Khalad was almost completely convinced that filling out paperwork was the sole duty of the Preceptor of a militant order. Sparhawk hadn't told him this when he first suggested that Khalad was the man to lead the Pandion's into a new age when he retired – no, he had kept that quiet until Khalad had grudgingly accepted that very few people had the patience or practicality needed to manage this hot headed lot. He hadn't realised what he had let himself in for until it was too late. So now he was sitting with a pile of requisition requests, the bill from the baker, status reports from the other chapterhouses and the latest missive from the stonemasons about repair to the battlements, all vying for his attention. He somewhat bitterly hoped Sparhawk was enjoying his retirement.
The scratch of his pen was interrupted by a knock at his study door, and the novice that was his runner for the day poked his head round.
"What is it Jayl?"
"You have a visitor my Lord?" the young man said.
"Was that a question? Do I or do I not?" Khalad replied – he had taught his messengers that he valued clarity above everything. Anything else was a waste of time.
"Ummmm yes, you do." Jayl still hadn't come fully into the room and was holding the door partially closed. "But he says that he is Sir Berit."
That bought a smile to Khalad's face. "At last, let him in then," and Khalad gladly stood from his desk to greet his friend, throwing down his work and stretching his back.
Jayl stepped out the way and allowed a somewhat travel worn Berit to enter the room, though the boy still wore a doubtful expression and was glancing between the two men.
"At last you have decided to read my messages then? I had begun to think you were avoiding me." Khalad said as he welcomed Berit in.
"I wasn't avoiding you," Berit said, removing his cloak and sitting heavily in a chair by the fire, stressing the last word very slightly. "You've kept me busy and I've found even more to do for myself."
Khalad had kept him busy, it was true. There was always work for someone as trustworthy and competent as Berit – some things that were best kept quiet, some things that didn't require a lot of man power. And some things that would be too risky to send anyone else. Berit hadn't been returning to the Chapterhouse between visits though – in the last five years he had entered the gates only half a dozen times and Khalad thought it might have been eighteen months since he had seen his friend.
"What sort of thing?" Khalad handed over a cup of wine, leaning against the fireplace with his own.
"I've learnt a lot – there's an ancient religion in the south that has some interesting ways with magic. It isn't too hard either."
Khalad knew Berit had been investigating other gods and their magic, but learning it was something else completely. Using magic was a form of worship – the god in question granting a prayer from the faithful and as such Church Knights received special dispensation from the Elene God to go outside their own religion at all. That wouldn't be the problem, however. "And is Aphrael happy with you learning other magics? You know how, err, possessive she can get."
"I haven't exactly asked her permission, but it's not up to her." Berit shrugged.
"Going to ask forgiveness instead?"
"Maybe. Maybe not even that." Berit seemed on edge, a tension in his shoulders and his smile was small and strained. "I think she's been avoiding me recently."
"Has she cut you off?" Khalad frowned.
"No, the Styric magic still works. But I haven't seen or heard from her directly in years." That was somewhat worrying, as Aphrael took a personal interest in everybody that called on her and would rarely let one slip away. It was some sort of points scoring to the Gods. Khalad put that snippet to the back of his mind for a moment.
"So, is it just learning heretical magic that has meant you have been too busy to come and see your friend?" Too busy to obey anything but a direct order from his Preceptor either and Khalad had been reluctant to issue that order – to solidify that boundry in their relationship.
"I did suggest we meet last year." Berit said, looking up defensively.
"Yes. Fifty miles away. You knew I wouldn't be able to make it."
Another knock at the door and another novice arrived – platter of bread, cheese and soup in hand.
"You haven't had any lunch my Lord and we thought your guest might like to eat too." he said as he put the tray on a nearby table.
"Thank you, that was very considerate." Khalad said, pleased at their manners.
The novice gave a small bow, not making eye contact but flicking what he probably thought were discrete glances Berit's way until he scurried back out into the corridor, a rustle of whispers being cut off when the door closed.
Berit sighed and Khalad frowned at the door. Maybe they needed more lessons on politeness after all. Or at least discretion. "What was all that about?"
"Everyone's been like that, luckily I managed to avoid anyone I know too well on the journey it – just a few novices. Though the stable master gave me a double take." Berit said, taking a deep gulp of his wine. "It's why I didn't want to come back. Look at me Khalad."
"I'm looking."
"Look properly."
Khalad tried, but didn't know what he was meant to be seeing. Berit was dressed in normal travelling clothes – sturdy trousers and a warm shirt underneath high quality chainmail. He didn't take his armour with him on the road as it was too cumbersome to put on easily with just one person and would weigh a horse down when fast travel was needed. And it wasn't really necessary. Berit had thrown his thick wool cloak over the back of the chair, Pandion symbol embroidered over the heart. His boots were fairly new but worn in. His sword belt was resting against the wall, and his travel bags would have been taken from his horse to his room by the novice assigned to the stable.
Berit himself was looking tired but well. No sign of weight loss or illness that would be common after long periods on the road. His face was somewhat somber and weary but other than that he looked exactly the same as last time Khalad saw him.
Hang on.
Khalad stopped looking at specifics and looked at Berit as a whole, trying to see him for the first time. Thinking more carefully it had actually been nearly two years since they had last met, Khalad being too caught up in his own work forging the future he saw for the Order and happy to have someone he trusted doing what he needed out in the world. Two years since Berit had been here last, few visits before that and it had been – Kalad thought back – close to a decade since their trip to Tamuli.
Knights didn't tend to age well – too much travelling, fighting, drinking put lines on their face and stiffness in their step early if more serious injury didn't claim them. Jayl hadn't believed that Berit was who he said. It seemed that others also noticed something unusual while Khalad had seen what he expected to - nothing more and nothing less.
Khalad knew that Berit must be over thirty: the blessing of being both fresh faced and undeniably handsome would cause him to age well, but surely by now he should have lost the look of a youth of twenty.
"What the hell Berit." Khalad whispered as he at last cottoned on to the wrongness the others had been picking up: that this man did not look old enough to have helped defeat the dark Zemoch God fifteen years before.
Berit gave him a satisfied nod, and fished into his pocket.
"I thought something might be wrong because of a few comments I had last time I was here, so I finally opened this message – the one I received the day after you were Knighted from the monastery at Bagat" Berit handed over the small scroll that was worn from being unrolled and rerolled – it had been read repeatedly and often.
"I knew it was going to get more noticeable, I didn't know how to deal with it so I stayed away. I still don't know how to deal with it."
Khalad read:
"Heretic, " he began
Khalad raised an eyebrow.
"It's not as bad as it sounds," Berit explained, "They called me that jokingly. Well, half jokingly at least. They didn't hold my so-called heresy against me and I gave the same courtesy. "
Khalad continued.
"I have enjoyed the discourse you bought to our door. After many delightful arguments we have reached a consensus. I will concede to Brother Scalveer that aging is an injury, like any other, that will no longer affect you. I will be happy to revise this and rub his face in it if you are able to present me a with a single strand of hair gone grey, but I fear that will not happen in either of our lifetimes. Or in yours, however long that may be.
If you wish to visit again please do, we have many more chores for you.
Blessings (that I know you will refuse) to you.
Brother Gund."
Khalad turned the paper round, as if looking for something on the back. "This is a joke right? They can't actually..."
"No joke. I've yet to see any evidence that they are wrong – you've seen their" Berit gestured in the vague direction of the door "reactions. You've looked for yourself. I haven't had a sustained injury since the day in the desert and I don't look like someone who has been Knighted for a decade and a half. They think this is permanent. Forever. Eternity."
"I haven't been ill or sickly. I can sleep but don't have to. I get hungry but don't feel weak if I haven't eaten. I didn't drink for a week and it wasn't pleasant, but - " Berit shrugged, trailing off and Khalad decided he didn't want to know how his friend had discovered that. "It's all habit that feels good, but I don't think is necessary anymore. I'm not going to get stiff knees or an aching back or lose my hearing or sight."
If they were living in a children's story Khalad would be rejoicing and jealous. To live forever, to stay young forever, to save the princess from the wicked witch and live together happily ever after, those things would make a child happy. When death steals your loved ones away in ways you are too young to understand removing that weakness is a natural wish to solve all your sorrows.
Khalad had always been too cynical to believe in the happy endings his mother tried to tell. Years as Sparhawk's squire and more as a Knight had sharpened those edges further. He knew what it was to lose a father and to come back from a battle with rider less horses. He knew what it was to give the orders that emptied those saddles, and feel the void it left inside.
His mother was getting on in years now, relying more on the farm hands Khalad ensured she had the funds for to do the hard work and spending more time in the kitchen due to a problem with her chest. Fear of the day he might hear of her passing was a long shadow that touched him most when he had time for quiet contemplation. Each time Talen was part of a contingent that he sent on patrol he had to give himself a stern talking to, to allow his half-brother into danger.
There were other sorts of stories – darker ones that weren't told to children – where wishes were twisted and dreams were corrupted. In those curses weren't lifted by the end of the day and few lived at all and never happily. Into one of those they seemed to have strayed. A youngster might thing it a fine thing to live and be young forever, but Khalad's thoughts drifted to the inevitability of seeing everyone you would come to know and come to love grow old and die around you. He had lost enough friends in the last decade to know a sliver of how difficult that would be.
Looking at Berit, Khalad could see he knew it too – there was a deep sadness in his eyes and a weight on his shoulders.
"What can I do?" Khalad asked gruffly, thinking of the library, the libraries of the other Orders and the possible answers they may hold.
"Keep me busy."
"What do you mean?"
"I tried drinking first - spent a lot of nights drinking to forget and it only makes my purse lighter and my mood darker. I want to be doing things. I need to be doing things. I can't just sit around the Chapterhouse. I can't get... I want to be doing what good I can, and I don't want time to dwell."
"Are you going to talk to Sparhawk? Have you told him?"
"I haven't what's the point? He can't do anything about it and he is having some well deserved peace with his family. He will find out soon enough. Everyone will, sooner or later. I can't avoid everyone forever."
Forever. That took on new meaning now and Khalad suppressed a shudder.
"Do you think anyone can help?" Khalad thought of all the wonders he had seen and all the things he suspected might be out there. Gods and Deamons and magic and sorcery made the world much more complex than a simple farmer and squire thought he would have to deal with and made the impossible not just possible but run of the mill.
"Only if I find that place where Bhelium was when the world was created, The Origin I've heard it called. Then there's a chance, just a chance. I will be looking for it – I'll travel as far as I need to - but I need other distractions too because it could be anywhere. - at the bottom of the ocean or deep inside a moutain." Berit was slumped and despondent, maybe thinking of how long that search might take. Or that he would have that time.
Khalad thought of the pile of work on his desk. The reports that needed investigating, pleas for help that needed answering, places where the Church had not shown their face in many years. There was a lot of important work to do. But nothing more important than helping the man in front of him.
Berit leant forward, pointing a finger, suddenly agitated. "I'm not going to be here every five minutes though, to be gawped at and gossiped about, not even on orders from my Preceptor."
"Got a sudden objection to your friends?"
"I've got a sudden objection to be being stared at like an exotic animal. It makes my skin crawl."
That was understandable. Berit had lots of friends in the order who looked forward to his return, but no doubt that those conversations would become more awkward, and questions would be asked. Although Khalad had long liked to bemoan the average intelligence of nobility they weren't actually that stupid. Berit would be forced to share the whole thing with the whole Order, or lie to his brothers-in-arms which would be an insult to them and Berit's own honour.
"I'm sorry I pressured you into coming. I'll help however I can." And damn it he would. Khalad didn't know how long it would take before some sort of rumours would fly and he would have to come up with some explanation for the people in Berit's life as to why he wasn't ageing, but hopefully there would be some time. Maybe even enough time for Berit to fix this, or for him to be more comfortable with sharing. They were a brotherhood after all, a family.
Berit waved away the apology and gave a genuine, relaxed smile for the first time.
"You weren't to know. And it is good to be home, even if it is just for a little while."
But that was then…