The Wandering Inn_Volume 1

by Pirateaba

  —-

  The dino-birds flew up in a huge flurry of wings when the Soldiers got too near the nest. Pawn wasn’t surprised by this point; the Antinium were hardly stealthy, and all the other monsters and animals he’d encountered on his eventful patrol with the Soldiers ran the instant the Soldiers attacked. They could tell when bad news ran at them with several hundred pounds of killing force.

  “Those are dino-birds, I believe. Erin calls them that although I suspect they have a different name.”

  The Soldier stared up silently at the fleeing birds, and then down into the nest. Pawn saw the eggs at the same time the Soldiers did. He marveled at the size of the eggs, and their speckled patterns, nearly invisible in the nest made in the snow. The Soldier nearest them raised a foot to smash the egg to pieces.

  “Don’t kill it!”

  Pawn intervened as the Soldier prepared to destroy the nest. One of the Antinium’s other doctrines was to completely obliterate any species they found underground, an essential tactic when it came to dealing with dangers like Crelers.

  But these eggs—Pawn tried to explain to the confused Soldier.

  “They’re just eggs. I mean, the birds are…they’re sometimes a threat I suppose, but they’re not too dangerous and if they all died, wouldn’t that be bad?”

  The other Soldiers just stared at him. Pawn sighed.

  “They’re innocent. Don’t smash the eggs.”

  The Soldiers stared at the eggs, but obediently left them unsmashed. Pawn led them away, and as they began marching away, they saw the dino-birds returning to the nest, calling out anxiously. The Soldier watched the birds for a second before returning their gazes to scanning the landscape for threats.

  Pawn trudged ahead of them, tired, somewhat dispirited. It had been a long two-and-a-half hours. In that time, he’d somehow managed to have his Soldiers crush two Shield Spider nests and chase off both a Corusdeer herd and a Rock Crab. Which was all good of course, and part of their patrolling duties. It was just—

  Was this really teaching the Soldiers anything? All it felt like Pawn was doing was having them fight different enemies.

  But he brightened up when they got close to The Wandering Inn. The patrol might not have shown the Soldiers anything special, but this—

  The instant he opened the door Lyonette ran towards him, wringing her hands.

  “I am so sorry. Mrsha was playing with some paint—I don’t know how she found the paint cans—and then she got some on…”

  Fearfully, Lyonette pointed. Pawn looked and saw—

  Color. It was splashed into the dark brown carapace of the Soldier, paw prints in white. They covered his front, his back, even his head. They stood out against his dull monochrome body and made him—

  “I tried to stop her! But Mrsha wouldn’t listen and she’s very sorry, aren’t you, Mrsha?”

  Pawn glanced distractedly at the small Gnoll who had even whiter paws who was hiding behind a table. There were pawprints on the floor as well, he noticed. Quite a few of them.

  “Will the paint wash off?”

  “I don’t—I think it’s really hard. This is the same stuff Erin used for the sign and I’ve been scrubbing but you need oil and a lot of work and I didn’t want to bother the Soldier so—”

  “I see.”

  Pawn just stared at the Soldier marked by the paint, along with the other nineteen Soldiers standing in the inn. Lyonette was apologizing again, but Pawn took no notice of her.

  The paw prints. They stood out. The Soldier was marked by them. No longer could he be—well, just a Soldier. Before he had only been noticeable because of his wounded arm, but that would have healed soon. Now…

  Paint that couldn’t be erased. Something to mark him, something that needed no words to make itself apparent. Why, it was almost like a name. In fact, it was better than a name, especially for a Soldier…

  Lyon backed away from Pawn, eyes wide. He realized he was quivering with emotion and tried to modulate his shaking tone.

  “I am not…not angry. Actually, I am grateful. Do you have more paint?”

  “Me? Um, yes. It’s Erin’s actually. She bought a lot of paint, and Mrsha got into it like I said. I can give you a washcloth and water if you need—”

  “I would like to buy your paint. All of it.”

  “All of it?”

  Lyonette seemed stunned. Pawn reached for his belt pouch and pulled out a fistful of coins. He put it on the table and she gaped at him.

  “I would also like to postpone lunch for a half an hour. And if Miss Mrsha would like to help…we are going to do some painting.”

  The Human girl stared at Pawn. Then she stared at the silent, faceless, identical Soldiers, and at the one who stood out. The one who had an identity. Her eyes widened. Then she looked at Pawn and smiled. He was already smiling, in his own way.

  “Can I help?”

  —-

  Paint. It was such a simple thing. Color, given form, something that could be added to almost every surface. It was just paint.

  Just paint. Something the Antinium had no use for. Except that, as it turned out, it was the one thing the Antinium, the Soldiers, needed above all else.

  Color. Identity. What could you give someone without a voice? A name? What good was a name if they couldn’t speak it?

  But paint needed no words. All it needed was a brush, a paw, a hand. And it turned identical, faceless Soldiers into people.

  They sat in the chairs around the table, eating the bees Lyonette had cooked for them. Two bees per Soldier, not nearly enough in truth for them to eat, but augmented by bowls of soup thick with butter and fat and insect parts and some actual meat. The Human girl and even the Gnoll had pronounced the soup practically undrinkable and indeed, only Mrsha had even tried it, but the Soldiers thought the soup was the greatest thing they had ever had in their lives.

  Nearly as great as having an identity. Even as they ate, the Soldiers couldn’t help glancing at each other around the room. They had an identity now, an identity they had created themselves.

  From paint.

  It was on their bodies. Dabs of paint, splashes, some Soldiers nearly covered in the stuff, others with only a dab or two. But it was enough.

  A Soldier with a handprint in blue on his chest sat across from the Soldier with white pawprints all over his body. They were two separate Soldiers who could not be mixed up with each other. They knew that. And they were happy.

  Happy. Happy was a word they knew now, a word they had experienced. Happy was having paint on their bodies, making them people. Happy was seeing the small Gnoll scamper about, and nodding at the Human as she buzzed around the room, serving bees and filling glasses with water. Happiness was a warm fire, and a bee on their plates, gleaming with honey.

  What food. What delicious food. The Soldiers had no words, no frame of reference to even understand what they were eating. They’d always eaten the same mush, the only difference and interesting change being how rotten the ingredients were, or whether some parts hadn’t been stomped and churned into complete paste. That was what they knew. But the bee?

  Each Soldier ate slowly, gently tearing pieces off of their bee, trying to make each crunch of their mandibles last a lifetime. They didn’t speak. Of course they didn’t speak. But they thought it, and knew the others thought it too as they sat in the warm inn while the Gnoll scurried around and Pawn talked with the Human.

  This was surely Heaven.

  And when they left the inn, the twenty Soldiers, covered in color, they wanted to go back. And Pawn promised them they would, later, but the other Soldiers had to have a turn first. And the Soldiers knew this was true. The others, their brothers, had to know of this. They returned to the Hive, marching with their backs straighter than they’d even thought possible, heads held high.

  And when they came back into the Hive? They changed it as well. The Soldiers marched down the tunnel behind Pawn, walking down the empty tunnel and into the main thoroughfare of
the Hive where all the traffic flowed. When the twenty Soldiers first emerged into the tunnel, something happened that hadn’t occurred in all of the Hive’s history.

  The Workers, scuttling to their destinations, the Soldiers, marking to the next battle, all of them—when they saw the Soldiers, covered in color—stopped.

  They all stopped. For one brief second, Workers and Soldiers both stopped. Their heads turned and they stared at the twenty Soldiers, painted in hues that did not exist in the Hive. Then the Workers turned and began to move in sync once more, and the Soldiers double-timed it to their next battle. But all had seen, and all remembered. And when the Soldiers got back to the barracks…

  Red shoulder guards, crimson like Human blood but unpainted everywhere else. That was one Soldier who sat surrounded by his fellows. Another Soldier had white antennae and slashes in the same color running down his body. One more sat with a circle drawn in every color of paint Lyon had found, a multicolored ring on his chest.

  They were not Soldiers. Each one was a Soldier, but each one was different. Special.

  Unique. And they always would be. Forever. And the Worker who commanded them, their savior, the one who had given them identity and a soul looked at the other Soldiers and felt his heart stir.

  —-

  Later that day, Pawn found himself in line at Krshia’s stall. The other customers—mainly Gnolls—gave him very odd looks, but his [Humble Presence] skill helped so none of them ran away or screamed.

  Krshia blinked when she saw Pawn.

  “I did not expect to see a Worker here, yes? But you are…Pawn. Is there anything I can do for you? The Antinium do not usually need to purchase things from the city, yes?”

  “No. I mean, yes?”

  Pawn wasn’t sure what to say. The Gnoll standing in front of him didn’t seem hostile, which made him feel good. But she did look—tired.

  Tired, and poor, so much as that could be used to describe any person. But Pawn remembered her old stall, and her old array of goods. Krshia’s new stall was smaller, and she was clearly selling less. It made his heart hurt, but it hurt less when he told her what he wanted.

  “Paint. As much paint as you have, in every color. Except brown or black. I will buy all of it from you.”

  The Gnoll blinked.

  “All? All is an odd word, Mister Pawn, yes? I have many friends whom I may sell goods on their behalf. How much paint do you need in buckets?”

  “All. Everything I can afford.”

  And Pawn put the bag full of gold coins on the table and Krshia’s mouth fell open. She blinked at him. He stared back.

  “And paintbrushes. I only need around twenty of those.”

  —-

  That night, Soldiers went to sleep in their barracks. They were Soldiers, but each one was different. Each one was unique. Painted.

  In a Hive full of thousands of Antinium, Soldiers and Workers alike, these Soldiers stood out. They sat in their cubicles, for once too excited to sleep.

  They were all painted. They all had identities. The paint was dry on their chitin and true, some had already begun to flake off around their joints. But that was the thing about paint. It could always be reapplied. But the meaning lasted forever.

  And word had spread, in the Soldier’s own silent way, about what the twenty who had gone above had seen and experienced. A new world, new people. And so as the Soldier slept, or rather, didn’t, they wondered.

  Was this what it meant to be a Soldier? They thought they’d known what being a Soldier was. But for the first time, they realized there was more. More they didn’t understand. More they wanted to understand. And so they began to think. They thought of themselves as people rather than tools. They thought of themselves as individuals with identities rather than a mass. They thought of themselves as [Soldiers] rather than Soldiers.

  And they began to level.

  —-

  That night, Lyon practically sang as she cleaned up the inn. The place was full of dirty dishes. She didn’t care. She’d been slicing and frying bees up all day, and there were insect parts all over her kitchen. She didn’t care. She was exhausted. She didn’t care. The floorboards were covered with paint. She didn’t—

  Okay, she cared about that a bit. The paint Erin had bought was very, very difficult to get rid of no matter how hard Lyon scrubbed.

  But she had done it. She’d earned money selling bees, and the inn had been crowded and full! Lyonette stared at the bag full of gleaming coins on one table and sighed happily.

  She’d done it, hadn’t she? She’d really done it. And the best part about tonight, the best part was—

  She wasn’t alone.

  Mrsha happily jumped about the room, leaping from table to table like some horrible furry frog. Lyonette didn’t mind. She’d already cleared those tables of dishes, and truthfully, she felt much like Lyonette. Part of her wanted to leap about with the Gnoll, and maybe she would.

  It was just how good Lyon felt. She felt younger again, freer. No—she felt more free and more happy than she’d ever felt back in the palace. She’d done something by herself, with her own hard work.

  And she was no longer alone.

  Mrsha would stay here tonight. It wasn’t as if Lyon didn’t have enough beds, and the small Gnoll didn’t seem adverse to sharing her bed. And Selys hadn’t objected to the idea after she’d seen how well Lyonette had done.

  Okay, fine, Selys had objected a lot, even though Lyon had showed her all the coin she’d made. The Drake had been dead set on bringing Mrsha back into the city. She’d tried to chase Mrsha down and drag her out of the inn for the better part of twenty minutes before she’d collapsed in exhaustion.

  So Mrsha would stay. Selys had promised Lyonette that she would keep an eye on Mrsha again. And Lyon would. Mrsha was…

  The Gnoll belonged here. Just like Lyon did, in a way. And both Gnoll and girl were happy. That was how Lyon ate a messy bunch of slightly burnt crepes slathered with honey next to Mrsha as the Gnoll lapped at a bowl of milk, and the two laughed as Lyon fed the fire and cleaned up.

  It was a perfect night. Perfect, even though Lyon had to pick up bug wings and legs and toss them far into the snow. Her hands were grimy from cleaning and she was covered in sweat. But Lyonette was proud.

  And Mrsha was jumping around a bit too much.

  “Careful, Mrsha! Why don’t you calm down?”

  The Gnoll barely listened to Lyon. Okay, maybe she’d had a bit too much honey. Lyon could only let the Gnoll tire herself out as she kept washing dishes and cleaning up. This really was a lot of work, even if you had a Skill, which Lyonette didn’t. How had Erin done it? She’d told Lyon that she used to take care of the inn before Toren had…been created. How?

  Lyon just shook her head wearily as she went back into the common room for the last stack of dishes. She looked to see if Mrsha had finally stopped jumping, and then raised her voice in alarm.

  “Mrsha!”

  The Gnoll jumped guiltily as she pawed at a familiar chessboard sitting in a corner of the room. Lyonette ran over, good mood vanished by sudden panic.

  “Mrsha! Don’t—oh no.”

  The Gnoll leapt away as Lyon reached the chessboard. She looked down in dismay. The small Gnoll had scattered the ghostly pieces and tried to build a tower out of some of them. She fled as Lyonette anxiously reclaimed the board. In dismay, the girl stared down at the chess pieces.

  “Oh no. Erin’s game!”

  Of course Lyonette knew the chessboard was an extremely valuable magical artifact, if a relatively pointless one. And she knew Erin was an undisputed master of the game. And she knew…

  That messing up Erin’s chessboard was a very bad idea. Not least because the [Innkeeper] would go ballistic, but because whomever was on the other side of the board would probably be upset too.

  With that in mind, Lyonette frantically tried to rearrange the pieces. But she had no idea of how the game had even looked! So…she put the chess pieces back in their o
riginal places, ready for a new game.

  She knew how to do that much, at least. Chess had just been spreading in her country when she’d run away, and she’d learned a lot from watching Erin play. Mrsha peeked up onto the table while Lyonette was resetting the board, insatiably curious and only slightly guilty.

  “Stop that!”

  Lyonette swatted away a curious paw as Mrsha reached for a knight. The Gnoll gave her a hurt look, and Lyon’s heart nearly broke.

  “You little…okay, you can touch since it’s too late. But only touch! Don’t move the board, okay?”

  Eagerly, Mrsha picked up the ghostly pieces and tried to gnaw on one. Lyon had to stop her again, but truth be told she couldn’t blame the Gnoll. The chess pieces were like frozen air, the purest expression of magic. And the game…

  “See? This is how you play. Like this.”

  Lyon showed Mrsha how the pieces moved. The Gnoll stared uncomprehendingly as Lyonette moved a pawn forwards and back, and the bishop diagonally. She sniffed at the board—

  And jumped backwards off the table, hair on end as a piece on the other side of the board moved. Lyon yelped and nearly fell out of her chair. When she got back up, heart pounding, she saw a piece had moved.

  Just a pawn. It had come out diagonally to counter the pawn she’d pushed forwards. The breath caught in Lyon’s chest in horror.

  The other person. The unseen player, the one who’d sent Erin the chess board. They’d seen her moving the pieces. And they thought she was Erin.

  And they wanted to play.

  What should she do? Lyon panicked for a good minute before the choice was taken out of her hands. Having lost her fright, Mrsha peeked her head over the board and stared curiously at the two pieces on the board. Reaching the conclusion that this was some sort of game without actually understanding the nature of the game, she pushed another pawn forwards to see what would happen.