Chapter 20: Not Forever

 “I wish you’d stay and help me and Eshendisa at court,” said Tulonan.

 He was sitting with elbows on his desk and clasped hands propping up his chin.

 Eshendisa was running back and forth across the office, picking up scrolls and books and trying to pack them in a big oak trunk by the door.

 The early morning sun coming through the window cast the room in a golden glow.

 I sat in front of the aging astronomer in a white dress like Mala had worn when she was at the Sepulchral Giant’s compound. The long sleeves conveniently covered fresh gauze wrappings, which replaced the bandages  palace medics had originally applied to my cuts and lacerations.

 It had been a week since the madness of the Vernal Equinox and I had spent a good deal of that time bedridden in the apartment I’d once shared with my now absent friend. I’d had a lot of time to turn things over in my weary mind: memories of Mala, my place in this insane world, and (eventually) reasons why I should carry on. I’d lost so much in the course of my life– so many friends and loved ones– and yet I’d still managed to make a difference. My best friend would have wanted me to get on with the business of living. I would honor her memory by pursuing my dreams of becoming a full-time astronomer with my own observatory. But not here. 

 Not this place.

 I smiled gently at my old employer. 

 “It hurts too much right now,” I said. “Being here. I just need to move out into the world and see what kolas the gods have cast for me. Mala once told me that I was itinerant because I was trying to escape my past. I don’t know that she was right, though. The past is always with me. I can never leave it behind.”

 “We love you, Syndeeka,” said Eshendisa from where she knelt at the trunk, trying to readjust several tomes.

 I softly chuckled. “Thank you, my dear. But it’s not that I don’t love the two of you. I just need to get my head together.”

 “But you won’t stay gone?” asked Tulonan.

 I inhaled slowly, deeply. “Not forever. I’ll come back some day.”

 Tulonan opened a drawer in his desk and pulled out the spyglass  and handed it to me. “Look at the big lens.”

 I turned the device over in my hands and noted the main lens, which no longer had a crack running through it. “You were able to get it fixed. I’m terribly sorry about breaking it.”

 Tulonan smiled. “Don’t worry about it, Syndeeka. The new Emperor wants to make hundreds of these.”

 “Oh, I hope Demitos isn’t going to use them for some military campaign.”

 “No,” said Tulonan, taking the spyglass back from me, “he wants to give these to as many astronomers as he can. Stargazing will never be the same now. And it’s all because of you. This was your idea.”

 I laughed with embarrassment. “No, I only made the slightest of suggestions. It was you and the glassmaker who worked this out. You and he should take the credit for this wonderful invention.”

 Tulonan replaced the spyglass in his desk drawer then looked at me in a matter-of-fact way. “Are you going to be at the Coronation in two days?”

 I stared down at my lap. “Yes. I promised Demitos I’d come. Personally, I’m ready to move on. But I didn’t want to hurt his feelings. He was so disappointed when I turned down his offer for a post as head astronomer.”

 “Thank you for suggesting me to him, by the way.”

 I smiled. “You still have some good years left in you, my friend.”

 Aldro turned the glass vial over in his hand, watching the green liquid inside slosh about. “Do you think it can really put you in a deep sleep, Syndeeka?”

 I let out a dry laugh. “I just don’t know. I was going to show it to Tulonan when I went to talk to him, but I got distracted when he showed me that his spyglass had been fixed. It's funny how the vial and the spyglass were both in my bag last week, getting knocked about, but only the lens of the spyglass cracked.”

 We were sitting on the long stone bench that spand one side of the courtyard. All about us were student volunteers scrubbing and cleaning away the still-prominent bloodstains on the flagstones with mops and rags. I realized it must be a truly unpleasant task, but these young men wanted their school to open again in the fall– in spite of having their current semester closed out early.

 Aldro returned the vial to me and I put it back in my bag. “I want to thank you for all you did last week. Bardrakeu and I were so worried that our fathers might be killed by that monster.”

 I sat back, supporting myself with outspread hands. “Eh, I didn’t really save them, my good man. They just had enough sense to get themselves out of harm’s way, unlike Fodineo Quabeno. I think pretending to be a god made him nervous he’d offend the real ones, so he tried to do everything he could to appease them.”

 Aldro took the mop from his side and lay it over his crossed legs. “Do you think his lover will make a better Emperor? Wouldn’t he be just as bad?”

 I smiled. “Hardly. No, Demitos is basically a decent man, in spite of his questionable taste in mates. I’ve asked him to try to push the Empire back in the direction of the Republic. He’s told me he intends to do whatever’s in his power to make things better.”

 “Well, that’ll make Bardrakeu happy.”

 “Poor Bardrakeu. He lost his surrogate father, but at least he still has the one who sired him. Aldro, if you can ask him to lay to rest all his new-found nationalist fervor, I’d appreciate that. His family’s done a lot of good for the Equoci Empire and I’m sure he’ll make a wonderful senator one day.”

 Aldro looked me in the eye. “And what about you?”

 I sighed. “I still plan on leaving several days after the Coronation. This place brings back too many bad memories.”

 Aldro looked to the aqueduct beyond the campus. “It’s a pity. I’m all alone in my family’s summer home and I could use my own housekeeper– preferably a pretty one.”

 I groaned under my breath. “Don’t start that again, please.”

 He laughed. “You can’t blame a young man for trying.”

 “I can blame a young man for acting foolish when he should know better by now.”

 “It’s okay, Syndeeka. I’ve learned from my mistakes. And I’ll try to be a better person.” He smiled. “I am glad to have you for a friend.”

 I stared at the flagstones. “Yes. That’s good to hear. Friendships do so much to help us bear the pain of living.”