A Nightingale's Tale

Chapter Eleven

Lydia was awoken abruptly by the feeling of something moving in her bed. Her dreaming mind was still at Covet and she didn’t feel the panic creep in until her mind fully awoke, and she remembered she was no longer in Covet. She jumped suddenly.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you,” Sofia said while sitting at the end of her cot. The tent was steaming hot, she didn’t know how she had slept through the heat.

“What are you doing?” she yelled, pulling the sheets against her. She had taken her shirt off at some time in the night.

“I didn’t want to wake you, but I have a question. Here, on page 256, the instructions say to add…”

“Stop, give me a moment,” Lydia said pointing to her clothes on the floor.

“Oh, of course,” Sofia said and closed her book. She stood up and walked out of the tent.

Lydia lazily stepped down from her cot and put on the same clothes she had been wearing previously. She pulled her hair back with a tie from a potato sack. Sofia was sitting on the grass by Lydia’s tent reading a dark blue book. Sofia shifted the book in her hands, it was easily 600 pages long.

“Have you been up-all-night reading that?” Lydia asked.

“Well, yes, for the most part. I tried to at least. I don’t understand certain words and phrases.”

“Let me see,” she took the heavy book and they started walking to the middle of camp. She scanned the page she had it open to. Most of the words and sentences made sense but when she noticed the ingredients list the words were unreadable. There were symbols and strange letters instead of words.

“It’s a cipher. My mother used one for certain spells she didn’t want anyone to have,” Lydia said with a yawn.

“How do I read it?” Sofia asked.

“You don’t. It’s not meant for you to read unless you can decipher it.”

Sofia was irritated, but Lydia was too hungry to care at the moment. The smell of vegetables and spices came from a large pot over a fire. No one else was around the fire and food. They were late. Simon and Camille were sitting on a log eating, they waived to her.

Simon stood up to show his healed skin, “As good as new.”

“I’m glad, wow you healed fast,” Lydia said holding up his arm and looking at his chest, “But you should probably take it easy a few more days.”

“Not with word going around we have to leave soon,” he said.

Lydia flushed.

“Want some soup?” Camille asked. Lydia still hadn’t placed what type of creature she was. Her face was round, child-like, and she was short, very short, Lydia would have guessed a goblin if it weren’t for her skin changing colors.

“She’s a Rock Goblin,” Simon said as if to read her mind, “I found this little Goblin when we were coming through the mountains.”

Camille elbowed him, “More like I almost killed you!”

“I’m sorry but I’m not familiar with that species.”

“Same thing as goblin but we have camouflage,” Camille said putting her arm over the log. Her skin changed a brown and yellow to match the wood.

“That’s incredible,” Lydia said moving to inspect her arm. Scales, she assumed. She wondered how many different shades Camille could turn.

“Soup?” Sofia interrupted her internal experiments with a bowl of steaming vegetables. She realized she was probably being inappropriate and moved away from Camille.

“Thank you,” she said and sipped on the hot liquid and soft vegetables.

“I heard Larid’s doing much better also,” Simon said.

“Who?” Lydia asked.

“The guy with the arrow from yesterday,” Sofia reminded her.

“Right, I guess I never heard his name.”

“Alright, anyone still eating hurry up!” Killian said striding through the middle of camp. The four of them were the only ones still eating.

“No seconds?” Henry came walking up to them with a new pot.

“Of course!” yelled Simon.

Henry walked around and distributed more vegetables into their bowls. He stopped at Lydia and looked at her with anger and yet, he still refilled her bowl.

“Thank you,” she said softly.

Henry didn’t say anything, he just moved on as they all devoured their food.

“Come on,” Camille said to Simon as she placed her bowl in a large silver bucket full of water. Simon sipped down the last of his soup and tossed the bowl.

“Water duty,” he said with rolling eyes.

“You all don’t seem to use much magic to get things done,” Lydia noted. It was a complete opposite of how she had lived on the island. Every task was done or helped with magic in some way.

“There’s only a handful of magicians here and most of us can’t do the kind of magic you and Lyon can do.”

“Sofia, Lydia, rested enough? Everyone else is working,” Killian said behind them.

“Killian, stop it. She just got up.”

“We have four weeks, probably less. Do your jobs.”

Sofia looked like she was going to keep arguing but Lydia stood up in compliance. She was an unwelcomed guest and she knew that. She dropped the bowl in the bucket and headed for the library.

The tent was suffocating, it gave no leeway to the greenhouse effect. The liquids in the bottles and glasses were probably not supposed to be this hot.

“He’s been such an ass ever since…” she stopped herself.

“It’s ok, I’m sure you all weren’t expecting to have to leave so soon and it’s my coven’s fault.”

“You still consider them your coven?”

“I don’t know what else to think of them as.”

“They’ll probably be back before four weeks, right? That’s why he’s having everyone work so much harder than normal?”

“Yea, I assume they will come here as soon as the while islands been checked. I just hope Lyon gets back before then.”

“How long do you think until they come back, really?”

“I don’t know, probably a week or two at most.”

Sofia looked struck with fear.

“Hey, don’t worry. I plan on being out of here before they get here.”

“What if he doesn’t get back?”

“I have an idea.”

Lydia didn’t want to tell her, very knew, friend that if Lyon wasn’t back in seven days, she was going to break open his bookcase, get what information she could, and leave. She wouldn’t take any more than she needed, she promised herself.

“Let’s go check on everyone,” Lydia said grabbing a notebook and heading for the tent that housed the ill.

Inside the tent, the sounds and smells of illness was overwhelming. Low grunts and moans came from those who were awake, and the smell of bile and blood made Lydia nauseas. However, the minor inconveniences to her olfactory organs was nothing in comparison to what the patients were going through. Killian was sitting beside the man she had healed yesterday, Larid.

“Speak of the devil,” Killian said as they entered the tent.

“You’re not funny,” Sofia said.

“You healed two people yesterday, at this rate you should be out of here in no time,” Killian said, raising an eyebrow to her as he walked past her and out the tent.

“He really doesn’t like me, does he?” Lydia asked Sofia.

Sofia didn’t respond but by the look, she gave Lydia she knew she was right.

“Larid,” Sofia said, “How are you feeling?”

He was handsome, not as young as Killian, more around Onyx’s age. He was dirty, even with the sponge bath Sofia had given him yesterday, which contrasted with his perfect brown eyes. His skin was a deep completion with his face and hands a shade darker, as if he had worked hard most of his life, leaving permanent marks.

“I’m awake,” he said with a scratched voice.

“This is Lydia, she healed you,” Sofia said presenting Lydia like a prize.

“Killian told me,” he said.

It wasn’t exactly the response she expected. He didn’t seem all that pleased to have been saved, or saved by her.

“Add this to your notes,” he motioned to Lydia, “I could feel everything.”

“Will do,” she said and walked to a table at the front. Lydia wondered if she would ever come to a place where men weren’t hostile to her.

“They’re all the same everywhere,” she whispered to herself. A flash of Onyx’s touch pressed on her arm. She touched her shoulder, where he liked to hold her as if he were there.

“Sorry about that, he’s normally not so rude,” Sofia said coming up behind her.

“I bring out the best in people.”

“They’re just nervous with your coven and all. Larid was a fighter among his coven in the other realm. I don’t think it was to the extent of yours but the same, he’s worried.”

“I don’t blame him.”

Lydia was trying to see from their position and she truly didn’t blame them for being apprehensive, but she still didn’t enjoy their ungraciousness, considering she’s saved two of their people now.

“Now, we have eleven people that need to be treated,” Sofia said as she scrubbed her hands in the bowl of water and soap. Lydia took a deep breath in and readied herself for the long day ahead.

That night, Lydia was still in the patient’s tent, she was by herself now. Everyone else was gathering for a party, it was a woman named Shaveta’s birthday. Lydia hadn’t met the woman, only heard it was her birthday. Lydia hadn’t been invited, and even if she had been, she felt the need to stay and research as much as she could. She hadn’t left the tent all day or night. Each of the patients each had equally intriguing afflictions, so much so that she had diagnosed almost all of them out of pure fascination. Eleven creatures, one hobgoblin, two centaurs, four magicians, one grassland goblin, one Ekek, one mountain troll, and one creature Lydia had never heard of or seen. It took her an hour just to figure out the creature. The patient, looked as if a weeping willow tree had come to life. Her skin was a beautiful green, that matched her long-braided hair. She was a Dryad, Lydia finally found out. Nine of them were sick, and the other two were suffering from a wound. She was trying to figure out the illness that inflicted the Dryad when Killian came into the tent.

“You’ve been in here all day, it’s late now,” he said.

“Yea, just give me a few more minutes. I think I’ve almost figured this out.”

He walked next to where she had been sitting for hours. He placed a bowl of soup, the same from the morning, and a piece of bread next to her papers.

“Willow?” he asked reading over her shoulder.

“Is that her name?” She asked pointing toward the Dryad.

“Yea, well she has an actual name but none of us could pronounce it, so we called her Willow because, well she looks like a tree. She told us just before she slipped into a coma.”

“Did you know she’s a Dryad?”

“Yea, Lyon told us when we found her.”

Lydia had wasted an hour trying to figure out what she was when she could have just asked.

“They’re extremely rare. I can barely find anything out about them.”

“Lyon had the same issue with trying to find out things about her, but he didn’t try as hard as you are.”

Lydia was taken aback, Killian had said something pleasant to her.

“Well, I’ve figured out almost everyone’s affliction. Luckily, most are just sick, which can be fixed with certain elixirs I’ll work on next.”

“Or….” He said and walked up to her then past her and to a small shelf with wooden doors.

“Antibiotics,” he said as he threw a white bottle towards her “It’s what humans do to fix things like this.”

Lydia didn’t know much about humans, but she couldn’t imagine they could come up with something to fix these ailments without magic.

“These aren’t humans,” she argued. She didn’t trust what she couldn’t create herself. She twisted the bottle in her hand. She had seen a similar bottle, in Edna’s bathroom, she hadn’t seemed like she was this sick. Lydia had made Edna tonics when she had her dizzy spells but nothing more than that. She began to worry about her.

“It works, Lyon diagnosed a few of them when we first got camp set up. He brought back this for them.”

“It doesn’t seem to be working.”

“I haven’t given it to them.”

“Why?”

“I wanted Lyon too.”

“Why hasn’t he?”

“He’s…busy. I guess I’m worried about giving them something I know nothing about.”

She opened the cap and removed the seal. There were small capsules she had never seen before. She read the back “two every 24 hours.” She got a cup and opened the capsule, she mixed one with some water and went to a magician. Magicians were the most anatomically like humans. She poured it down his throat.

“We’ll see,” she said.

“You’re going to test it?”

“I don’t know any more about this than you. I’ll treat the rest the way I know how to. If he gets better faster then, maybe, I’ll switch.”

Lydia walked over to the wall of herbs, she began seeking out ingredients from a healing spell she found earlier. She still hadn’t found out what was wrong with Dryad, she would have to return to that later.

“You’re good at this,” he said.

She laughed, “No, I’m not, this is mediocre to what healers in Covet can do.”

“Like your friend.”

“Yes, like my friend.”

“How did you get to be a Guardian? I mean, how does it work with you being a woman?”

“I did what everyone else did but better.” She mashed a few blackberries into a bowl with anise.

“You’ve saved a lot of lives here.”

She didn’t know how to speak with him. She could never tell what he was going to say.

“Do you have any Caraway?” she asked pointing to the shelves.

“I…don’t know.”

She rummaged through the shelves labeled “C” again. It wasn’t there. She checked other shelves and finally found a tiny amount of Caraway hidden in the “H’s”. She began to process the mixture, at the main table, when he pulled her arm.

“Put that down,” he said

“What, why?”

“That can wait until morning. It’s Shaveta’s birthday. Everyone is celebrating you should too.”

“I should really just stay here and…”

“I know it was you.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You cleaned the kitchen, for Henry.”

“No…I…”

“He thinks it was me, no matter how much I tell him it wasn’t. I thought it may have been you but seeing the blisters on your hands, I know it was. You didn’t use magic. I’m sure you know plenty of menial cleaning spells.”

Lydia removed her eyes from Killian’s gaze.

“Come on,” he said and held out a hand. She put all the caps and corks back on the herbs and followed him out the tent. One night couldn’t hurt, she told herself.

She sat next to Camille by a large bonfire. Lydia watched as flames reached toward the night sky. The ash floated on above the trees. The smell of burnt wood and the soothing noise of the crackling fire put her in a daze. Sofia, Shaveta, and others were laughing and dancing around the great fire. Sofia motioned her to join them as they danced in a circle, but Lydia shook her head and stayed where she was, away from everyone. She didn’t want to impose on everyone’s carefree night.

“Want some?” a low voice said to Lydia. She turned around and saw Henry standing beside her with a bottle in his hand. “It’s corn whiskey. I made it myself,” he said holding it close to her.

“Oh, thanks,” she took the bottle coyly.

“I know you were the one that cleaned the kitchen,” he said. He sat next to her on the log. He kicked his feet in the air like a child. Lydia noticed the many burns and cuts on his arms and hands, probably from cooking so much. She also noticed a scar on the right side of his head. It was mostly hidden beneath thick, black hair. He had a layer of ash that covered his face and made the few wrinkles on his skin stand out.

“I didn’t…”

“Killian told me. He said you wouldn’t admit it, but he knew it was you.”

Lydia had been found out and there wasn’t much arguing she could do.

“I wanted to apologize,” she said.

“I know. Consider it heard. Drink up.”

She took a sip. It was stronger than anything she had drank back at Covet. She coughed as the warm liquid pushed its way down her throat. Her thoughts almost instantly began to relax.

“I really didn’t mean to offend you,” she said, “It’s just….” She didn’t know what else to say. She had affronted him and no matter what she said now, she couldn’t take it back.

“It’s how you were raised, which isn’t your fault. The fact that you acknowledged your mistake and made strides to improve is what’s important.”

“Still…”

“You know where a lot of those stories come from, of us being thieves? Goblins, of all sorts, used to be miners since we can dig well. They, my ancestors, were paid terribly with barely enough to feed themselves. The ones that had families to care for would sometimes take things they found in the mines to help. Trolls were often the muscle used by the owners of the mines. The trolls routinely checked them for stones and gold before they were allowed to leave. If they were found with valuables, they were imprisoned and most likely killed. Well, the goblins began to talk their way around getting checked by confusing the trolls. Which is where another stereotype came from, dumb trolls. That’s where we got the bad reputation from, trying to survive. But, that’s not really my ancestors. I’m a hobgoblin, smaller than others, so we were used around homes and gardens.”

Lydia flushed with embarrassment again, she had never heard that story.

“I had no idea…”

“Of course not, that’s why it’s best to ask questions. The more information you have the better decisions you can make.”

Lydia took another drink and handed it to Henry.

“Thank you,” she said.

Henry took a long drink and jumped off the log.

“Let’s dance,” he said.

“I’m not very good,” she said with a smile.

“Well, lucky for you. I was the best in my village.”

“That is lucky,” she said and took his hand.

He was quick on his feet. He danced to a rhythm only he could hear, straying from the beat of the fiddle, and caught the attention of everyone. Henry held onto her waist as he danced around her, and she followed suit. He spun her around and around until she was dizzy and giggling. She ran into something with her back and spun around.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” she said as she realized she had run into Killian.

“Killian, take over for me. I need a refill,” Henry said as he pushed her into Killian’s arms and held up the empty bottle.

“I’m not very good…” she said.

“Nonsense, she’s great!” Henry said and ran off toward the kitchen tent.

Killian raised an eyebrow as a nonverbal invitation. When she didn’t oppose, he took her by the waist and leaned to the rhythm of the fiddle. It was slow and steady, an odd transition from Henry’s fast-pace.

“Everyone seems to be having a great time,” she said.

“They need a break from stress every now and then.”

“Right.”

“Lydia, can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“Well, I…I need your help,” he said in the most defeated tone she could have imagined.

“Ok.”

“You’re a Guardian,” he said instead of asking, “I haven’t been able to take proper care of everyone. We’ve lost a lot of lives and that’s mainly my fault. I don’t…. I don’t know how to fight magically. I didn’t grow up in a coven, I wasn’t taught the things you were. But I need to know, especially now, since we must go back to the magical realm. Can you teach me how to fight with magic?”

Pink spots rose to the top of his cheeks. He was embarrassed.

“There are too many injured and dead, if I could fight magic with magic we would have a chance. It’s just been Lyon and the rest of us fighting with our hands,” he said.

He was trying to convince her, but she had already made up her mind.

“If you had seen all of what is on the other side you would understand my….”

“I’ll teach you,” she interrupted him. She could almost see his sigh of relief.

“I can’t show you much with the limited time we have but I’ll teach you what I can.”

“That’s all I ask. Thank you.” A smile was creeping on the left side of his mouth. He hung his head as if he were ashamed for asking. “And please, don’t say anything. I don’t want anyone to know.”

He couldn’t look her in the eye.

“I won’t,” she said to try and make him feel better. “You know, you’ve done a great job. I mean, with everyone here. They really depend on you and trust you. That’s not something that can be taught, that’s just you.”

“You don’t have to try and make me feel better. I know it’s terrible that I can’t use magic. I mean, what good is a magician if I can’t use magic?”

“There are lots of things. You keep them safe and calm when most people wouldn’t be able to handle it themselves. You make the right decisions during hard times even when it’s difficult to do.”

“Lyon’s the real leader. Well, he was. He started all of this, collecting people that needed help as we moved through the other realm. Then he started going off on his on to find supplies when the group got too big. It just kind of fell onto me after that.”

“You took over when they needed guidance the most. You’re the leader, not Lyon. You’re here, not him.”

The fire reflected in his eyes, giving them a brilliant life of their own. She felt his hand curl tighter against her waist. Her palms began to sweat, and she hoped he couldn’t feel it against his neck. She suddenly felt very aware of how disheveled she felt and probably looked. She let some hair fall in front of her face. He raised his hand to push it back when Sofia stumbled into them. They let go of each other.

“Henry got more!” Sofia yelled as she hoisted a full bottle above her head. “Lydia, drink up!”

She pushed the bottle to Lydia’s mouth. She smiled at Killian who took a few steps back. She tilted her head back and let Sofia pour way too much of the bitter liquor into her mouth. Sofia took Lydia’s hands and they danced around the fire to another upbeat song.