Short Story: Redeeming the Beggar

The eyeless wretch was squatting there, begging in the streets, his supplicating bowl held over his bowed head. I stopped and let my shadow fall over him.

“Do you know me?” I asked.

I could hear him sniffing.

“You’ve traveled far,” he began. “The salt-spray still clings to you.” Sniff. “And the sweetness of wine. A cargo ship? A sailor?” Sniff. “Not a sailor. There’s too much blood, old blood, and something familiar.” Sniff. “I do know you.” Sniff. “Long time ago.” Sniff. “You’re from home.”

“We’ve been looking for you.”

He set the bowl down and craned his eyeless face up to me. The weathered bandages seemed to have half melted into his flesh. The faded wrap followed the contours of his skull as though it were his skin, and the cavities of his eyes were dark with dried blood.

SNIFF.

“So, you found me? You can’t kill me, not if I know—” sniff “—No, you wouldn’t kill me. At least,” sniff, “you didn’t when you had more of a reason too.”

“I’m not here to kill you. The Sanzor have returned.”

He gave no response, but he turned his face away. I knelt down and grabbed him by his wiry scrap of beard, jerking his face back toward mine.

“It’s redemption if you come along, freedom. Slavery if I have to drag you back home.”

“Will I fight for my homeland?” he scoffed. “You may put a sword in my hand, but it will do neither of us very good. Shall I command armies I cannot see? Will a blind man lead them?”

I released him and stood. With a groan, he stretched his frail body to his full height, reaching out to my shoulder for balance. He was thin, like a skeleton, boney, but he stood a good head taller than me. His other hand, covered in dirt and dust, reached for my face. I closed my eyes as his fingers explored.

“You’ve grown old,” he observed. “Very old.” His toe stepped down on the lip of his bowl, and with an adroit kick, he sent it flying straight up. Snatching it out of the air, he folded it under his arm. “What do you want with me?”

I began walking. He followed, his hand still on my shoulder.

“Your old master is dead,” I said. “Died in office. He had a student once, the only student, he said, who ever understood his teaching. He would have retired long ago and passed the torch on, but that student wasn’t there.”

“Elfar is dead?” he whispered.

Taking a ring from my hand, I pressed it into his palm. We stopped as his fingers gently caressed the ancient seal. He put the ring to his lips and tasted it. Finally, he slipped it on.

“Elfar is dead,” he said. He reached for my shoulder again. “Take me home. Take me to his grave. Let me weep there.”

“Will you fight the Sanzor?”

Taking his bowl in hand, he tossed it through the air. The disk whirled down the street, climbing into the sky until it touched the sun. Then suddenly, it flew back toward us and into his waiting palm.

“For Elfar, for home, I will fight.”