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I am a storyteller by trade. About a year ago, I lost a very good job I'd inherited from my father, entertaining and instructing the children of one of the local families of infamy and fortune, also rewriting the chronicles of the activities of the adult members of the family. They like to think of themselves as noble, and indeed, their history goes back for many generations. History is an accurate term for what is written (and rewritten) about them only if it includes fiction undiluted by reference to reality.
Until slightly more than a year ago, I'd had nothing particularly bad to say about my employers. They paid me regularly, both in coin and in kind, and I had a room of my own. I ate with the younger members of the family, except when I was required to join their elders and regale their guests with tales of appropriately impressive feats, ideally ones that would be hard to disprove.
My father was not overly cynical, for one in his situation. He always made sure I was aware of the idiosyncrasies of our employers, so I would not at any point be disillusioned and perhaps make a fatal misstep. The sense of self-preservation he carefully inculcated in me did not extend to keeping my job.
For the most part, the guests of my former employers were not subjected to conflicting tales. It was rare when guests returned for a second round. They either didn't listen the first time, or the effects of listening and, worse still, believing, effectively removed them from the sphere of my employers. Consequently, I had never been forced to keep track of the various tales I spun. Eventually, someone skeptical but attentive listened to what I had to say, and when she returned, my employers fired me to distance themselves from the embarrassing aftermath.
For the past few months, I've been traveling from inn to inn, in search of a new position. As you might expect, I have no references. As my small savings are reduced, I've been forced to accept odd jobs from odder employers. I have guided hunting parties, despite lack of previous training. I am quiet enough in the woods, and able to convince at least some hunters that a particular set of droppings belong to a particular kind of animal. I've tracked deer successfully, and bear unintentionally, but with no fatal result. I've guarded caravans, although I have no particular martial skills. Fortunately for my employers, my work as an escort has been notably boring. I worked a few weeks tending bar. The owner had to travel to attend a wealthy relative on her deathbed. When the owner returned, literally laden with her inheritance, she sold the inn and I moved on. In this town, Laurel, I watch the store two days a week so the shopkeeper can spend time with his new son. The rest of the week I spend here, in the tavern, waiting to see what turns up next.
While no one searches for bards in Laurel in the springtime, the summer brings a few wealthy families to the hot springs at Logwood. With luck, I will be able to attach myself to one of those parties. In the meantime, it's cheaper to stay in Laurel.
This inn has several regulars, and a small number of travelers. The regulars include a slender young man, dressed all in black. His eyes are always in motion, and his head turns from side to side. His hands are always moving in a pattern across his body, patting here and there. He startles at all loud noises, which for the most part come from the kitchen. I've seen him whirl about when tapped on the shoulder by Alice the innkeeper. Every day he asks her who has arrived in town, and adopts a disconsolate expression no matter what he is told, as if he were an Assassin and his Victim is late arriving. His name is Stephan, a cousin of Eric, the shopkeeper I currently work for, and until recently had my job. Stephan was fired for adopting his current dress and manner in an attempt to impress the innkeeper's daughter, Candice, Candy for short. I may hire Stephan, if I can think of a plausible Victim, to learn how hard he's willing to play this game.
Candy lives here with her father, Landau, and her mother, Alice. Landau or Candy generally run the bar, and Alice does everything else. Rumor has it Candy has a brother, but no one wants to talk about him. I haven't been able to learn his name. There is no additional help; service at this inn is sketchy at best. I've tried to convince them to hire me, or at least trade my help for my room, but they have declined.
Eric's mother-in-law Carolla stays at the inn frequently but irregularly, when the battles between Eric, Elise (Eric's wife) and Carolla become too intense to permit her continued presence at Eric's house. Carolla also wears black; it is the quickest way to let everyone know of her widowhood. Her black is very stylish, and tight-fitting. I believe Stephan has already succumbed, and she is flirting with, or at least at, Landau. I doubt she'll have any success there, however, since Landau is more animated around Stephan than Carolla.
Alice decides which customers are acceptable and which are not. Alice takes the line that money gets you in the door, but your appearance determines where you sleep. As a poor, but decently dressed human, I rate a closet-like room under the stairs. It is noisy, during the day with the bustle of the kitchen, and by night with the sound of cats pursuing vermin wherever bits of food were left lying about. After the first night, I left my door open a crack. The mice get in no matter what I do, and with the door open, at least the cats get a crack at them. Stephan lives upstairs, as do Alice, Landau, Candy and Carolla. I periodically wish I were banished downstairs, because that is where all the interesting characters are to be found: in the cellar, with the kegs of beer, the casks of wine, the bins full of root vegetables and dried apples and the sacks of grain.
Three orcs live downstairs: Irvish, Mervish and Dervish. They have no obvious business in town, have volunteered no destination nor have they indicated when they are planning on leaving. Also downstairs are two dwarves, who registered under the names Ivan Longfellow and Mauser Goodbody. No sounds of conflict have come from downstairs. The dwarves arrived two days after the orcs, and, like the orcs, have neither obvious business nor departure date.
I've left out one part of the inn: the attic. Alice puts elves in the attic, to which they ineffectually object. The one elf presently staying in the attic refused to give its name when checking in. The elf's clothing is sufficiently loose and capacious as to give no clue to its sex. The elf studiously avoids being in the common areas when the orcs or the dwarves are present, but grins widely and laughs quietly whenever Stephan is present.
The sun set about an hour ago, and the evening meal will soon be served. As I write this, three extremely well-dressed humans have arrived at the inn. If they are actually a wealthy family travelling to Logwood, they are about three months early for the season. Their names are Baker, Adams and Helen Range. They all lisp slightly. They say they'll all be moving on tomorrow evening at about this time. Candy seats them in a corner booth and asks them what they'll have for dinner. They order red wine and, after listening to Candy recite the menu, request only the blood pudding.
The dwarves show up about fifteen minutes before supper is due to be served and go to the back to wash up. When they return, they notice the three Ranges sitting in the corner. Do dwarves have hackles? They hunched their shoulders and, after consulting with each other, they go back downstairs.
A few minutes before supper, the dwarves come back up stairs, with all three orcs, whispering among themselves as they enter the dining room. The whispers are not loud enough for me to hear everything they say, but the words "she put them where?" and "blood sucking fiends" are audible. Candy comes out with the wine and a basket of bread with roasted garlic on the side and places them in front of the Ranges. They cringe away from the basket, to the sound of dwarvish and orcish snickering. Adam gasps out an order to Candy to take it away. Candy starts to remove the wine. Helen grabs her wrist and makes Candy leave the wine and take the bread and garlic away. Once the basket is gone, the three Ranges slump over the table, gasping for breath. After a few minutes, they each take a sip of wine and shudder. I can see unusually well-developed canines as their mouths open to drink. No wonder they all lisp.
The dwarves and the orcs take the large table in the middle, and huddle around it whispering. Candy brings them their usual: all the meats and a hard bread. Irvish asks for a large salad, which confuses Candy, but she eventually complies, bringing out raw carrots and greens in a large bowl. I've never seen dwarves or orcs eat vegetables in any form. I have bread, fowl and new peas, and, because the carrots did look nice, asked Candy for some of the same. She looked at me as if I'd lost my mind, but brought it anyway. Sprinkled with cider vinegar and a little salt, it was tasty.
The elf showed up half an hour after dinner had begun and ate some unknown food extracted from a pouch. Partway through the meal, the elf waved Candy over and requested a bowl of salad. By this time, I think she was expecting it, although the elf made a slight change, requesting white wine and basil leaves to sprinkle over the raw vegetables. I was envious, but also full.
The vampires did not at any point request lettuce and carrots, and when Candy suggested some, the Ranges glared at her, and growled. She backed off. They were messy eaters. By the time they were finished drinking and slurping blood pudding, the fronts of their fine clothes were splotchy and their mouths were ringed with red and pink.
Usually the elf leaves after dinner. The orcs and dwarves carouse and wheedle Alice to bring the dart board out and let them play, which she tolerates as long as they haven't gotten so drunk she's afraid they'll toss the darts at her. Tonight there was a serious quality to their drinking. The vampires had long since consumed their wine, and ordered more. I wondered what their plans were. I wondered what my plans were. I ordered another cider.
The evening moved inexorably (I write this after the fact) toward a brawl. The elf did not leave, as usual, but instead ordered white wine. Stephan arrived after dinner and ordered a beer. He looked the Ranges over and walked back to talk to Landau. After a whispered conversation, Stephan frowned and joined me at my table. He was slow to speak and by this time I was tipsy and nervous. In a fit of indiscretion, I asked him in a loud whisper, "Are the Ranges the ones you've been waiting for?" Stephan nearly climbed out of his skin, turned a sickly color, and ran out of the inn. The Ranges watched him go, but showed no inclination to follow. I learned later that Stephan ran straight to the local church and argued, wheedled and cajoled a cleric until she gave him some holy water. But it took him a long time, and he did not return until too late to do much good.
A lull followed Stephan's entrance, blundering and hasty exit. I watched the orcs, thinking they would start something, probably by shouting unpleasant names at the Ranges. But the next notable event was the arrival of another guest.
He superficially resembled Stephan: tall, dressed all in black. Not as slender as Stephan, and, rather than blonde as Stephan, this gentleman had dark, curly hair and a dark beard. Also unlike Stephan, his hands were still. He surveyed the room briefly, focusing, in turn, on my notes, the Ranges' mouths, the table of orcs and dwarves, the lone elf in loose clothing, Landau in motion with a tray.
Candy stood before him, eyes wide and nipples outlined against the cloth of her dress. Landau checked under the bar for the weapons he kept there. Alice offered to take his coat, which he refused. Alice nodded her head once, sharply at Candy, who started and then went back to serving drinks while he registered. He said very little, responding to questions about his business and plans for length of stay by simply staring at Alice. She rallied by offering him dinner. I was taken aback by that -- dinner was by now long over and Alice usually enforces the dinner hour. The gentleman thanked her very civilly and accepted that offer, then ignored Alice entirely in her efforts to direct him to the remaining table, and came over to sit by me. Which is why I'm writing all this after the fact.
He introduced himself as Jack, and I told him I was Andy. He commented that that was an unusual name for a woman, which startled me as I had been successfully passing as a young man in this town for over ten days. Fortunately, he kept his voice low. I chose not to reply, and Jack proceeded to ask me, very quietly, what had happened this evening in the inn, and what I thought might be about to happen. I summarized, supplying names to the faces. When I whispered that I thought the orcs were about to start in on the Ranges, Jack reprimanded me for maligning the orcs when it would be Adam Range who would start something -- if the elf didn't beat him to it.
I leaned forward and asked Jack, very quietly, whether the elf was a he or a she. Jack got the funniest look on his face and mouthed without sound the word, "both". In a low voice, he then added, "Blushing will not help you to pass." I endeavored to hide my face behind the cider mug. While I was drinking, and desperately trying to come up with an adequately cutting response, Adam Range spoke.
"What is the world coming to, when one is forced to consort with orcs, dwarves and elves of ambiguous gender in order to get a meal?"
The elf made it across the room, I thought airborne, although Jack later told me the elf touched foot to floor twice and chair once on the way to the vampires' table. All three vampires hissed at the elf, who had extracted a silver dagger with a cross-hilt. The elf stabbed at the vampires, who responded by clubbing at the dagger with wine bottles. Meanwhile, the dwarves had gotten up and were headed over, armed with table knives and a serving platter. The orcs took a moment to extract swords, converging on the booth with the dwarves.
I thought for a moment it would end with everyone piled up and dripping blood, no one happy except possibly the vampires at getting dessert, but the Ranges knocked the dagger out of the elf's hand. They sprang over the backs of their seats, evading the dwarves. By the time the orcs arrived at the booth, the vampires were across the room, having destroyed several chairs and a table in the process. A platter came winging into the room, tossed from the kitchen door by Alice, and thumped into Helen Range, knocking her to the ground. Mauser picked up a broken chair leg and thrust it at her torso, but she slithered away and he impaled her through the upper thigh. At the same time, she grabbed Mauser and hauled him down towards her, biting him on the arm.
The rest of the melee left Mauser and Helen to work out their destiny along with assorted broken furniture, which Mauser was putting to good use. As the crowd swept towards us, Jack pulled two small glass flasks out of his coat, flipped the corks out with a smooth motion of the thumb on each hand and, as Adam and Baker Range came within easy reach, upended the contents of their heads. They didn't gasp -- their eyes didn't have time to widen. They vanished, their clothes dropping quietly to the floor without them.
Ivan, Irvish, Mervish and Dervish slid to stop a few feet away from us. Jack picked up his mug of cider and drank it. I pointed at Mauser and the foursome went over to Helen. They cut her into very tiny bits. The elf found the dagger which had been knocked from its hand, and went upstairs. Alice retrieved the platter and surveyed the damage. She was out two tables, eight chairs, and the entire middle of the dining room was finger deep in blood, also littered with the still twitching bits of vampire. Jack suggested to the room at large that someone should collect all the pieces and burn them, then continued eating. Ivan bandaged Mauser after stopping the bleeding. Alice told the orcs that their continued stay at the inn, as opposed to the stocks in the town square, rested soley on the dining room being cleaned thoroughly before they retired for the night. While they were mopping the floor, Stephan returned with a large jug of water and a cleric. After looking around, the cleric breathed an obvious sigh of relief and turned to leave, but Jack insisted he stay and do something for Mauser, pointing out that this would save having to kill another vampire later.
I'm not sure where Jack would have been housed prior to the Incident, but he got one of the Ranges' rooms, and I got the other one. I don't know why that happened, but suspect that Alice thinks I had something to do with Jack's presence. When I asked the price of the room, she sort of waved her hand at me and said the Ranges had prepaid in order to get an upstairs rooms. Alice had figured out what they probably were and would otherwise have put them in the cellar. They wouldn't have objected either had it not been for who their cellar mates would have been.
From this I learn that being a bigot costs more money as well as causing trouble.
I had Baker's room, and was shuffling through his luggage when Jack knocked at the door and, without pausing, came right on in and took it. He tsk tsked at me and lectured on the subject of messing with things beyond my ken and wished me good night. So I sat down to write this.
Mauser did not put the stake through Helen's upper thigh; it went through her pelvis.
I woke up the next morning to find the above sentence added to my notes. I suppose that Jack entered my room at some point in the night, hopefully twice. The thought that I might have slept through him entering, reading and adding his own comments appalls me.
Today is one of the two days a week I run the shop for Eric. Eric is not a fool, despite having married a woman whose mother is Carolla, so I get the shop on the slowest days. I learned at breakfast that the cleric thinks that Mauser will not turn into a vampire, and Alice, in her capacity as fixer-of-broken-people (she refuses to be called a midwife, a doctor or a healer) says he'll probably recover from his wounds if he doesn't move around much for a few days and keeps clean. That was the end of last night's encounter, other than a lot of work for Eric's sister Rowena making new chairs and tables for the inn. Rowena's been at loose ends lately and threatening to move, so Eric's happy that there is work for her in town.
The elf came to the shop and fingered the cloaks and tunics. I offered to help, but when I asked what it wanted, the elf burst into tears. I patted the elf's shoulder, got a stool from the back of the shop and a cup of tea. The elf, whose name is Vira, spilled out a horrid tale. Abandoned by hir (Vira's preferred pronoun) parents, e (ditto) was raised by woodcutters whose nature had not been improved by their isolation from other humans. They initially thought that having both sets of parts was normal for an elf, and when they learned otherwise (how was not part of the story as I heard it), they decided to make hir "normal". Since it's easier to cut something off than to fill in a hole, you can imagine what their plans were. Vira ran away twice, but the woman was an abler tracker than Vira was an escapee, so e eventually was forced to kill them or submit to inexpertly wielded and certainly unclean scissors. I thought that sounded like the only sensible choice, but e still loved hir parents, and spent an unspecified number of years rambling in mental agony thereafter. E had recently started to feel almost normal, which is not to say happy, but to have hir difficulties brought forcefully to public attention had been more than e could take.
Since my efforts to convince Vira that killing people who attempt to cut off one's penis is a justifiable action failed, I pointed out that everyone in the bar last night was so angry it was unlikely anyone even heard the slam at Vira, occupied as they were with being insulted themselves. This cheered hir up, and e bought a bright blue tunic before leaving.
I long for the days when I wrote untruths. I don't like having to believe that story.
Almost immediately after Vira's departure, Jack entered the shop. I commented on the timing and he responded that he had seen Vira enter, and waited until e left. He asked what I'd thought of to tell Vira that would improve hir mood so dramatically. I repeated the conversation for him, while he dug around in the apothecary corner of the shop, selecting a few small flasks, not unlike the ones which had come in handy the night before, although these were empty. He laughed when I reached the end of the story, and complimented me on my tact. After purchasing the flasks, he thanked me and said he looked forward to having dinner with me and left.
While I was closing the shop that evening, Eric came in and asked to speak to me when I was finished. I handed him the account book and the money I'd taken in today, and he thanked me, rambling on for a while about how much he appreciated my help. That kind of talk is a prelude to ensuing unemployment, in my rapidly increasing experience of short-term, part-time jobs. Eric explained that Stephan had come to his senses as his old, responsible self, dressing like a merchant , showing a real interest in earning money instead of slinking around after that innkeeper's daughter who was probably no better than she should be.
I congratulated Eric on the return to respectability of his young relative and wished him, his wife and his new baby the best. Eric counted out my pay and we parted. I wondered how many nights ahead the Ranges had paid. Perhaps I'd move on tomorrow.
When I returned to the inn, I had time before dinner to collect my gear in preparation for an early morning departure, write down the events of the day, and freshen up for dinner. I had misgivings about Jack, as I would about anyone able to dispatch two vampires quickly and with a flair, but decided that as long as I was leaving town the next day anyway it hardly mattered whether I ate with him or not.
Jack arrived late once again, leaving the dining room to Vira and me. I did not see Stephan. I wondered what had motivated him to grow up in such a hurry. Candy was looking around the dining room and through the front door, probably looking for Stephan, although she had pointedly avoided looking at him in the past. Was it a case of absence making the heart grow fonder or was the absence of an entourage just more conspicuous than its presence? Irvish, Dervish, Mervish and Ivan were all downstairs eating with Mauser. Alice was pleased with the cleaning the orcs had given the dining room last night and offered to serve them downstairs. She stopped by my table and pointed to the legs of the tables and chairs. She asked me if I could see the difference. For a moment, I was at a loss to respond, but then realized that generations of scratches left by the inn's cats had been buffed out of existence leaving a highly polished, smooth surface. I reached down to stroke the wood and expressed my awe at the amount of effort the orcs had exerted, and the good impression the dining room must now make on all who passed through the inn.
The cleric was eating at the inn tonight with a companion whose garb marked her as a higher member of their order. I had never seen them eat at the inn before. They spent most of the meal speaking too quietly for me to catch what they were saying, but I did notice them looking at me several times during the course of the meal. Vira ate alone, as always. I ate alone until Jack arrived.
Jack walked in and Alice once again failed to enforce her strict supper hour. After nodding at me, he walked over to the table shared by the two clerics and pulled up a chair. The superior cleric put out a hand, which Jack kissed. They engaged in a short conversation, too quiet to overhear, and the woman handed Jack a pouch full of heavy coins, and a basket which contained the bottles he had bought from me at the shop earlier today as well as some others, and some small packages in odd shapes and sizes. Jack slipped the pouch into a pocket, took the basket by the handle, kissed her hand, nodded to the other cleric, left the table and went upstairs. He came down several minutes later without the basket and joined me at about the time Candy served his dinner.
I tried to get Jack to say something -- anything -- about who he was and where he was from and what had brought him to Laurel and where he might be heading next. He adroitly evaded all questions, while extracting from me a variety of details I'd had no intention of giving him about my past life. He did, however, comment that he would be leaving Laurel early in the morning, and expected me to accompany him. I was taken aback by this calm assumption of my compliance and, without giving an answer (since no question had been asked), I excused myself.
After writing all that down, I'm stuck with the fact that I'm leaving tomorrow morning and in the same direction Jack is intending to go. As the Ranges only paid for two nights and I have no job in town and no prospects of a job in town, I have little choice in the matter. I find myself wondering again about Stephan's precipitous return to common sense.
Let me tell you what I did with my day. I found a young man named Stephan and had a brief chat with him. I had been hired to do so by the local church, which frowns on their younger members dressing up as Assassins. I asked Stephan when he was planning on paying his waiver fee for failure to apprentice to a senior assassin before wearing the clothing of a full member, also his annual dues for the past year. I also asked him which of a list of assignments he would like to take in order to earn the money to pay same. Stephan was taken aback, by the notion that being an Assassin would involve him in the same unromantic concerns that shopkeeping had, and hastened to explain that it was all a tragic mistake. As evidence of good faith, he stripped off his clothes in front of me and put on his shopkeeper wear, then burned the black clothes, and swore several oaths to the effect that he would return to work as a shopkeeper before the day was out. I told him that tomorrow was soon enough, as long as he talked to Eric before then. I'm sorry you lost your job, but I need you to come with me tomorrow, and I cannot tell you why just yet.
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Copyright Rebecca Allen, 1999.
Created: July 8, 2012 Updated: July 8, 2012