“The Wanderer” (Excerpt)

I knew it was him the moment I laid eyes on him. He was older, his skin was leathery and his facial hair was patchy, coarse and grey, but it was him. Like me, he had markings inked into his hands, neck and, though covered by his shirt, his chest. The drooping eyes, sagging gut and deep lines about his brow placed him in his mid sixties. When I had last seen him he was no older than thirty. He looked tired, worn but- worst of all -he looked happy; raising his glass with a boisterous laugh at the others drinking across from him returning the gesture. 

It would be a lie to say it didn’t bother me to see him this way, one of our own reduced to nothing more than a mindless civilian. But, on the other hand, it was one of many likely outcomes for our kind, none of which were pleasant. This was an eventuality and, if he was Displaced as I suspected he was, then it was likely his own carelessness that put him here. Still, it was risky business to cross paths with a fellow Wanderer knowingly. Like a pair of thieves passing in the night, we could do little more than incriminate one another. Cautiously, I approached him. Gliding by the many loud tables which quieted as I passed, craning their necks to get a better look at the tall stranger in their midst. 

For a brief time, I just stood there watching him from about ten feet away. Standing in the center of the tavern as I was, I made no attempt to hide myself. I wanted him to notice me, to see if any glimmer of the man I once knew might still be behind those tired ignorant eyes.

Another loud laugh and then the collective anxiety of the room was at last enough to pierce the old man’s drunken veil. He looked at each of them and then, after a few moments of processing, his eyes found the source of everyone’s quiet trepidation. Me. I shot a friendly smile his way, he returned one of his own. Though his eyes were bright with excitement, it was not the excitement of a fellow journeyman recognizing an old friend, but rather the stupid joy in the eyes of an old drunk who has just found a kind stranger. Another virgin ear ready to be tired out by his perverse stories. There was, on the surface, nothing left of the man I once knew.

“Hello there friend!” He bellowed before looking disapprovingly to his fellow tavern dwellers.  “If none of these other rude drunk-asses are going to welcome you to this fine establishment, then allow me! This here is the….” He searched drunkenly for the tavern’s name. “The… uh… well it’s the Tavern! Huh-huh! The only one worth visiting in this shit town anyway! Come sit with me! Have a drink!”

“Very well.” I replied. “I suppose one drink couldn’t hurt.”

“Yeah! ‘ats the spirit!” 

He extended his hand. His breath was rank.

“Abner! Abner Moss at your service.”

No. I thought. No, that’s not your name.

He was, as previously suspected, completely Displaced. He had forgotten his name, and soon after his entire identity. His mind, like any other, in an attempt to cope with reality- or rather, reconcile with his new reality- mended itself to match the world around him. He had lost himself inside of this world, a world which was not his own. His brain then manufactured memories of a past, an entire life, which had never actually happened. Wanderer’s call this state of being, Displacement. It was a death sentence. The fear of every sacred traveler who strays from the path. Whenever a Wanderer’s mind is left without Ichor for too long their mind must eventually choose to forget its old world in order to properly assimilate into the next. The strain of living between two worlds, two simultaneous states of being, is simply too great. Ultimately, the mind chooses to forget. It is a Wanderer’s duty to always carry Ichor with them in order to remain Grounded. It was our purpose to remember. Always reminding ourselves who we are, where we came from, and what horrible burden we must carry.

It was clear that Augustus, or Abner as he now called himself, had failed to do this. Now, he was lost.

Abner shook my hand with dumb joy in his eyes, awaiting my name.

“Alistair.” I replied.

He looked at me as if expecting a surname, I supplied none and he gestured to the seat opposite him.

“Please take a seat, Alistair. After all, what is a good drink without interesting company?” He posited with a look of cheerful certainty.

“And how interesting is company without a good drink?” I replied.

His brow creased and his eyes narrowed before breaking into a booming laugh at the joke.

“Very good, Alistair! Very good!” 

Abner flagged down the server who, clearly accustomed to Abner’s impressive appetite for alcohol, was already watching him and quickly made her way over. After a brief conversation with the waitress, a conversation largely dominated by Abner’s own jolly laughter and tired jokes, I was handed a tall tankard of a brown frothy liquid which the young woman assured me was the best in all of Telles. After the first sip crawled its way down my throat with a similar consistency and, I can imagine, taste to that of crude oil, it was clear that either the young woman had been lying or the city of Telles was cursed with the most piss-poor selection of libations I had ever come across. But, then I had two, three, four more sips and slowly it began to grow on me. Once my final taste-bud had been seared off by the frothy concoction, it began to remind me of an especially acidic pint of Grog on the open sea. As for Abner, I barely had the chance to speak, simply nodding my affirmation at every grandiose point or half-baked moral which he declared at the end of each of his long winded stories. 

Augustus had been the loquacious type even when I knew him, but never before had he been so dull. It was difficult to deduce if it was his age or his new identity which made him so unbearably boring. When he finally turned his attention away from me to indulge some fellow regulars I made my move. Reaching into my coat, I removed the embellished flask of Ichor from my belt line. All the while the other voice in my head protested.

“Al, don’t do it! It’s dangerous, there’s no way to know for sure how he’ll react. You might kill him!”

“He’s already dead.” I told myself. 

I poured a few drops into his drink when I was sure no one was looking at me. Abner stopped pestering the people at the other table and turned to me with a drunken smile. I raised my glass to him and, as an eager drunk always does, he raised his in return. We pressed the chalices together and each took a swig. I stopped after one sniff and then watched as Abner gulped down the entirety of his tankard. He slammed it down heartily and belched before laughing, a wheezy rosy cheeked laugh. 

“So, Alimar,” I didn’t bother correcting him. “Those markings on your hands… It’s funny, I have a few myself. You must have got them in the war over in…. in…”

I didn’t speak, I just waited and watched.

“I mean…” He said, visibly confused as his eyes trailed away for a moment. The people around him hardly noticed. No doubt his drunkenness was well known. If he were acting funny it would hardly garner any attention. “I mean… You… you must have gotten those back when… back when we….”

His pupils dilated, I felt his elevated heart rate from across the table. He was stumbling through the fog as he spoke, only moments from an all too terrible and painful realization. His eyes traced their way from my hands, to my chest and then finally to my eyes.

“You… You…” He stared at me, sober as a newborn. “Alistair? Al, is that you?”

I smirked at him, raising my tankard.

“Hello, Augustus. Long time, no see.”

His eyes fluttered wearily.

“Long time. Yes, it’s been a very long time hasn’t it.” He blinked and looked around the room. “Where are we? What’s happening?”

There was a mild panic on his face, his breath was shallow and quick.

“Calm down, Augustus. You’ve been Displaced for a very long time. If I were to venture a guess, I’d say you’ve been sleeping for over thirty years. Your mind is struggling to cope. Lucky for you, you still have friends in this world and the next… and the next.”

“Friends…” He said.

“That’s right. ‘The Mother Provides’ as we love to say, and today she provided you with me. So, come on. Let’s get you up and out of here. I can take you with me to the next world, I should still have enough Ichor for the both of us and…”

“Al stop.” He said. “Please.”

I did stop, only realizing now how foolish I was being. There was no saving him, we both knew that. But Augustus had once been my friend, seeing him waste away like this was more difficult than I had expected.

“I can’t come with you. If you gave me some of your Ichor then you’ve already broken one of the sacred oaths. It’s forbidden, Al. It calls for a serious punishment.”

“And who's going to supply the punishment, Augustus? The Mother? I think being her doomed errand boy for…” I couldn’t be sure how long I’d been traveling. “...as long as I have, has been punishment enough. Or don’t you agree?”

“Even still. I’ll not have you waste any more of your supply on me. I’m already gone, Al. You don’t need to be.”

I looked at him more severely.

“We can find more. You’re still alive. You don’t need to stay here. I won’t just leave you. Not like this.”

“It’s not a matter of Ichor Alistair.”

He pulled a similar vial to my own out from a leather pouch on his side. It was a little less than half full with the very same liquid contained inside. He slid it across the table. I took it in my hand and looked at him, trying hard not to shout, not to lash out at him.

“You miserable fucking coward.” I said. “You gave up.”

He looked away from me, his eyes glassy and his lower lip quivering, but no tears ever came.

“I’m sorry, Al. I was just so tired. I had been walking in circles... for so long. Scouring the same five or six worlds again and again but never finding anything. Walking in circles as those same worlds crumbled and the Echoes warped into places that would rival your worst nightmares. I just couldn’t do it anymore. I couldn’t walk through another one of those gates waiting for the day that someone or something finally claimed me. I had seen too many people die in too many terrible ways... I didn’t want to die screaming, didn’t want to die bloody in some pit somewhere. So, I made up my mind. I faced my Shadow, and by some miracle I killed her. She was tough, she made sure to leave her mark on me.” He pulled down his shirt revealing a deep twisting scar that snaked down his chest. “But I killed the bitch and then I came back here. I had always liked it here. Then, after all that, I just... let go. Slipped away. It was peaceful, really. They don’t tell you this, Al, but I will. The Displacement, when you lose yourself, it only hurts if you fight back, if you hold on. Letting go, that was painless.”

He looked back at me, but now I was the one who couldn’t meet his gaze.

“I’m sorry, Al. I know what you must think of me.” He said.

I wanted to tell him to fuck off. I wanted to tell him that we all get tired, that I’d give anything to walk away from it all and have a life of my own. But I don’t, because that’s not what we do, what Wanderer’s do. We had a promise to keep, a purpose. They needed us.

“If you already know what I think, then it would be a waste of breath to say it. I’ve already wasted Ichor on you. I’ll not waste another word.”

Sliding the vile back over to him, I stood up. The bench scraped against the floorboards. A rattle of uncertainty coursed through the many onlookers at my abrupt leave. Augustus, although visibly dejected, maintained his composure.

“Al, please. I won’t ask you to speak, but I need you to listen.” He pleaded.

I said nothing, but stood quietly waiting for him to get on with it. These were his last words. Angry as I was, I wouldn't deny him that. So, I stood and listened to the last words Augustus would ever say before slipping back into the drunken stupor of his alter ego. Dying here in anonymity. 

“I-I have a family, Al. A wife and kids.” He sounded proud. “It’s not perfect but it’s mine. I love them very much. Even if… even if it isn’t actually me. But who’s to say really? Who gets to say which life is mine? Which is real? This is the life I chose, I don’t expect you to understand that, but I do expect you to accept it. You’ve always been stronger than me, Al. Stronger than any of us, really. I don’t know how many of us are left. I know most of us died in the early days; killed by the Shadows or in conflicts and worlds which were not our own. Others were Displaced, either by accident or intentionally. But not you, aye Al? Never you.” 

He smiled warmly, I felt him drinking in my image. He knew it was the last time he would ever see me. And, even if he were to lay eyes on me again, anytime after today wouldn't matter. After today, I would just be a stranger, a wayward traveler in the eyes of a drunkard. This was the last day he would ever see his friend and know him.

“If this is goodbye Al, then I only think it’s fair that we’re honest with each other. Aye? You’ve been walking in circles too. Don’t deny it. I see it on your face. You’re tired. Almost as tired as I was when I finally let go. That’s why you shared that Ichor, because you’re growing desperate. Looking for ‘Friends in the Fallen.’” He quoted the familiar scripture to me. “The light in your eyes has grown dim, old friend. You’re fading.”

I felt the ire burning in me, the desire to pull my sword and end him now, rob him of his cowardly delights. Take away that meaningless, weightless existence with a swing of my sword. Only to have that same feeling suffocated by the inescapable apathy which caked my soul like the mud under my boots. Years of travel, of pain and of solitary, had left me feeling very little these days. A faithless friend was just one more tragedy in a long line.

“Like me, you’re starting to wonder how many of us are left. How many do you reckon? A dozen? Half? Fewer? Then you think; what if you’re the last one? The only one still following the path? I don’t know how many of us are left Al, but I do know one thing,” His hand tightened on his chalice as if battling back a physical pain. “There is no Garden. It’s gone. Maybe it never existed to begin with. Maybe it was just a lie the Monks told us. But, even if it is real, it was destroyed a long time ago. Think about it, Al. Everything is crumbling, whole worlds die every day. What hope is there that the Garden isn’t just another wasteland? If I didn’t know you the way I do, I would tell you to stop, to lay down your sword and find a world where you can be happy. But we both know you’ll never do that. Not you. You’ll die with your boots on. Keep pressing forward, no matter how much you hate it, no matter how often you deviate from the path, you’ll always find your way back to it. Because you were always the best of us.” He said the words almost mockingly. “For what it’s worth, if there is only one Wanderer left, it’s only fitting that it's you. But you will die Alistair. You will die like the rest of us before you ever find that fucking Garden. As your friend, I only hope that, before you die, you find whatever it is you’re really looking for.”

He turned the vial over once or twice in his fingers before tossing it to me.

“Take it. Mother knows you’ll need it more than me. She provides, after all.” 

He smiled at me, I didn’t return it. I placed the small glass vial in one of the hitches on my belt and then turned to walk away.

He laughed. This time it sounded the way I remembered, more musical and gentle than the booming laugh of his drunken doppelganger. 

“Same old Al! Stubborn as the day he was born. Just like my boy! My son... You know I named him Al… My boy… His name is…” 

I turned back, hearing the confusion take him and seeing his enervated eyes. He was slipping away. Though it was hardly comforting, I was glad it didn’t look painful.

“You… You there….” His voice dropped a couple octaves, and his accent thickened as his drunken stupor swayed him in his seat. “You there, stranger!” He bellowed. “You’ll not be leaving so soon, will ye? I was only just getting to the best part!”

I raised a hand in farewell.

“Maybe some other time. Until I see you again.”

He nodded confusedly. I turned and exited the tavern.