At Least He's Not On Fire: A Tour of the Things That Escape My Head

by Philbrook, Chris

  Malwynn smiled and dug through his coin purse. He had a mere forty Marks in the coins minted in Daris left. Spending the money here on the tickets north would leave them nearly broke when they arrived in Graben. The look on Malwynn and Umaryn’s faces must’ve tipped the man behind the window off.

  “Is there a problem?” He asked politely.

  Malwynn sighed in frustration and met the man’s gaze. An urge of desperation struck him, and he gave deceit a chance, “We’ve got precious little coin left. Our family died in a fire this week, and we’re headed north to find family in the Empire. We’ve only got what was left on our persons right now. We lost everything in the fire.”

  Umaryn looked to the floor, appearing to fake emotional turbulence. Malwynn saw she was trying to stifle a grin.

  “That’s terrible. It’s made worse that you need to head to Graben as a way to better your lot in life. I’m told it’s quite a terrible place, all in all. Are you sure you want to head north? You might be best served by heading south to central Varrland.”

  Malwynn nodded solemnly, “We couldn’t agree more, but we need to be with our family.”

  The man behind the counter nodded. For the first time Malwynn saw he was wearing the steel gray robes of the Artificer Guild. He hadn’t the red trim though, so Malwynn knew he couldn’t use The Way. “Well, I could offer you discounted passage if you’re willing to do a little work for me.”

  The twins perked up, and Umaryn followed the prompt, “What kind of work?”

  The man smiled in a way that told them they wouldn’t like what he was about to say, “The ground near the hitching posts needs to be raked and shoveled free of horse droppings. Also, the gutters along the roof on both sides of the station here are full of oak leaves. I haven’t gotten to cleaning them out all summer, and I’m certain when my superiors come through to inspect the station I’ll be in trouble for certain.”

  Neither were fazed by the requests. Their mother and father had asked them to do worse on a daily basis. Malwynn kept poised, and pressed on, “How much can you discount the passage?”

  The man with the thinning gray hair mulled an offer over, “I can discount your fares from 13 Marks down to 8 each. That’d be just 26 Marks for you and your sister, plus your horses.”

  Malwynn felt that was a decent deal, but pushed for more, “Tell you what. How about we rake and shovel the hitching posts, clean all your gutters, and on the way up to Graben, we ride with our animals, and clean out that freight car as we ride?”

  “Oh that’d be quite helpful,” the man remarked.

  “I’d say for all that you charge us 5 Marks each, and let our animals ride for free. After all, we aren’t going to be taking up a seat for a full paying customer, and we’d be leaving the train better than when we got on it.”

  “You drive a hard bargain young man,” he replied with a wise smile.

  “My father always said guard your coin. He’s gone now, but his advice still stands.”

  The man agreed, taking note of the mention of the father, “Deal. I’ll get your tickets, a shovel and rake, and a ladder for you both if you want to start cleaning out the hitching post area.”

  “I’ve also a question sir,” Umaryn asked quickly.

  “Yes?” The man replied.

  “Does Ockham’s Fringe have a tanner? I’ve got a hide I need worked into usable leather and was hoping to find a tanner here to do the work for me.”

  “Oh yes, of course. I can recommend you to an acquaintance of mine. We crafters tend to stick together, you know,” The man said with a smile.

  The two reached into the window to shake his hand, and turned to head outside. Umaryn waited until they were outside the oaken double doors before leaning in to whisper to her brother, “I didn’t know lying came to you so easily.”

  “Neither did I,” Malwynn said, ignoring her accusation.

  “Did father actually tell you to guard your coin?” She prodded.

  “No. But it sounded like something he would’ve said.”

  Umaryn stopped, and her face turned sour, “You shouldn’t do that Mal. You shouldn’t put words in mom or dad’s mouth like that. You can’t make your lie more believable by using them. I don’t think they’d approve of you using them to lie. It doesn’t seem right to me.”

  Malwynn stopped, his tempter flaring. He had just saved them almost the entirety of their remaining fortune, such as it was, and his sister questioning him in this way was infuriating. He turned to her, ready to rip into her, but when he saw the hurt in her eyes, and on her face, his anger melted away. He thought of his mother, caring, loving, and honest to a fault. He delved into memories of his father, inquisitive, trustworthy, and reliable to a fault. The error of his ways was abruptly clear to him.

  “I’m sorry Umaryn. Never again.” He vowed.

  “Thank you,” Umaryn said back softly, and the two wrapped each other up in an embrace that only the grieving can understand.

  - Chapter Four -

  CONVERSATIONS

  It took far more out of them to rake, shovel, and clean the gutters than either Umaryn or Malwynn realized it would. Their hands covered in redness and growing blisters from the rake and shovel handles, and both their backs sore from standing awkwardly at the top of the rail station’s ladder, they headed to the town’s twelve foot high gate in the twilight of the day.

  Ockham’s Fringe was a large enough town to have its own militia force. At the gate were two men wearing a variant uniform of the typical red and white national Varrlander forces, holding spears held high, and wearing short swords on their hips. They were well equipped for a militia in such a small town. All militias in Varrland were by extension members of the national force, but small Ockham’s Fringe would very likely never be called on to support anywhere else. It was a virtual certainty if there was war anywhere in Varrland, it would start right at this tall wooden gate, with these spear wielding militia men being the first to fall, or the first to draw Empire blood.

  The guards let them pass with no questions. The twins looked physically exhausted, and the guards had watched them at a distance do all the work at the Artificer station. One guard rapped on the thick iron-bound wood of the door, and another guard peered over the top. They exchanged a few words, and the door swung open to let the brother and sister pass. Umaryn, exhausted as she was, still must have looked pretty to the men, for both of them had their eyes on her until the gate closed behind them. Malwynn had forgotten that his sister was actually quite pretty, even when covered in smudges of grime, and favoring a score of sore muscles.

  Malwynn slowed Bramwell down to ask a question of the two guards inside the gate, “Is there a decent inn we could get a room at sir? We’ve need of two beds, a bath, and a hot meal if it’s to be had here.”

  The guards regarded them with skepticism. Strangers were always a source of ill across Elmoryn. It was a dangerous enough place to live when surrounded by people you knew and trusted. Strangers added a whole new dimension. Sickness, aggression, and bad business were always on the heels of new faces. The guards choked down their disdain however, and sent the two tired siblings down a cobblestone main street in search of Howard’s Inn and Brewery. Home of the “border’s best ale.”

  The hoped it had the “border’s best beds,” more than anything. After dropping the Plains Walker’s hide off at the town’s tanner, and agreeing to split the hide as payment, they made their way to where they’d sleep that night.

  The inn keeper was also the bartender at the tavern. He happened in fact to be the Howard the establishment was named after, and showed no signs of the disdain the guards had. He was also in fact quite happy to have them in his business, and seemed even more excited to take their Marks off their hands for their needs. Malwynn and Umaryn left Bramwell and Tinder to Howard’s oldest son, and headed inside. The young boy headed off, leading the two animals into the small stable behind the tavern.

  “I’ve just the room for you two. A family suite, th
e only one in the whole house. It’s upstairs, at the end of the hall. There’s two small beds separated by a curtain, as well as a bathtub. I’ll have my sons start on the pump immediately. We’ll get it filled with hot water from the boiler immediately for you. After you both bathe, you come right back down for some rabbit stew, and a stein of my newest ale.” Howard was a thick man, with a bulbous belly he’d grown from testing and sampling too much of his own ale. He had ruddy red cheeks and specks of redness all about the tip of his nose. He said all his words with a pipe hanging out one corner of his mouth, and the five customers in the tavern listening intently. He was putting on a show of good service for them. The two headed upstairs after leaving the man six Marks and the remaining slab of Plains Walker steak for everything, dragging their feet the whole way.

  Both brother and sister felt rejuvenated after their bath. It was a rare luxury to stay at an inn that had a boiler in the basement, let alone a boiler with connected water pump that could feed fresh hot water straight to a second floor bathtub. Howard’s wasn’t quite as luxurious as the expensive hotels their mother and father told them about in places like Eden Valley and Farmington, but it certainly was far more than they expected. They washed their clothes in the tub as well as their bodies, rinsing off the fine layer of dust and ash they’d carried with them from New Picknell.

  The two wore the only spare clothing they had back down to the tavern to eat that night. Umaryn wore a nightgown that hung on her frame a little loose, and draped low. Malwynn wore loose cotton pants and a sleeveless cotton shirt. They wore their bedclothes, and didn’t give a care who thought anything of it.

  Fortunately Howard’s clientele were not judgmental, in light of Umaryn’s cleavage and especially after a large mug of the homebrew. The twins sat themselves at the long, beaten wooden bar and Howard immediately brought them two handmade wooden bowls filled with rabbit stew. The dark bowls filled with hearty stew were emptied twice as fast as the two mugs of ale brought over right after. Everything was delicious, even Howard’s brew. Sweet carrots, hearty potatoes, celery still slightly crisp in the broth, and the delicate chunks of rabbit meat were all seasoned delicately, and filled their bellies in a way the Plains Walker meat could not. Their hunger sated, and their minds and moods loosened by the alcohol in the ale, the two grew the courage to ask questions of Howard, and his customers.

  “How long have the Amaranth forces been… uh, you know, been coming over the border here Howie?” Mal asked, struggling to get his words closest to the meaning he’d imagined in his head. He hadn’t been drunk in some time.

  Howard rubbed his belly and tossed a hand towel over his shoulder, “Well that’s been happening for longer than I can recall. The Purple Queens have been sending people over the border since my grandfather was a child, and probably longer than that.”

  “Wunder why?” Umaryn asked, slurring slightly.

  “Power, plain and simple. More territory means more wealth. More territory means more folks to do her bidding. This Queen is no different than her mother, and her mother before that. The throne corrupts every daughter who sits in it, pure and simple. You know the old saying about people being cut from the same cloth eh? Well it fits that bloodline perfectly. They are all stamped out of a mold, and as soulless as anything made in that fashion.”

  “Here here!” Umaryn agreed. To say something or someone was made out of a mold was a powerful insult, especially around the ears of an artificer, or those able to hear the spirits within the things created by hand. Items made of molds, or made in bulk were stillborn of spirit life.

  “Any forces cometh through here… lately?” Malwynn asked, his tongue feeling far too fat in his mouth to be saying so many words.

  A fairly sober patron from a table nearby answered his question, “Son they aren’t dumb enough to ride through Ockham’s Fringe in a full patrol. They know we’d either ride out to turn them back, or we’d send a message to Daris to summon forces to meet them. I suppose they could put a small army into a few freight trains though, if they found Artificers willing to take the bribe.”

  The twins turned and digested what he said. They were hoping for the gem of insight that someone had seen the patrol, but judging by the amount of people in agreement with the customer who’d just spoken, that was unlikely.

  Another man added to the conversation, “Sometimes on the trains you’ll see Amaranth people. You can always tell it’s them too. They wear those damn purple robes arrogant as all get out. Once, I even saw one of the sonofabitches with two walking dead on leashes, like pets. Turned my stomach so fast I lost my breakfast. He laughed at me he did. I could’ve struck him down out of anger and ten men would’ve helped me burn his body, but I couldn’t be sure he wasn’t thick with The Way. A necromancer.”

  “Any of those purple robed riders of late?” Umaryn asked the man. She seemed suddenly more sober.

  “Of course. There are always emissaries heading back and forth between Graben and other places all over Elmoryn. Daris is a hub city ya know. You can get to almost anywhere from there, and there’s just the one rail line running into the Empire. I wish we could just pay the damn Artificer’s Guild to rip up those train tracks once and for all and cut that bitch and her crazies off from the rest of the world.”

  The chorus of agreement was powerful, and drowned out any chance of a quick follow up question by either brother or sister.

  Another patron spoke up, this time a middle aged woman from behind the counter, perhaps Howard’s wife, “That just won’t work though Carver, and you know it. Not only will Ockham’s Fringe dry up like a grape in the sun, but the Artificers won’t let a single rail line be harmed. It’s their duty, and their belief that those rails are sacred. They pre-date The Fall. They’re a symbol of all our pasts, Empire and otherwise.”

  This time the reaction was more hushed.

  “Sometimes we need to forget the past to move on darling. Even if it’s painful to do it,” Howard said quietly.

  Malwynn and Umaryn looked at one another, and let the innkeep’s words resound in the silence between them.

  Umaryn fell asleep before Malwynn did once again. He envied her ability to shut her mind off so fast at night. Even as small children she could close her eyes and be dreaming in half the time it took him. His mind simply refused to shut off at night. He could hear the tavern slowing down its pace through the floor of their room, and an idea struck him. He could accomplish something quickly, and easily, and then return to try and sleep again.

  Mal let himself out of the bedroom quietly, carrying his change purse and what was left inside it for money. It wasn’t much, but it was everything they had left. He and his sister’s entire accumulated wealth. He hoped it’d be enough for him and sister to accomplish what they needed to do.

  When he reached the bottom of the stairs and entered the single roomed tavern filled with wooden beams, the only person left was Howard, still cleaning off tables. He carried a wooden tray filled with clay mugs over to the bar and saw Mal out of the corner of his eye.

  “Oy, Mal. Need another drink to get your dreams kick started?” Howard asked.

  Mal smiled, “No, I came down to ask a favor of you.”

  Howard sat another full tray of mugs on the bar counter as his wife carried the first away to the back room of the bar to be washed. Left alone again, Malwynn walked over to the bar, and emptied the coin purse’s contents. He slid the coins with deft but sore fingers into their values, and quickly counted what his entire worth was.

  “I’ve got eighteen and a half Marks left in my pocket Howard,” Malwynn said, looking at the map with very serious eyes.

  “A good amount of coin for the average man, well done son. Your father’s proud, I’m sure.”

  Mal fought off the surge of emotion at the mention of his father. He took a deep breath, and continued, “Do you have Crowns here?”

  Howard let loose a short laugh, “Crowns? Yeah I’ve got some. You want Crowns? They’re almost worthless
you know? You can spend them here, and in the Empire, and that’s it. I mean I’ve heard some places honor their value, but that’s few and far between.”

  Malwynn nodded, knowing the truth in Howard’s words.

  “Wait a second. Which direction is that train going you’re headed out on tomorrow? What are you and your sister planning?” Howard asked, suddenly serious, and worried for the young people in his care, even if only for the night.

  Malwynn pushed the coins toward Howard as his response, “Eighteen and a half Marks Howard. Can you give me Crowns for this?”

  “The Empire will chew you two up and spit you out, you know? It’s the place where dreams go to die. You should get on that southbound train in the morning and forget about all this.” Howard stared at Malwynn with cold eyes. Mal saw some kind of sadness in Howard’s eyes, and had to look away.

  “Howard, we need Crowns please. If you can’t do it, I understand, but our path is already laid for my sister and I.” Malwynn summoned the strength to look the old man in the eye again.

  Howard looked very unhappy with that reply, but turned and reached under the counter, rummaging a bit before finding a small wooden box. He opened the thin lid and then dumped out the contents. Dozens of metallic coins with a purple sheen spilled out. He started to count them out, but stopped abruptly.

  “Just take them all. You’re going to need them where you’re going.”

  “Thank you Howard. My sister and I will remember you. One day I’ll settle this debt, you’ve my word,” Malwynn extended his hand and Howard took it.

  “You own me nothing. Take care of yourself Malwynn, and your sister.”

  Malwynn let go of Howard’s hand, and filled his empty coin bag with the tainted purple coins of the tainted Purple Queen.

  “The tanner says the hide will be ready in a week for me to work. I think I’ll make it into some kind of studded leather, but nicer than this Amaranth armor we have. That stuff is decent, but I think I can make better,” Umaryn said as the twins rode out the gate towards the Artificer rail station. Both were wrapped from head to hip in blankets they bought from Howard. In truth Howard let them have the blankets when Umaryn asked for them, but Malwynn left two Crowns on the table in the room they’d rented as remittance. He already felt in debt enough to the man.