Even with a broken heart, Obelix the Gaul seemed to enjoy smashing up Roman camps. After Aquarium and Totorum, they were heading to the third camp when a figure all in white emerged from the bushes – backwards – and bumped into them. Obelix's jaw dropped. "Getafix!"
"Obelix!" Getafix hadn't been so glad to see anyone in a long time. "Thank goodness. For a moment, I thought you were a Roman!"
"I thought they had captured you!" Obelix cried.
"They did." Getafix felt his grin turn smug. "I convinced the Roman guarding me that I could make him Caesar, if he let me out to find the ingredients for the potion." He tucked his golden sickle more securely into his belt. "Not the sharpest sickle in the rack, poor chap. I wager his commanding officer will not be pleased."
Out of the bushes behind Obelix stepped the Roman actress named Latraviata. "You!" Getafix yelled. As if that wasn't enough, the Numidian agent of Caesar's was behind her. The Romans who'd caught Getafix had been a bit short on details, but they'd certainly wasted no time boasting how their female agent and Numidian spy would bring down the village. "Obelix!" snapped Getafix. "They were sent to destroy our village!"
At the same exact moment, the Roman diva blurted in unison with him, "I was sent to destroy your village!"
She and Getafix blinked at each other. "I was," she said urgently, "but I didn't know it. We can still save it."
"And I," the small Numidian spoke up, "shall remain with you until it is shown to me what to do."
Getafix stared from one to the other, jaw dropping. Obelix blurted, "And I need to find Asterix and tell him I was wrong!" He started to cry again.
"Let's get to the village," Latraviata said to Getafix. "I'll explain everything on the way. If we're lucky, we might not be too late."
They were, of course.
They froze at the entrance to the village. It was silent and still, a faint odor of smoke hanging heavy in the air. As they stood, a tiny figure appeared in the dust. Dogmatix ran up to them, whimpering.
"Dogmatix!" Obelix held out his arms and the little dog bounded in. He had no sooner jumped up than he jumped down again, unable to settle. The three humans followed the dog as he ran inside...
The paths were unswept, lined with debris. The smell of smoke was everywhere. The streets were deserted. Unhygienix's fish lay abandoned, rotting in the sun; the fire had gone cold in Fulliautomatix's foundry. Getafix's hut stood silent, and Cacofonix's broken lyre lay in the dust.
Obelix's heart went cold. "ASTERIX!"
He rushed to Asterix's hut, in and out like a whirlwind. Nothing: no trace of his friend. He ran desperately through the village, calling Asterix's name, while Getafix accompanied him, calling for anyone and everyone.
Caius Insidius could almost feel the terror emanating from the big man. He had no clue whether this was a result of having entered his dreams; he had never hung around those whose slumber he entered long enough to find out. Burdened with Obelix's agony and guilt, he stood in the middle of the desolate village square, and breathed.
…the woman was tugging at his sleeve. "Move."
The little dog was whimpering and running in circles, clearly wanting them to come with him. The druid and the big Gaul followed, Insidius and the actress on their heels.
They arrived in a small clearing behind a waterfall. From the way the earth was disturbed and an indefinable tang of iron, it was most probably the place where the villagers were captured and chained by the Romans. There was nothing to go on really, no artifacts. Just the signs of a scuffle, some footprints, a discarded sword, a single broken link from the forging of a chain, and a line of dried pellets... leading to a helmet that was so distinctive that even the two Romans recognized it.
Dogmatix ran up to the helmet and howled. Obelix let out a hoarse cry and fell to his knees in the dirt, picking up the helmet and turning it over in his hands. The wings were slightly singed around the edges. "Asterix," he sobbed. "Asterix, I'm sorry, I'm sorry I left you, please be all right, I'm sorry!"
It was Getafix who bent to the dried pellets. Everything he'd seen since arriving in the village had raised more questions than it answered. The Roman woman had told him there was a convoluted plot against them, but not its exact nature, and even knowing this had not helped with the question: Where are my friends now? He still held on to the hope that Dogmatix could nose them out.
"I'll be a better friend, I promise! I'll never leave you again, never, never! Please, Asterix, please be all right!"
That, and the question: What were these pellets around Asterix's helmet? He knew the answer already, and wished he didn't. He bent and picked one up, rubbing it between his fingers. It was half-dry already, and when he squeezed it, it yielded a brownish smear.
Blood, then. A few hours old, by all indications. Getafix sternly tamped down the emotion threatening to well up. The droplets seemed to lead right to Asterix's helmet: the conclusion was easy to draw. But he didn't tell Obelix. Not yet.
He bent instead to the dog. Blood was a powerful scent, easy enough for a dog to locate. "Can you find them, Dogmatix?"
Dogmatix nodded his little doggie head, eyes wide with worry. "Good dog." He looked up. "All of you, come to my hut," Getafix rapped out. He hurried around the back door, starting to gather the ingredients for two potions: the magic potion, and the elixir that healed. He could guess he was going to need both of them. "Obelix, come into the house and start a fire!"
Obelix shuffled in. He'd scooped up Asterix's sword as well, and had been standing there holding Asterix's things and muttering about abandoning him. Blindly, he took up a block of wood and a bow, and spun the spindle. With his strength, the embers sparked almost instantly. He slid back into his numb state immediately, staring into the flames as they leapt up beneath the cauldron.
As Getafix stirred the cauldrons and prepared the potions, the two Romans sat on the bench next to the druid's fireplace, and the Roman spy retold the entire story for Getafix's benefit. "It started when Caesar was pressured to do something about your village, and we decided to fight you by entering this Gaul, Obelix's, dreams, and drive a wedge between him and Asterix…"
Obelix listened quietly: his rage at the Roman agent had died out, leaving only cold fear for Asterix, and rage against himself. Because it was his fault, all his.
Yes, he had listened to the Whisperer, and left Asterix on a lie... but that was still leaving Asterix. The man might be a Roman, he might have been lying about being Obelix's conscience, but his words were still true. Obelix had always been a bad friend to Asterix. He had left him, time and time again. Everything the Roman had said was the truth: Obelix was nothing but a brainless lump of muscle. He had no right to even be Asterix's friend. He embarrassed Asterix, left him time and time again, treated him badly. Obelix was a betrayer, he was the worst kind of friend. And now? He'd cut Asterix to the bone with lies, broken his heart, crushed his spirit, and finally abandoned him—left him alone when he needed him most. And Asterix was captured, maybe even hurt... He brushed a fingertip through the feathers on Asterix's helmet softly, and cried.
"Can't I go on ahead and find him?" he'd asked the druid. "And come back for you after?"
"I will need you to carry the potion," said Getafix, "and we don't know how far away they are. Wait here with us and we'll go together."
Getafix was aware he hadn't told Obelix the whole truth. It was not entirely out of kindness that he didn't want to tell him about the blood. Of course he didn't want to crush Obelix even more, but it wasn't just that. It was that he was well aware that someone, most probably Asterix, would be needing his help when they got there... might even be be beyond help. Maybe, even, more than one person; he didn't know if the others had bloodless injuries. And… "Help me stir this cauldron?" He stood back as Obelix stirred the magic potion with the force of a whirlwind.
No, Getafix hadn't lied to Obelix. He did need him to carry the potion. The thing was, even if the villagers hadn't been taken far, it wasn't about distance. He knew Obelix was dependable, but he couldn't quite trust him to hold it together enough to come back for him, the potion, or anything else, if Obelix did go on ahead and find out that Asterix... was gone.
He hoped to Toutatis that that hasn't happened; he loved Asterix like a son.
The sun was hanging low in the sky now. Nights were not kind to those in captivity. Getafix stirred the healing elixir, strong and regular, tried to stay calm, and hoped the potions would be ready soon.
The marchers came to a clearing. Soft grass gleamed in the silver moonlight and a chuckling brook bubbled clear and sweet in the shadows between the trees. "Halt!" called Centurion Callus. Moments earlier, the Inspector-General had called the centurion over to his sedan chair, and Vitalstatistix had heard the senior official's voice barking orders through the curtains. He was unsurprised, therefore, when the command came to stop for the night.
Inspector-General Judicius was housed in a large tent that sprang up as though by magic, thanks to the efficiency of the Roman Army. Smaller tents were pitched to house the Centurion and the Romans, but the prisoners were merely deposited next to a big oak, the Roman threading a new chain through the Gauls' old ones to secure them en masse to the tree.
It might have been Mrs Geriatrix who first discovered that there was enough play in their chains to reach the little stream. When the Romans gave them bread for their dinner rations, they arranged themselves in their bound groups, and moved around one by one to drink and wash their hands, faces and travel-dusty feet. The children, chained to their parents, made little hiccups and squeaks as they were bathed. One or two of the younger ones wailed. Vitalstatistix didn't blame them. He felt a bit like wailing himself.
Finally, it was Vitalstatistix's turn, with his group, at the stream. As chief, he'd insisted on going last, and Impedimenta and the five people tied to him had strongly taken his part. First, of course, they made a drinking-horn out of a piece of the blacksmith's leather apron, and gave Asterix water, Vitalstatistix holding his head up while Fulliautomatix supported him. Asterix drank deeply, then looked up at Fulliautomatix. Hampered by the injured man he was carrying, the blacksmith couldn't really bend to the water. "Put me down," Asterix said. The rest, and the water, appeared to have done him good: his voice wasn't as weak as before, and he sounded more like himself. "Come on, Fulliautomatix, don't be a stubborn ox, you need to drink too. I can rest just as well on the grass."
Finally succumbing to Asterix's logic, Fulliautomatix bent, carefully lowering his apron. Cacofonix moved closer to the pair, reaching out. "Can I help?"
"As long as you don't sing," Fulliautomatix muttered pro forma. Cacofonix ignored the dig, helping keep the apron taut as the would-be music critic knelt with Asterix in his arms. He helped Fulliautomatix lower his apron and its occupant to the ground. "Untie this thing, would you?" Cacofonix untied the apron from around Fulliautomatix's waist, and held the apron motionless again as Fulliautomatix ducked his head to slip out of the neck-loop, leaving Asterix with a soft leather 'sheet' protecting him from the damp grass. The big man straightened, taking a moment to disentangle his chains from the ties of his apron, and stretched. "There."
"Good work. Go and wash up, now. You'll need your strength." Vitalstatistix left Fulliautomatix to it, and approached Asterix.
The moonlight reflected off Asterix's face, grimacing set and tight as Cacofonix fussed around the apron, trying to make him more comfortable. Vitalstatistix gentled his voice. "Are you in pain?" What a stupid question! The man's knee was broken! Of course he was in pain!
"I'm all right, O Chief. It's just," Asterix took a breath, then winced. Clearly his knee wasn't the only thing that was hurting him. "Well. It's galling being helpless like this."
"You're not helpless! You—"
"Move aside." A feminine voice, tart and sympathetic all in one. Only Impedimenta.
Impedimenta had taken off her petticoat and soaked it in the stream. Briskly, to hide her emotion, but gently, she started cleaning the dried blood off Asterix's face. "None of that nonsense, now," she commanded. "Just keep still and let us do all the work."
Vitalstatistix watched, then was struck by inspiration. "Asterix. You're still our warrior."
"Some warrior…"
"No, listen. Did I stop being your chief when I had to go to the hydro?"
Asterix grimaced. Vitalstatistix kicked himself: Asterix had spent a great deal of time with Obelix on that adventure. He was probably thinking of his fair-weather friend. "Answer me," Vitalstatistix urged.
"No, but..." Asterix turned his head to the side, the centurion's handprint still clearly visible on his face. His slit-swollen eyes looked up at the treetops, at the moonlight. He looked as though he was seeing memories.
Vitalstatistix reached out hesitantly, thinking what he had seen Obelix do on the rare occasions Asterix had been injured. He took Asterix's hand as his false friend had once done, and patted it. Rage surged through him: how had Obelix done this? How had he found it in his heart to abandon his best and closest friend, how had he allowed him to get this hurt?
Vitalstatistix knew that his rage at Obelix hid his chagrin at his own self: as village chief, he should have been a better judge of character. As chief, he was supposed to know human nature! The last thing he would ever have thought was that Obelix would abandon his best friend. But here Asterix lay, abandoned by his brother in arms, broken not only in body but in spirit, and it was up to them all to stand by him.
"Asterix," Vitalstatistix urged gently. "Rest, our warrior. Until you're ready to defend us again."
"Isn't that touching."
Legionary Sebaceus and his friends stepped out from behind the big oak. "Time to finish what the centurion interrupted," said one of the legionaries who'd kicked Asterix before.
Vitalstatistix scrambled to his feet. "Get away from him!"
"Move aside, barbarian. We've got a month's pay to take out of his hide."
Vitalstatistix hadn't realized he was shielding Asterix, but maybe he was, and so what? The frozen tableau of the villagers around him, moonlight glinting off their chains, fear and resentment in their eyes, gave him courage. "Are you seriously going to hurt a man in his condition? Have some—" His words dried up in his throat as the point of a spear pressed into his solar plexus. But then outrage surged up again. "And what in the name of all the gods is it with you and pointing weapons at me!"
"Grown a spine, our chubby chief, hasn't he, Sebaceus?"
"Looks as though he has, Sudoriferus."
The point of the spear pressed in tighter. "Wonder how that spine would look with a bit of iron sticking out of it. One barbarian isn't any great loss, after all."
"Stop!" How Asterix managed to sound commanding in his condition, Vitalstatistix would never know. He turned to Asterix, who was looking up at the legionaries, earnestness in his slitted-shut eyes. "I am ready, O Romans."
"Asterix, no!"
"It's all right, O Chief. I'll be all right."
Sharp metal still pressing into his chest, Vitalstatistix slumped in despair as the legionaries commanded Asterix to stand. He couldn't, of course.
Finally, they dragged him off.