.”
It didn’t take a lot of urging for me to agree with him. But only after I got his answer to a question.
Together we pushed my bed some six or seven feet from Jed’s to allow Garvin to move more freely without worrying about waking me.
While our backs were to Jed, I whispered to Garvin, “You gave me a look after you told Jed how good he was doing. What did that look mean, doc?”
He didn’t answer immediately. When he did, I found it lacking. “He’s fine, Doctrex.”
“You think I won’t sleep hearing the truth? No ... I won’t sleep knowing you’re withholding something, doc.”
"Of course." Then he spoke over his shoulder to Jed. “Be right there. Just a minute.” He busied himself, tucking the bedding in at the foot of my bed, and then came back to my side, making sure he was still turned from Jed. “Sir, Jed's back looks the same. There’s still infection there—there’s still heat coming off it; but would it have done any good for Jed to hear that? Later it may take both of us to care for him. You need to sleep now.”
I had to agree with him, and told him my need for sleep was biological now. I would sleep the moment my head hit the pillow, but because of that, I made him promise he would wake me if he or Jed needed me. “And under no condition,” I added, “should I sleep longer than five hours.”
Garvin returned to Jed. I took off my boots and climbed into bed, turned to my side away from them. My head hit the pillow, but while I waited for sleep, my eyes remained fixed on the wall.
# # #
“Doc ... Trex.”
It came severed like that, and a part of me was trying to connect them.
“Excuse me ... Sir ...”
I opened my eyes. A rough, irregular surface slid into focus—became the wall. “What?”
“I’m sorry, sir—”
“What?” I tried to make some sense of it. Was there something I was supposed to?... I needed to do something?
“It’s Jed, sir.”
“What? Jed?” In one movement I was off the bed in a tangle of blankets, facing the wall. I spun around. “What?” Garvin pulled back from the bed. His mouth hung open.
“It’s Jed ...” he repeated.
“Is he—is he okay?” My words squeezed out of lungs that labored like I'd just run a race.
“He’s the same, sir—but, sir, are you okay?”
I bent sideways from my waist to look past Garvin at Jed. He appeared to be watching us. I smiled and then returned a puzzled look back to Garvin.
My eyelids were still heavy, dragging sand down and back up over my eyeballs. I took a slow breath, hoping to keep most of the edge off my voice.
"You didn't wake me to ask me if I was all right."
"No, sir ... but—"
"And I can't imagine you waking me just to tell me he was the same, Garvin.”
“I’m sorry, sir. I didn’t want to wake you at all, especially after only two ...”
“Two?—what is it? I made you promise to wake me if you needed me, or he did.”
“He wants to talk with you, sir.”
“To talk?” I stole another glance past Garvin at Jed’s unchanged expression. “Talk? Did he ask you?” I must have blushed. “Well, of course he asked you, but is it safe, though? He needs his strength.”
“It seems important to him. I suggest you do most of the talking, sir.”
I gave him a weary look—It wasn’t like Jed had asked if he could listen to me—but then I replaced it with an immediate smile, the dynamics of which he seemed to grasp by returning a grin and a little shrug.
“We’ll need privacy,” I said.
“Certainly.”
“But listen ... if I call you—”
“I’ll attend to it, sir. I’ll take the soiled bandages away and then stay just outside the door.”
I piled the blankets and my boots on the bed and we pushed it across the floor to Jed’s bed, leaving standing room between them.
I went to his side and put my hand lightly on his shoulder. His frail arm was outside the blanket, his palm resting on his thigh. He smiled at me, but I figured he was waiting for Garvin, who was crouched on the other side of his bed, to leave. Garvin gathered up the used bandages, stood up and headed toward the door, holding the discolored wad of rags off to the side and away from his body.
“The doc’s gone now,” I told him as I watched him go through the door and disappear to the right. I turned back. “You okay, buddy?”
He lowered and raised his head against the pillow.
“Good.”
We seemed to be playing a game of silent eye-tag.
I managed a smile. “Doc told me ...”
“Where ...” he cleared his throat. Grimaced.
“Um ... would it be better if—?”
“Karule,” he scraped out.
“Karule? You’re asking where’s Karule?”
He watched my mouth, as for the words to form. Could he be anticipating the finality of what they would be?
“He’s—he’s dead, Jed.”
His eye lifted to mine. After a long moment, his hand began to rise from his thigh with little jerky movements, as though being guided by invisible wires. Without removing his gaze from me, his hand glided up to his face where his fingertips came together just inside his opened lips. And, then he let his arm fall back to the bed as he continued staring at me.
I nodded, broke the gaze and said, “Yes. That’s what happened, Jed. He swallowed it.”
His eye closed. He took a breath, and seemed to hold it. A tear squeezed out from the corner of his eye and followed the contour of his nose, over his lip and into the corner of his mouth.
I let my hand slide from his shoulder to his bicep, very nearly able to encircle it with my hand. I gave it a gentle squeeze. “Jed ...”
“I k—k—killed him.” He kept his eye tightly closed. Another tear leaked out.
“No, Jed—listen to me ... You didn’t kill him. Karule’s guilt killed him.”
His eye opened. “He con—fessed?” The last syllable became part of an eruption of coughing, so violent his free arm reflexively reached for the source of the pain beneath the bandages.
FINAL FEW LINES FROM THE LAST CHAPTER:
“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.
“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.
BOOK III
Chapter Twenty
(Part 3)
I nodded back and then gave him a tardy chuckle, allowing myself a brief, passing curiosity over why Kryunch hadn’t pappered. Pappering had become such an automatic occurrence any more that I never noticed any internal translation taking place. The meaning of this word was of no consequence anyway, so I pushed it out of my mind.
Jed took well to the new broth. I let Garvin feed him while I stood aside and watched, producing, I was sure, those little movements of my mouth that new parents make to facilitate the process.
Jed’s functioning eye appeared more alert. It moved with more relaxed fluidity from me to Garvin to the canteen. Unless it was my imagination, a brightness existed in his eye that wasn’t there before. So far, I was elated to not see that tell-tale slowing of his eye lid as it passed over his eye, signifying sleepiness. I found myself constantly recalling Garvin's pronouncement that the narcotic would relieve the pain so much his body would crave the sleep it lacked. Not so, at least now.
The fever had apparently broken, first with the intake of water, then the nourishment—and of course that insuperable variable, his will to survive. Did that mean his body was successfully fighting the infection?
Allowing time for the broth to settle in Jed’s stomach, Garvin moved around behind us to the other side of Jed’s bed, while I pressed in closer, ostensibly to give Jed encouraging words and praise, but also to monitor his expression as his bandages were removed. I was still having a hard time finding subjects that weren’t emotionally charged. Also, though he had articulated two short words several hours ago, he was not ready to carry his part of a conversation. I opted on just being there for him.
“You’re doing so well, Jed. You know, I told the doc how much heart you have, but even with that, you’re still amazing us.”
I looked at his eye for the affirmative blink, but he managed a smile instead; it brought one out in me, as well.
At this point, I didn’t try to stop my eyes from filling. “Look at the old man,” I said, batting them. “Bet you never thought he’d be such a—” my throat caught on the last word—“softy.”
I sniffed and wiped my eyes with my sleeve in time to see his head moving in a slow nod against his pillow.
“Okay, Jed,” Garvin said, kneeling on the other side of the bed, “time to change the bandage and put on some fresh unguent.” He smiled at me and then his head dipped down below the mattress and a garbling of syllables joined with the clinking of metal as I guessed he was preparing the unguent. “Let’s take a look,” he said, raising his head again and studying where to place his hands. His face was tensed in concentration.
I kept my attention on Jed’s face, though I was aware of the bandage being pulled away from his back, and the invasion of a too-sweet coppery stench. He blinked once, but his face seemed relaxed.
“Yes,” Garvin said, “okay, yes, this—this is better. You’re looking—better, Jed.” I turned from Jed’s face enough to see Garvin’s gaze hanging on mine an instant before attending once again to the bandage. I couldn’t quite identify the meaning I perceived there—only that it contained something different from what he conveyed to Jed.
After he finished the re-bandaging and came around to my side, he smiled at Jed. “You ready for some more broth?”
Jed nodded.
“And sir.” Garvin faced me. “Now that Jed’s got fresh bandages on, I think we can get along without you for a while. You need some sleep, sir.”
It didn’t take a lot of urging for me to agree with him. But only after I got his answer to a question.
Together we pushed my bed some six or seven feet from Jed’s to allow Garvin to move more freely without worrying about waking me.
While our backs were to Jed, I whispered to Garvin, “You gave me a look after you told Jed how good he was doing. What did that look mean, doc?”
He didn’t answer immediately. When he did, I found it lacking. “He’s fine, Doctrex.”
“You think I won’t sleep hearing the truth? No ... I won’t sleep knowing you’re withholding something, doc.”
"Of course." Then he spoke over his shoulder to Jed. “Be right there. Just a minute.” He busied himself, tucking the bedding in at the foot of my bed, and then came back to my side, making sure he was still turned from Jed. “Sir, Jed's back looks the same. There’s still infection there—there’s still heat coming off it; but would it have done any good for Jed to hear that? Later it may take both of us to care for him. You need to sleep now.”
I had to agree with him, and told him my need for sleep was biological now. I would sleep the moment my head hit the pillow, but because of that, I made him promise he would wake me if he or Jed needed me. “And under no condition,” I added, “should I sleep longer than five hours.”
Garvin returned to Jed. I took off my boots and climbed into bed, turned to my side away from them. My head hit the pillow, but while I waited for sleep, my eyes remained fixed on the wall.
# # #
“Doc ... Trex.”
It came severed like that, and a part of me was trying to connect them.
“Excuse me ... Sir ...”
I opened my eyes. A rough, irregular surface slid into focus—became the wall. “What?”
“I’m sorry, sir—”
“What?” I tried to make some sense of it. Was there something I was supposed to?... I needed to do something?
“It’s Jed, sir.”
“What? Jed?” In one movement I was off the bed in a tangle of blankets, facing the wall. I spun around. “What?” Garvin pulled back from the bed. His mouth hung open.
“It’s Jed ...” he repeated.
“Is he—is he okay?” My words squeezed out of lungs that labored like I'd just run a race.
“He’s the same, sir—but, sir, are you okay?”
I bent sideways from my waist to look past Garvin at Jed. He appeared to be watching us. I smiled and then returned a puzzled look back to Garvin.
My eyelids were still heavy, dragging sand down and back up over my eyeballs. I took a slow breath, hoping to keep most of the edge off my voice.
"You didn't wake me to ask me if I was all right."
"No, sir ... but—"
"And I can't imagine you waking me just to tell me he was the same, Garvin.”
“I’m sorry, sir. I didn’t want to wake you at all, especially after only two ...”
“Two?—what is it? I made you promise to wake me if you needed me, or he did.”
“He wants to talk with you, sir.”
“To talk?” I stole another glance past Garvin at Jed’s unchanged expression. “Talk? Did he ask you?” I must have blushed. “Well, of course he asked you, but is it safe, though? He needs his strength.”
“It seems important to him. I suggest you do most of the talking, sir.”
I gave him a weary look—It wasn’t like Jed had asked if he could listen to me—but then I replaced it with an immediate smile, the dynamics of which he seemed to grasp by returning a grin and a little shrug.
“We’ll need privacy,” I said.
“Certainly.”
“But listen ... if I call you—”
“I’ll attend to it, sir. I’ll take the soiled bandages away and then stay just outside the door.”
I piled the blankets and my boots on the bed and we pushed it across the floor to Jed’s bed, leaving standing room between them.
I went to his side and put my hand lightly on his shoulder. His frail arm was outside the blanket, his palm resting on his thigh. He smiled at me, but I figured he was waiting for Garvin, who was crouched on the other side of his bed, to leave. Garvin gathered up the used bandages, stood up and headed toward the door, holding the discolored wad of rags off to the side and away from his body.
“The doc’s gone now,” I told him as I watched him go through the door and disappear to the right. I turned back. “You okay, buddy?”
He lowered and raised his head against the pillow.
“Good.”
We seemed to be playing a game of silent eye-tag.
I managed a smile. “Doc told me ...”
“Where ...” he cleared his throat. Grimaced.
“Um ... would it be better if—?”
“Karule,” he scraped out.
“Karule? You’re asking where’s Karule?”
He watched my mouth, as for the words to form. Could he be anticipating the finality of what they would be?
“He’s—he’s dead, Jed.”
His eye lifted to mine. After a long moment, his hand began to rise from his thigh with little jerky movements, as though being guided by invisible wires. Without removing his gaze from me, his hand glided up to his face where his fingertips came together just inside his opened lips. And, then he let his arm fall back to the bed as he continued staring at me.
I nodded, broke the gaze and said, “Yes. That’s what happened, Jed. He swallowed it.”
His eye closed. He took a breath, and seemed to hold it. A tear squeezed out from the corner of his eye and followed the contour of his nose, over his lip and into the corner of his mouth.
I let my hand slide from his shoulder to his bicep, very nearly able to encircle it with my hand. I gave it a gentle squeeze. “Jed ...”
“I k—k—killed him.” He kept his eye tightly closed. Another tear leaked out.
“No, Jed—listen to me ... You didn’t kill him. Karule’s guilt killed him.”
His eye opened. “He con—fessed?” The last syllable became part of an eruption of coughing, so violent his free arm reflexively reached for the source of the pain beneath the bandages.
 Recognized |
|
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.
PAPPERING: An automatic translation system occurring in this dimension. Only some words resist being translated.
Pays
one point
and 2 member cents. 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.
PAPPERING: An automatic translation system occurring in this dimension. Only some words resist being translated.
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