Free Challenge by Montgomery Mahaffey Page A

deeply, smoke from the ship’s furnace mingled with the
salt of the ocean, both acrid and refreshing at once. His tears
dried up and he wanted to curse at the sky. His limbs were taut
with the urge to run and make his escape.
    But he didn’t. The Wanderer finally admitted
he was angry with the Bard for insisting he leave, and with himself
for going when his heart told him to stay. He remembered his first
sight of the boat and the blinding white of its sails. He felt
again that rush of guilt when he knew he wanted to get on board
more than anything in his life, even while his grandfather was
dying. He couldn’t breathe when he thought of how alone he had been
since the Bard passed on. Solitude was the one thing in life he
found unbearable.
    The memory of his parents’ murder rushed in
and the tears came again, and a torrent of sobs wrenched him apart.
But he allowed the terror to consume him, just as it had that
night. He flinched when he remembered the intruder who had come to
his room. Then he saw himself, suddenly overcome with tenderness
for the terrified child he had been. He finally recognized the
shame he carried all his life for surviving an ordeal his parents
didn’t. Something lifted from the Wanderer. The relief made him
giddy, so much he almost fell over.
    Then he continued through the early years
with his grandfather. Rage disappeared in the onslaught of love
showered on him for the rest of his childhood. He had nothing but a
deep gratitude for the man who saved him from the abyss of darkness
that could have consumed the rest of his life. He could still see
the Bard’s face, with its deep lines and black eyes filled with the
wisdom of life well lived. He wept until no tears were left.
    Alpenglow streamed across the sky once he
was done. The crowd had long dispersed and the ship was tiny at the
edge of the horizon. The Wanderer smiled at the last glimpse of the
vessel before it disappeared into the eastern mists. He felt as if
he were a shade above the ground when he stood up, the buoyancy
like nothing he’d ever known in his life.
    “ Go home.”
    The voice was soft. The Wanderer turned
around to find nobody was there.
    “ It’s time to go
home.”
    Then he realized the whisper came from
inside, the voice of his heart echoing through him. Suddenly he
yearned for the village, for his friends and neighbors. Then the
cabin came to mind, the windows and door lit up from the fire
blazing in the hearth. He saw himself enter, and savored the aroma
of wood burning, the heat warming him to the bone. Everybody was
inside to welcome him home. He could hear their voices tinged with
affectionate joy. The image was so vivid he almost believed he was
there until the call of the fishermen pulled him back to the
wharf.
    The smell of fish made him grimace and he
listened to the salt rough voices of seamen shouting to one
another. But when he looked around, the Wanderer recognized the
changing hour when day people came to their finish and the night
people to their start. Fishermen hauled nets, their muscular necks
straining while the ladies of night sauntered along the dock, their
rolling hips an exaggeration of availability. Dusk was forgiving of
these women, lending the illusion of bloom over their defeated
faces. They loitered near the boats and ignored the disapproving
glares of passersby, their eyes narrowed slits fishing for the men
looking for them. The Wanderer smiled at the furtive couples who
passed him on their way to the bordellos.
    Life after dark was the same all over the
world. But here, the night people struck a deeper note inside him.
They were a part of him. They were all citizens and outcasts of the
same country. Listening to them speak in his native tongue, the
Wanderer finally believed he had come home.
    Then he saw her.
    Her stallion was nowhere in sight. The girl
was on foot at the end of the wharf lined with taverns and
disreputable inns. She would have looked a downtrodden prostitute
in her tattered