Bones of Salt

Jonathan

When walking down the narrow and dark streets of Tevel, I tried to conceal my worry and my disappointment but I thought I was doing a poor job of it. It didn't help that Roman, by now, knew me too well.

"It's true what they say," the Prophet commented. "There's a first time for everything."

"It's indeed the first time that a woman calls me misshapen and a waste of material," I mused. "A double-headed woman at that. Though it will make a fine story, won't it, someday? How we met this woman, in Hell, who wouldn't let us go after we drank her soup. Because she wanted our bodies. And every bit of it is true."

"I imagine it's something the stories you tell usually don't have in common," Roman said, but not mocking. His tone was light, on purpose.

I didn't have anything to say to that. But I replied, for good measure, "They are mostly true. Where would the fun be if they weren't at all? Life is like a sordid affair, Roman. Exciting at first, terrible when you're going through it, and only fun when it gets told, later."

Roman tried very visibly not to roll his eyes, though he didn't seem to disagree with the description.

"Some things, however, just cannot be fun," he said then. "Doesn't matter how you spin them."

"You're still thinking about the poison, aren't you? I'll be sure to tell Athanasios he did a good job next time I see him. You see it's difficult to pay him a compliment --- he loves flattery but hates the flatterers..."

"See? This is what I mean!"

"We should really stop bickering now," I conceded. "Before someone hears us and tries to sew us back together."

While we were talking, we found ourselves in front of a palace, which was where the man Delilah and Judith called their leader must have lived. I was about to turn around, when I was stopped by a man's voice.

"I have found something that belongs to you," he said.

I didn't dare look at him, but as far as faces go, I could see that he had only one. This was interesting enough to keep my feet locked in place.

"Nice jacket," the man said, showing me the dark red jacket I'd left on the shores of the Waters of Okeanos. "I can understand many things about objects just by touching them. It's a real army jacket, from the war of Meglenia against Russania."

The man turned it around in his hands. He showed Roman how one of the sleeves was a little torn around the elbow, and there were tears in the fabric of the back.

"Bullet holes," Roman pointed out.

"Yes," I replied. I wondered if the jacket said a lot about me, as a person. It was elegant enough to contribute to make me look charming, but it had belonged to a soldier who was shot while wearing it. This was the detail that had made me buy it --- I felt a connection towards items that had belonged to people like me, people who had a great purpose and wanted to fight to make the world a different place.

Still, one wouldn't see the bullet holes unless one could pass the jacket through their hands the way that man was doing.

"I'd hate to be awfully rude to a stranger in a foreign land but how did you get my jacket?" I asked.

"And how come do you have only one head?" Roman wanted to know.

"The answer to both questions is one and the same," the man replied. "I have powers beyond any imagining of the people in Tevel. That is why I am the one they call Leader. I can sense everything that's happening here, and I noticed two strangers arriving on the shore. I decided to retrieve your jacket so that I could have a chance to talk to you..."