Ale Tales

[The Mongrel]

Closed.

Humans have no idea just how noisy their world is. Everything from the incessant clang of the blacksmith's hammer down the street to their own thundering footsteps fades into fog. Be it blessing or curse, they live their lives in a sensory murk, selectively picking out the bits that are important to them. They can smell bread baking or meat roasting from dozens of strides away. They can hear a coin drop in a crowd, or peer into a gloomy tavern corner and see a cloaked monster, but they miss so much that their world lacks breadth and depth.

Ksssh-sshhhhrrr. Shhp shhp shhp. Tak tak. Tak.

I was the cloaked monster to everyone within that tavern. Except for the occasional barmaid who cautiously crept forward to see if I wanted a refill of my barely-touched ale or a serving of the meaty slop they called food, the area around my shadowy corner was completely uninhabited. That's usually what happens when a dark figure dressed in dark clothing sits in a dark corner and does nothing but shuffle cards for hours.

Ksssh-sshhhhrrr. Shhp shhp shhp. Tak tak. Tak.

I could hear them, whether or not they knew it. A few of them whispered about me as they slammed and stomped their way in. Was I male or female? Was I an elf, dark elf, or scrawny human? And damn, was I creepy. I couldn't blame them for their curiosity; humans are nosy creatures and they couldn't see my silver eyes, my raven hair, my sharply pointed ears, or my ashy-tan skin through the cloak and shadow in which I'd wrapped myself. But I much preferred when they moved on to talk about the inanities of their lives, the hopes and dreams that they would never reach out and take, or (horribly), their slurps and smacks as they delved into their carcass-filled meals.

Ksssh-sshhhhrrr. Shhp shhp shhp. Tak tak. Tak.

I wondered if there were parts of them that were aware of the mice and rats that scurried between the walls and in the thatch. I wondered if the customers had any idea how much verbal abuse the so-called cook showered upon his underlings and wait staff. I wondered if so much as one of the common creatures who huddled in the filthy tavern's firelight would ever pick themselves up, leave Jadet, and make themselves into something more than mere laborers. I wondered if any of them would get drunk enough to come harass me. Then I wondered if any of them had any idea who I was, and I regretted smashing my green contacts. Uncomfortable though they were, the illusion of my natural eye color felt like a mask, while the new Star-kissed silver might as well shout my name and deeds to any who dared meet my gaze.

Ksssh-sshhhhrrr. Shhp shhp shhp. Tak tak. Tak.

For the moment, at least, I remained unmolested. I was grateful for and in deep need of the time to myself. I needed to think, to consider, to weigh and measure my next steps. I hadn't had the chance since Unfounded had presented me the Last Cup and sent me from their ranks, forever dead to them. Unfounded had been my fire-forged family for half a century. I'd met the only man I'd ever loved through them. They'd taught me how to survive and thrive in Corone's rough and tumble criminal underbelly, and as time took away the old guard and brought in new blood, I had returned the favor. Unfounded was my everything, and now I had nothing and nowhere.

Ksssh-sshhhhrrr. Shhp shhp shhp. Tak tak. Tak.

There was always the option of returning to Raiaera. The half-brother who had summoned me there for the High Bard Council's war against Pode would not turn me away. However, he was a Bladesinger, a bastion of the law. His first duty was to Raiaera, not to a bastard brat born in bad blood. He would encourage me to let what remained of the high-elven government use me as a puppet, and I would rather die than be a pawn for anyone who didn't see me as a person. No, I was not yet broken enough to go back to my native land.

Ksssh-sshhhhrrr. Shhp shhp shhp. Tak tak. Tak.

I also had the option of crime. I'd survived mostly by petty theft when I was little more than a child, but now I could also cheat at cards and steal more with less risk. I could survive again, and better. I didn't like that option either; I was no longer the desperate girl of meager skills who was willing to do anything to keep her heart beating. Why would I ever turn back to simply surviving when I knew what it was to live?

Ksssh-sshhhhrrr. Shhp shhp shhp. Tak tak. Tak.

Or I could choose a nation, find some criminals with potential or promising urchins, take them in, teach them, and create my own organization. It might take a hundred years, but I could build a new life, a new family. I could be to them what Cata was to me - a source of hope and acceptance. How long would I be dead if he hadn't looked me in the eye and told me that he had a place for me? I'd certainly have never met Mutt. I'd never have learned to look beyond his gruff, half-orc exterior or hear past his bumbling, basic Tradespeak to find the beauty of his poetry and the love in his soul. Could I give that to others who were like the me of half a century ago?

Ksssh-sshhhhrrr. Shhp shhp shhp. Tak tak. Tak.

No, not likely. Setting up a new organization is difficult and dangerous. Entrenched groups do their best to squash newcomers, because they want to keep the power they have. It was done to Unfounded, and Unfounded in turn did it to younger, weaker groups. We'd lost many good people along the way, and my soul couldn't take losing and losing where I tried to build anew. I'd already lost far too much. I'd also never desired a position of ultimate leadership. I could lead small groups and give guidance to my leader, but the burdens I'd watched Cata, Lightning, and Splinter bear in their times as the heads of Unfounded were not ones I was eager to take upon my own shoulders.

Ksssh-sshhhhrrr. Shhp shhp shhp. Tak tak. Tak.

A sell-sword, perhaps? A mercenary? An assassin, even? A dealer of violence in exchange for coin? I could do that easily enough. It wouldn't be so desperate as stealing and cheating my way through life, but the thought sounded hollow. I would go wherever the money was, do whatever my employer needed, collect my money, and move on. It sounded like a base existence, and how was a life with my weapons as my only friends and gold as my only lover worth living?

Ksssh-sshhhhrrr. Shhp shhp shhp. Tak tak. Tak.

The cards slipped through my fingers again and again, stiff slips of paper slapping and tapping against each other in an endless rhythm. After so many shuffles and cuts, any card could be anywhere in the deck. My hands had taken each one from its place and thrown its world into chaos. I felt like one of those cards, taken by machinations far beyond my control and churned until I couldn't tell up from down. All I had left to me was indecision and one thought.

Ksssh-sshhhhrrr. Shhp shhp shhp. Tak tak. Tak.

I wish that Splinter had presented me with a knife instead of a cup. I'd have slit my own throat and known real death, instead of this slow, torturous living death.

[Diadems of Promethion]

Humans truly had no idea how much noise their world could make. Like a flutterwing to a furnace he found himself drawn to the clamour of their congregation. It made no difference whether he find himself in a seaside settlement in Scara Brae or in the seething, teeming hives of far-eastern Cathay. The salty sweat of rustic Corone shared little with the acrid pungence of Istralothian smoke houses. But in all he could always expect the same avalanche of activity and conversation.

Ksssh-sshhhhrrr. Shhp shhp shhp. Tak tak. Tak.

With a jovial laugh and a round for all he could throw himself into their whirlwinds and thunderclaps. For hours on end he could describe the vagaries of rock and illuminant crystal to the farmer’s son. Over countless pints he could debate Blightwater’s stranglehold on the northern trade routes with the local merchants. He could swap tall tales with grizzled mariners, hearing of their boundless horizons before speaking in turn of the endless depths that lay beneath the surface.

Ksssh-sshhhhrrr. Shhp shhp shhp. Tak tak. Tak.

Or he could sit among them unnoticed, absorbing their boundless capacity to walk the fine lines between order and chaos, greed and altruism. It never ceased to amaze how such a broad spectrum of narrow-minded self-interests, clashing and warring like ripples on a rainy pond, could define all human peoples. Every beating heart here fought beneath the strain of primal desires that age and strife had long since tempered from his own. If nothing else it made for great stories to take back to the stony halls of his kin.

Ksssh-sshhhhrrr. Shhp shhp shhp. Tak tak. Tak.

Like mayflies caught in streaks of meteoric flame they filled the darkness with all that they could muster. From one day to the next they fluttered, dissipating as cherry blossoms on an ephemeral wind. Ancient dwarven tablets wrote haunting stanzas of fur-clad savages, striding forth from open plains where once verdant forests had stood, their lives like candleflames in the night. Not for them the disciplined determination of stone or the blossoming of flowing water. Not for them the ordered memories of a hallowed past or the esoteric allure of a destined future. Even now their cultures focused on the moment, emphasising ambition and ability above all else.

Ksssh-sshhhhrrr. Shhp shhp shhp. Tak tak. Tak.

So it surprised him not that none of their number engaged the cowled elf in conversation. None dared to complain about the incessant and pointless whisk of cards through her nimble fingers. In a world that had grown far darker of late, none welcomed such a shadow-cloaked stranger into their midst. The local baron had raised his taxes for the third year running, crushing any sign of dissent with brutal efficiency. Recruiting sargeants roamed the countryside conscripting young farmhands into their levies. Tattered sails fled across the Southern Seas, speaking only of a dark and dangerous terror that lay beyond. To them she represented the unknown, the unfathomed, and thus the not-to-be-touched.

Ksssh-sshhhhrrr. Shhp shhp shhp. Tak tak. Tak.

And it surprised him not that none but he recognised the significance of her irises, sparkling sheer starlight from deep within her cowl. Fisherman, farmer, forester; the trials and tribulations of far-off Raiaera meant little to their insular worlds of catch, harvest, and stockpile. Throld himself had only heard the rumours from his mercantile contacts in Tor Elythis, relayed by skyship from Gunnbad. His chest hairs had curdled at the lavish praise heaped on their latest hero by the High Bard Council, sweeter by far than his cargo of delicate honeycakes in their iceboxes. But though the local lords had devoured the cakes with abandon, even they had greeted news of the continent with little more than disdain.

Ksssh-sshhhhrrr. Shhp shhp shhp. Tak tak. Tak.

After all, only two years had passed since the return of the last foolhardy generation of glory-seeking youngsters from the Corpse War. Battle had claimed five in ten of their number, disease another three. Those few gaunt and haunted figures that had survived had never borne tool or worked the land again. Never had they drawn pleasure from the beauty of a starry sunset or the touch of a loved one. Little more than cadavers themselves, they spent their days staring northwards over the sea, in perpetual seeking of fragments of the souls they had left behind. Could Throld blame the men and women of Jadet, then, that in this strange foreigner they saw those troubles personified, come to haunt them again?

Ksssh-sshhhhrrr. Shhp shhp shhp. Tak tak. Tak.

Could he blame them for the fear that ruled their short bright lives? Humans were not made of gromril, the dense black ore from which the dwarves fashioned their heavy weapons and armour. Neither were they ithilmar, the silvery mithril alloy so beloved of the elves, pretty and keen but prone to shattering when put to the test. No, humans were iron: brittle at first, slag at worst, but when tempered and hammered and beaten again and again into hardened steel, of limitless potential. So long as they could survive the process. Not all did. So it made sense to these mayflies to grab hold of what they could and hold it tight to their chest. None of it would last.

Ksssh-sshhhhrrr. Shhp shhp shhp. Tak tak. Tak.

He could not begrudge them that. Unlike many of his kin he understood the pain, like poisoned daggers through their hearts, that accompanied their every loss. He had felt it in the fall of House Sartet in the Troubles, and in the sack of Hamdarim in the south, and in the loss of his sister in their flight north. He felt it still in his search for the Daughters of Mnemosyne, a quest for redemption and resolution that had taken him around the world and back. How many years had he spent on the enterprise? How many more would it take?

Ksssh-sshhhhrrr. Shhp shhp shhp. Tak tak. Tak.

But at least, unlike them, in his endeavours he could be dwarf, and merchant, and raconteur. Like stone he could endure the storm, and grind out his profits, and speak to the ages. Like gromril he could take an ogre’s blow without flinching, and command the attention of a dozen Cathayan mandarins, and etch into his every scar the tale of a hundred battles won and lost.

Ksssh-sshhhhrrr. Shhp shhp shhp. Tak tak. Tak.

Downing the last of his ale in a long refreshing draught - such nutty, fruity, earthy bliss! - he tapped the counter twice and indicated her table to the keep with a sage nod. If the ruddy, obese codger displayed either worry or relief, he kept it well hidden behind a pock-marked mask. His long-suffering, hollowed stare followed the dwarf that sauntered towards its destination, whistling an off-key warble.

Ksssh-sshhhhrrr. Shhp shhp shhp. Tak tak. Tak.

“So. Are you looking for truth in those cards, or are you going to deal?”