Waiting for you
Disclaimer: I don't own the Coldfire Trilogy, and no profit whatsoever is intended.
Warning: see summary
A/N 1: Worthington White Shield is no invention of mine but a real ale, brewed in Great Britain. Sorry for plugging it, folks ;-). Do I have to mention that I'm not connected to the company in any way? And that I don't get paid for writing this? I hope not...
A/N 2: Writing this story wasn't on my agenda at all. But then I watched the lovely and very touching cartoon film 'Up', and it kind of inspired me. No, there won't be any flying houses or balloons in here, lol...
Acknowledgements: Many thanks once again to Silvereyedbitch for assisting me with the medical details. As usual, her advice was invaluable.
Quotes:
- 'The nature of the One God...': WTNF, p. 353
- 'Wither thou goest, I will go' is a quote from the Old Testament (Book of Ruth i:16)
ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
Life's a voyage that's homeward bound (H. Melville)
ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
When he had laid out the breakfast table, Damien examined his work. Rolls, butter, jam, ham and eggs... everything was there. The only item of vital importance missing was his husband. But as Gerald had so often left without a bite when an important test series at the laboratory had demanded his attention, he made the best of just another lonely breakfast with an inward shrug and helped himself to a plateful of scrambled eggs. Tucking in, he took great pains not to spill anything down his brand spanking new shirt. He had never been especially particular about his clothing, but Gerald certainly wouldn't appreciate if he started neglecting himself in his dotage. Remembering Hawthorne-Vryce's periodical lectures on the utmost importance of caring for one's outward appearance, Damien smiled at the man's portrait gazing down on him from the dining room wall. In all those long years they had spend together, the adept had never forgone his amusing vanity. There hadn't been a single day he had left their mansion without being dressed to the nines, and the first grey hairs spoiling his black mane had been plucked out with a ferocity deserving of a much worthier enemy. But he wouldn't have had it differently. He loved Gerald with all his heart, body and soul, and would continue doing so until he breathed his last.
Being about halfway through with his meal, the warrior knight suddenly dropped his knife like a hot coal, his sword-hand pressed to the centre of his chest. His eyes squeezed tightly shut, he clenched his teeth until the pain and the devastating feeling of suffocation finally released its hold over him. Damn! It wasn't the first time his ageing heart had troubled him. Not by a long shot, but this was doubtlessly the worst attack he had been suffering so far. Still trembling in every limb, he contemplated lying down on the settee for a short nap, but decided against it in the end. With regard to the position of the sun shining through the stained glass window, it was already about ten o'clock, and his husband would be waiting for him at their usual venue at noon.
After clearing the table and washing up, he moved on to packing his long-serving picnic basket. A pristine table cloth and two matching napkins went in first, followed by the left over rolls, a small cheese loaf and several not apples. Chuckling, he added two bottles of Worthington White Shield, his favourite ale. Over the years, he had lost count on how often the adept had berated him for what he considered somewhat plebeian drinking habits. There was no denying that Gerald exerted a dominating influence over each and everybody in close contact with him, but in this particular case the warrior knight had opted for going deaf. Or rather for employing what he was wont to call his selective hearing, a feat coming in very handy when one was married to a man whose seemingly infinite supply of sarcasm was only surpassed by his obstinacy. As far as he was concerned, his husband could treat himself to the most expensive wines on the market to his heart's content. As the leading authority on genetics on the entire continent he certainly had the wherewithal. But to a certain former priest there was nothing more delectable than a nice glass of liquid bread. Still grinning, he threw on his coverts coat and headed for the door, giving the heavily embroidered velvet cloak hanging on the clothes hook an affectionate pat in passing.
It was a beautiful day in early summer, the temperature around a pleasant eighty degrees Fahrenheit and the blue sky dotted with an occasional fair weather cloud straight from a postcard picture. Relishing the warmth after a quite rainy June, the warrior knight went along the street until he came to the small flower shop just at the corner. As usual, he stopped in order to purchase a bunch of red roses, the one and only flower whose seeds had made the long journey across the icy depths of space in stasis along the colonists from Earth. Realizing that the adept was rather fond of their forefathers' fellow voyagers, he had made a point of pleasing him with a fresh bouquet every day at the beginning of their wedlock, and he had no intention of straying from his chosen path at his advanced age.
Around eleven thirty, the temperature had risen to almost ninety degrees, and Damien was starting to sweat profusely. The coat had come off long ago, but his shirt stuck to his torso like a second skin, and his right knee threatened to give out under him at any moment. But supported by his novebony cane, he stubbornly limped on until he reached the wrought-iron gates barring the entrance to a huge green area located at the western fringes of Jaggonath. It was a wondrous, utterly peaceful spot. Tall, ancient alteroaks and nuchestnuts shaded the walkways, statues spread their stone arms in a gesture of blessing, and the birds sang the praise of life as only man's innocent little brethren could. Down the major path, one turn to the left and one to the right, and the warrior knight sighed with relief as he could finally deposit his picnic basket and flop down onto the very same wooden bench whereon he had spend so many hours during the last four years.
Desperately gasping for air and his heart hammering painfully inside his chest, it took Vryce a while to get his bearings. But when his blurred vision was clearing again, his eyes instantly locked on the unadorned black numarble slab guarding the mortal remains of the human being who had shared his life for three and a half decades.
Gerald Tarrant Hawthorne-Vryce, P.o.t.L
264 - 1286 A.S.
The nature of the One God is Mercy,
And His Word is forgiveness.
Blinking back his tears, Damien thoughts wandered back to the cold November day their world had been shattered never to mend again. Everything had started with Gerald suffering from a throbbing headache accompanied by nausea every now and then. As the bouts had passed after about an hour or two without leaving any ill after effects, suspecting a migraine type condition the warrior knight hadn't been overly worried at first. But not even two months later the man who had always been grace incarnate had become alarmingly clumsy literally overnight, losing his balance and tripping over the threshold on more than one occasion. Still the adept had shrugged off his concern, putting down the changes in his body to excessive labour and stress. But then he had suddenly passed out right in the middle of giving an account on his latest experimental results one evening, and panic-stricken Vryce had sent for an ambulance. After running some tests, his former colleagues at the 'Neocount of Merentha' had handed down the death sentence. A malignant brain tumor. Inoperable. The only course of action left to them had been treating his symptoms and hoping for the best.
But if the horror of Gerald's last months on Erna had been the best, Vryce never ever wanted to encounter the worst. What followed the diagnosis had been a veritable nightmare. With palliative medicine still in its infancy shoes, enabling him to lead a dignified life in spite of his progressive disease had become increasingly difficult with the passing of time. The available drugs had barely managed to keep the by now excruciating headaches under control, and due to the increased intracranial pressure the adept's body functions had failed one after the other. For a while, he had stoically accepted all suffering. Struck with a total loss of vision a month before his death, in his lucid moments he had listened to Damien reading out from his most treasured books for hours on end, smiling at his favourite passages while never letting go of his husband's hand. But the final line had been crossed when he had lost control of his excretory system eventually.
"Damien, please..." Even after all these years, the warrior knight could still hear the pleading voice, could feel the grip of the emaciated fingers closing around his wrist with amazing strength for someone weighing no more than a hundred pounds at the very most. Registering the black despair in the dark eyes staring blindly up to him, Vryce had made his choice without thinking twice. As much as he had wished otherwise, strictly forbidden from sacrificing his life for a Working there hadn't been anything he had been able to do for his husband other than granting his last request. Putting Gerald out of his misery hadn't been murder but a mercy killing, and if he had to answer for this deed at God's throne one day, so be it.
Heaving a sigh from the bottom of his soul, Damien struggled to his feet and approached the grave on wobbly legs. After he had replaced the wilting flowers from the day before with the fresh bouquet, he meticulously dusted the tombstone with a handkerchief pulled out of his trouser pocket, thanking the One God of his faith that the birds hadn't left any droppings on the black numarble. Feeling unsettlingly out of breath once again, he harboured serious doubts that he could make it to the watering place roundabout a hundred yards away in his current condition, let alone walking all the way home. But he would worry about this later. Hopefully, a roll and a mouthful of cheese, accompanied by a few sips of ambrosia in the shape of Worthington White Shield, would do their bit to revive his spirits.
But he couldn't tear himself away from the place where Gerald's body was slowly crumbling into dust just yet. Not even to have a rest on the bench a mere five feet away. Ever so gently, he caressed the monument of mortality, tracing the inscription with his index finger while hoping with all his heart that the Lord would reunite them in the afterlife. He in His wisdom certainly couldn't be cruel enough to create earthly ties so strong just to break them in eternity. "Wither thou goest, I will go," Damien breathed. "Rest in peace, my love. And wait for me wherever you are. It won't be long now."
A fallen leaf on the central stepping stone catching his attention, he bent forwards with a muttered curse directed at his aching bones in general and his troublesome lumbar vertebrae in particular. But the grating in his lower back couldn't hold a candle to the blinding flash of agony searing through his chest all at once. His legs turning to jelly, he tried to hold fast onto the gravestone. But the soft soil rapidly came up to meet him, and he landed face first on the roses. Their sweet scent evoking dear memories of days long gone by when they had been able to make love for hours on end without tiring under a blanket of stars was the last sensory input his dying brain ever processed on the mortal plane. For a while, the soul which had once been Damien Kilcannon Vryce still lingered on, gazing down on the empty husk laying spread-eagled on the grave of his husband with a kind of distant affection. But then there was only light and a so very familiar figure waiting for him at the end of the tunnel.
ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
The part about the 'earthly ties' was taken from a gravestone hear Savannah, Georgia. The original quote is 'God could not have made earthly ties so strong to break them in eternity'.