Lyrical Interlude

The Storyteller is hard at work scribing chapter nine, “Smoke on the Water”—the chapter where everything changes! We're talking not one but TWO dragons!—moonzoombies!—and some serious sorcerer smackdown!

In the meantime, he has written a little ditty he wanted us to share with faithful followers. We think that, as ballads go, it’s a bit short, and we’re not so sure about the meter, but to humor the Storyteller—here it is! (He’s a Storyteller, not a bard, but there you go. And don’t get us started on his lyre playing.)

Invocation to the Reader

Weary of the world? Need a chuckle or two?
Has the Storyteller got a story for you
chockfull of deeds of bold derring-do
with a knight and a wizard and a dragon!

Here there be monsters, two thieves, and a fairy,
romance, adventure, some scenes that are scary,
maidens that are bald and trolls that are hairy,
and did I mention a dragon?

Add a rude imp and an amorous squire,
bloodcurdling quests and omens most dire,
but no long boring stretches stuck in a shire,
if you hop on this magical wagon!

Methinks you’re intrigued, so come sit by the fire.
‘Til the bottle is empty the Teller won’t tire
as long as you laugh and don’t call him a liar--
and if he lags, well, just refill his flagon!

Buy books. Mention this post when ordering any book from a Cyberwizard Productions imprint, and receive 10% off your next order.

Chapter 8. Shallow End of the Moon Pool

One fanciful legend has it that the Man in the Moon once had a dog. The dog’s name, according to the legend, was Comet (there is no record of what the man’s name was—perhaps just Mr. Moon). One night Mr. Moon was playing fetch with the dog and he threw the rock too far (there are no sticks on the moon, obviously). Comet leapt for the rock and fell to Earth. The rock and the dog made a huge crater in the wilderness, leveling trees for miles around. The pool—the Moon Pool—that formed in the crater’s bottom is said to be the tears of the Man in the Moon, shed over his flattened dog. [footnote 1]

Now on foot and having left the schooner, the animals, and their miners’ disguises concealed well back in a shaded gully, the party approached the rim of the crater. Vegetation was absent on the blasted heath, save for a few sparse tufts of grass. The crater was perhaps a mile across and at its bottom a deep pond had formed many ages ago—the Moon Pool. They peered over the rim…

…into a maelstrom of roiling mists and fogs, suggesting a giant cauldron bubbling up steaming gasses. They strained their eyes to make out details through the thick air. Imagine an oatmeal bowl that sits for three days without reaching the sink. Most of the oatmeal had been eaten, leaving a lumpy layer of coarse, dried meal caked onto the bowl’s concave surface. This will give you an idea of the terrain. The sides of the crater were not smooth but jagged and pitted. One could just make out what could be generously described as a path that spiraled down around the crater’s circumference. Whether this trail was carved intentionally from the limestone or had been shaped by natural forces, none could say. What’s certain is it made nearly three complete circuits of the crater before reaching the bottom, meaning it would be a walk of several miles.

After the adventurers had stood for some moments contemplating the scenery, Blug suddenly straightened up and looked around. “Where’d the unicorn go?”

Ropespor waved a hand distractedly. “She is a nature spirit. Her power does not extend to this blasted heath. There is something unnatural about the place.”

This made Blug turn concerned eyes on the blue woman in a diaphanous gown who stood beside him. “What about you, Honeysuckle? Maybe you’d better wait here.”

A corner of the fairy’s mouth rose into a dimpled half-smile. “My sister of the woods derives her power from nature, but I am a fey nature spirit. Fey nature extends even here—it permeates this universe and others.”

Blug’s bushy red eyebrows rose as if they were trying not to dip into deep waters. “Um, cool. Not sure what that means, exactly—a bit over my head. I’m pretty good with logic, mind you, but the mystical stuff I leave to wizards.”

Speaking of wizards, Ropespor had turned to Ququinn and the Fey Ferret and was working out a plan for them to scout ahead. Whereas the rest of the party would follow the trail, the two warriors of fortune would climb straight down to the bottom. “…so you two shall reach the Pool and stake it out well ahead of us.”

“What if they are spotted?” Sir Roger protested.

“Not likely,” the Ferret muttered. “Were you to turn your back and give us a count of five, Ququinn and I could vanish from sight even in this barren spot.”

Roger was intrigued by the challenge. “All right. I will give you a generous five-count. These eyes may be old, but they can still spot a couple of—”

Ropespor once again found it prudent to interrupt Roger. “Gentlemen—and I use that term ironically—we don’t have time to play Hide ‘N Seek! Now listen, Roger, I’ll let you in on their little secret. They possess Shorthair Cloaks. Woven from the ear and nostril hairs of wizened elves, those cloaks can conceal the wearer in almost any natural terrain.”

“Well, we can’t use that party trick with this crowd again,” the Ferret smirked. Then he and his far larger companion both stepped off the lip of the crater and were soon nimbly descending the treacherous rocks, silent as spiders.

Ropespor readied his staff for the somewhat less steep alternative descent. “We’d best be on our way, else we’ll be too late. Dusk approaches!”

Ropespor, Roger, Blug, and Honeysuckle (who had resumed her candle-flame size and hovered just behind Blug’s thick neck) had only gone a hundred yards or so down the trail into the swirling mists when they came alongside a defile in the rock wall where two men sat on a limestone table.

The two bone-thin old men had long, scraggly whiskers and unkempt hair in which lice frolicked. Their strange garments were of a foreign land, though these were tattered, dusty, threadbare, and—whatever color the cloth had originally been—now of a uniform hue with the surrounding rocks, an ashen gray.

Ropespor stopped dead in his tracks and eyed the men with alarmed suspicion. “Who are you?”

“It is hard to remember.” The men, apparently weak from hunger, hardly showed any sign of surprise at the travelers.

Roger stepped forth, hand poised warily on sword hilt. “Well, what are you doing here?”

The men shrugged. “We are waiting for our god.”

“Who is your god?” Ropespor sounded intrigued.

“Godot. Alas, we’ve been waiting for him a very long time.”

The wizard shook his head. “Afraid he’s not coming.”

“No? What’s holding him up, then?”

“He angered one of the elemental deities, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, who imprisoned him on the peak of a rock in a cavern hidden in the trackless depths of limbo. He is chained there on a taffy puller.”

“That’s awful.”

“That ain’t the half of it. Each day his torso, neck, and limbs are stretched to prodigious lengths, until he leaks red jelly which is collected in little wrappers and fed to the children of chaos. The next morning he is restored, but the torture repeats itself anew.”

The two men exchanged sad, longsuffering glances, but did not stir. They were very faithful.

Blug tarried long enough to offer the men a drink of water and some jerky from his pouch, then Ropespor and company resumed their long walk.

As the trail took them deeper into the mist-shrouded bowl, less and less light penetrated. Night fell inside the crater long before it did above, so that by the time they had reached the third and final circuit it was nigh impossible to see more than a few yards ahead. Yet the darkness did reveal one strange fact: an eerie glow emanated from the Moon Pool below. The disorienting effect of looking down on it was like looking up through thin clouds at a full moon.

They had almost reached the crater’s bottom when several things happened. The ringing of steel echoed from somewhere out near the Moon Pool, as if a blade had struck rock. Sir Roger, realizing that Ququinn and the Ferret must be engaged in battle, immediately dropped his hand to his own sword, but before he could draw it a ringed shape materialized above him and dropped, looping around his midsection and wrapping him with slimy tentacles.

“A cthula hoop!” the knight cried. The tentacles pinned his arms to his sides and began to squeeze the air from his lungs.

Blug drew his axe and began chopping at the tentacles.

“Harder, Squire! You will not cleave my armor!”

“I don’t want to knock the wind out of you!” the harried squire blustered.

With Blug’s persistent cutting, Roger managed to wrench one arm free. “All right, Blug, I can handle it from here. You had best tend to Ropespor—without that wizard this whole venture is pointless!”

Blug turned to see the sorcerer hanging suspended a foot off the ground, arms and legs akimbo. It took his eyes a moment to register the explanation: Ropespor was trapped in a massive web! It was anchored to rocky spires on either side of the trail, completely blocking the route.

He ran to the wizard and began chopping at the webs. Blug puffed with exertion—the slender filaments were unaccountably strong. “Why don’t you just teleport yourself out!”

“I’m caught in a Rational Web! It negates magic—I’m powerless.”

“It can render the world’s greatest wizard powerless?” Blug was dumbfounded by the thought, but he kept chopping. The blue light fairy darted about like a caffeinated bumblebee, but was careful to stay clear of the web.

“It is comprised of strands of reductionist thought.” Ropespor tried ineffectually to wiggle free as he talked. “The Web does not believe magic is possible; therefore, in the Web magic won’t work!”

Blug suddenly stopped cutting. He seemed to be puzzling over some conundrum. Finally he looked up at the dangling wizard. “But isn’t such a Web itself magic?”

Ropespor ceased his struggling as if struck by an epiphany. “Yes. Yes it is. Blug, you brilliant bumpkin! You give me an idea… Hey Web! You are produced by magic—therefore you cannot exist!”

The filaments of the Web vibrated as if they were having an existential crisis. Then they vanished.

Ropespor dropped unceremoniously to his feet, dusted off his robe and picked up his staff. “Blug, you’re sharper than anyone ever gives you credit for. Don’t put away that axe—you’ll need it to deal with the Spider.”

“Spider?”

“That clever ploy banished the web, but not the Nihilistic Spider that dwells therein!”

“Spider! Why didn’t he vanish?”

“Watch out for its stinger.”

“instantaneous death?” Blug glanced all around, trying to make out any movement in the shadows, both hands tightly clenching the handle of his axe.

“Its venom has no physical symptoms.” Ropespor began hobbling down the trail. “But if you get stung, you’ll feel life is meaningless and there’s no point in anything. When you’re rendered comatose with depression it sucks the life out of you.”

“Wonderful.” Blug heard a squeak from Honeysuckle and swung around just in time to see her light hovering up in the air like a warning beacon, drawing his attention to the gigantic spider crouched on an out-jutting of rock—only a few yards above and behind him! It tensed its long, hairy legs to leap, its steak-knife-sized fangs spread wide and dripping with depressing venom.

It sprang!

FOOTNOTES
1. That, of course, is silly nonsense, the stuff of nurseries. The Moon Pool was really formed by a sentient hill that somehow managed to turn itself inside out and become a hole.

A Swine Flew!

A swine flew in through an open window and coughed on the Storyteller; now he is laid up in bed. We are at his bedside taking transcription of installment 8 from him, and we will have it posted by next week. Please check back, and thank you for your patience with our patient.

Nefarious Scheme Delays Chapter 8!

Faithful readers. . .

That wicked wizard of Ruetooth Tower has delayed the eighth chapter.

The Storyteller was supposed to meet you here to fire up some S'mores and recite the eighth part of our unfolding epic, but apparently Radnoxious thinks the next installment is none too flattering for wizards named Radnoxious. So, by hook and by crook, by toil and trouble, that mystical mayhem maker has harassed Ye Olde Storyteller to no end.

Never fear! The Storyteller has been located where Ol' Raddie had him hidden at a counter in a local pub. He will be back here Wednesday, September 30th to unravel the most exciting bit of this ball of yarn yet, and to reveal the mystery of the Moon Pool!

Chapter 7. Warped

A radiant blue light, no bigger than a hummingbird dipped in DayGlo paint, buzzed near Ropespor’s ear.

The wizard nodded his head sagely in concurrence with the fairy’s anxious observation, which to anyone further away would have sounded like a tiny tinkling of bells. “Yes, Honeysuckle, charging straight towards expert marksmen who have the drop on you does seem rather foolhardy. On the other hand, our warriors have been in such spots before. The best way to negate an archer’s advantage is to get right up close to him, where he can’t use his bow in tight combat. Still, a risky venture. Odds are good at least one of them will take an arrow before they close the distance. Perhaps you could do something to help them out?”

The blue light flickered, its own way of nodding in agreement, and then it shone brighter.

Ropespor smiled. “Good call—a fine application of your nature magic. We’ll see what kind of marksmen those unicorn poachers are now.”

As he listened for sounds of battle, Ropespor did not hear a new visitor who glided from the thickets and now stood right alongside their wagon perch. A little squeak of an exclamation from Honeysuckle made him turn his head.

“A-ha. Hello, daughter of the forest. What a privilege it is to gaze upon your beauty.”

The unicorn tossed her mane like she was basking in the compliment. Her wine-dark eyes glistened and her long, twining horn faintly radiated its own amber glow.

Honeysuckle dove down and nuzzled the unicorn’s pink nose. Through touch or scent or some sixth sense, the two magical creatures exchanged wordless knowledge. Then Honeysuckle darted back up to Ropespor and whispered in his ear.

Ropespor winked at the fairy and addressed the unicorn. “It is our honor. We take great pleasure in putting an end to the careers of these craven men who would do you harm. And yes, there is, ahem, a favor you could do for us. We are searching for the Moon Pool. We have little time to find it. If you could show us the quickest path, we would be forever grateful.”

# # # # #

Big Org drew back the taut string of his curved bow, readying another arrow for the knight who seemed bent on charging his horse straight up the hill. He aimed for the horse, thinking to send the knight sprawling off a wounded mount back down the hill, yet even as he loosed the arrow, he realized something was wrong—the arrow’s wooden shaft had gone all wobbly, as if it were whittled from rotted wood. It struck rocks near the horse’s left foreleg.

“ ‘Ow did that piece of crunk get in my quiver?” he grumbled, quickly drawing and nocking another. He cursed as soon as he saw that this one, too, was warped. He dumped out his quiver to find that all his arrows were thus undone. Thinking this must be some twisted prank played by Crass, he resolved that when he got his hands on the little weasel he would shove every one of the bent shafts down that blackguard’s serpent-tongued throat.

Crass, meanwhile, was more worried about Ququinn and the Fey Ferret, who did not charge the hill directly. They were angling their horses to left and right, slung low and flank-hugging so that their horses provided cover between them and the Necatrine Hunters. They were not stupid: lacking the knight’s armor, they were not going to rush the archers’ superior position. They would circle around back of the hill and try to come from higher ground. Crass and Org were outnumbered and would soon be surrounded. For once, Crass wished he’d listened to old Sodsak. It was time to clear out. Teeran could take his precious unicorning rod and ram it down his throat. [footnote 1]

Big Org saw Crass scramble from his position and hightail it back toward the horses. Mistakenly thinking this action was borne of a guilty conscience—that Crass had swapped out Org’s arrows and, having observed the disastrous results of that trick, decided to flee Org’s wrath—Org jumped up and headed after, ringing his hands and growling.

Org caught up to Crass just as he was untying his horse. “What kind of lousy trick was that?”

Crass flashed an irritated look at the big brute of a man. “It’s time we get out, Org. We’re outclassed. I wasn’t tricking you—I figured you’d see me leave and you’d do the same.”

“I’m talking about the arrows!” Org bellowed and tramped toward his own horse, ready to unsling his war hammer from the saddle.

Crass’s bemused expression quickly changed to alarm when he saw Org reach for the hammer. “What about arrows? I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Don’t play ignorant with me, you rat-mothered cur! What did you do with my good arrows?”

Crass got one boot into his stirrup, readying himself for a leap into the saddle and a quick getaway. Still, he was intrigued enough by this false accusation to tarry one moment longer. “I did nothing with your arrows. What was wrong with them?”

“Oh, you missed your calling! You should be with one of them traveling theater troupes! You filled my quiver with rotten arrows—I’ll bet I’ll find my feathers in your quiver!”

Crass held up his quiver to show that the feather-markings were all his own. Which is when he noticed that they protruded at odd angles. He drew an arrow out to find that it was twisted as a root. This discovery both frightened and angered him—else he would not have proceeded to vent at the dangerous man before him as he now did. “You see, you brain-addled lout! I suppose you think I swapped my own arrows as well, hmm? And why—for Heliox’s sake why would I give you bad arrows just before you shot them at people who would want to kill us?” Flushing red, he threw the arrow at the ground.

The hammer fell to Org’s side. “Gee, Crass, I didn’t mean to bear false accusation or nothin’. But then who did that to our arrows?”

Crass’s eyes narrowed. “Someone down there is a wizard. And we heard his name—that was no mistake! Our brilliant leader roped us in to ambushing Ropespor! And Ququinn, the Fey Ferret, and a knight of Mentolarcz, just for good measure. Now or later, doesn’t matter—we’re as good as dead men. But I’m going to make a run for it, anyway. I suggest you get your fat arse on your horse and do the same.”

Crass turned his horse, only to confront two men on horseback staring down at him from the top of the hill. Their horses were panting with the exertion, but Ququinn and the Ferret had managed to cut him off.

The Ferret leaned forward in his saddle and yelled to Crass, “That’s a pretty good assessment of the situation. Except that last part about making a run for it.”

# # # # #

Teeran slipped off his horse and paced silently through the thick undergrowth. Pushing aside some berry-laden foliage, he readied his bow. He had a perfect shot at the man in the wagon seat.

Suddenly a tongue coiled around the arrow he’d nocked, yanking it off the string and wrenching it from his fingers. The slimy pink projectile snapped back to the gaping mouth of its owner, a calf-sized frog perched on a large mushroom ten yards off.

Teeran whipped out another arrow and aimed for this new amphibious target. The arrow flew true, but it only punched a hole through the mushroom cap where the frog had been a moment earlier. With a great leap, the frog had disappeared into the bushes.

He turned back to his first target, but now it was as if he were looking through semi-translucent gauze. It was coming down all around him, as if he was a tree being toilet-papered. One long streamer wrapped right over his eyes, burning his skin. He let out a muffled cry of pain comingled with surprise, and began swiping at the sky-worms with his bow.

When he rushed out into the clearing to get away from the stinging creatures, his face was striped with red welts. Some had gotten into his bloodshot eyes, making them tear up so that he was violently blinking.

Through his tears he saw it. The unicorn he’d been tracking for days, hunting for weeks. Next to it stood a blue lady, her arms crossed. The lady said, “Drop your knife. The forest has turned against you.”

Indeed, he had instinctively drawn his knife. He barely heard the lady’s words, though. Instead he lunged for the unicorn, his silver blade gleaming with malevolent light.

A large man wielding an axe stepped in between him, the lady, and the unicorn. He raised his free hand as if in a gesture for Teeran to surrender without a fight.

Since Teeran was already charging with blade poised, he simply adjusted the knife’s trajectory and aimed for the man’s heart rather than the unicorn’s neck.

The man was quicker than Teeran anticipated. The man pivoted and blocked the knife with a back-handed swipe of his gloved off hand. Simultaneously he swung his axe. Teeran had miscalculated, and it was the last bad bet he would ever make.

# # # # #

Ququinn and the Fey Ferret rode back down to the wagon, driving the two poachers, now unarmed and on foot, before them. Big Org sported a nasty bruise on the side of his shaggy head.

“What shall we do with these two, Ropes—er, Mr. Overmount?” The Ferret pointed his slim sword casually at the prisoners’ backs.

Ropespor leaned forward in the wagon seat, stroking his beard. “No need for the subterfuge, Ferret; they know who we are.”

Indeed, Crass was practically groveling at the sight of the wizard. Org stared with eyes big as roc’s eggs sunny-side up.

“Were there any others?” Sir Roger asked as he rode into the clearing.

“Just these two,” Ququinn replied.

“And you took them prisoner instead of slitting their throats?” Roger seemed impressed. “That was rather noble of you.” He sounded very surprised.

“This one put up a little resistance with a hammer.” The Ferret motioned with his sword toward Org. “So Ququinn conked him on the side of the head with his sword-pommel and that settled him right down. They say there were two others in their band. One split from the group earlier, didn’t want to add banditry to his list of crimes. The other one I see, ‘round back of the wagon there, has been made a corpse.”

“I took care of him,” Blug chimed in. “Wow—the reputation you guys have, and I’m the only one who killed anybody?”

“Contrary to the stories you have undoubtedly heard,” the Ferret said, “Ququinn and the Fey Ferret do not spill blood unless someone is obviously looking to die.”

Ququinn elaborated: “Usually those are ones that after we let live, come back for us with three or four hired thugs, in a dark alleyway. Then we kill them.”

“That seems more than sporting fair,” Roger admitted. Perhaps he was readjusting his estimation upwards of the notorious duo. Who knows? We’ll probably have to go a few more chapters to see.

“The other fellow was the leader of your band?” Ropespor asked.

Both poachers responded at once, their words intermingling cacophonously: “The uh Necatrine how’d Hunters have you no leader know?” For the reader’s benefit, here are their individual statements untangled:

“The Necatrine Hunters have no leader!” Crass protested.

“Uh, how’d you know?” Org asked.

Ropespor ignored Crass and deigned Org’s question with a response. “He had a unicorning rod in his saddle bag. We’ve destroyed it.”

Both Org and Crass looked stricken—whether from the loss of the rod or the loss of their leader, they would never say.

Ropespor held up two gnarled fingers. “You have two options, you maleficent lip-licking slugs. Option one: leave the forest, never come back, and live. Option two: hunt another unicorn, and share your comrade’s fate. Which will it be?”

The Ferret nonchalantly waved a hand. “Er, Ropespor—there is the little problem about their knowing your identity.”

“Yes, well, Honeysuckle will take care of that. She can cast a deep sleep on them, which they will not awake from for two or three days. By then we will have passed our need for secrecy.”

Org gulped. “Um, what if something tries to eat us while we’re asleep?”

“We hope it doesn’t get indigestion,” the Ferret muttered.

Ropespor smirked. “We’ll pour the contents of that horrendous ‘virgin scent’ you have in your saddle bags all over you—marinate you in it. That will keep anything away.”

Org suddenly caught sight of the unicorn, who was partly concealed in the shadowy, swaying branches of a weeping willow. His eyes lit up. “It’s beautiful. I’ve never seen one this close up that wasn’t dead.”

Ququinn rode up behind the man and thrust a boot into his back, which sent him sprawling on his face.

The Ferret dismounted and held the tip of his blade to the big man’s nose where he lay in the grass. “And you never will again.” His voice was a menacing whisper. “Because if you ever do lay eyes again on a unicorn, you will see this blade soon after.”

Org cast one last furtive glance toward the silvery shape in the willow, a wistful glance, as if he had lost something precious which he could never regain. He looked for all the world like he was about to cry.

And so, with the unicorn as their guide, the party set forth on the last leg of their journey—leaving the poachers sleeping like Rip Van Winkle and stinking to high heaven. Be here next time for a dip in the Moon Pool with a moonstruck dragon.


FOOTNOTE
1. It is ironic that while Crass was thinking about ramming something down Teeran’s throat, Big Org was thinking about ramming something down Crass’s throat. And no, the Storyteller is not an omniscient narrator—he quaffed a few mugs of ale with these scoundrels some time later and they told him what they had been thinking at the time.

Chapter 6.5: Poached Unicorn

In the deep shadows of the Weird Woods, three men saddled their horses while a fourth stood a ways apart holding a forked rod in his hands. All wore leather leggings and jerkins that had at one time been dyed violet, though long exposure to the elements had turned them nearly pink. Long curved bows and quivers bristling with deadly arrows were strapped to their backs. This was a band of unicorn poachers, and for days they had been closing in on their prey.

As they packed their camp this morning, they had a strong sense that today they would run their quarry to ground. Their success would then depend largely on the fact that they were archers of the first rank. Between them they had taken nearly twenty horns in wild, trackless forests across Liptonia. Though this was illegal in every one of the five kingdoms, the price for such rare treasures on the black market had quelled any pangs of conscience they may have felt, and had thus far insulated them from the hand of justice.

“Crass, you got any more of that virgin scent? I used the last of mine yesterday.”

A small, wiry man with almost elven features grimaced in annoyance at the bear-like, bearded brute who had asked. “Big Org, you dump too much of that stuff on your boots. That is why you are always running out of it. And it’s not cheap or easy to come by!” He finished tying his bedroll to the saddle and reached into a saddlebag. He withdrew a small crystal vial full of perfumed liquid and reluctantly handed it to Big Org, preferring this to an altercation with his powerful comrade.

By way of thanks, Big Org merely grunted, pulled out the stopper and generously doused the liquid onto the heels of his boots. Crass bit his lip, feeling with pain each drop and how much it would cost to replenish his supply.

The third poacher, the oldest of the party, a grizzled veteran who had been a scout in the Great Tea War and afterward turned to tracking and hunting for a living, shook his whiskered chin at the naiveté of the younger hunters. “How many times I got to tell you that stuff don’t work? Any unicorn gets a whiff of that stuff, it’s gonna smell you too. At best, it thinks you’re with a virgin, who ain’t gonna be a virgin much longer if she’s in the woods with the likes of you.”

“Old man, how do you explain, then, that since we started using it our kill rate has gone up?” Crass grinned as he always did when he felt he’d decisively quashed an argument.

Undeterred, the veteran nodded his head in the direction of the fourth man, who stood twenty yards off holding the rod as if he were dowsing for water. “I’d say that has more to do with our leader over there. You should save your money, or invest it in better equipment.”

“The Necatrine Hunters have no leader!” Crass protested, but, as if on cue to dispel that assumption, the fourth man suddenly turned and came striding back, emanating a natural air of authority. The other three almost imperceptibly straightened up, practically emulating soldiers coming to attention.

“Sodsak is right, that scent would not fool any unicorn into thinking one of you is a female or a virgin.” He slipped the rod into a saddlebag and mounted his horse. “The unicorning rod indicates he’s still moving north. Boys, let’s ride. Today we take a horn.”

“But, Teeran, I ain’t packed up Rosey yet!” Big Org pointed off through the trees to a crude effigy of a woman in a once-white dress, perched like a scarecrow in a nearby glade.

“Rosey don’t work either. Any unicorn that would mistake that thing for a woman needs to lay off the laughing-clover.”

“But—but—Malwart the magician cast a imitation-of-life spell on her, guaranteed!”

“Malwart is a snake-oil salesman and a shoddy wizard.” Teeran kicked his boot-heels into his horse’s flanks and cantered away. The other hunters quickly mounted, though Big Org did so with a long face, casting a wistful backwards glance.

Crass chuckled. “Big Org’s taken Rosey to his bedroll a time or two, to ‘snuggle with,’ so I don’t even know if she still counts as a virgin.”

Big Org made a noise like a growl. “It makes a good pillow! I cramp up sleeping on the ground all the time.”

Crass quickly spurred his horse after Teeran, hoping he would not feel the sudden, sharp burn of an arrow in his back.

# # # # #

Their horses’ hooves echoed through the forest, a mad gallop punctuated with the crack of breaking branches. The quarry, though, passed through the foliage like a silent gray ghost, always keeping just out of arrow range. If it tired out before their horses did, they could bring this hunt to an end.

But for the moment, the unicorn seemed to have given them the slip. They reined in their panting horses and reconnoitered. “Sodsak, you break left. Crass, break right. Big Org, you fall back in case it doubles back. We’ll meet up over the other side of that ridge. I think it’s tiring—it could be holed up down in that gulley.” The poachers split up, following Teeran’s orders.

No one had caught sight of the unicorn when they regrouped, but Crass had something to report.

“About a mile east, there’s a wagon heading this way. Looks to be some kind of mining outfit.”

“A wagon? How’d they get a wagon back here?” Sodsak had never seen such a feat carried out in country this rough and wild.

“It’s got a set of them diab—diagen—those crazy wheels! They can roll over a boulder-choked riverbed like it was a cobblestone lane.”

Teeran’s eyes narrowed. “Quite an investment, diabgenous wheels. I wonder what they could be mining out here? Perhaps we should have a look—even if this unicorn eludes us, this venture could still prove profitable.”

Sodsak blanched. “I’m a hunter, not a bandit. We’re here to hunt unicorns, not rob people.”

Teeran looked at his elder thoughtfully. Then he shrugged. “What we do is still enough to get us hung from the gallows. We are outlaws. Some consider it a higher crime that banditry—‘stealing magic from the land,’ they say.”

“Be that as it may, I live by my own code.” Sodsak spoke levelly, his eyes squarely meeting Teeran’s cold gaze. “A unicorn’s just an animal. I hunt animals. I don’t hunt people—not since the war. Not ever again.”

Teeran reached down and untied a saddlebag, pulled out the unicorning rod and held it out. “I respect that. Take the rod; keep the trail fresh for us.”

“Just don’t expect to share in the spoils,” Crass muttered to Sodsak after the veteran had jockeyed his horse alongside Teeran’s and taken the proffered rod.

Sodsak looked around uncertainly at the other three Necatrine Hunters, then spurred his horse and rode north.

“Crass, how many were with them?”

“One rider, probably a hired mercenary. Maybe three or four in the wagon—it could hold more, but they have to have all their equipment and gear stowed back there, so I wouldn’t guess more than that. They could have other riders who were out foraging or scouting. But how many mercenaries would they hire to accompany one wagon traveling in a land with no human habitation?”

“Well, let’s have a look. Crass, lead on.”

# # # # #

Their horses tied and well-hidden in a copse of trees, the hunters crouched along the rocky face of a hill that gave them a good vantage to see the approaching prairie schooner.

It was accompanied by a lone rider. With his hawk-like eyes, Teeran noted that when the collar and sleeves of the rider’s tunic fell back there was metal underneath.

Teeran frowned. “That rider is wearing plate mail armor.”

Crass squinted. “They hired a knight?”

“At close range, an arrow from Org’s bow might be able to pierce it. But aim for the joints, the neck, the crook of the arm.”

“Wait—what’s he doing?”

The wagon’s driver had gotten up from his seat and clambered back into the wagon. The wagon kept on rolling, the shaggy red mountain-oxen now pulling it without guidance.

“That’s unusual! Ain’t it?” Org's voice reverberated off the rocks.

“Org, keep your voice down,” Crass hissed at the big poacher who sat on a limestone outcropping twenty yards away, his bulk concealed behind a monstrous clump of thorny witch’s weave. He turned back to Teeran. “What do you think? Automagic pilot?”

“If so, that is fancy magic,” Teeran observed. “There may be more to ‘Ye Merry Miners’ than meets the eye.”

They watched the rider bring his horse around behind the wagon and start yelling, apparently as startled by the sudden lack of a driver as they had been.

Crass raised his eyebrows. “Did he just say ‘Ropespor’? Isn’t that the chief wizard of Mentolarcz?”

“Must be a different Ropespor. What would the Lord Wizard of Mentolarcz be doing with a band of miners in the middle of the Weird Woods?”

Crass shrugged. “Weirder things have happened in the Weird Woods.”

Suddenly the mountain-oxen halted and the schooner strained to creaking stop.

The rider dismounted and threw back his hood, revealing a knight’s helm. He walked to the back of the wagon and continued a conversation they could not hear.

Suddenly they heard hoof beats from the north.

Crass groaned. “Don’t tell me that old fool went and decided to warn them.”

“It’s not Sodsak. And never question that man’s loyalty.”

Two riders were fast approaching. The wagon’s driver reemerged on the seat to greet them.

When the riders came into the clear, Crass let out a long exhalation. “Are they who I think they are?”

The one on the dappled mare was small and lean, similar in build to Crass. His long blond hair was tied back in a ponytail. He wore a green leather jerkin and leggings, with a light chainmail shirt of the finest chain showing beneath his vest. Knee-high black boots and short cape completed the picture of a dashing rogue.

The one on the big stallion was not nearly so couth. His clothes were of tan hide, and the greatsword slung to his back looked like it could double for cutting down trees. His biceps and broad chest looked well-suited to the task of wielding such a weapon. He was dark of skin, bald, with great golden earrings dangling from his lobes.

“The wind has changed here. This is looking like more trouble than it’s worth.” Crass began to scoot back from his position, making ready to quietly leave.

Teeran raised a hand. “No, the situation has grown more profitable. Those two are wanted in Alidocious and Abkedfghy, maybe other places. We’re collecting the reward.”

Big Org’s bowstring suddenly twanged. An arrow whistled down, embedding in a frame-post of the wagon.

“Well, we’re committed now.” Teeran leapt nimbly to his feet. “Keep them pinned down with volleys. I’m going to circle around behind.” Before Crass could protest, he was on his way back to the horses.

Crass cursed under his breath and looked back in time to see the knight had remounted. Crass nocked an arrow and let fly. The arrow bounced harmlessly off the knight’s shoulder plate. The knight raised his sword. The other two riders, whom Crass had correctly identified as the notorious duo Ququinn and the Fey Ferret, whipped out their swords and charged toward the hill.

There you have it, Faithful Followers: a different point of view, because there are always two sides to a story. (And that, you see, is why I call this chapter 6.5.) And that brings us back to where we were. Next time we gather here ‘round the virtual fire, the Ol’ Storyteller promises he’ll put you back in line with the characters you’ve grown to know so well—Sir Roger and Ropespor and Blug, and the newer additions to the party: Honeysuckle, Ququinn and the Fey Ferret. But it was interesting to see it all from the other side for a bit, wasn’t it?

Quick Update

Hello faithful storytellees. The storyteller here, just popping in to say be here next Wednesday, July 29, to find out what happens when Ropespor and crew tackle a scoundrelous bunch of Unicorn Poachers! Then it's on to the Moon Pool, and the long-awaited confrontation with the nefarious man-fiend Radnoxious. Oh, and everybody's favorite dragon? He'll be flying back onto center stage in a BIG way! (If his tail doesn't get caught in the scrim.)*

*Joke for all you theatre people

Chapter 6.0. Short Smoke

Ecalpon has six seasons: fall, winter, spring, summer, salt season, and the off season. The Liptonian calendar has thirteen months; some months have five weeks, others only three. Weeks are usually comprised of seven days, but sometimes six, leaving out a Monday (which is not such a bad idea). For you, dear Reader, the storyteller has translated these convoluted measurements to approximate most closely your own calendar [footnote 1] .That having been said, this is what happened on July 21 of the Year of the Dragon…

Ququinn and the Fey Ferret were ranging ahead on their horses, scouting the woods and looking for passable trails. There were no roads in the Weird Woods.

Ropespor was taking his turn driving the Prairie Schooner, cunningly guiding the mountain-oxen past treacherous defiles, sinkholes, and gulleys, threading the wagon between the boles of ancient, gnarled trees. Sir Roger, on his steed Zafwod, took up the rear. Blug was in the back of the schooner. His snoring could be heard above the clatter of the wagon and the rolling of the wheels.

To chronicle the strange wonders of the Weird Woods would take a book unto itself. There are flora and fauna in its shadowed depths that defy description and castigate credulity. Morel-like mushrooms as tall as trees. The traveler bold enough to tramp beneath its dewy boughs will, of a sudden, come upon a glade. He will rub his eyes and try to focus on a disorienting sight: long, nearly transparent streamers—some as long as a man’s arm and thin as the most fragile parchment—drifting through the air as if wafting on a breeze, though these anomalies are alive, their movements independent of any current of wind. He will soon learn better than to let one of these streamers brush exposed flesh, because they leave a most irritating rash. Just when he has stood for some minutes nearly mesmerized by these hypnotically undulating “sky worms,” the spell will be broken by a sudden SNAP! A tongue will have whipped across the glade and fastened on one of the streamers, as quickly snapping back to a hunched, bulky shape that has sat motionless in the shadow of a morel trunk, mistaken in his peripheral vision for a boulder or a bush, but now clearly revealing itself as an absurdly large frog.

Occasionally through the mist one might spy up in the leafy canopy a pair of red, glowing eyes: a mothman. Some say this sight is an ill omen (especially if one will soon be crossing a bridge), but each such sighting made Ropespor as giddy as a birdwatcher spotting a rare woodpecker once thought extinct.

As yet, nothing more unusual than as might be expected in such a place had happened on their journey… Then Blug began to hear singing.

Languid and soothing, liquid notes streamed over the rocky-rough edges of his coarse dreams like gentle waters of a laughing brook. The scowl on his sleeping countenance melted; the edge of his lip twitched and he smiled.

He would have gone on with this most refreshing nap of his life, had the schooner not gotten a particularly strong jolt as it passed over a thick root. Indeed, he would have even slept through that—he was used to such jostling—but the jolt caught the singer by surprise, and the heavenly melody was punctuated by a sudden “Oh!”

This brought Blug wide awake. Though he no longer dreamed, the singing continued. He rubbed his eyes, sat up, and looked around the wagon suspiciously. His gaze came to rest on a teapot. The song was clearly coming from its spout.

Thinking this must be one of the wizard’s pranks, he reared up and grabbed the teapot off its hook. When his fingers wrapped around the handle, its lid popped off and out streaked a teal-colored light.

Blug fell back on his rump, watching the light hover near the arched ceiling of the canvas covering. His first instinct was to throw the teapot at the glowing intruder, but he recognized the light—and, now, the singing as well. This was one of the fairies from Ropespor’s tower! But he was in for a bigger surprise.

The light began to elongate and to take on a form. Soon it had the height and shape of a finely proportioned woman—a creature who would be mistaken for a comely human maiden but for the fact that her long, straight hair was dark blue and her skin had the slightest tint of teal. Her pupils, oddly enough, were violet. She wore a diaphanous blue slip and her wings were either absent or so well hidden as to be virtually invisible. Moonlight seemed to emanate from her pores—a rather odd lighting effect that made Blug feel slightly vertiginous to behold it.

Blug’s voice came out as barely more than a squeak. “Honeysuckle?”

The fairy’s purple lips curled into a satisfied smirk. “Blug! You remembered my name.”

# # # # #

“Tork-blasted skyworm!” Ququinn scratched a bulging bicep. “I feel like I rolled in tickle ivy.”

“They make good target practice.” The Fey Ferret whipped out his long, slim blade and sliced one in half that drifted too close. “Look, sword brother—when you cut them, it does not kill them—it makes two new ones.”

“Great. Double the odds of it touching me.”

These notorious sword brothers were a study in contrasts. A dark-skinned man from the southern land of Anozira, Ququinn was tall and built like a bear. His wiry companion was pale of skin and blond of hair. The Fey Ferret grew up in the back alleys of Mentolarcz, his muscles growing lithe and lean while his mind grew nimble and shrewd. One was the epitome of strength with speed that belied his size; the other the epitome of speed with strength that belied his size. Together they were the deadliest pair any warrior or cutthroat was ever likely to encounter.

The Ferret sheathed his blade and raised a hand, indicating that he heard something.

Noting the signal, Ququinn strained his own ears but could not match his comrade’s sharp hearing. He did, however, spot something first. He pointed to a silver shape that flashed across the trail ahead. A rustling of brush and it was gone. A unicorn.

A few moments later another noise began to grow from the direction the unicorn had come: hoof beats, horses, the sounds of pursuit—crashing and clumsy when juxtaposed with their near-silent quarry.

“Unicorn poachers.” Ququinn’s hand went to the pommel of the greatsword at his side.

The Ferret’s gray eyes narrowed. “I hate those magic-snuffing stabards. Should we deal with them, or lay low?”

“They’ll get wind of our charges sooner or later. I’m inclined to just deal with them now and be done with it.”

The Ferret deliberated for a bare moment, then seemed to come to a conclusion he did not particularly care for. “Ordinarily, I would agree. But our client has some very particular ideas about how we should handle any encounters. I suggest we head back and alert him first.”

# # # # #

“You asked if I would sing for you,” Honeysuckle said, referring to Blug’s off-the-cuff request back in Ropespor’s tower—when that very same enchanting voice had been used to torture Radnoxious’s imp. Her violet eyes glittered with their own inner glow as she reclined beside him in the wagon.

Setting the teapot down, Blug awkwardly asked the question foremost on his mind. “So, you’re—you’re normal sized.”

Honeysuckle frowned. “Assuming your size is ‘normal’? That is sizism, is it not? Maybe this size for me is giant. Or maybe my ‘normal’ size is bigger—perhaps I am twelve feet tall and I have shrunk myself to a size more comfortable for you. Size is relative.”

At the front of the wagon, Ropespor chuckled. “Fairy’s been studying logic and rhetoric.”

Blug launched a blustering protest. “I’m not a sizist—or a speciest, for that matter. I dated an ogress once—she was eight feet tall and had two pairs of—of… um, I’m saying too much, aren’t I? I’ll stop talking now.”

“Who are you talking to?” Ropespor clambered down off the driver’s seat into the wagon, giving a wink to Honeysuckle. Blug was too flustered to wonder about the fact that the wagon was still moving.

“I’m not. I’ve stopped talking before I put my other foot in my mouth.”

Ropespor sat on a cushioned crate opposite them. “I suppose that’s not a bad idea—but it’s never kept you from talking in my company. Guess you must have a special thing for the ladies.” He turned to Honeysuckle. “I hope the accommodations have not been too rough for you.”

Blug broke his short-lived silence. “You knew she was back here all the time?”

“I’m a wizard. I can sense magic the way a strongbad can sniff out parsnip pie.”

Blug: “What’s a strongbad?”

Honeysuckle: “What is a parsnip pie?”

Sir Roger: “What is going on here?” Roger had ridden up behind the schooner and, from his mounted position, was trying to catch a glimpse through the wagon’s waving flap. “Are you back there, Ropespor! Who is driving the wagon?”

Blug looked at the wizard, who was casually reclining on the bench beside him, with renewed surprise. He cocked his head, peering through the front flap— at an empty seat. “Uh, yeah, Ropespor…Who’s driving?”

Ropespor pulled a long-stemmed pipe from the folds of his robe. “Incorporeal butler—a Jeeves spell.”

Roger sounded more panicked: “Ropespor! I thought you foreswore any magic for the duration of this journey!”

Ropespor raised his voice so that the knight outside could hear. “Detectable magic. Proximity of a fairy masks a minor spell. The natural magic she exudes provides a noise-to-signal ratio that drowns it out.”

“I did not understand half of what you just said—but did you say you have a fairy in there?!”

Ropespor waved a hand and the mountain-oxen came to a stop as if someone had pulled on their reins. Then he snapped his fingers. Smoke began to curl from the bowl of his pipe.

“Whooah, Zafwod.” Clanking noises of a knight dismounting ensued, then a gloved hand pulled aside the flap and Roger’s helmeted head peered in at them. He popped up his visor. His bushy gray eyebrows reared like inchworms as he beheld Honeysuckle snuggling comfortably close to Blug. “Oh. Who are you? A witch?”

“Goodness no.”

Ropespor chuckled. “She’s one of Smoke’s friends.”

Roger swiveled his gaze to Ropespor. “Did you know she could assume that size and, uh, shape?”

Ropespor rolled his eyes. “Be rather difficult for a troll pimp to exploit them otherwise, now wouldn’t it?”

Roger’s cheeks reddened. “Yes, I suppose that would, er…” he mumbled, pulling his visor back down. From the safety of his visor, he raised his voice in protest. “We can’t have a woman on such a dangerous mission!”

“Why not?” Ropespor blew a question-mark-shaped puff of smoke. “Are you aware what fairies are capable of? Their natural magic is not to be underestimated. In the Weird Woods, if a tummy tree got its maw on you, do you think Blug here could sing you out of danger?”

Roger suddenly turned his head to listen. “Your hired thugs are back.” The speed with which he yanked the flap shut suggested he was only too happy to drop any touchy subjects the presence of Honeysuckle might raise.


Ropespor tamped the ashes from his pipe and put it away. “Well, that was a short smoke.” He grunted and his joints popped as he pulled himself up to clamber back onto the driver’s seat.

Blug got up too. “Have to go help Sir Roger remount.” He flashed an awkward but amiable grin at Honeysuckle before he turned to go. “I’ll be back in a spiff, and you can tell me more about yourself.”

She smiled back.

Blug’s cheeks took on a rosier shade.

# # # #

Ququinn and the Fey Ferret rode up facing Ropespor. Over his shoulder, they spotted the blue-tinted lady in the wagon.

“What have you been doing, picking up hitchhikers?” The Ferret rubbed his smooth chin while waiting for an explanation from the hooded wizard.

“A stowaway.”

The Ferret grinned. “Any other fairies on board? Did you check the jockey box?”

“No, this should be the last surprise.”

“Not hardly,” Ququinn broke in. “There is a band of unicorn hunters in the woods ahead. They did not spot us. They were pursuing their game.”

Ropespor’s face became quite grave under the shadow of the hood.

“We would like to have put a stop to them, but we agreed to consult you first.”

“Thank you for consulting me,” Ropespor’s voice was a growling whisper, “and now you go and lay into them so hard they will never dream of sawing off another horn.”

An arrow whistled through the air and struck the wagon frame just behind Ropespor’s head.

Ququinn’s and the Ferret’s swords materialized in their hands.

The Ferret grinned. “Looks like we won’t have to hunt.”

Sir Roger on his warhorse came trotting out from the cover of the wagon. Through the slits in his visor, his alert eyes scanned the trees looking for the poachers. “Good,” said the Silver Fox, that most venerable knight. “This trip was getting a little dull.” Another arrow flew from the trees and bounced off his shoulder-plate. He raised his sword.

“If those men out there weren’t unicorn poachers,” Ropespor said to the hovering light by his shoulder, “I’d almost feel sorry for them.”


footnotes
1. Purists may protest that they do not want information such as calendar dates and names “translated” or approximated to our own. The storyteller points out that every word of dialogue has been translated from the various Liptonian dialects into contemporary English vernacular. So why stop there? However, for those scholars and historians who take a linguistic or anthropologic interest in the languages, customs, and calendars of Ecalpon, I recommend the appendices to C.S. Neiklot’s seminal work A Brief History of Liptonia, which—alas!—is long out of print.

Chapter 5. Smoke Break

Chapter 5. Smoke Break

The Prairie Schooner, a large covered wagon, was fully loaded with provender for a two-week journey, but that was not all it held. Concealed inside were weapons of a most lethal nature, as well as various strange and exotic provisions that were, in fact, ingredients for magical spells even more deadly. And a full suit of armor.

Its four large wheels were diabgenous [footnote 1], allowing it to pass over the most challenging terrain, and it was pulled by two sure-footed mountain-oxen. The exterior, to any who might espy it, suggested it was no more than the transport of a small band of miners. A few strategically-mounted shovels and pick-axes reinforced the notion, capped by red lettering on the canvas cover: “Ye Merry Miners.”

Sir Roger, dressed in the shabby clothes of a miner who has yet to hit paydirt, rode up to the Schooner, an impatient scowl on his face. Zafwod, his mighty warhorse, was also sans armor or ostentatious tackle of any sort, though the inconspicuous blanket and saddle could not conceal the strength and grace of the great beast. Roger still wore his sword, as even miners must take precautions, but its bejeweled hilt was concealed by a shabby leather strap.

“Are we ready to go yet?” Roger barked.

Blug came from around back where he had just finished loading the jockey box. “I think that’s the last of it.” He wiped his big, calloused hands on his wool pants. The workman’s outfit did not seem so peculiar on the hardworking squire. “The more important question is, will this silly ruse work? And is it even necessary?”

The wizard Ropespor at this moment appeared in the courtyard, his staff tapping on the cobblestones as he approached. “The answer to the second question is yes, this silly ruse is necessary. As to the first question: I sure as ‘ell ‘ope so.”

Blug jumped at the wizard’s sudden appearance, but overcame his flusteration to ask, “What happened to your ‘h’s?”

“I’m working on an accent.” Ropespor patted one of the mountain-oxen on its broad forehead and whispered some encouraging words to the animal. “We may run into an encounter in the Wilds that it is better to talk our way out of, maintaining our anonymity. We start blazing and slashing, it’ll give up the game.”

Roger eyed the wizard’s tattered gray robe and silently adjudged how quickly Radnoxious or one of his agents would be able to see right through the disguise. “Tell me one more time, Ropespor, why you do not just pop us straight to the Moon Pool at the appointed hour, instead of decking us out as laborers and trudging a week through the most inhospitable land in all Liptonia?”

The wizard gave his staff an exasperated shake. “You give me too much credit, Roger, if you think I can easily teleport five men and a dragon just like that! Further, any use of such magic prematurely will give us away, and I assure you that Radnoxious will have countermeasures readied for just such a move. No, the only way to catch him off-guard is to get there without showing our hand.”

“Wait,” Blug coyly raised a hand as if he were in class with a harsh taskmaster and desperately needed permission to visit the outhouse. “Um, did you say five men?”

“Good catch, squire!” Roger raised an eyebrow suspiciously as he looked to the wizard. “Not losing your power of math, are you?”

Ropespor wagged his beard, a gesture that made Blug wince in anticipation of the magical riposte that might follow from the surly wizard. “I knew you had nodded off when I got to this part of the plan! ‘Just resting my eyes’ indeed!” Ropespor paused, as if he were counting to ten before he continued. Finally, he exhaled in resignation and resumed a more diplomatic tone. “You are, it cannot be denied, one of the greatest knights who ever raised sword or shield in Liptonia. Blug there is no slouch on the battlefield himself. But there are just two of you, accompanied by a wizard who must keep his wizardry under wraps until we reach our destination. Smoke won’t make his entrance until the last moment either. Tell me, what do the two of you intend to do, should we encounter a whole band of grorgs—or worse?”

“Why did you not say?” Roger, noting the souring disposition on Ropespor’s face, subconsciously pulled up on the reins of his horse as he verbally backtracked. “I mean, why did you not say while I was more, er, awake? I can select two of the best knights from King Samuel’s army—”

Ropespor raised a hand. “One knight is enough, thank you. Besides, we also need guides. Without recourse to GPM [footnote 2], we will have to find our way the old-fashioned way. I have already made arrangements. We will pick them up at the Red-Headed Raven on our way out.”

Roger eyed the wizard dubiously. “And what can you tell us about these two guides?”

“Only that you will not approve of them.” With that, Ropespor clambered into the back of the Schooner.

Blug gave his master a shrug, took the wagon seat, and urged the mountain-oxen forward.

# # # #

The Red-Headed Raven is located near Mentolarcz’s North Gate, in a district considered by the kingdom’s nobler and gentler citizens to be sleazy and onerous. On the dark streets and back alleys of this district—nicknamed The Tallows—members of the Thieves’ Guild ply their trade, disreputable deals are struck, and the oldest, second-oldest, and third-oldest professions are professed, practiced, and perfected.

You will not be terribly surprised, then, to know that it is a neighborhood Sir Roger had never before had occasion to visit. Blug may have found himself there a time or two in his halcyon days—or, more accurately, nights—acting out foolish and ill-advised whims of youth, the memories of which are not untouched by twinges of shame and regret. Ropespor, on the other hand, frequents the Tallows often enough that even King Samuel might be shocked (though always in disguise and usually on wizard’s business).

Navigating the Schooner off the Gate Road and through the Tallows’ narrower streets, Blug cast wary glances every which way. His battle axe was concealed behind the seat, its handle levered up for easy reach. Though it was mid-morning, it seemed to get darker in the Tallows, the atmosphere blurred by greasy smoke and ash.

“By the gods, what is that smell?” Roger’s bulbous nose wrinkled and his eyes watered. Over much protestation, he had agreed to tether his horse to the rear of the wagon, disguising it as a mere pack animal, and ride up front with Blug for this stage of the journey. Ropespor worried that even the royal bearing of the knight in the saddle would speak through the disguise of his shabby clothes.

“Not just one smell,” Ropespor’s voice came sing-song from the back of the wagon, “a whole panoply of smells. Where do you think your leather and your candles and your soap come from? That is the bouquet of their making.”

“Ironic that the making of soap could be so messy.” Blug chuckled at his own quip, knowing that most irony was lost on Sir Roger and so, if he were to get a laugh, he’d have to provide it himself.

In front of the Red-Headed Raven the road broadened into a small square. The building itself was constructed of stone masonry, with a slate-tiled roof. Iron bars were set into its windows. The whole thing looked more like a prison than an inn, and this was quite simply because it had been a prison. In fact, Mentolarcz’s original prison before the new prison was built adjacent to the castle. In an ironic turn that would make Blug smile, deeds were now done within this edifice—in small rooms that used to be cells—which would land the doers in jail if they were caught.

The schooner’s wheels rattled over the cobblestones, rolling to a halt before the inn. The red, shaggy oxen—which looked like short-haired yaks—snorted and rolled their stout necks, their ears and tails twitching at the cloud of flies that had gathered—an aggravatingly unwelcome welcome party.

Roger eyed the stone building with suspicion and disdain. “No good can come of this,” he grumbled. “Anyone who frequents this establishment is someone with whom I care not to associate.”

Embarrassingly, even as Roger was making this pronouncement, Blug started to say, “It looks unchanged from the last time I… er… ahem.”

Roger leveled a reproachful glance at his squire, but only said, “No need to gloss over the follies of youth. I, too, was young once. There are—alas!—men in there near my age who have squandered their vitality and their fortunes down sump holes like this. Dwelling too long in such pits leads to an early grave or—perhaps more lamentably—waning years spent in drunkenness and dissolution.”

Ropespor’s head, partially concealed under a sooty gray hood, poked out between Roger and Blug. “True enough, but not all the customers of this establishment fit that description, as you would know if you ever had a look for yourself. The humanity to be found in there is as varied as it is in the King’s Court, if not more so. Just a little less polished, groomed, and coiffed.”

“Should we wait here while you go in and fetch them?” Blug asked.

“No need. We arranged to meet out front. Those are their horses.” Ropespor gestured to a tan stallion and a dappled mare tied to the post in front of the inn.

Roger was impatient. “What if your mercenary hirelings are in there drinking themselves under a table while we sit here waiting for them?”

“I would prefer not to run the risk of being recognized, but if they do not show soon, I will go in and fetch them.”

Placated for the moment, Roger leaned back and shut his eyes, drawing a cloth over his nose in a vain attempt to filter some of the street’s stenches. A minute later his eyelids shot up and his hand instinctively went for the hilt of his sword. A booming crash had broken the relative quiet. All three pairs of eyes went to the front doors of the Red-Headed Raven.

Another crash. This time a heavy, many-rolled man rocketed through the doors, tumbling several yards out into the street. He lay there with a torn shirt, his heaving belly the only indication that he was not dead.

A second, and then a third man soon followed. These two brushed themselves off and, limping and nursing their own injuries, made a valiant attempt to take the first man under each fleshy arm and drag him off the road.

“What in McHale is going on in there?!” Roger began to draw his sword, but Ropespor put his hand on the knight’s arm and motioned for him to keep it sheathed.

They could hear shouts, screams, and an occasional yipping cry like a war whoop, but could not distinguish any intelligible words from the cacophony.

Suddenly a dark-bearded man whose torn tunic revealed a chainmail vest underneath came bounding from the door, sword in hand. He fled across the square and disappeared down an alleyway going south. His pursuer took a few graceful, dancing steps out into the street, his own long, slim sword in hand, then stopped. He had a grin on his lean, pale face.

Blug’s eyes grew wide. “Is that…?”

Another man emerged, a dark-skinned man so tall he had to duck under the doorframe. He was holding another of the chain-mailed mercenaries by the bunched-up collar of his tunic. The mercenary’s leather boots dangled a full foot off the ground.

“That’s your lesson in manners for the day,” the tall man said in a voice that was pitched rather high for his size. “Be sure to pass it along.” Then he flung the mercenary out into the street. The mercenary picked himself up and half-hobbled/half-ran away.

“Here they are.” Ropespor smiled smugly.

“You have got to be jesting me.” Roger scowled at the two men who now stood alone in front of the inn.

Blug could not conceal the awe in his voice. “It is them! Ququinn and the Fey Ferret… Krakadoom.” [Footnote 3]

Roger began to protest. “These men are known criminals; they are thugs—”

Ropespor held up the palm of his hand. “They are two of the greatest warriors in Liptonia, perhaps in all of Ecalpon.”

“However—”

“They know the Weird Woods. They can get us to the Moon Pool.”

“Nevertheless—”

“I have already hired them, and we really must be on our way.”

Now, as I am still recovering from my unfortunate fishing accident, I will pause here. Be here again in three weeks, if you would hear the story of how Sir Roger, Blug his squire, Ropespor the wizard, and their guides Ququinn and the Fey Ferret journeyed through the Weird Woods to the Moon Pool for an unforgettable confrontation with Radnoxious the Many-Veiled Sorcerer. Smoke will be back—and he won’t be the only dragon!


Footnotes

1. “Diabgenous” is a word untranslatable into English, as it is a concept that has no precise equivalent in our world. For practical purposes, it means that the wheels are of a special design that allows the wagon to pass over terrain that a four-wheel-drive SUV would be hard-pressed to conquer.

2. GPM: global positioning magic

3. Krakadoom: Liptonian slang that is the rough equivalent of “kewl,” “rad,” or “totally awesome.”

See you Wednesday!

The storyteller will be a couple of days late as he had an unfortunate accident while fishing, but we managed to get him out of the quicksand and he's on his way now. Stay tuned and look for the next episode on Wednesday, June 3.