Well dear readers, I've been busy working on a number of things and have decided to post Part One of a short story I am writing. It is called Sybal and is a complete work in progress. I hope you enjoy it.
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It had been nearly twenty days that Fenton Nilles had been on the move. He’d received a letter from Byros Lincoln who resided in Blackrock by the Sea. It was a job offer that promised to be rewarding for Fenton if he could complete the task. He was confident it would be a quick piece of work for someone like him who had honed his skills over the years like a fisherman trolling familiar waters for the day’s catch. For over a decade Fenton provided his services, not in catching fish, but in tracking down people who didn’t want to be found. Over that ten-year period he’d brought in close to eighty people who’d been on the run, in hiding or in someway had ‘disappeared’.
From the small town of Blackrock by the Sea, Byros Lincoln had written to him and asked him to find an individual who went by the name of Sybal. The terms were clear: find Sybal, bring him to Byros and receive four bars of 18-caret gold. ‘A king’s ransom,’ Fenton’s father would have said when he was still alive. Fenton had sent word back to Byros that he would accept the work.
He set out straightaway.
Now twenty days from that acceptance letter, the day when Fenton left his home in Flesherton, Ontario and set out to find the man called Sybal and the man was like a ghost. It was proving to be a most difficult job with the leads having been mostly cold. Now Fenton sat in a small tavern called Pierotook, a run down place that was somewhat off the well traveled path. He liked to frequent places like this because off the beaten paths were where men who didn’t want to be found often sated their need for food and drink.
“You want another Baiizer?” a bartender asked Fenton. He nodded. The bartender poured another drink from an ornamental bottle that read BAIIZER across the front in fancy script. A picture of a radiant sun was painted on the label. The liquid that ran from the bottle’s mouth was a brilliant rich yellow. “It’s cold out today ah-ya?” the bartender asked as his topped Fenton’s glass and then expertly pulled the bottle away without so much as grazing the glass.
Fenton nodded. “Yeah a bit fresh.”
“It’s because he is gone for a short time. The Prim is always cooler when he is absent,” the bartender said. Fenton nodded. He wasn’t exactly sure what the bartender was talking about, but he didn’t care. He wanted a drink. Needed a drink. Then he would leave and continue his search for the man named Sybal. “Where’s you from?” the bartender asked.
“From a lot of places,” Fenton answered as he drank. The yellow liquid slid down his throat hotly and radiated out across his chest. A calming buzz filled his head. “Nowhere in particular.”
“But not from the Prim,” the bartender said as he stacked glasses.
“No. Not from the Prim,” Fenton answered. “Just passing through.”
“Ah-ya, and where’s you might be heading?” the bartender asked.
Fenton eyed the bartender. The number of questions was beginning to bother him. He narrowed his thin grey eyes and stared hard at the bartender. “Nowhere in particular,” Fenton answered. The bartender shrugged and moved on to another customer that sat at the far end of the bar. Fenton glanced around the tavern, suddenly feeling uncomfortable. Feeling that he was too much in the open. Throwing back the remainder of his drink he tossed some money down on the bar, rose from his seat and exited the tavern. The day was grey, cool. He’d made his way from Flesherton down to Orangeville with the intent of going on to Toronto. There was a route through to Blackrock in the city of Toronto that few knew about. It was of course a three day journey on foot. Wanting to save time and remain unseen, Fenton decided to cross into the Prim.
The Prim was an ancient place. While there were thousands of worlds and worlds within worlds, some physical, other metaphysical, the Prim was like the hub at the centre of a wheel. A hub with many thousand spokes radiating from its centre. He walked from Orangeville to the town of Caledon, just north of Brampton, Ontario. There amongst the hills, he knew of an enchanted place, where the air grows thick and heavy with heat, and the trees grow close together like soldiers at the ready. He’d made his way there under the cover of darkness, and with the softest of whispers he parted a densely clustered grouping of trees and passed from his world and into the Prim. Since his foray into the Prim he’d floundered for twenty days in and out of this strange place and into other worlds, sometimes his own, often others. Try as he might he could not seem to pick up the trail of the man named Sybal.
“Trying to find your way,” a voice said from behind him.
Fenton turned to find an older man standing at the tavern door. The stranger was in his fifties, evidence of thick black hair still remained atop his head, but it had grown mostly gray. The stranger’s face was worn with time but held a hard edge to it in much the same way that Fenton’s face did, though Fenton was at least twenty years younger than this man.
“You might say that,” Fenton said. “Find my way, or find my way to someone.”
“I’m Barrett,” the stranger said extending his hand. They shook.
“Fenton Nilles,” Fenton responded.
“Nice to meet you Fenton Nilles,” Barrett said. “You’re a tracker?”
“Yes.”
“The Prim is a dangerous place to track someone in these days,” Barrett said. “Who are you looking for?”
Fenton glanced around him. “A man named Sybal,” he said. Fenton studied the stranger’s face, and while he seemed to remain expressionless, Fenton could see a glimmer of recollection in the man’s face.
“Doesn’t ring a bell,” Barrett said. Fenton knew the man was concealing the truth. ‘Finally, a lead,’ Fenton thought amusingly. He had a gift for reading into people and he could tell that the man who’d introduced himself as Barrett did indeed know of the man named Sybal. “Why would you be searching for this man, this Sybal as you called him?”
“My intent is to find him and seeing that you don’t know him, it would seem my business here has ended and my search will continue,” Fenton said. He nodded and turned to walk off.
“Be careful friend,” Barrett said. “The forested areas of the Prim have grown dangerous. You may not want to walk alone.”
“Thanks for concern,” Fenton said. He walked off down the road and toward a narrow path that cut through the forest to the east of the tavern. Once he was down the path, the forest pressed around him and concealed him from sight. He crouched low and slowly made his way back toward the tavern he’d just come from. He could see Barrett still standing outside the tavern drawing on a cigarette and staring out at the flawless sky. ‘Take me to Sybal friend,’ Fenton thought quietly as he waited with patience for Barrett to leave.
* * *
It was a perfect summer day, July 21st, 2006. Everywhere across Toronto, people lounged at outdoor patios, flocked to the waterfront or strolled through parks. Parks like the one on Claridina Drive, the one where Brady Wilson currently stood. It was a large park with playground equipment, two benches, huge open green space and a set of long stairs that descended down into the forest below. An oasis in the middle of the concrete desert people use to call North York but was now just part of Toronto. It was a beautiful spot; it was their spot, his and Clare’s quiet place.
He stood on a bridge that stretched over a small creek and recalled fond memories. Clare had met him on the bridge the day before. The water had gurgled quietly in the stream beneath them as they’d held each other in silence. They had kissed, shared stories, and laughed, but the most precious moments that Brady held were those moments of shared comfortable silence where he could feel Clare in his arms.
Breathing deeply now Brady smiled contently. Making his way from the bridge and up the set of steep wooden steps Brady approached a payphone set near the rear of the park. Fishing for change he then dialed Clare’s number at work.
“Hello,” Clare said.
“Hi Clare,” Brady said. “Its Brady.”
“I knew it was you silly,” she said laughing. “Are you missing me?”
“You have no idea how much,” Brady replied. “It feels like I haven’t seen you in ten years.”
Clare laughed. “You’re so romantic. And insatiable. You just saw me yesterday!”
“Yeah, I guess that’s true,” Brady said pensively. “I’m in the park.”
“You’re in the park?” Clare asked.
“Yeah,” Brady said. “Want to join me?” They been dating for nearly four months and the park here on Claridina had been a place where they’d shared a picnic lunch early in their relationship. It had become a favourite place to meet when they had a free hour in the day to retreat from the world around them and enjoy some time together.
“I could be there for noon,” Clare said. “About thirty minutes?”
“That sounds good,” Brady said.
“You ok love?” she asked. “You sound…well, a little off.”
“No I’m good. Just a little tired. Can’t wait to see you,” Brady said.
“Me too! Ok, gotta run. See you soon,” she said.
Brady hung up the phone and glanced around the park. He wasn’t sure if this was such a good idea, but he wanted to see Clare. Needed to see her. He wanted to feel her in his arms again.
He turned confused thoughts over in his mind as wandered back to the bridge. As far as Clare was concerned they had just seen each other yesterday, but things had happened after she’d left that changed everything for Brady. He looked at his hands; they looked aged and worn.
‘Ten years will do that to you,’ he thought to himself reflectively.
Here in Toronto, Clare had seen him yesterday, a young man of thirty-five. Then he’d gone with a man he’d met, a man named Barrett.
Ten years had passed.
“Christ,” Brady said in a low voice as he reflected on what had happened. He’d been thirty-five yesterday and a day later he was a man of forty-five. He’d gone to a place with Barrett where time ran faster. For ten years he’d traveled with Barrett and lived through the most harrowing experiences of his life. And then, as easily as he’d stepped from the world he knew ten years ago, he stepped back into it only to find that a day had passed here. He wondered if he was going mad, but deep down inside he knew it was the world as he knew it that had gone mad.
Ten years.
What would he say to Clare?
To Be Continued....
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