Chapter Twenty Four: At the Villa by the Sea
Almost six months had passed since the war had ended with the complete destruction of the Fire Giants at the Battle of the Red Pass.
Magnus was sitting on the balcony of a villa overlooking the sea. Although it was now late autumn, here on the Isle of Mages the weather was still mild and sunny.
"Hello Magnus!" said Callixtus, who entered carrying his bow and arrows. He had been practising his archery in the garden of the villa which they now jointly owned, overlooking the small port on the Isle of Mages.
Magnus said, "Come over here, my boy, and let me look at you closely. You know how I love to gaze on you."
As he had done so often, but never tired of doing, Magnus admired the entirely smooth and naked form of his companion, whose only adornments were the bow and arrows he carried and the wolf's-tooth charm and silver sigil disc he still wore around his throat on thin strips of black leather.
"You have grown a great deal since we met a year ago. You are several inches taller, your chest is broader, and your muscles bigger - especially your splendid thighs and calves, which are proof of the hundreds of miles we have marched together. And despite the dangers we endured, no scars or blemishes mark your fair skin, which is still as glabrous and beautiful as the day I had the Cheskan cabin boy shave you - though wind and sun have turned you a lovely colour of light ochre, but with an inner glow - so different from the trembling, pale young boy I bought a year ago ."
Callixtus looked modestly downwards, as Magnus continued - "I am glad to see you do not yet need to shave, though that may be down to the fine unguents I gave you...I do so hope you continue with them, for I would hate to see you sprout stubble!"
Callixtus smiled and said, "But you look fine now that your beard has grown again!"
Magnus's appearance had also changed markedly since the Battle of the Red Pass. The stress of the campaign, the exhaustion of the final battle, and the blow they had both suffered from the loss of close friends, had all taken their toll. When Magnus and Callixtus had made their escape from the Imperial City of Avenna a year ago, Magnus had changed his appearance to make himself look considerably younger, but ever since the invasion of Rhenoussia this effect had started to fade. Now, his weather-beaten face was framed by grey hair and a neatly trimmed beard. He looked no older, but certainly no younger, than his forty seven years.
"You look exactly like you did when we first met", said Callixtus, "except that your face is now a bit more suntanned. It makes your grey eyes seem a bit bluer - but they still have that same expression - I remember the very first time you looked right at me, when I was still a slave at the Lady Domitia's. I felt you knew - or you wanted to know - everything about me. It made me feel completely naked."
Magnus laughed. "You were naked! And you nearly always have been, just as you are now!"
Callixtus said, "Yes, but this was different....I can't explain." And he put his arms around Magnus's shoulders and kissed him on the top of the head.
Magnus said, "Do you know the date today, Callixtus? It is the eighth day of November. Tomorrow is the anniversary of our first meeting, and your sixteenth birthday. Tonight, I have invited Joab and Gravillax for dinner. I know it's hardly the kind of birthday treat you were looking for - but I'm trying to be nice to them, and our cook is providing some very special delicacies. We also have some of the excellent red wine that Jirek sent us from his farm in Cheskia. A very special wine, because it actually comes from the little vineyard where we....had a particularly interesting encounter with his two boys. You may recall it."
Callixtus laughed at the memory, and Magnus was glad, for laughter had been in short supply for some time, and for long months the sound had not been heard in their new villa, light and bright and pleasant though it was.
Callixtus said, "I wonder what Joab will make of the fact that our cook is a hill goblin."
Magnus smiled. "Yes, although the arrangement has worked out rather well, don't you think? I find Grank's wife is a surprisingly good cook, and it amuses me greatly to have the pair of them in my entourage - it gives me a certain notoriety, even amongst fellow mages. No goblins had ever set foot on the Isle of Mages before."
"Do you think Grank will really become a member of the Order of Mages? He told me he will be the first ever goblin to gain that honour!" said Callixtus.
"Oh did he now!" said Magnus. "Well, that we will have to see. Though actually, one of the reasons I am being so nice to Joab is that I am trying to soften him up to admit Grank to membership of the Order. His magical abilities are actually rather impressive, and I've learned many surprising things from him."
"At least you managed to get him to dispose of that awful staff topped with a human skull" said Callixtus. "Although he complained to me that you were being unreasonable and depriving him of the reminder of a very tasty meal!"
"What else has Grank been telling you?" said Magnus.
"He told me that Joab has been made a Lord by the Emperor, and that you were given a full pardon for any allegations of wrongdoing in the Empire, and offered a Lordship as well - which you turned down."
"Well, that much is true - about the title, though of course I was glad to accept the pardon. Joab has indeed been elevated to the peerage - a fact which has given the shoemaker's son a huge amount of pride. I don't see the point, especially as we live on the Isle of Mages, which is Veskan territory,and the Veskans don't use titles of nobility. If I'd accepted, I would be the First Baron Magnus, but when my father dies, I'll be the Seventeenth Baron Caeruleus of the Vale of Argentum. I think you can guess which title I'd prefer. But don't tell Joab I said that."
"Grank also showed me the cantrip for erecting and deflating cocks. He did it to me, and on himself!" said Callixtus.
"By the ancestors!" said Magnus. "I hope you weren't involved in mutual masturbation with a goblin, or I will begin to think your tastes are seriously depraved!"
Callixtus laughed. "No, it was nothing like that. His wife was there the whole time, cackling like a drain. She said the erectile version would come in very handy seeing as Grank has such a tiny pecker and is often too drunk to shag her. Then he got angry and they started throwing things at each other, like they so often do. It was very funny watching them chase each other round the kitchen, Grank with his little goblin cock waving about! "
Magnus said, "Yes, having goblins in the household can be a little trying at times. But I don't think I taught him that particular cantrip."
"No...Kari did" said Callixtus.
There was a silence as their thoughts turned to the boy mage whose death at the Battle of the Red Pass was an unspoken but ever-present painful memory.
"It is said that Lord Skanderos was in danger of death for many weeks after Kari died," said Magnus, "even though the healers could find no physical cause. He just refused to eat, and was so filled with despair that he very nearly lost the will to live. But he recovered, physically at any rate, and is back in Megaros, which I believe he has filled with statues of Kari. So although Kari's life was brief and mostly sad, at least his image will live on, carved in marble by the sculptors of Megaros, whom everyone acknowledges to be the finest in the world."
"I suppose that's something", said Callixtus, "but I'm not sure if it really makes me feel much better. About Kari, or about Chereskar, or about all the other brave and beautiful warriors who marched with us but did not return."
"Don't think sad thoughts now, Callixtus, not on the eve of your birthday feast" said Magnus, pulling the boy towards him and embracing him. "Tomorrow our old friends Votya and his brother Danko will be arriving from Cheskia. Their father has graciously permitted them to come and stay with us until the end of the month. Will it not be a fine thing to see how they have grown, and renew our friendships? Do you recall that last sight we had of them, a year ago, when the ship pulled from the Cheskan shore and we saw their naked bodies waving, painted in the colours of the setting sun? How lovely to see those naked bodies again, stepping ashore in the sunshine of an autumn morning!"
"I remember that", said Callixtus. "But at the time I was mainly thinking about how to get the spunk stains off your cloak." The mage smiled, and Callixtus added -"But of course I'll be pleased to see them again. Thank you for arranging it for my birthday. I must admit I forgot all about having a birthday; but then I never had one before I met you." And he kissed Magnus on the lips.
"Callixtus my boy," said the mage, seeing that a slight air of sadness still hung over the boy's brow, "remember that as I told you before, all things must, in time, change form and wither and die. All we can do is make the best of the brief moments of joy and beauty which come to us in the meantime. Not with a spirit of selfishness, but with a spirit of kindness and generosity for those we love, and a fond remembrance of those whom we once loved, and who are no more." And he gently kissed the boy's brow.
"Will we see Shalmaneser and Lendulio again?" asked Callixtus.
"Of course we will" said the mage. "I wish to spend the winter here with you, writing an account of the War of the Fire Giants and our role in it; but come the spring we will take ship with Tammuz, and go east, where we will meet our friends again. Who knows what strange lands and peoples we will encounter! Will it not be a fine thing, Callixtus, for us to see the wind swelling the sails as we speed over sunlit seas to new adventures?" And Callixtus smiled back at him, and they stroked each other's faces.
Just then a gong sounded. "Grank calls us" said Magnus, "Come, my boy, Joab and Gravillax have arrived - let us go to meet our guests."
THE END
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