It looked enough like a kingdom. A stone wall surrounded the front of it, except a smashed-in bit on its east side, complete with battlements and ramparts. Beyond the wall, a river cut through the city, running west to east into a foggy bay. The city was cluttered. Hovels and street shops, all manner of businesses, sloped upward to a castle that stood ominously on a cliff at the northern tip of the peninsula. Tall, and foreboding, yet the castle was unremarkable in any way except its size and protuberance above the city. Still, all of it was breathtaking to, well, Epik’s breath, though that was largely due to the smell.
He had finally made it. Dune All-En—a city with architecture the exact opposite of ancient Rome, a kingdom that could rival Westeros in number of mad kings, and a place so scummy that even Corporal Nobby Nobbs of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch would leave it a one-star Yelp review. But by proximity, the kingdom was the closest anything there was to the Bog, Epik’s former home. He strode further along the cobbled and dusty road. Now, only a few miles lay between him and the city. The Bog was some good distance behind him, but he found his mind slipping back to that place.
“Humans—I tell ya, they won’t last but a few thousand years. The way they go muckin’ about. Feuding and what nots.”
“What'd’ya mean father?” Epik said. He was always going around calling people father back then, on the off chance, they were his father.
“I’m not your father, you blithering little troll. What I mean is, humans—they haven’t a lick o’ sense. See, the smartest of the lot goes around claiming some piece of land is his. Convinces a bunch o’ others that this is true. Even convinces ‘em that if they live and work on it, they have to pay some sorta pittance. Poor idiots! Only gets worse from there.
“Then the King, as he now calls himself, gets this notion that he wants some other piece of land down the way. Somehow convinces the others o’ this too. Tells ‘em it’s his by rights or what nots. Gets ‘em to fight the other group o’ idiots werkin’ for the other King. Damn fools! Most get their heads chopped clean off.”
“Clean off?”
“Clean off, lad. They’ll never take, I tell you. Be wiped each other off the planet, in the end, leaving the land to us halflings… And the elves.”
“What about the dwarves?”
Fatty Cheapskate looked at Epik, dumbfounded. Neither was his real name, but nicknames in the Bog tended to be quite literal. He was a fat old halfling with a mutton chop beard. And he didn’t pay for anything much—if he could help it. He took a swig of ale and blew a smoke ring at Epik’s face.
“Lad, have you not been listening to a word I said? All these blitherin’ idiots who go about fighting for fun, they aren’t meant for this world. Won’t last but a blink of the perennial eye, as it’s called. Take us halflings; we know how to feud the right way. Never see us goin’ about messin’ with swords or crossy bows and what nots. We fights with our words. Doesn’t matter if I don’t like the way another halfling looks or smells or thinks. I’ll give him a right talkin’ to, then he can go on thinkin’ or smellin’ or—erm— lookin’ somewhere else.”
Fatty was like most the halflings in the Bog: opinionated, grouchy, and more concerned with the affairs of others than his own. His house was in shambles, and no one liked to do business with him. He’d haggled the price of chicken eggs with old miss Hoggle to the point she was paying him a half iron penny to take each egg. And she delivered them for free. Still, Fatty would be the first to tell you if miss Hoggle delivered a speckled egg, or more intriguing, if she had the smell of farmer Tuck about her person. The folks of the Bog were in a constant state of peering over fences and hedges, of listening behind doors, and putting their large feet where they don’t belong.
The Bog itself was a sort of swampland next to a large river, called the river Sank. The land was made up mostly of peat moss and ankle deep mud. But the halflings had taken to it as most the other, and better, lands were claimed by bigger, more vicious lifeforms. Still, it wasn’t exactly the Shire. There were venomous snakes, alligators, and a half man half plant beast that lived in the lower river basin.
“Why’d ya think they do it then? The humans?” Epik asked. He was thoroughly engrossed in the notion of human beings—with any life form really, that wasn’t a halfling.
“It’s them thick skulls o’ theirs. Not much room for brains—or so I’ve been told. Take our soft Jell-O like heads, 'tis mostly made o’ brains. Wouldn’t go falling off any cliffs though.”
“What’s Jell-O?” Epik asked.
“It’s… it’s, never mind,” Fatty said. “Just an expression I’ve heard…” He paused. “From your father.”
“You knew my father?”
“Yes,” Fatty groused, “I did.”
He took another swig of ale, chugged it, and slid the mug down to Epik, throwing him two copper coins.
The lad shuffled down the bar to fill Fatty another. He handed Fatty his ale; it frothed and foamed over the sides of the mug.
“What was he like?” Epik asked excitedly.
Epik’s mother had always been tightlipped about his father, barely suggesting he existed at all. He knew his father had left them when Epik was toddling around, about three-years-old.
“He wasn’t like anythin’,” Fatty said. “He was one o’ those I didn’t like too much. Didn’t like his thinkin’ or smellin’ or lookin’. Had this long ole nose and was a bit skinny for a halfling. But if I’m honest you’s all too skinny in my mind. Anyway, he was always talkin’ bout fortunes like he had one. Or magic like it was real. Ya know, it’s one thing whatcha do in yer home, but bringin’ tha’ nonsense in the pub for all to hear. I couldn’t stand it.”
“Magic?” Epik asked. He tried to hide the excitement in his voice. Wizards, kings, and knights were a whole sect of humans that fascinated Epik the most. While the latter was due to children’s stories, books he’d found lying around the house, books his mother claimed she’d never seen before Epik found them. The former, wizards, had a particular reason behind it.
Throughout his twenty-two years of existence, Epik had been visited by a wizard three times. The first was on his fifth birthday. His mother, lost in gossip with the other mothers, didn’t notice that the other children weren’t including Epik in any of their games. At first, he’d thought he must be good at this hide-and-seek game. After an hour of hiding and not being found, he moved from the good hiding spot in his mother’s bedroom, behind the door, to a place out in the open, standing just beside the china cabinet. Still, the children’s eyes still seemed to glance off him as if he wasn’t there at all.
Tired of this, Epik walked out of the house. There behind it a wizard stood in his mother’s garden getting sprinkled by a drizzling rain. He had trouble remembering the wizard's face. Even the man’s cloak was a mystery, was it purple, blue, or gray? What he did remember was the man’s smile. It was a good smile, hiding behind a beard of sorts, with teeth in their proper place, white and gleaming. The wizard put a hand out to stop the little halfling from coming further. Then he drew a firework from inside his billowing cloak, lit it with the tip of a wand, and sent the firework off flying into the air. It burst silently into sparkling greens and red. Epik, of course, had seen fireworks of this variety at the Bog’s semi bi-annual, when the gypsies decide to come, town fair. His lack of impression set a frown on the wizard’s face. The wizard changed tact. He took off his hat and dug inside it, drawing out a white furred rabbit with beady little red eyes. Again Epik wasn’t impressed; there were halfling magicians that could do sorts of illusions like that, usually at birthday parties like this one. The wizard frowned then set the rabbit down on the grass. From that day forward there has always been a white rabbit scurrying around the back garden. Finally, the wizard drew out his wand a second time. He pointed it to a tree, muttered something, and set it blazing. This Epik approved. He smiled cheerily and ran inside, telling the other children what he’d just seen. When they returned, there was nothing—not even a slight s
corch mark of a leaf. And no sign of a man.
Fatty’s face grew weary. “Don’t like talkin’ much bout magic,” he said.
Now it was Epik’s turn to look glum. He took Fatty’s half full mug of ale, and before the old halfling had time to protest had run it down the sink. Fatty groaned. He began to cry foul but only managed a slight croak.
“Yer father,” he said. “He just talked about it all matter-of fact like and what nots. Like magic wasn’t the mystery we knows it is. Now lad, could you get me another?”
It wasn’t Epik’s job, to fill and refill drinks, but it was his first day, and he didn’t know that. He served as the dishwasher for eight more years after that day, saving for his trip to Dune All-En.
Most patrons of the Hog's Toot Saloon preferred him to the barman, Frank Biggle. And most of them at least threw a silver dollar for a refill, leaving him a copper shilling as a tip, but Fatty Cheapskate was, well, cheap.
It was Epik’s third encounter with a wizard that led to him getting the job in the first place. He was just coming down the lane from the bar himself, back home after a night of pipe smoking and ale drinking. Not with friends, mind, he didn’t have many of those. But having just come of age, he liked to get out of the house, if only to get away from his mum.
The night was dark, and the moon was but a sliver in the sky above. He met a man on a cart heading the other direction. Being friendly and drunk, he waved a hello. The traveler stopped his horse, who came face to knee with Epik. The horse bent its head down to give the halfling a better look.
“Good evening lad,” the man said. Epik never knew if it was the lack of light or his drunkenness but he couldn’t make out the man’s face. Perhaps it was the man’s beard—they often have a way of obscuring a face.
“Evening sir,” Epik said hazily. “Mighty fine um horse you have.”
The wizard chuckled. “Sometimes he’s a horse. Other times other things, but yes, he’s suitable.”
“What is he other times?”
Epik patted the horse down its long chin. The beast turned into a lion mid stroke. Epik pulled away, jerking his hand back from the lion’s course mane; it made no attempt to roar or snap at him. Then it was a horse again.
“A little over dramatic,” the wizard said to himself. “But I think you get the gist.”
“You’re a wizard?” Epik coughed.
“There it is,” the wizard said. “Tell me, is that your house just up the way here?”
“Yes,” Epik said. He could hardly swallow.
“Thought so,” said the wizard. “A while back, I believe I left a rabbit on the lawn. I trust she’s doing well? Well fed?”
“Oh yes,” Epik said. “I mean, me mum’s tried to get rid of it several times. And I thought for sure a snake would get her one day. But I saw her not three days ago, eating our potatoes.”
“Excellent!” the wizard said. Epik thought he heard the wizard smile. There was definitely a creaking of the lips.
“Can I ask,” Epik said with some trepidation, “why you were there that day? Am I to be a famous wizard some day or something?”
“That,” said the wizard, “is what I’m here to find out.”
It was hard for Epik to make out in the dim light, but he was sure the wizard drew out his wand. “Tell me,” the wizard said, “do you feel that?”
Epik wasn’t sure. He thought he felt something stir in the back of his mind just out of reach. “Yes, I think so,” he said without thinking.
“Ah, of course, you’d say that, wouldn’t you? I guess I deserve it. Tell me, what is it that you feel?”
“Magic?” Epik said.
The wizard sighed. “No,” he said, “I don’t think that’s right.”
Epik heard the doubt in the wizard’s voice. “I did—I did feel something. What—what was I supposed to say?” The wizard said nothing. Finally, Epik asked, “What is magic? How do you feel it?”
“Well,” the wizard started. “It’s kind of like the force,” and before Epik had the chance to question it, the wizard said, “it surrounds us; it penetrates us. And I’m sorry, but I don’t think it’s found an ally in you. I forget how you halflings work—takes forever for you to mature into adulthood.”
“But I’m of age,” Epik said. “Twenty-two.”
“Tell you what,” the wizard said plainly. “If you ever do feel something, you can find me in Dune All-En. Until then…”
Dune All-En, Epik remembered the wizard saying. But after that, there was only the darkness of stumbling home. He couldn’t remember the cart leaving or the wizard disappearing. Nothing. He barely remembered the encounter at all.
The next morning he took a job at the saloon, with only the thought of leaving the Bog in his mind. But like many hometowns, it had a hold on him, bogging him down for years. Every time he was ready to go, something would force him to stay.
He listened to Fatty drone on about humans and other things the man knew nothing about on a nightly basis for the next eight years. Some nights Epik made a point to ask about his father. And when he did Fatty would get sullen and finish his ale to walk home. Epik’s last day at the bar was one of those nights. He tried to get the old man to open up.
“Did he live in the Bog all his life?” Epik asked.
“No,” Fatty said, eyeing behind the bar for Frank Biggle. He’d take Biggle’s asinine banter to this. “Just about three years. No one knew where he'd come from, just showed up one day. Your mum—all o’ ‘em—were smitten. Just like lassies too, they likes when things are shiny and new and what nots."
Fatty stopped to think. "Stayed right up into you was a wee lad, he did. Then took off without sayin’ a word.”
“I don’t remember him,” Epik said. He took Fatty’s mug and cleaned the side of it with a rag, thinking. “Well, that’s not true. I think I do remember his voice.”
“And a right nasty one it was too,” Fatty said.
Epik smiled at the curmudgeon. A burning feeling built up in his chest. He’d been waiting his whole life to ask something like this. “You think maybe he became a wizard?”
Fatty stared at him blankly then laughed to a point it seemed his mutton chop beard might fall off. Then he laughed some more. Epik went home that night with a fire inside his stomach. His blood pulsed through his neck and chest. Air hissed out of his nose as he took long and deep breaths.
He didn’t remember packing his things. He didn’t remember following the river to the Road in the middle of the night. Sometime that morning, he’d come out of that state, finding the main road ahead him: the road to Dune All-En.
Now, his mind skipped over the memories and over details he'd gathered about the city. He wondered whether he could find the wizard—or his father.
The gate loomed on the horizon. A right proper city, he thought, with whore houses, beggars, and street food—a pub on every corner. And magic. Real magic.
Epik’s new home.
Big and Little Women
“What is it, ya say we do here?”
“I already told ya, we watch the gate.”
Sergeant Todder’s eyes burned with sweat. They stung, and he wanted to douse them in a cold bucket of water.
Instead, he wiped them with one forearm and then the other.
The afternoon sun, so high and proud, radiated above him. His eyelids felt heavy, and his mind was as hazy as a wispy cloud.
“I know what you said,” Brendan said. “But we haven’t really done anything. Just sit here.”
Brendan was a new recruit. An eager one.
That morning, the sergeant had opened the city gate, letting in the handful of farmers and merchants already gathered there. Throughout the day, more travelers had passed, and just after lunch time, he’d seen most of his morning commuters scurry back to their farms with empty carts and satisfied grins.
Brendan had scuttled up to the gate just now, talking some nonsense about orders.
“I already told ya,” Todder said. “We watc
h for suspicious travelers. Or armies lined up on the road. If we see an army, we ring that bell.”
“And then what happens?”
“I dunno, we just ring it.”
Todder blinked for a long time; it almost felt like sleeping. He rocked his chair back against the stone wall, gently, ensuring the back legs caught the sandy ground. If the lad wasn’t here, he could sleep.
Todder had volunteered for the City Watch over twenty years before—right after he’d taken that horse out for a joyride. Right after he’d learned it belonged to some promising squire that liked lances so much he was named for them. Right after he was told, it was the city’s gate or its dungeons.
“You know,” Todder said. “They’ve never sent anyone here before.”
“Right,” Brendan said. “They said something about you getting on in age. No offense.”
The boy kicked the dusty ground along the road, unable to stay still. “I have another question,” he said.
“Of course you do.”
“What if the suspicious travelers just use the bit of wall down there that’s crumpled in?”
“Then all the better,” Todder said.
“That’s where the king stormed in,” Brendan said. “Did you fight?”
“It was night watch and the army,” Todder said. “We’re day watch.”
A tiny dot appeared on the road ahead, and through squinted eyes, Todder watched it grow larger, but only just.
Twenty years, he thought. Not much had changed. Sure, the Kingdom had seen two kings in that time. And the overcrowding had gotten to a point it was comical. The price of a decent pint of ale had doubled. But the same reflection greeted him in the mirror each morning—that dusty and broken, fogged as if he’d just taken a hot bath, mirror. The sergeant hadn’t taken a hot bath, nor any bath in a long while, though he did like to nip out and take a dip in the Bay every now and again.
The reflection, of course, had changed, but only slightly. It had gotten wider. The ears that reflected perfectly, next to that jagged piece cut out of the middle, had gotten larger. The bags under his eyes, beneath the misty streak in the mirror’s center, had gotten darker. And the mole on his cheek, which he’d always thought was a large clump of dirt on the mirror itself, was now big enough to give even the most seasoned of dermatologist the heebie-jeebies.
Fog Lifted: An Epik Fantasy Short (The Great Ranger Book 1) Page 5
