“What do you see out there, Calis?” asked Nakor, his voice hinting at concern. “You’ve been moody since we got back.”
Calis didn’t need to explain many things to Nakor, who probably understood more about the Pantathian serpent priests and their evil magic than any man living. He had certainly seen some of the worst manifestations of it. But Calis knew that right now Nakor wasn’t speaking of anything that had to do with Calis’s concerns over the distant threat to the Kingdom. It was a more personal issue that weighed on Calis’s mind.
“Just thinking of someone.”
Nakor grinned, and looked over his shoulder at Sho Pi, the former monk of Dala, who at Nakor’s insistence now slept upon a bale of cotton. “Who is she?”
“You’ve heard me speak of her. Miranda.”
“Miranda?” asked Nakor. “Heard of her from several men. A woman of mystery by all reports.”
Calis nodded. “She is a strange woman.”
“But attractive,” added Nakor, “also by all reports.”
“That too. There’s so much I don’t know about her, yet I trust her.”
“And you miss her.”
Calis shrugged. “My nature is not common—”
“Unique,” supplied Nakor.
“—and issues of companionship are confusing to me,” finished Calis.
“Understandable,” said Nakor. “I’ve been married twice. First when I was young to. . . you know to whom.”
Calis nodded. The woman Nakor knew as Jorna had evolved into the Lady Clovis, an agent of the Pantathians they had faced more than twenty years previously the first time Nakor and Calis had ventured south to Novindus. Now she was the Emerald Queen, the living embodiment of AlmaLodaka, the Valheru who had created the Pantathians, and the figurehead of the army building across the sea that would someday invade the Kingdom.
“The second woman was nice. Her name was Sharmia. She got old and died. I still get confused when dealing with women I find attractive, and I’m six times your age.” Nakor shrugged. “If you must fall in love, Calis, fall in love with someone who will live a long time.”
“I’m not sure what love is, Nakor,” said Calis with an even more rueful smile. “My parents are something unique in history and there’s no small magic in their marriage.”
Nakor nodded. Calis’s father, Tomas, had been a human child, transformed by ancient magic into something not quite human, not quite Dragon Lord—as humans called the Valheru—and that ancient heritage had been part of what had drawn Calis’s mother, Aglaranna, the Elf Queen in Elvandar, into a union with Tomas.
Calis continued. “While I’ve had my share of dalliances no woman has held my attention—”
“Until Miranda,” finished Nakor. Calis nodded. Nakor said, “Perhaps it’s the mystery. Or the fact that she’s not around very much.” Nakor pointed to Calis, “Have you and she . . .”
Calis laughed. “Of course. That’s not a small reason I feel drawn toward her.”
Nakor winced. “I wonder if there is any man alive who doesn’t think he’s in love between the sheets at least once.”
“What do you mean?” asked Calis.
Nakor said, “I forget that while you’re past fifty years of age, you’re still considered young by your maternal race’s standards.”
“A child,” said Calis. “Still learning how to conduct myself as a proper eledhel should.” He used the name his mother’s people used for themselves, the race humans called elves.
Nakor shook his head. “Sometimes I think those priests who take vows of chastity understand what a drain it is to be constantly thinking about who you’re going to bed with.”
“My mother’s people are not a bit like that,” said Calis. “They feel something grow between one of them and their destined mate and at some point they just. . . know.”
Calis again looked out at the shore as the boat began to head in toward the inlet that led to Port Shamata. “I think that’s why I’m drawn to my human heritage, Nakor. The stately progress of the seasons in Elvandar has a sameness that I find only slightly reassuring. The chaos that is human society . . .it sings to me more than the magic glades of my home.”
Nakor shrugged. “Who’s to say what is right? You are unlike any other, but like every other man or woman born on this world, no matter what your heritage at birth, ultimately you must decide who you are to be. When you’re finished with this ‘childhood’ of yours, you may decide it’s time to live for a while with your mother’s people. Just remember this much from an old man who really isn’t very good at learning things from other people: every person you encounter, whom you interact with, is there to teach you something. Sometimes it may be years before you realize what each had to show you.” He shrugged and turned his attention to the scene before him.