by Gerry "Gray" Chartier
[Editor's note: click to read Chapter 1; Chapter 2; Chapter 3; Chapter 4; Chapter 5; Chapter 6; Chapter 7; Chapter 8]
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Not for the first time, Gray found himself in the featureless mist.
He walked forward. There were no points of reference, so he simply followed his sense for where he was supposed to go.
The outline of a figure appeared in the distance. Little by little, it became more distinct as they approached each other through the haze. A tall man, powerfully built, with a bit of a hitch in his step. Chain mail armor, a sword at his hip, a simple cap helmet on his head, a wolf pelt draped across his shoulders. By the time Gray could make out the bushy black beard and the twinkling blue eyes, he knew who it was.
“Father!” Gray breathed.
His father’s smile started as a crinkling around the eyes and spread from there as he opened his arms to Gray. “Come here, son!”
Gray’s eyes stung as he embraced his father. “I wasn’t sure you’d be here to meet me.”
His father held him out and grinned. “Nothing could have stopped me. And I’m not the only one here, either.”
Gray looked over his father’s shoulder to see another figure emerge from the mist – a big, sturdy woman in fighting leathers carrying a battleaxe, her graying blond braids bouncing as she trotted up to the pair.
“Grandma Ingfrid!” Gray cried out.
She beamed at him. “You’ve gotten too big to bounce on my knee, but my arms aren’t too small to give you a hug!”
Gray laughed as his grandmother squeezed him hard enough to make his ribs ache, even as more and more figures came out of the mist – two of his brothers, one of his sisters, aunts, uncles, and cousins, all clustering around him, welcoming him.
One more figure loomed out of the mist, a stern, mail-clad warrior towering above even Gray and his family, gazing at them out of one stern blue eye, the other covered with a patch that crisscrossed the row of scars that traveled from the bridge of his nose and disappeared into his iron-gray hair.
Ingfrid’s jocularity dampened to a respectful smile. “Father. I didn’t think you’d come.”
He scrutinized at Gray. “So. Still shit with a sword, eh boy?”
Gray imagined he literally shrank under Great Grandfather Alrek’s glare, the familiar terror of his disapproval twisting in his stomach. He had to force himself to stand tall and look straight into his one good eye. “Yes, Greatfather, I’m afraid so.”
Greatfather Alrek glanced at Gray’s father. “He’s got some backbone at least.”
Gray’s father nodded. “He does at that.”
Alrek looked back at Gray, his eyebrow raising over his ruined eye. “I once said no man who casts spells instead of swinging a sword was worth a bucket of warm spit.” He paused, looked away, sighed. “I may have been wrong.”
Gray scarcely dared to breathe. “Then…I have a place with you?”
Alrek glanced at Gray and nodded.
Gray thought he might burst from the pride swelling within him, as his family clustered around him, clapping him on the shoulders, embracing him, congratulating him with a few good-natured insults thrown in as they returned to the mist one by one.
“Gray,” a voice whispered, distinct from the tumult of his kin.
“Gray,” it repeated as his grandmother and his father returned to the mist, leaving him alone with Alrek, “Come back to us.”
Alrek beckoned Gray to come with him, but the sorcerer hesitated, looked back over his shoulder. “Gray,” the mist behind him murmured, “We need you!”
He turned back to Alrek. “Did you hear that?”
His great-grandfather shook his head. “No, lad, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t real.”
Torn, Gray chewed on his lower lip. “Greatfather, I…I…”
Alrek’s smile was barely a deepening of the creases around his eyes, but it was there. “Go on, lad. You wouldn’t be the first who turned back when his comrades called. Your place with us will still be here when you decide it’s time.”
Gray opened his mouth to say something, but words wouldn’t come, so he closed it again, settling for a nod. Alrek turned and disappeared into the mist once more. Gray pivoted, and began walking back the way he came.
Gray opened his eyes to brilliant sunshine, Stormseeker’s deck swaying under his back. Squinting, he lifted his head and looked around. Charwindle sat next to him, her back propped up against the gunnel, poring over a tome of some kind.
“What’s that?” he croaked.
She glanced up at him. “Oh, you’re awake!” She turned the book around so he could see the jumble of unfamiliar letters. “It’s one of Herr Fessler’s journals. They seem to be written in some sort of code. I’m trying to decipher it.”
Gray grunted as he sat up. “Good luck with that! Did he have anything that could help?”
Charwindle shrugged. “I’m not sure. Besides his journals and notes, the only other thing in his bag was this.” She reached into the satchel and fished out a pendant – the Mayerling double-headed dragon, silver, on a chain of the same metal. “Did he tell you anything about this?”
Gray shook his head. “We were a little pressed for time.”
Charwindle returned the pendant to Fessler’s bag. “Well, its meaning will reveal itself with time, Creator willing.”
“Let’s just hope it reveals itself in time,” Gray quipped, “How long was I out?”
“A day and a half,” Charwindle replied, “Kamilla hasn’t left the helm since you turned the ship over to her.”
“I guess I’d better relieve her before she passes out,” Gray said, rising to his feet.
“I’m sure she’d appreciate that,” Charwindle agreed.
Gray made his way aft, accepting the well-wishing of the members of Mayerling as he went. He grabbed a half-loaf of bread and a bottle of mead on the way..
The elf looked exhausted, slouching instead of standing in her usually rigid posture, her eyes cloudy with fatigue. Gray looked her over, then glanced back at the length of his ship. “Well. You didn’t run Stormseeker into anything. I suppose you did an adequate job.”
Kamilla straightened, her chin lifting as she sniffed at him. “I’ll have you know I not only returned us to the open sea, I also have us on course back for home!”
Judging from the position of the sun and the distant shoreline sliding by off the port side, the elf was correct. Gray grinned. “Well, since you’ve done such a good job, I’ll let you sail my ship again, but I expect you’d like a chance to rest a while.”
She nodded. “Thank you, Gray.”
He tore his bread into roughly equal chunks and passed one to Kamilla. She huddled next to where he stood as he took over the steering oar and wolfed the bread down, barely pausing to take swigs of the mead when Gray passed her the bottle. She then wrapped herself in her cloak, and was asleep in moments.
Gray leaned against the sternpost, his hand light on the tiller, Stormseeker gliding through the undulating waves. His red-clad companions stirred here and there about the ship, fussing over rations, maintaining weapons, repairing armor, mending garb.
He smiled. His kin may await him in the afterlife, but his comrades were here among the living, aboard his ship, underway on the open sea. For Gray, there could be no better life.
The End