Free The Hero of Varay by Rick Shelley

waiting for?”
    “Hang on. What’s this all about?” I had never seen Parthet refuse a beer before.
    “He says his name is Aaron.”

4
Aaron
    “Aaron?” I said. Beside me, Joy stopped eating and looked up at Parthet too. “What’s this all about?” I asked again.
    Parthet chuckled and shook his head. “I think you’d best see for yourself, lad. You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
    “Come on, Uncle. After three years of this place, even the Cheshire Cat wouldn’t surprise me.” I made a face. “Your timing could sure use some work.” Then I turned to Joy. “You want to wait here or come along?”
    “Come along to where?” Joy asked.
    “To Castle Basil, the capital.”
    “Through another one of those spooky doors?”
    “I’m afraid so. You don’t have to come if you don’t want to. You can wait here and get settled in if you prefer. I shouldn’t be gone too long. Right, Uncle?” I looked over at Parthet again.
    “Probably not, lad, probably not.” He was still chuckling. Whoever Aaron was, he sure had Parthet tickled.
    Very quietly, Joy said, “I don’t think I’m up to being left behind yet.”
    I gave her hand a squeeze. “It won’t be so bad, now that you know what’s coming. We’ll go along and see what’s got Uncle Parthet smirking so, then we’ll come back. Pretty soon you won’t think any more about using the magic doors than you would about an elevator.”
    “I’m not sure about that. This is too much like ‘Beam me up, Scotty.’”
    I laughed and we got up from the table. “I never even thought of that,” I said.
    “Must be a flaw in your education.”
    “Did you get enough to eat?” I asked, glancing sideways so I’d be sure to catch her reaction as we followed Parthet to the stairs.
    “I’ve never eaten so much in my life,” Joy said. “It was as if I was starving to death. I hope you weren’t lying about not gaining any weight.”
    I chuckled. “I’ve been eating like that for more than three years and I weigh exactly what I did before I came here.”
    We stopped for my swords before we popped through to Basil. The swords bothered Joy until I explained. “It’s a formality. Tradition says that the Hero of Varay must be armed at all times in public.” That worked until I strapped on both of the claymores, one sword diagonally over each shoulder. Then I had to explain the superstition that an abandoned elf sword would work to a person’s disadvantage. That’s the word I used. Joy nodded, but she was obviously unsatisfied with my explanation. I didn’t strap on my regular broadsword, the blade I had practiced with as a teenager, the one I had used until I “inherited” my first long elf sword, Dragon’s Death. My belt only held my dagger, and Joy didn’t say anything about that. Since we were just going to Castle Basil, there was no need to carry anything else in the way of weapons, no bow and quiver of arrows, for instance, and I didn’t bother to put on armor.
    The doorway leading to my bathroom in Cayenne opens into my bedroom at Castle Basil.
    “I see you’ve got yourself a real setup here,” Joy whispered to me after we went through. “You can hop from bed to bed without even putting your pants back on.”
    “The only bed I’m interested in is the one you’re in,” I whispered back. It’s nice to find the right thing to say once in a while—especially when it’s the truth.
    There was a crowd in the great hall of Castle Basil, but more organized than usual. As we crossed the room from the doorway, it looked as if everyone but the king was present. The focus of all the attention was the head of the lower table. The crowd was so thick that I couldn’t see who, or what, they were all staring at.
    As we crossed the room, Parthet whistled shrilly to get folks’ attention. A few looked, then a few more. They saw Parthet. They saw me. There was some whispering. Most Varayans were more impressed with a Hero of Varay than I was. Half