The Reluctant Warrior (25 page)

“We could hire some of the young men to help us,” she suggested, undaunted by his lack of enthusiasm.

“What would we pay them?”

“Food and shelter, they will not need more than that for a few years. We have not had any use for gold since Montrose drove us all from our homes and villages and it will be some years before we have use of it again.”

The economy was definitely in tatters, and the Noragin and Skraelings had lived communally for so long now that money no longer had any value. Everyone worked for the benefit of the community and the community was for the benefit of everyone. A man probably would be content with just food and shelter in exchange for labor for a while at least.

Amora pointed to the woods that bordered the farm. “When we have sons they will help you clear those woods. They belong to no one and so the land that lies within them is ours for the taking. Then when we are old our children will live on the farm and take care of us.” She smiled happily. “You will see… it is the Noragin way.”

The sprawling metropolis of New York or this rundown Noragin farm was the quandary he was in. That was the decision he had to make.

“I wish my parents were alive to see us return to their farm,” she said wistfully. “They would be so pleased that it was going to see happiness and the sound of children’s laughter again.”

Jed strolled over to the well and peered in. It was deep, very deep, in fact the longer he peered in the deeper it seemed to go. And that was his problem, the longer he left off making a decision the deeper he went, the deeper into trouble.

When the pair returned to the caves later that day Jed took a heavy heart with him, for no matter what he decided to do someone was going to get hurt, and probably no one more so than him.

Rex came to see him when he arrived back. “Just got back from Chantros in the pod,” he revealed. “Zarros is coming here tomorrow and he wants to speak to you about an important matter.”

“To speak to me,” Jed was surprised. “What does he want to speak to me about?”

“I think it is best if I leave it to him to tell you that,” he answered cagily. “Just make sure you are here in the morning. Don’t go wandering off somewhere.”

Jed was waiting at the flat rock when the pod from Chantros arrived. He had no idea what Zarros wanted to speak to him about, but Rex had made it sound like it was a pretty important matter.

A broad smile broke out on Zarros’s face as he stepped out of the pod and caught sight of Jed. “How wonderful to see you again,” he said sincerely. “And looking so well, those pills we sent must have done their job.”

“You wanted to see me about something?” Jed said, brushing aside the idle chit chat.

“Yes,” Zarros admitted, “and the sooner we discuss the matter the sooner we will be able to sanction it.”

Jed led the way down to Erik’s cabin with anxiety gnawing away at his insides. Although he didn’t know the topic the discussion was going to be on, he was reasonably sure it was going to be something he didn’t want to hear.

“So what’s this all about?” Jed asked, once he and Zarros were comfortably seated at the old wooden table.

“I have only yesterday completed a tour of the Skraeling and Noragin villages, and the peoples beyond Chantros where your fame has already spread to,” Zarros revealed, “and it has been unanimously agreed that we need something to bind us all together as one people so a situation like this can never happen again.”

Jed looked suspiciously at him. “And where do I fit into all this?”

“You would govern all the people of this world. You would be the glue that would hold us all together. We have all agreed to submit to your authority.”

For a moment Jed was too stunned to answer. He had harbored the suspicion that somehow this whole business was going to involve him, but not in his wildest dreams had he thought that they were planning to make him some sort of king. “I fought against Montrose to stop one man from ruling this world,” he protested.

“Montrose was a cruel dictator,” Zarros answered calmly. “You would be an elected leader of the people.”

“I fail to see much difference between the two. These people should govern themselves, they don’t need an outsider lording it over them.”

“The fact that you are reluctant to take on the role confirms to me that our decision to choose you was the correct one,” Zarros argued. “You have a duty to these people that no one else is capable of seeing through.”

“A duty…” Jed couldn’t believe his ears. “I have a duty to these people? Up until six weeks ago I didn’t even know that they existed, so how can I possibly have a duty to them?”

“Because you are a born leader and a leader has a responsibility to his people that he cannot escape from.”

Jed was just beginning to feel the first stirrings of frustration make their presence felt. “But they aren’t my people, I’m a New Yorker.”

Zarros smiled at the comment. “You are as much a Noragin now as any native born warrior, and you are certainly a man of this world in the eyes of every man, woman, and child who lives here.”

Frustration was rapidly morphing into anger. “Zarros,” Jed said firmly, “I do not want to lead these people.”

“A man does not always get to choose what he does. Sometimes that choice is taken out of his hands and made for him.”

“This man makes decisions for himself,” Jed thundered, thumping his clenched fist down on the table. “I do not want to, nor will I lead these people.”

“Very well,” Zarros said briskly, rising from the table as he said it, “we cannot force you to do that which you are determined not to. But I will leave you with this advice. If you refuse to oblige these people then it would be best for you to return to where you came from, for they will never give you any privacy or rest for denying them their hearts desire.”

Zarros slipped out the door and was gone, leaving Jed to ponder over what he had just said. The Chantrosian was undoubtedly right when he said the people would give him no rest. He had been mobbed from the day he returned from defeating Montrose and would be a cult figure for the rest of his life, all seven hundred years of it.

He had to get out, and he had to get far away from here, for he couldn’t live seven hundred years under the strain of governing these primitive people. New York was calling to him, and now he could get home for he had the pod.

“You’re mad, you’re stark raving mad,” Jonathon said, when Jed discussed it with him and Rex later that day. “New York can’t offer you what this place does.”

“It can offer me anonymity,” Jed insisted, “and that is what I want most of all.”

“And that’s worth more to you than Amora, and the love and goodwill of all these people you have saved?”

“Yes.”

“I need time alone to get my head around this,” Jonathon said, turning on his heal and storming back along the trail.

Jed turned his attention to Rex. “Go on then,” he said sourly, “it’s your turn to give me both barrels.”

“I’m not going to give you a hard time, Jed. I’ve seen the strain that leading these people has put on you.”

“What would you do if you were in my place?” Jed was desperately hoping that at least one person might take his side.

“I would stay. Anna is all I have ever dreamed for and never thought I’d ever get, and then the opportunity to have my own children with her and living for hundreds of years just far outweighs anything New York could give me.”

“You think I’m a fool don’t you?”

Rex looked at him sadly for a moment. “I’d be lying if I said I thought you were. It’s okay for Jonathon and I, we can settle down and enjoy the benefits of our hard won victory over Montrose in peace. But I doubt there would be much peace for you if you stayed. What they are asking you to do is something that only a very exceptional man would be capable of handling. Personally, I think you are the one man who is capable of it, but you must go with what your heart is telling you.”

“I need to get home, Rex. I need to feel some concrete beneath my feet and enjoy the taste of a hotdog again. I’m like a prize exhibit here, and it’s driving me insane.”

“I understand, and I sympathize…”

“But…?”

“I was just thinking about Amora. I have grown very fond of that young woman since we’ve been here and I fear what your leaving will do to her. I worry what it will do to you too. I saw how frantic you were when she was trapped under that boulder, so I know that you love her.”

Jed leaned back against a tree and stared up at the sky through the canopy of leaves. “Yes, I do love her,” he admitted. “Just not enough to make me want to stay and be a king.”

“I will of course help you to get back to New York,” Rex promised. “That’s the least I can do for you after everything you’ve done for me and these people.”

“Thank you, Rex.”

“You will need to tell Amora about your decision very soon though. Preferably today, for she is bound to hear you have turned this leadership thing down and want to know why.”

Jed nodded. It was not a task he looked forward to, and he didn’t quite know how she would react. She would be upset though, very upset, but whether that meant she would get angry or just cry he was yet to find out.

“Amora…,” he said tentatively when he found her down by the river later that morning, “I need to talk to you.”

She spread the clothing she had been washing across a rock to dry and gave him her full attention, her blue eyes shining with such love for him that he wished himself anywhere else on this planet right now, rather than here, about to break her heart.

Seeing the strange look in his eyes she guessed something was amiss. “Has something happened?” she asked fearfully.

“Yes,” he said sadly, “something has happened, Amora.”

“You are going to leave me aren’t you?” she said, guessing the awful truth.

“I must go back to where I belong, Amora, I do not belong here.”

“Take me with you.”

“I can’t.”

“Why can’t you…do you not love me?”

“I love you more than I have ever loved anyone,” he answered truthfully.

“Then take me with you, we belong together.”

“You couldn’t live in the land of the Sky-Gods our customs are so different to the customs of your people.”

“I don’t care,” she insisted, “just take me with you.”

“Amora,” he pulled her close to him, “you would be so unhappy in my land. The people are not friendly like your people are.”

“If you loved me you would take me with you.” She was starting to get desperate now, sensing he was going to stand firm. “If you loved me you would take me,” she said again, the tears beginning to slip noiselessly down her pale cheeks.

“It’s because I love you that I can’t take you with me. I couldn’t make someone I loved that unhappy.”

“I would be happy.” Her eyes were imploring him to relent. “I would be happy because I would be with you.”

“If I took you with me you would never be able to come back again,” he told her. “You would never see Erik, your friends, or your homeland again.”

She looked confused. “We could come back in the pod.”

“We wouldn’t have the pod, Amora. Rex and Jonathon would need it to bring them back after they had taken us to my people. Then if something happened to me you would be all alone in the land of the Sky-Gods.”

Her countenance went suddenly grave, and he figured she was undergoing an internal struggle with this new and unwelcome piece of information. “We would never be able to cross the ice to get back here,” he said, pressing the point. “It was only because of a miracle that I got here the first time, and that same miracle couldn’t possibly happen again.”

“I still want to come with you,” she said adamantly. “I can’t be happy without you.”

“And I so want to take you, but it would be so wrong of me to do so. You would be so homesick, and in the end you would resent me for taking you away from all that you have cherished for so many years.”

She sensed she had lost this battle and so changed tack. “Then stay here with me. You will be happy here, and I will make you the best wife. You know that I would do anything for you.”

“I wish that I could stay but I can’t. I just don’t belong here, Amora. I cannot be a king to these people.”

“Then don’t be. Just live here with me and let someone else be king.”

“They wouldn’t let me do that, you know they wouldn’t. If I stayed they would force me to be king and then I’d be miserable all the days of my long long life.”

She knew he was right, and so now she gave herself over to her grief, her sobs coming faster with each passing second. Jed held her even tighter. If only she knew what leaving her would do to him. He would never love again, for who could compare to Amora?

Jed decided to leave for home as soon as possible as the news would be spreading like wildfire amongst the Skraeling and Noragin villages that Jed Rand had turned down the Kingship, and he didn’t want to be here when they came in large numbers to force him to change his mind.

The plan was to fly the pod to a point a short distance from McMurdo and then to walk into the base pretending to have survived being lost out on the ice for the last six weeks. They couldn’t take the pod all the way to New York or the authorities would want to know how they came by it, and there was no way they were going to tell them about the hollow earth they had just come from. The people of that world had been put through enough already, without having all the developed nations of the world descending on them in the hopes of exploiting their mineral wealth.

The pod would keep itself from freezing solid as long as its panels absorbed enough light, but as soon as the dark winter of Antarctica descended the pods battery banks would slowly play themselves out, until at last the pod would be rendered powerless to protect itself from the harsh conditions. Zarros said they had about three months to get to New York and back before that would happen, but if they were late in returning then their way back to the Noragin would be lost forever.

The three men slipped away from the caves early in the morning two days later and made their way to the clearing. Jed had said his goodbyes the night before and told Amora not to come down to see him off because it would be too painful for the two of them.

“Activate pod for takeoff,” Rex commanded, when he, Jed, and Jonathon were strapped in.

As the pod lifted off the ground and hovered slowly up towards the tree tops Jed spotted a movement on the ground. Amora broke from the cover of the trees and ran into the middle of the clearing; she was holding something up, something she wanted him to see, and he knew instantly what it was. With the morning sun glinting off the ring he had given her as it swung gently from her chain he knew also what it was she was trying to tell him, that she was his woman, and she would wear his ring for the rest of her life, so that all men would know that she belonged to Jed Rand. He turned his face away from her and shed silent tears of grief for what they had both just given up, and when he looked back again both she and the clearing had disappeared, and now all that lay beneath him was the beautiful stretch of prairie that he would never see again.

Past the ruined base Montrose had set up when he had first arrived in this world, on past the forest with the flowers that had puffed out the red pollen, across the warm lake where they had seen the sea monster, and then out over the ice they cruised. With the pod not designed for speed it would take them at least a couple of days before they reached the base, and so Rex took the first shift at the control panel while the other two slept.