Fools Motley Magazine

It was one of those cold, clear winter nights. The
kind where when the wind blew you could feel it
push right through your heaviest clothing, and
stab at you with a dozen daggers of ice. But if you
looked up at the stars, they hung right there above
you with such clarity that you were sure you could
reach up, encircle one in your outstretched hand, and
pluck it from the sky. A touching sight, but not one
worth staying out long enough to catch your death.

That's why I was holed away in One-Eyed's tavern.
Insulated from nature by blocks of stone a foot-long,
the pleasant numbness of alcohol, and a combination of
wood and leaf-smoke so thick you couldn't be
absolutely certain some important portion of the
building wasn't on fire. I smiled at the drab and
freckly-faced, but sparsely garbed, wench who passed
my table to add more fuel to the hearth at my back.
The smile quickly faded as I took another sip of my
wretched bark beer. Definately not the best vintage in
the establishment, but all I could afford at the
moment.

I was in-between scores.

It's been my experience with most drinks, that if you
have enough of them in a row the taste ceases being a
problem. One-Eyed's bark beer- interestingly enough-
tastes bad right until the moment you pass out. Though
after a few you find you can suppress the gagging.

Tonight, the place was jumping despite, or perhaps
because of, the harsh weather. Unfortunately for One-
Eyed, "jumping" only meant about a dozen people, but
that wasn't any fault of his fine tavern. It was
because the little farming village of Hogplop only
numbered fifteen grown men and their families. I
didn't see how One-Eyed more than broke even on the
place, but he didn't really seem to care. He'd been
running the local tavern since Hacking Harold's death-
which, in retrospect, really shouldn't have come as
such a shock to the community. You could tell,
somewhere deep down, it was all One-Eyed ever really
wanted out of life.

Apparently, Mayor Swanson saw it as below his station
to spend too much of his time here. Old Man Mogul's
joints just hurt too much when it was cold out for him
to make the trip. Sheriff Peter Barnaby was probably
the one who would benefit most from being here, but
the same wife it would be healthier to avoid just
wouldn't allow it.

That was fine by me, of course. One-Eyed and I, we had
an agreement. Saw eye to eye you might say. I didn't
steal from anybody while I was here, and he didn't
have Oaf the bouncer stomp me into a fleshy pudding.
(Oaf had been given another name as a boy, but his
parents had been the first to forget it.) The deal
worked just peachy, except that everybody knew I was
the village thief and tended to avoid my table like
the plague, lest I overhead them mention they'd, say,
just sold their prize hog up in Marsh Hollow for twice
what they thought it was worth. I tried to use this
lack of company to summon up an air of dignified
privacy, but suspect I ended up with something more
along the lines of the aura of a friendless loner.

Therein was the heart of my current monetary dilemma.
In a puddle of mud like Hogplop, gossip spread faster
than Easy Mary's pox. The only way I could stay out of
jail was that no one ever SAW me steal anything. But
ever since that first heist, there was always someone
looking. It was just down right unfair, in my opinion.
They ought to close their eyes and count to ten
occasionally, or something! Just to even up the odds.

I needed a ticket out of here. If I'd just had a bit
more money I could at least book myself passage with a
caravan up to a decent sized town like Middendor. It
almost made me wish I hadn't given the gems I'd swiped
from that booth at the last Autumn bazaar to fair-
haired Jessica Vale. But, sigh, they'd all been fakes
anyway and they had made her favor me so for a while.

I shook my head. What I wanted was a fresh start, but
I was far from desperate enough to even consider
taking up working for a living. No sir, my father
hadn't ever worked a day in his life. "Workin' is for
the lower classes." he'd often tell me, "Weeze a kind
of are-is-toe-crat." I couldn't give up thieving now,
he'd roll over in his grave. All I needed, as Dad
would've said, was one good break.

The hearty creak of the door swinging open and the
accompanying rush of cold air snapped me out of my
musings.

"Welcome, welcome! Come warm yourself by my fire and
have a mug to sate your thirst!" bellowed One-Eyed to
the newcomers, showing all three of his teeth.

"And close the blasted door before you freeze the lot
of us to death," added Tom Shingle from his seat by
the entrance.

Foreigners! A jolt of excitement shocked me sober,
regrettably so. Lifting my glass in the air, I rose
from my seat and walked over towards the bar were the
strangers were seating themselves.

"Come now, Tom, remember your manners." The farmer
gave me a look that implied he'd like to teach me a
manner or two. Perhaps what he remembered was that
time all his chickens had gone missing.

"Let our new friends not leave here thinking that
Hogplop is an inhospitable place."

I took a moment to size up our guests. Two of them
were men, both of them young and fit. They were
dressed in riding armor that showed signs of a battle
or two, and fairly recent. One carried a sword, the
other a bow. At first I took them to be guards, and
figured they ought to be vulnerable to a game or two
of dice. Then, on second glance, I noticed the
dramatic cast of their faces, the beautiful flowing
blond hair of the one man and the handsome dark
coloring of his companion. Wait. They couldn't be...
could they?

The third of the trio wore a robe of pale green color.
It was loose fitting and gave no hint of the features
beneath. The hood, likewise, completely obscured the
owner's face in shadow, but I noticed that the hand
which grasped an oaken walking stick seemed small and
delicate.

"Three bark beers for our travelers!" I called to One-
Eyed, then leaned in to throw them a wink and whisper
conspiratorially, "You'll not find a drink like this
one anywhere else on earth. The barkeep brews it
himself, but I'd imagine other places would outlaw it
if they had it."

They'd be hard pressed to call that a lie once they'd
tasted it, at least.

"Thank you for your kindness." the robed one replied,
not so much speaking as singing. The voice was light
and feminine and implied great beauty. I swear that
along with her words I actually heard a musical
accompaniment play very softly on the edges of my
hearing.

That cinched it.

One-Eyed produced three more beers in surprisingly
clean glasses and I stayed hunched close to the
newcomers so that no one would overhear our
conversation. The barkeep hung about to listen in,
playing at mopping the bar top with a towel. I tried
to throw him a glare, but he had turned his head
towards the door so that I could catch only an eye-
patch and not his good eye.

Might as well be direct.

"Look. I don't mean to pry, but you're adventures
aren't you?"

The blond-haired one avoided the question by hiding in
his beer. A horrified expression, followed quickly by
a series of wet, choking coughs evidenced that he had
realized his error too late. The second man studied me
with suspicion and seemed about to phrase a reply when
the woman gently put her hand on his arm to quiet him.

"It's okay, Galwin, I feel we are meant to trust this
one," the hood shifted in my direction, "You have our
measure. Very observant for one so young. My name is
Leah, our other companion is Galde"

I waved away the compliment.

"We don't get many visitors here, but it's easy enough
to see that you aren't like the rest. If you don't
mind my asking, where are you headed?"

"We ride towards the castle of the Skeleton King in
the lands of the far northeast," offered the fair
Galde, taking the introduction as permission to speak
freely, "There we will vanquish him and release the
realm from the vile and evil spells which he has cast."

"Hmm... That sounds rather exciting. Hasn't been a
good vanquishing in years. Nice place, the far
northeast?"

Leah let loose with a great forlorn sigh. The woman's
voice must have been enchanted, for it continued to
have a profound effect on me. I could barely contain
myself from jumping up and giving her a hug to
reassure her that everything was going to be okay.

"The beauty of that land was once unrivaled, as were
her cities- built from the wealth of the fields,
metals, and minerals found there. But when the
Skeleton King enslaved them, he took more and more
until the land was sucked dry. The teeming cities are
now only mere shadows of their former selves, and
nature itself seems sickened and recedes."

At least a shadow's a reflection of something, it's
got to be better than this nowhere I'd spent all my
life.

"The treasure hoarding type then, this Skeleton King?"

Now that Galwin finally spoke, I found him full of
righteous anger.

"Oh certainly, he bleeds the people dry merely to fill
his vaults from full to overflowing so that he may
indulge his greed."

"A noble, noble quest then. No doubt fraught with
danger."

"We are not the first adventurers to take up this
mantle," answered Galde, "And each set before us has
met with a progressively more gruesome end." He
sounded downright pleased.

Tar Matthews finally called One-Eyed away to argue
with him on how a mixed drink ought to be prepared,
and I decided to make my move.

"I don't suppose there's any chance you would accept
another to fight besides you?"

Galwin looked me up and down with thinly-veiled
disdain verging on transparent disbelief.

"Surely, you don't speak for yourself?"

Galde either missed his companion's statement, or
chose to ignore it.

"To be honest we have room for one more, but, well
it's a bit embarrassing. The Skeleton King is said to
have all manner of devious traps set in his castle,
and we can only hire on someone with the skills of,
er, a thief."

"A rogue!" hissed Galwin, "How many times do I have to
tell you, call them an agile rogue!"

I gave my warmest laugh. Galde smiled in return, and
Leah chuckled a bit along with me, but Galwin just
became angrier as if he feared we were laughing at him.

"Calm down, friend. I am amused only because I am
exactly the man you seek. Call me a thief if you want.
I dare say if you ask the others about me they'll tell
you I'm that and worse."

Leah's robe itself seemed to somehow straighten with
interest, she took her walking staff from where it lay
against the bar and readjusted herself so that she was
half-sitting half-leaning off of her seat.

"What did you say?" She looked to the others, "I knew
we were led here for a reason!"

Her happiness was contagious, I felt more inebriated
than I had all night.

"I said I've been a thief all my life, I'm sure I
could break into any castle you'd like, for a share of
the treasure, of course." I gave them my most
brilliant smile.

The others smiled back, but their expressions had
turned more predatory than friendly. I began to get
the impression that I was the only one who didn't get
the joke.

"Got that boys?" sang Leah into her staff.

Almost simultaneously, the tavern door burst open as
if it'd been pounded upon by a troll, and an endless
stream of men in black armor seeped into the tavern.

"Feds!" cried One-Eyed, ducking behind the bar.

I tried to run, but Galde had me by the arm.

"You small town filth are all the same," he spat the
words in my direction like he didn't enjoy their taste
while he wagged a finger at me in anger, "You disgust
me."

That was all he had a chance to say before my sternum
was slammed into the bar's rail, knocking the breath
right out of me, and painfully capturing my attention.
I felt cold metal cuffs snap closed around my wrists
and heard the jingle of chain.
Glancing over my shoulder, I saw Leah pull back her
hood to reveal fire-red hair and a face that was more
stunning than I'd imagined, but half-covered with the
tattoos marking her a member of the Cult of the Truth.
The Cult was the division of the Federal Guard in
charge of finding leads and obtaining confessions.
Before I could even think of a lie to give life to,
she changed the grip on her staff and I heard my own
voice betray me, "I said I've been a thief all my
life, I'm sure I could break into any castle you'd
like, for a share of the treasure, of course."

"All right, good work everybody," sang Leah, still
sounding painfully beautiful, "Let's get a move on, I
want to get to Marsh Hollow before dawn to see if we
can't bait a bigger fish."

The End

Published by Fools Motley Magazine, 2003. All rights are property of the author. Copying and distribution of this work is prohibited. Webpage designed by Fools Motley Magazine based on templates from www.angelfire.com . Background and image provided by www.coolarchive.com .