The Affinity

The Affinity

©2008 Ian Hobson

Beyond the edge of our universe is a world similar to our own. A world where the gods play games with the lives of mortals, just as once they played with our lives and, from time to time, still do.

1 - The Secret

I always knew my grandfather had a secret, but while he was alive I never knew what it was.

I also knew about the sword; I saw it once, when I was just a boy. It lay on the desk in my grandfather's study. He hadn't heard me enter, and he was leaning forward with his palms on his huge desk, his arms spread wide, looking down at the sword as though it was a great mystery to him; as though he had never seen it before and had just found it lying there. But then he looked up and saw me and hurried me out of the room. He was angry, very angry, and he made me promise never to enter a room without knocking again.

It was over twenty years later that I sat behind his desk, again smelling that same odd mixture of old books, furniture polish and pipe tobacco. He had died at the age of ninety-one, having outlived his son, my father, by three years. I’d had no idea that there was a will, and that I alone was to inherit his ramshackled old house and its contents, or that there would be conditions attached: I had to live in the house for a minimum of five years or it would be sold, and the proceeds go to charity. There was a little money as well, about twenty thousand pounds; half of which went to my younger sister, Edwina, the rest shared between myself, my mother and my Grandfather's housekeeper, Molly.

I had a young family then - my wife, Jennifer, and our daughter, Helen - and we moved into the house almost immediately, after selling or dumping most of my grandfather's furniture. Though I left his study just as it was. As a retreat from working on the restoration of the house, I had begun to spend time in there, reading some of the many books my grandfather had collected. They were a really eclectic mix; Charles Darwin, Agatha Christie, Leo Tolstoy, JRR Tolkien, James A Michener, Harold Robbins and many more. I remembered well the first of the Tolkien books, The Hobbit, as my grandfather had read it to me. Though at the time I had not realised that it was a first edition, or that it had been signed by Tolkien himself and inscribed: To my young friend, David, with thanks. It was inside the cover of this book that I found the letter.

Dear Michael,

By now the house will by yours and you will have begun to route through my things, and you have, of course, found this letter. Do you remember the first time you came into my study and saw the sword? You probably do. But you will not remember the second time you saw it because you were sleepwalking that time. Sleepwalking is something of a family trait. Even your father, Gerald, suffered from that affliction in his younger years. I think I told you the story of the time he climbed the apple tree in the garden in the middle of the night. It was lucky I was there to catch him when he fell, or I might never have had grandchildren.

But getting back to the point of this letter. I found you sleepwalking one night in that second summer that you came to stay, and I tested you with the sword, just as I had tested Gerald. He showed no affinity for it, unlike you. You gave me quite a fright: you held the sword like a warrior and kissed its blade, and then you were thrown halfway across the room and knocked unconscious. I should not have taken the risk, you were too young.

So how old are you now? If I guess correctly the age at which I will die, then you are 29 years old. More than ready. You will see that my desk, your desk now, has a very wide central drawer. Pull the drawer right out and you will find a second drawer. You will know what to do. The way will be hard, but it is your destiny.

Your loving grandfather, David Michael Collington

He could not have been more accurate about the time of his death; it was on my twenty-ninth birthday that he died. And I was a sleepwalker. My wife, Jennifer, watched me one time. She said that I’d made my way down to the kitchen, opened the fridge door and looked inside and then gone back to bed. And then there was the time we were on holiday in Bournemouth; I woke up at three in the morning after banging my head against a wall, trying to walk through a door that wasn't there.

I glanced out of the window, to where Jennifer was pushing Helen to and fro on the garden swing that we had bought her for her birthday, and then I sat down at the desk, my desk now, and reread the letter before sliding my chair back a little and opening the middle drawer. It was a wide drawer, though in such a large desk it didn't seem out of proportion. I had to pull it forward and tilt it upwards before it came free. And yes, there was a second, concealed drawer behind the first, and this one contained something long and thin wrapped in hessian. Without unwrapping it, I lifted the package and lay it on the desk. From the weight and feel of it I knew that it would be the sword that I remembered seeing all those years before.

I stood and carefully began to unravel the hessian, not touching the sword but allowing it to slide out onto the desk. My hands were shaking and my heart beating fast. What did my grandfather mean about me knowing what to do, about it being my destiny?

The sword was not sheathed, and its steel blade had a dull sheen that reflected the autumn sunlight coming in through the window, while its hilt, behind a simple steel crossbar, looked to be clad with two pieces of bone bound with three steel rings and finished with a steel pommel. I stood looking down at the sword, leaning on the desk just as my grandfather had, and then I began to laugh. It was just an old sword of crude design, well cared for perhaps, and maybe even valuable, but my grandfather's talk of destiny was either a parting joke or else the rantings of an old and deranged man.

With my right hand I reached for the sword, grasping it by the hilt, but as I lifted it I lost control of my own actions: I couldn't help myself, I rested the blade on my left hand and, raising it to my lips, I kissed it. And then my life changed forever.

2 – Rebirth

Sparks flew from the blade, burning my face, and I was thrown backwards into my chair as though struck by lightening. The chair toppled over and I fell with it, striking my head on something hard, not the floor because the floor was no longer there, nor was the house, because I was falling and falling, down and down, through a noiseless blackness.

For how long I fell, I cannot say, perhaps only seconds or minutes, or maybe it was for hours, because time ceased to have any meaning. But eventually my fall was arrested as I hit the bottom of the black depths into which I had plunged. I landed on my back, striking my head again, but not immediately loosing consciousness because I remember the wind being driven out of me, collapsing my lungs and leaving me unable to refill them. At this point I must have blacked out, though my last thought was that this was my death.

***

'Master... master.'

'He is as good as dead, Magalo. By some miracle his body still lives, but he is dead to this world.'

'But he clenched his fist, Durabel. Did you not see? And the lines on his face are not so deep, and earlier he twitched.'

'And that is why you brought me down here, because he twitched? I have work to do, and you waste my time as always. Foolish old man.'

I could hear these words. They were spoken by a man and a woman, both of them old, I thought. There was something about the old man's voice; it was as though I knew it. I was trying to remember. But everything was still black. I had no sense of self. I was surely dead.

'Master.'

That voice again. Magalo, the woman had called him. Magalo; I knew that name, I felt sure. But what language had they spoken? It was not a language that I knew, not English, or French or German - the languages I'd studied at school - and yet, I understood almost every word.

'Drink, master.'

Something hot touched my lips and trickled down my throat. There was a strange, animal-like smell. The blackness began to recede a little and I felt that perhaps I was not dead after all. Now it made sense: it was just a dream; I would wake in a moment. I tried to open my eyes, but my eyelids felt like lead.

'Master! Master, you are coming back to us!'

I managed to force open my eyes but everything was a blur, a mixture of darkness and light.

'Drink, master.'

A rough, warm hand lifted my head. There was that smell again, but now it seemed more familiar, more human. Once more I felt the heat on my lips, and I tried to turn my head away.

'It is just water, master. Drink. Durabel you must come, he is waking!'

I drank some of the water; it felt cooler now, or perhaps I felt warmer. I drank too much and began to choke, rolling onto my side, coughing and spluttering. Then, as I propped myself up on one elbow, my vision cleared; but I could not believe what I was seeing. I was lying on a bed in a windowless room, a cave of some kind, almost tomblike. A shaft of light shone through an open doorway, and beyond the doorway there were sounds: someone sweeping, and further away, a child's laughter.

'Master! You have come back to us! May the gods be praised!'

An old man, dressed in a tattered, grey robe, stood before me, his bearded face so old and wrinkled and yet so animated. 'May the gods be praised,' he said again.

Again I thought that I must be dreaming; yet everything seemed so real. 'Where am I?' I asked. My voice sounded strange, and I was speaking the language of the old man, Magalo.

'In the chamber of my ancestors, master,' he replied. He was grinning and almost dancing on the spot. 'As before, I brought you here when you slept, then when the life went out of you and you became cold and pale I asked the gods and the spirits of my ancestors for help.' Looking around the chamber I could see several alcoves cut into the rock, each containing a stone, or terracotta, pot. Magalo gestured to something behind me. 'Take hold of your sword, master; it will give you strength again.'

As I pushed myself into a sitting position, I realised that I too was bearded, and that I was wearing a grubby robe similar to the one that Magalo wore. And I saw that the bed I had been lying on was not a bed at all, but a stone plinth, cut from the same rock as the floor and the wall behind me and covered in animal skins; and lying there beside me was the sword. Instinctively I reached for it, as though it truly was my sword, but I stopped myself, remembering what had happened the last time. But when was that? An hour ago, a year, a lifetime?

'Take it, master.'

Somehow I knew that Magalo was right, that the sword would give me strength. I grasped its hilt in my right hand, lifting it and feeling its weight.

Magalo looked on, smiling, but then began to look worried. 'You must kiss the blade, master. You must always stand and kiss the blade, or the sword gods may desert you.'

He was right, of course. How could I have forgotten the sword gods? Slowly I stood and, laying the blade on my left palm, I kissed it. No sparks this time, just a warmth and vitality that swept through my body; and once more Lord Astavar was reborn.

***

This part of my story is the hardest to explain. Somewhere, deep inside, I was still Michael Collington. But I was also David Collington, my grandfather, as well as being several others, all my ancestors, though the details of my earthbound lives were unclear, just a vague memory, not unlike a series of stories I had once heard, or books I had once read, but almost forgotten.

But their lives and mine were unimportant, because once again I was Lord Astavar, the dethroned god-king who had squandered his kingship, ignoring the well-being of his subjects, feasting while they starved, doing nothing when disease and pestilence plagued the land, and allowing lawlessness to flourish. And my penance was to live forever, always in troubled times, always a friend to those in danger, always a mortal, and always tested in some way by the gods who had once called me brother.

Feeling renewed, I lay down my sword and placed my hands on Magalo's shoulders; knowing that this was the closest to an embrace he would allow. 'Thank you, old friend,' I said.

He stared at me. 'You look young again, master. Almost as young as the day I first came into your service.'

'I feel young,' I said. 'This time my sleep has truly rejuvenated me.'

'Come, master.' He led me out of the rear chamber and up a stone stairway that lead to the living quarters of the cave-dwelling that he had inherited from his father. In a previous incarnation Magalo had been head of the king's bodyguard, my most loyal servant. And he had railed at the gods, cursing them for banishing his king, but paid the price for it by being sent to join me. Though he knew nothing of his former lives, despite there being many, and believed that I had chosen him for his artistry with weapons of war.

'You see, Durabel,’ he said, looking at me with renewed admiration and wonderment, 'I told you he lives.'

Durabel had dropped her broom and stood staring at me. She had once been Magalo's beautiful young bride but was now old and wrinkled like her husband. 'I am sorry, master. I thought you would not recover this time, but you... you look young again.' She hesitated, as if unsure of me, then gave me a toothless grin and came and lay her head on my chest, wrapping her scrawny arms around me before stepping back and frowning. 'Master, you smell worse than, Magalo. Would you like me to bathe you in the hot springs?'

'You let him be,' said Magalo. 'Lord Astavar will want food and drink first. Then I will find a tender young sponge-girl to bath him, and one for me also.'

'You lecherous old goat!' Durabel reached for her broom and raising it above her head, she chased her husband out through the dwelling's one doorway, shouting, 'I'll bathe you and drown you at the same time!'

I threw my head back in laughter. Neither of them was tall enough to reach my shoulders, and as they got older they behaved more and more like squabbling children. Still laughing, I followed them outside, shading my eyes against the bright sunshine and feeling its warmth on my body. It felt good to be back among the living.

TO BE CONTINUED