A Knight of the Word

CHAPTER 12

John Ross.

She recognized him immediately. Even though it had been five years since she had seen him' last and she had been only a girl at the time, she recognized him. He didn't look as if he had changed at all. His boyish face was still weathered and rugged, still all planes and angles, still the face of the bay next door grown up. He still wore jeans and a blue denim shirt with worn walking shoes and a silver–buckled belt, looking as if he might be one meal or one paycheck from being homeless himself He still wore his long brown hair tied back from his face with a bandanna, and lie still carried the heavy black staff.

It was as if he had been frozen in time, and while she had changed, grown into a young woman, he had remained exactly the same.

She watched him climb gingerly from the taxi, leaning heavily on the staff, reach back to pay the driver, then start toward the front door of Fresh Start. She straightened and moved away from the wall. He looked at her without recognition and smiled pleasantly.

Then surprise shadowed his face and turned quickly to astonishment mingled with something else. He stared at her„ slowing, then came forward again, an uncertain smile chasing the feelings back into hiding.

`Nest?' he asked carefully. `Is that you?'

`Hello, John; she greeted.

'I don't believe it; he said.

He stopped in front of her and stood there awkwardly, shaking his head, the smile broadening. His clear green eyes looked her up and down, assessing her, comparing her with what he remembered. She could read everything in his expression–how much she had changed, and at the same time, how familiar he found her.

She started to extend her hand, then stopped, feeling it wasn't enough. He glanced down, then up again, meeting her gaze, and their arms extended toward each other at the same moment and they embraced warmly.

`Nest, Nest, Nest,' he whispered, and he said it with such tenderness that it made her want to cry.

She drew hack after a moment and grinned. `Guess I've changed a bit from what you remember'

He returned her grin. 'Guess you have. You look good, Nest. You look… terrific.'

She blushed in spite of herself. `Well, gee' She shook her head in embarrassment. `You look pretty terrific yourself'

They stood in the middle of the sidewalk staring at each other. People walked by, a few glancing over curiously, but neither one paid the least attention. For Nest, it was as if time had stopped completely. She wasn't prepared for how good it was to see him. She wasn't prepared far haw good it made her feel. She had come looking for John Ross because she believed she must if she did not want his death on her conscience, and not because she felt she needed to see him. She had lived five years with such ambivalent feelings about him that she could not come to terms with whether she ever wanted to see him again. Now, in an instant in time, five hears of uncertainty were swept away, and she knew that coming to find him, that seeing him, was exactly the right thing.

'I just can't believe that you're standing here' He opened his arms to emphasize the extent of his amazement, °I suppose I should have written you or called, but I wasn't sure … well, that you would want to speak to me'

She smiled sadly. `Neither was I. Not until right now.'

'How did you ever find me?'

She shrugged. 'I had some help:

`I didn't think anyone knew where I was. I haven't talked to anyone, told anyone here about. .

`I know. They told me you've kept your life a mystery'

'You've been inside already:' He glanced toward the doorway. `You met Simon?' She nodded. `And Stef?' She nodded again. `Ray, Carole, all the others?'

'Some of them, anyway. The lady at the reception desk, Della, sent me downstairs to wait far you. I met everyone there. They were amazed you had any friends from the past: She gave him a meaningful look. 'They were amazed you even had a past'

He nodded slowly, 'I expect so. I dart ever talk about it' He hesitated. `I don't know what to say. Or where to begin. Things have changed for me, Nest. A lot of things'

'I know that, too; she said..

He looked closely at her now, and suddenly there was suspicion as well as curiosity mirrored in his eyes. `I've read some articles about you; he said, his words tentative, cautious. `I know you're a student at Northwestern University, that you're still running competitively, that you're good enough that you're expected to represent the United States in the next Olympics! He hesitated. 'Is that why you're here?'

She waited a heartbeat, meeting his intense gaze.. `No. I came here looking for you. I was sent. By the Lady'

He stared at her, astonishment filling his eyes. When he spoke, his void was unsteady. `The Lady sent you?'

'Is there somewhere we could talk about it?' she asked, no longer comfortable standing out in the open where they could be heard. °Just for a little while:

He seemed distracted, uncertain. `Sure. of course' He glanced toward the building.

`No, not in there; she said quickly. 'Somewhere else, please:

He nodded slowly, All right. It's almost noon. Why don't we go down to the waterfront, and I'll buy you a northwest kind of lunch. Some clam chowder, some fish and chips. How would that be?

`That would be good' she said.

He didn't bother with going in to tell anyone he was leaving. He didn't even pause to consider doing so. He simply motioned her toward the direction from which she had come, and they began to walk. They crossed Second Avenue, passed by Waterfall Park, and moved over to the island platform in the center of Main where the trolley stopped on its way down to the waterfront. They sat together an the wrought–iron bench and stared out over the cobblestones of Occidental Park, waiting.

`Do you know what I do now?' he asked after a minute. His tone of voice was distant and weary, as if he were at the start of a long journey.

'I know You work for Simon Lawrence at Fresh Start' she replied. `I know about the work Fresh Start does'

He nodded. 'It's important work, Nest. The most important work I've done in a long time. Maybe ever' He paused. `Did the Lady tell you about me?'

Nest nodded, saying nothing.

'Then you know I'm no longer a Knight of the Word?'

She nodded a second time. It's what you believe anyway, she thought, but she didn't speak the words.

They didn't say anything further for a time, wrapped in their separate thoughts amid the jumbled noise of traffic and people's voices. This is going to be hard, Nest thought. He was not going to want to hear what she had to say. Maybe he would simply refuse to listen. Maybe he would just walk away. She could see him doing that. He had walked away already from the mast important part of his life.

`Do you still live on the park?' he asked finally.

'Yes. 'She glanced at him. 'But Grandpa died last May, so I live

there alone'

She could sec the pain reflect in his face. He was remembering the time he had spent in their house, pretending to be someone he was not. He was remembering how he had left things with her grandfather 'I'm sorry he's gone' he said finally. 'I liked him very much'

Nest nodded. `Everybody did. Pick is still there, looking after the park. He wants the to come back and help him like I used to'

`That would be very hard for you now, I expect,' he said.

'It is,' she agreed.

`Things change. Life changes. Nothing stays the same'

She wasn't sure she agreed with this, but she nodded anyway, not wanting to get into a debate about it.

A few moments later, the trolley arrived and they boarded. Ross gave the conductor two tokens, and they took a seat near the front. They rode the trolley down a hill between rows of buildings, under a two–tiered viaduct that supported an expressway, over some railroad tracks, and then turned right on Alaskan Way to follow the waterfront north. It was too noisy inside the open–air trolley for conversation, so they rode in silence.

At the Madison Street stop, they got off and walked across Alaskan Way to the piers. Orange cranes stretched steel limbs skyward at &e edges of the loading docks along Elliott Bay, dominating the skyline. Huge container ships piled with freight sat at rest beneath their cabled lifts, some being unloaded of the shipments they had brought from abroad and others loaded with whatever was being exported. Trawlers were tied up at the ends of several piers, winches cinched, nets drawn up and folded. To their immediate left, a terminal buttressed by huge clumps of wooden pilings provided docking slips for the ferries that serviced the islands and the Olympic Peninsula. Tour boats filled with passengers :nosed their way along the waterfront, poking into the channels that ran back to the ends of the docking slips of Harbour Island and iota the Duwamish Rover.. Small sailboats with brightly coloured,, grind–filled spinnakers rode the crest of the silver–tipped blue waves, and tine fishing boats dotted the bay, straddling the shipping lanes on the open water.

The piers closest to where they departed the trolley were dominated by long, Wooden buildings housing shops and restaurants. The one to which John Ross took Nest was painted yellow with red letters that identified it as Pier 56. They navigated the noonday" crowd strolling the walkways out front and pushed through the doors of a glassed–in entryway beneath a sign that announced they were guests of Elliott's Oyster House. The entryway was stuffy and hot. A hostess greeted them and led them to a booth near the back of the dining area, further out on the pier toward the water. Nest seated herself across from Ross and looked out at the view. The sun shone brightly through scattered clouds, and the sky was azure and depthless. In the distance, beyond the bay and the sound, the peaks of the Olympics gleamed whitely against the horizon.

The waitress brought them water and menus and asked if they were ready to order. Nest glanced at the menu, then at Ross, arching one eyebrow. `Two bowls of chowder, two orders of the fish and chips, and two iced teas; he told the waitress, and she picked up the menus and left.

Nest looked out the window again. `This is a wonderful city,' she told him.

`People who visit when it's not raining always say that,' he advised, shrugging.

`I guess I'm lucky to be here now'

`Stay a few more days, and you can see what it's like the rest of the time:

She looked out at the tour boats, which were anchored right next to where they were sitting. A small crowd of tourists was boarding one of two tied up in the docking slips. filing through the interior and out onto the upper and lower decks. They were bundled up against the chill, and they all carried cameras at the ready". Nest thought she would like to be going out with them. She would like to look back at the city from the water, see if the view was as spectacular from that direction. Maybe she would do so later,

`Sa you like your new life," she said to him, looking for a place to start.

He nodded slowly. °I like what I do at Fresh Start. I like Simon Lawrence and the others who work for him. I've met someone I'm very much in love with, and who is Very much in love with me–something I thought would never happen. Yes, I like my life. I'm happy'

'Stefanie is beautiful' she said.

`She is. But she's more than that. A lot mare. She saved me when I thought there wasn't anything left worth saving. After San Sobel'

Nest wondered suddenly if he ever thought about Josie Jackson. Early on, not long after he left, Josie had asked Nest if she had heard from him; from the way she asked, Nest had known that there had been something between them. But that was a long time ago. He probably didn't think of Jasie at all these days. Maybe sloe had stopped thinking about him, too. `What happened at San Sobel must have been awful' she said.

It was, but it's over: He looked up as the waitress reappeared with their iced teas. When she left again, he took a careful sip of his, and then said, 'Why did the Lady send you to find me, Nest?'

Nest shook her head doubtfully. `To talk with you. To tell you something you probably already know. I'm not sure' She looked away from him, out over the water. `The truth is, I came because I don't want to hear later that something bad has happened to you and find myself wishing I'd tried to prevent it'

He grinned cautiously. 'What is it you think might happen?'

She sighed. `Let me start at the beginning, all right? Let me tell it my way, maybe work up to the part about what might happen. I'm not really sure about any of this myself. Maybe you can fill in the gaps for me. Maybe you can even persuade me I came here for no better reason than to see you again. That would be all right.'

She told him then about Ariel's appearance in the park two days earlier, the tatterdemalionis purpose in coming as a messenger, and the Lady's request that Nest come to Seattle to find him in the hope he might heed her warning that his life was in peril.

Nest paused. `So I gather you've already been told that you're in same kind of danger.'

He seemed to consider the statement, to weigh it in a way she didn't understand. Then he nodded. I've been told. I don't know that any warning is necessary.'

She shrugged. I don't know that it is, either. But here I am, delivering the message anyway. I guess you don't have any concerns about it, huh?'

He smiled unexpectedly. `Nest, let me tell you what happened at San Sobel!

And he did so, retelling the story from his perspective, recounting it carefully and thoroughly, obviously trying to make her understand how terrible it was for him, to help her see why he had been unable to continue as a Knight of the Word. She listened attentively, for he kept his voice low and his words shielded from the people eating around them, pausing once when he came to the aftermath of the killings to gather his thoughts so that he could relate clearly what the experience had done to his psyche, pausing a second time when the bowls of clam chowder arrived and the waitress was standing over them.

At the conclusion of his tale, he told her something he had never been able to tell anyone. He told her how dose to suicide he had been when he realized the fault might be his. He had managed to get past that, but only by determining he could never revisit that place in his mind, could never again put himself in a position where he might have to hold himself responsible for people dying.

Nest let him finish, then shook her head doubtfully. 'If you do nothing, people die anyway, John. What would have happened to me if you hadn't come to Hopewell? 'I don't know that you can say any of it is your fault'

`It feels like it is. That's enough.' He looked down at the soup cooling before him. He hadn't eaten a bite. `I don't mean to argue with you on this, but you can't know what it's like if you're not me. You don't have to live with the dreams. You don't have to live with the responsibility for what happens if they come true' He shook his head. `It's a special kind of hell'

`I know' she said. `I wouldn't even try to put myself in your shoes. I wouldn't presume'

She finished her soup. All the bad feelings she had experienced at Fresh Start had evaporated. and she found herself hungrier than expected.

'I drifted afterward, looking for something to do, some place to be, a reason for being alive' Ross began to eat a little. `Then I found Stef, and everything changed. She gave me back what I had lost at San Sobel. Or maybe last even before that. She made me feel good about something again. So here we are, working at Fresh Start with the Wizard of Oz, and doing something important. I don't want to go back to what I was. Let's face it; I can't go back. How could I? It would change everything.'

He shrugged. 'I don't know what to tell you about being in danger, Nest. I don't feel as if I'm in any danger. I'm not part of that life anymore. I don't have any connection to what I was or did. I don't even dream anymore–or hardly ever, anyway. It's all in the past'

The fish and chips arrived, and they paused while the waitress set down their plates, asked if there was anything else she could get them, and walked away. Nest picked up a piece of deep–fried halibut and bit into it. `Mmmmnm, this is wonderful,' she said.

`Told you: He picked up a piece of his own fish and began eating.

Ariel said the Lady thinks the Void will try to subvert you, whether or not you think you're still involved in its battle with the Word' Nest studied his face. `She says you can't stop being a Knight of the Word. She says you can't quit unless the Ward allows it'

He nodded soberly. 'I've heard it all before. I don't thank T believe it. What have I been doing for the past year if she's right? Haven't I quit, if I haven't served: What else do I have to do? 'Write a letter of resignation? I don't dream, I don't use the magic, I don't go out looking for demons. I'm done with all of it'

`She says you can't ever be done with it' Nest paused, moving a French fry around in a paper cup filled with ketchup. 'Here's the part that bothers me–the reason I came looking for you, I guess. She says you've had a dream, and the events of the dream will take place on Halloween. She says your involvement with the dream will place you in danger of becoming ensnared by the Void.'

She watched his reaction closely. He said nothing, but she could tell at once that he knew what she was talking about, that in fact there had been a dream, and that in some way he was a part of it.

`The Lady told Ariel something else, John. She told her she will never let that happen, she will never allow a Knight of the Word to be subverted. She has sent someone to prevent it'

A flicker of recognition crossed his lean face.

`The way you were sent to me maybe, five years ago' she finished quietly.

For an instant she thought he would tell her everything. She could see in his eyes that he wanted to, that a part of him was looking for a way. But he stayed silent. She watched him a moment longer, then went back to eating. The voices around them filled the sudden silence.

`She told you all this?' His anger was faced with irony. `When I went back to Wales and the Fairy Glen to ask her to release me from my duty, she wouldn't even speak to me'

Nest said nothing, didn't even look up at him, continuing to eat.

`All the times I waited for her to come to me, to tell roe what I had to d4, to help me …' He trailed off, staring fixedly at her. `Nothing is going to happen; he said finally.

She nodded. `But you know about the dream, don't you?'

`It's only a dream. It won't happen. It can't happen, because I won't let it"

She straightened and locked her eves on his. 'You taught me about being strong, John. I learned that from you in Hopewell. But I learned about caution, as well. You don't seem cautious enough to me- You think you can't be hurt, no matter what, unless you do something to invite it.. But I don't think that's how life works:

`I think I can control what I do.' he snapped. `That's all I'm saying:

She shook her head. `What if Stefanies life is threatened, and you have to choose between doing what the Void wants air letting her die? What will you do? If you lave her as much as you say, what will you do? l don't think you can just shrug this off. Pushing back his lunch, he shook his head emphatically. `I'm

not shrugging anything off. I'm not taking this lightly. But there's

no reason for the Void to try to subvert me. I'm worthless. I have

nothing left to give. I gave up everything already:

She looked at him. `Did you?' She looked over very deliberately at the black staff, resting against the window ledge beside him.

`It doesn't work; he insisted quietly, but she could tell from

the way he said it that he was hedging.

`What if the Lady has sent someone to kill you, just to be

sure you don't switch sides?' She flushed. Are we going to pretend

that what happened five years ago couldn't happen again today?

That war between the Word and the Void is still going on, and the

creatures that fight in it still exist. There are still feeders out there,

multiplying in the wake of the bad things that happen. Humans

are still working hard at destroying themselves. Nothing has

changed, John. You act as if it has. The fact that your life is different doesn't mean the world is. And it doesn't mean your connection to it has stopped having significance. Some things you can't walk away from. Wasn't that the lesson you taught me?'

He stared at her for a moment without replying, then shook

his head. `It isn't the same'

He was lying to himself, and he didn't even realize it. She saw

it clearly, a truth so obvious that she was appalled. Why was he

refusing to listen to her? She remembered him as being so clear

headed, so focused on the reality of the world's harsh demands and

unexpected treacheries. What had happened to him?

`Did you know there's a demon in Pioneer Square?' she asked

quietly.

That got his attention. She watched his reaction with satisfaction, a quick shifting of the pale green eyes, a hint of shock and disbelief on the angular face. `It was hunting homeless people last night in the catacombs of the old city. I was out walking with Ariel, after midnight, because I couldn't sleep. We could hear its victims screaming:

`You didn't see it?'

She shook her head. Ariel could smell it. She wouldn't let me go after it. She was terrified'

He glanced down at his food. `Maybe she was mistaken'

Nest gave him a moment to consider what he had said, then replied, `Maybe she wasn't'

She could tell what he was thinking. He was wondering what a demon would be doing so close to home. He was wondering why he hadn't known, then deciding it was because he had given up his position as a Knight of the Word, then realizing how vulnerable that made him. She let him work it through, saying nothing.

`If there is a demon, it has nothing to do with me,' he said after a moment, sounding like a man trying hard to convince himself.

She finished her iced tea and looked over at him. `You don't believe that for a moment: She paused. `You wouldn't care to tell me about your dream, would you?'

He shook his head.

She smiled. `Okay, John. I did my good deed. I came here to warn you, and I've warned you. The rest is up to you. I'm here until tomorrow. We can talk about this some more, if you'd like. Just give me a call. I'm staying at the Alexis'

She rose. It was better to leave things where they were, not to say anything more, to let him think about it. He stared at her, perplexed by her abruptness. She reached for her purse. `Can I help pay for the lunch?'

He shook his head quickly. `Wait, I'll walk back with you:

'I'm not going back,' she said. `f m staying down on the waterfront for a while, have a look around:

They stared at each other, neither saying anything. She could see the indecision mirrored in his green eyes. `You believe what she's saying about me, don't you?' he asked finally. `What the Lady's saying?'

`I don't know that I do,' she answered him. `I don't know what I believe. It's difficult to decide. But I think you have to look carefully at the possibility that she might be telling you the truth. I think you have to protect yourself.'

He reached for his staff and levered himself to his feet. The waitress saw them rise, and she came over to give them the check. Ross took it, thanking her. When she was gone, he held out his hand to Nest.

`I'm glad you came, Nest. Whether or not it turns out there was a good reason for it, I'm glad you came. I've wondered about you often'

She nodded, brushing back her curly hair. `I've wondered about you, too.'

`I didn't like leaving things with you in Hopewell the way I did. I've always felt bad about that'

She smiled. `It's over with, John.'

'Sometimes it doesn't feel as if any of it will ever be over, as if the past will ever really be the past' He stepped around the table and bent to kiss her cheek. `I'll think about what you've told me, I promise. I'll think about it carefully. And I'll talk with you before you leave'

`All right' she said, content to leave it at that.

They left together, walking out into the brilliant afternoon sunshine and coolish fall air, and he left her standing on the sidewalk in front of the harbour tours ticket booth, then limped across the street for the trolley. He looked older to her then, as if he had aged all at once, his movements more studied, his stoop more pronounced. She wished she could do more to help him with this, but she had done everything she could think to do.

Even so, she could nor shake tie feeling that it wasn't enough.