"Tylock: Homecomings and Pardonings" by Yuri Mataev

Homecomings and Pardonings     There was a lone rider on the road between Adasof and New Caen, doggedly pressing onwards, despite the fact that the weather seemed intent on stopping him. Autumn storms reigned over the Central Plains, driving heavy, grey rainclouds from the mountains. They seemed to take the traveler's defiance as a personal insult and the weather steadily got worse, fierce winds practically tearing the man from his horse and pelting him with buckets of nearly horizontal rain. The normally calm waters of the Ani'yun had been churned into a froth and wave rose after wave at the shore. The trees still resisted stoically, but by the rider's reckoning they wouldn’t remain standing for long if the wind grew any stronger.
    New Caen would probably be in ruins, he thought with a faint smirk: shingles, branches and miscellaneous debris flying through the streets, crashing windows and providing severe inconvenience for anyone venturing out on the streets. There would be no one about except for the crazy or desperate.
    Another gust buffeted horseman and horse, causing the animal to whinny and rear. The horse could not go much farther against the weather. It was already getting panicky and uncontrollable. There was nothing for it but to let the poor creature go. The rider had his last sight of it galloping for the cover of the Ansymar forest. He wondered idly if it would survive the night. Following the train of thought, he judged that his own chances were not much better.
    The storms of early autumn were rarely very cold, but the wind bit sharply and the traveler's cloak was soaked to the last thread. He didn’t have long to go however. The storm had hit him when he was more than three quarters of the way to New Caen, and by his calculations he had only a few more miles to walk.

    Constables Gunni and Dure of the New Caen City Watch huddled around an oil lamp in the small, subterranean guardhouse near New Caen's western gate. Gate is a misleading term, denoting some form of barrier. There wasn't, and had never been a gate there, merely an arch in the city wall. The city wall also existed only partially and would never present an obstacle to a determined invader. The only well-defended area in the whole city was the Protector Fort in the High City. New Caen wasn't built like the Caen of old, which had been a mighty stronghold at the head of an empire. New Caen had nothing to defend against, not anymore.
    Glass tinkled upstairs and Gunni pulled his coat tighter around himself.
    "There goes another window," he muttered.
    Dure shifted his bulk slightly.
    "Djou wanchme to go checkid out?" he inquired, his thick troll voice having trouble with the common tongue.
    Gunni shrugged.
    "We might as well take a look. There's nothing else to do anyway. Patch it up somehow so we don't get flooded in the middle of the night." The dwarf dug some tools, wood and sacking out from a corner, placed there for just that purpose. He heard the stairs groan as Dure ascended to the ground floor. When he followed eventually, the troll was staring intently out the broken pane.
     "I just seen sum-one," he said as briefly as possible.
     "Out there?" Gunni looked skeptical. The wind had abated slightly, but the the rain drummed as hard as before. The dwarf considered his options. He could come out and check the truth of the troll's observation: there could be no one innocent out there. That would mean they would get a commendation and, more importantly, a bonus at the end of the month. On the other hand, they could just patch the window up and go down to the cellar, which was marginally warmer than the street.
    Sighing, Gunni reached for the hammer.
     "Let's get to work."

    The traveler, moving from cover to cover to avoid the worst of the weather, passed through the streets of New Caen. He hadn't seen the streets of his home city for nearly fifteen years.
    Few things had changed.
    His feet carried him down familiar avenues following a path that became ever clearer in his mind. The buildings around him grew steadily larger and richer. This was the High City, the most prestigious of New Caen's boroughs. The traveler stopped finally in front of a wrought iron fence. The house beyond it looked like it had seen better days.
    The windows were dark holes, long glassless, and some boarded up carelessly. Part of the roof had collapsed. The traveler made his way towards the front door. It was locked, and the key was long gone out of the man's possessions. A first floor window provided easy access. It looked like he wasn't the first to come this way. Footprints disturbed the dust of long years. Fixtures and furniture had been stripped away ages before, and the huge fireplace in the center of the living room had not seen fire for more than a decade.
    This was the traveler's own home, now abandoned and derelict, home of drunks and secret meeting place of lovers. There was no shelter or comfort to be found here. The traveler left.
    The worst of the storm had blown over by then, only a fine drizzle still descending on the sleeping city. The traveler considered his next destination. He didn't have much choice, actually. There was a single person in the city who would be glad to see him.

    That single person, on that particular night, was quite sensibly seated in front a fire and busy mending the tools of her trade. She happened to be a surgeon, and therefore well respected in the Lower City and the Pits, where she held her practice. Her name was Ceodae, and she was an elf by birth and in body, but as far as it is possible to be from an elf in character and spirit. So far from an elf, in fact, that, many years ago, she befriended the most notorious elf killer since the days of the Fourth Elf War: Tylock, known behind his back as the Black Dog of Caen.
    They met one day when he was in need of medical help, treatment for a knife cut, with no questions asked. He had refused to be treated by an elf, but in the end, Vass, another elf hater and his only friend, had persuaded him. She wondered sometimes if he had intended to kill her. In any event, it did not happen, and they parted peacefully, if probably only because of Vass's influence. And then there were other wounds that needed healing.
    Ceodae did not know Tylock's reputation, at first, and came to learn of it only afterwards. The thought of handing him over to the City Watch didn't cross her mind.  It was his business, and none of hers. Or so it was in the beginning. They grew close gradually, and by the time he was caught, she knew so much that she was practically an accomplice.
    She never went to trial. Vass and Tylock did. Vass took the blame upon himself and was executed, Tylock was sentenced to twelve years in the labor camps, effectively crossed out of the list of the living for that time. No news ever came from the camps, and in any case, there was no one to receive the news: Ceodae wasn't kin and didn't officially figure anywhere as a close friend.
    Tylock should have come out three years ago, but still nothing was known of him. He was either dead, escaped before the end of his term and now in hiding, or had simply forgotten her. She secretly hoped for the second possibility, but knew that the first and third were far more likely.
    Few people ever escaped from the camps.

    A sudden noise brought her back to reality, nearly making her drop the scalpel she was sharpening. She looked around, alarmed at whatever it had been. The sound came again: a rap at the front door.
    Rain thundered on the roof and she wondered who it could be at that hour, deciding that it was either a patient or a burglar. Tucking one of her longer scalpels up a sleeve, she approached the door. Healers were generally respected in New Caen's crime world, because, obviously, no one wanted to cut off the possibility of medical help, but there was always the odd one out, who either didn't care, or was desperate enough, or simply unaware. A patient was more likely: someone hurt in the weather. Nevertheless, caution always was the best part of valor.
    "Who's there?" she asked, rather unimaginatively.
    The voice from outside was masculine and seemed oddly familiar, choked with emotion.
    "Ceo…"
    Slightly confused, but on her guard, Ceodae slid the bolts loudly open, turned the key in its lock and paused. A potential attacker would take the opportunity to burst in, knocking her over with the door. He would be hard-pressed, however, because the door was still locked near the top and bottom. No attempt was made. Finally she pulled the door open and stepped back.
    A figure from the past, aged slightly, stood in the doorway, grinning and wincing at the same time, soaking from the rain.
    "T-T-Tylock?" she stuttered.
    "Ceo," he sounded relieved.

    Except for a few creases around the eyes and mouth, Ceodae hadn't changed a bit. Standing there in the doorway, she reminded him of a past long gone, but not forgotten. Tylock suddenly found tears in his eyes. In the next instant, she surged forward, threatening to choke him in a bone-crushing hug.
    They stood there for a long time, he holding her helplessly and she clinging to him as if she would never let go. She released him eventually, if only to bodily haul him out of the rain, strip of his wet rags and bundle him into a blanket in front of the fire.
    Ceodae departed to the kitchen briefly to prepare a hot brew, a habit adopted by New Caen's inhabitants from the orcs. Tylock was left staring deep into the crackling fire and delving even deeper into his mind. When she returned, he accepted the brew wordlessly and drank it in deep gulps, despite its scalding heat. She watched him patiently, sitting next to him. At last, the mug was empty and he leaned over to lay his head on her lap.
    "Ceo," he muttered, "I've lived through so much. But I'm home now."
    Caressing his hair, still wet, she answered reassuringly.
    "Yes, you're home. Now tell me everything."