By Moonlight Wrought (Bt Moonlight Wrought)

by Crandall, John

  Selric lifted his head from between Lady Andrelin’s generous endowments when he heard the gate open. “The game seems to have ended prematurely, m’lady,” he said.

  “But ours hasn’t,” she said, pulling Selric’s face down and kissing him openly and wildly. Selric obliged her quickly as she moaned loudly, the bed rocking. The gate closed, just as Lady Andrelin and Selric did. He kissed her to keep her quiet as they slid over each other’s slick bodies in the night heat.

  Selric knew that Lord Andrelin was aware of his wife’s attraction to Selric, and vice-versa, since he never failed to angrily mention it to Selric’s father at every social function. Selric also knew that Lady Andrelin attempted to be caught with Selric each time; but he knew when to come and when to go. He watched out the open window as he pulled on his pants and boots, threw his sword over his back, and stuffed his shirt loosely inside his pants. Lady Andrelin was touching him all over, hindering his escape, but he had no need to get rough and he let her play her games. Selric still had one ally; his old friend Princess.

  The wagon was parked below the window, the driver looking up toward it and Selric. Selric ducked back into the shadows, still unseen. Lord Andrelin walked towards the doors below. “You stupid bitch. Are you blind?” he asked Princess as she sat dumbly watching her master. He kicked her and she growled as Selric climbed up into the window expectantly. He turned and kissed the Lady farewell once more as she clung feebly to him.

  Princess grabbed Lord Andrelin by the pant leg, refusing to let him enter his own abode: she would let him do just about anything, but she would not let him kick her. “Get this dog off of me,” he screamed. When the driver went to help his lord, Selric hung from the sill and dropped to the one below, and from there onto the padded driver’s bench of the coach. The driver turned when he heard the noise, but saw nothing: Selric had already slipped around the corner. “Not you, idiot. You watch that damn window,” the lord yelled at his driver. “You get out here,” he said to the footmen inside.

  By the time Lord Andrelin reached his room, the Lady had brushed her hair, fixed her face paints, and removed her garments. She pulled down the covers to reveal, this time, her voluptuous naked form. Lord Andrelin searched the room, then finding nothing, obliged his wife. He may have been angry, but she was still one of the most beautiful of the noble matrons in the city. It was he whom she really loved, and with her exciting and secret affair over, she could now make love to her husband. If her fling with Selric was indeed true, it mattered little to the lord there in their bed: she was still his wife.

  Dirk had been preoccupied all week; thoughts of Cinder, Melissa, his job, his plans, adventuring, Jenderson, even Fiona all bothered him. Before he realized, it had been another four days since he had seen Cinder, or even Melissa, diligence in doing his job to his best ability kept him busy. But Melissa, unlike Cinder, did not get angry or worried if he failed to visit at regular intervals.

  Dirk sometimes wondered if the only reason he wanted to see Cinder was for the sex. But soon after such thoughts entered his head he would realize there was more to his desire to be with her than purely the physical. Like a beautiful park, or fancy inn, where people liked to go just for the atmosphere, Dirk liked to be with her. She was sophisticated, enjoyable company, beautiful, and she liked him.

  Melissa was quiet and uncomplicated of personality. Dirk was more comfortable with her, able with Melissa to simply be himself, knowing that he never needed to impress her. Melissa did not force him to do anything or to be a certain way. Cinder needed to be happy, to be pleased and entertained, or so Dirk imagined for she had never claimed as much. Melissa was content with what they decided to do each visit, whatever that might be. Dirk preferred neither of them, and loved both.

  With such complications troubling his mind Dirk came down to the ground floor of Bessemer’s, trying to decide what he was going to do, and with whom, that night. And then there was his almost constant search for the troublesome creature filching items from the store, or sometimes just moving them around to be a nuisance. Dirk wasn’t sure what it was: a boggart, a brownie, a boggle, a sprite and wasn’t sure he even knew the difference. On a few occasions, usually at night, Dirk spied something, just out of the corner of his vision, small and man-like, which quickly darted around the nearest corner and when Dirk gave chase found the critter had disappeared. Sometimes Dirk would spend long boring hours chasing knocking sounds when he knew the spirit, or spirits, was simply leading him on fruitless searches.

  While searching, for lack of anything more concrete to do while making his security sweep, Dirk saw a man, taller even than he, looking this way then that. He was powerfully built, not like Dirk but in a desperate, rough way, his bones lean, but muscles well toned and healthy; like a storm waiting to break. Dirk stuffed the last two bites of his left-over-from-yesterday sausage wedged into a slice of coarse bread into his mouth and drained his mug of ale that he had filled from a keg in his room. He stalked down the next aisle to come up behind the scrubby miscreant. Dirk mistakenly had not noticed if the man was armed. But it was Andrelia and almost every male citizen carried some form of lethal protection, except where restricted, such as the most expensive taverns, many temples and government buildings.

  Moving as quietly as he could, Dirk turned the corner but was there surprised by the unshaven face of the stranger glaring back at him, mere inches away. Dirk was dumbfounded. “Can...can, I help you?” he stuttered, stepping back. The stranger’s bright green eyes softened and he smiled as if he knew Dirk’s plan.

  “Yes. Yes you can,” he said. “I’m looking for arms.”

  “Don’t you have two?” Dirk mused, unintentionally trying his sense of humor, or more accurately, Fiona’s. He realized then that it did not work for him as well as for the spry young bodyguard. Dirk’s laughter died when the man turned away. But Dirk thought that he had caught the glint of a smile on his face, or maybe it was a sneer. Dirk wasn’t sure.

  The stranger walked to the weapons section. Dirk wondered how this man knew where the weapons were, and if that was what he wanted why was he not there already. The stranger picked up a large sword much like Dirk’s, from the rack bearing blades of all makes and sizes and pointed it at him. Dirk felt naked; vulnerable. “Will he run me through?” he wondered. “I’d never get my sword out in time.”

  “How did you know where the weapons section was?” Dirk asked, hoping that talking would hide his apprehension.

  “I’ve been here before.”

  “I would’ve remembered you,” he said. Dirk could not guess the man’s age. He appeared to be perhaps forty years of age, but Dirk wasn’t sure. Young and old, both, it seemed, his build that of a young man, but the weathering of his whole countenance that of an old one.

  “It’s not nice to doubt a customer. Especially one with gold,” the man said calmly, jingling a pouch full of coins.

  “You’re right. I’m sorry. But it is my job,” Dirk tried to explain. Dirk believed that his instincts about people were usually right: if this man meant him harm, Dirk would feel it. Anyone who looked so harsh should have made him feel more on edge. The stranger did not. There was some dark charisma there. Maybe it was his enchanting eyes, or maybe because that under that scrubby growth of a beard there was a handsome face. There were no scars and no permanent sneer that Dirk felt some evil-doer would bear, just the look of a hard life and a long road of sad memories.

  “No harm done,” the stranger said. “Now how about these weapons?” he asked, turning and picking another.

  They spent some time going through the selection together. The stranger seemed skilled in many as he moved with them, turning them all about, testing their balance and weight. Dirk was jealous; he could barely master one weapon. He half-imagined this man as an heir to a lost kingdom, or a hero of the Wild. Dirk thought the man might be special in some way, but in all likelihood it was just Dirk’s imagination making more of him than was true.

  “What do you need
these for?” Dirk asked, pausing. “I mean, so I know how to help you. Are you going into the Wild? Are you a guard?”

  “No, neither. Enough of the Wild for me. How about you?” he asked, testing the tip of a small knife on the end of his finger for balance, the blade standing upright upon his fingertip.

  “Oh yeah! I’d like to,” Dirk said eagerly. “It would be grand.” He took out his sword and swung it. The stranger chuckled.

  “You certainly have a big enough sword and arm for the Wild,” he said. “Trolls will flee at the sight of you.” Dirk shuddered at the thought of trolls. “Oh trolls? You know that ages-old saying: The bigger they are, the harder they fall?”

  “Yes?” Dirk asked attentively.

  “It isn’t true. It should say: the harder they are to fell.”

  “Yeah, I believe it,” Dirk said, nodding, a bit of fear coming to him, though his trip to the Wild, if it ever came, was still far enough off that he needn’t worry.

  “Dirk, there is nothing grand about adventures in the Wild. The Wild is a lonely place. There are many things more grand,” he said as if lecturing a child.

  “Like what?” asked Dirk skeptically.

  “Hearth and home, boy.” He paused as he looked at the small sword he was then holding as if remembering. “Hearth and home,” he murmured.

  “Now you sound like a friend of mine.”

  “How’s that?”

  “Oh, she wants to get married. Hearth and home, you know,” Dirk said nonchalantly.

  “There are worse things than marriage,” the stranger said with a hungry grin.

  “Like what?” Dirk asked.

  “Loneliness. Having no home.”

  “You could stay here,” Dirk blurted then realized that he must have really sounded stupid and immature. He didn’t know what it was that drew him to the stranger. Perhaps, he thought, that since meeting Cinder and Melissa and feeling so close to them for no reason, that it was the same with this man. “I mean, if you have nowhere else to stay. I could offer you a job.”

  “Oh, I have somewhere. But thank you. Now, I think, I’d better be going.”

  “Well,” said Dirk, feeling embarrassed at his own forwardness and afraid he had chased the man off. “If you need anything else, I can get it for you with my discount.”

  “That’s kind of you,” the man said as he studied him. It made Dirk uncomfortable. “How did you remain this way?” he asked cryptically.

  “Eh?” Dirk asked in confusion.

  “Innocent…friendly,” the man said, his face expressionless. Dirk scowled, being called innocent equal to being labeled weak in his mind. “I will probably be back to see you. Take care and be wary, Dirk.”

  “How do you know my name?” Dirk asked, now having heard it twice.

  “I asked before I saw you,” he said with a laugh. “You’re skeptical. That’s good. Perhaps she was right after all.”

  “Right? Who?” Dirk asked.

  “Oh no one you know. An old friend of mine. I think she went off as a priestess to some monastery far to the north.”

  “Then how does she know me? What is she right about?”

  “So many questions!” the man said with a light laugh.

  “Well, at least, what is your name?”

  “It’s really not that important; names and such.”

  “Well let’s pick your weapons and...” Dirk said, looking briefly at the weapon racks. When he turned, the man was gone. Dirk ran to the door: the desk girl was sitting there as usual. “Janet, did a tall guy come by here?” he asked excitedly.

  “Gee, no Dirk. Nobody’s come by here in ten minutes,” she said. “Hey, would you like to go...” Dirk did not hear her, as he ran off to try and find the mysterious stranger, but there was no trace of him.

  Selric was dressed and ready to go when Andria came back from the bath. “Oh, don’t go, Selric, not yet. One more time. Please, please. I’ll be real nice, let me show you.” Selric knew her behavior was peculiar, but he undressed again anyway. He thought her friendliness was an effort to get him to return to her more often, and to forgive her. He hadn’t seen Andria in well over two years: since before leaving overseas. She had caused a great deal of trouble by claiming, publicly, that she carried Selric’s child, thought such was physically impossible.

  Selric and his brother were, through the use of magic, unable to produce children, in order to prevent just such an instance. When married and ready to further their line, their vitality would be restored via the same magical process, but reversed of course. Though it was impossible for Andria to be pregnant with Selric’s child, gossip ran rampant and the Stormweather name was temporarily slandered. But the disgrace lasted only until another family had their own travesty, which was not, as was usual, any longer than a week. Nonetheless, Selric’s father and grandfather were irate and this was one of the incidents which led to Selric’s internship in navigation. But when Selric saw Andria that day, her past crime seemed just a hazy dream for she had always been a warm and passionate lover. How could he blame her for her desperation? Her beauty and allure were all he could think about. He did not know, however, that she had been plotting revenge since the day that he threatened to never see her again.

  Andria tried to please Selric for a long time and seemed extremely eager to make him happy. Just when it took a little too long, and when she kept sighing and looking at the door, Selric rose, preparing to leave. Before he could dress, in walked a man: large, mean, ugly and carrying a sword which he promptly drew.

  “Dunston, help me. He made me do it,” Andria whined, cowering. Selric rolled back over the bed just as the blade came slashing down, sending a spray of mattress feathers into the air. He looked down at Selric’s naked form and said with rage, “I’ll cut it off.”

  Selric grabbed for his sword which lay at the head of the bed, but another blow nearly took his arm, and he leapt back again. Dunston hurled Selric’s sword across the room. “Hey, that’s expensive,” Selric said. “Now that I think about it, that’s what the sailors on the ship said about Andria, too.” Dunston growled and jumped onto the bed, raising his sword to decapitate Selric. Selric grabbed the bed covers and pulled them heavily, pulling Dunston’s feet out from under him. The man fell straight off the bed onto his back with a floor-shuddering crash. Selric then flipped in midair, over the bed and landed next to Dunston. Before the man could catch his breath Selric hit him four solid times in the face with a hand moving so quickly the blows blurred into one. Dunston laid his head back, blood running out of his nose and mouth. Selric was ready to strike again, but stayed his hand: he knew that it was not Dunston he wanted to hit.

  Selric stood up and looked at Andria. Her face was filled with hate. He shook his head in disappointment and dressed, rubbing himself. “What a scare,” he said looking down, talking to his own body. Then he turned to Andria while she too dressed. “You’re quite an actress.” He jumped on the bed and bounced to the door, then turned and flipped a gold coin onto the floor at her feet; in Andrelia, a decent fee for a prostitute. “It was still pretty good, but if you would’ve finished, I’d have given you two.” By the time Andria picked the coin up to throw it at him, Selric was gone and she placed the money on her dresser.

  “Oh Dunston, get up. And clean up that blood,” she said.

  Selric walked to the Stormweather owned Harvest Hearth where he and his brother, when not at The Unicorn’s Run, had their drinks and private conversations. He swilled several beers with Russ, the barman, before heading to The Run to visit the new girl, Tasha, whom he had first met the day after his return from the East when he had gone there with Mendric. It turned out to be Tasha’s night off and no one knew where she had gone so Selric sat at the bar talking with the employees, not desperate for company, always the center of attention for employees and patrons both.

  It was then that four guests entered, immediately drawing his gaze. First, naturally, he noticed Cinder: gorgeous, short dress, long legs. Then came Dirk,
wide shouldered with muscles aplenty. Melissa was next, her face beautiful and athletic body attractive. Lithe Fiona, an air of intelligence and charisma in her pretty features, was the last. They came in and sat down, and as usual, it didn’t take Cinder long to notice the most handsome man in the room. Cinder and Selric eyed each other for several minutes, so Cinder missed the conversation at the table. Her incoherence to their questions drew the attention of her friends to the man at the bar and Selric turned away, deciding not to go over, at least not for a little while.

  “Do you have to look at every guy?” Dirk asked angrily.

  “Oh, leave her alone,” said Fiona. “There’s nothing wrong with appreciating beauty,” she said as she too stared at Selric. “He’s gorgeous. I wonder if that’s…hmm,” she finished.

  “Who? Could be who…I don’t look at every guy,” Cinder said turning from Fiona to Dirk in mid sentence.

  “Gorgeous!” Dirk blurted. “Gorgeous! Blah.” He raised his hand, signaling for a wench. “Why am I out with three women? I think I must be crazy.”

  “Because you love us,” Fiona joked. Dirk nodded in an exaggerated manner, agreeing sarcastically with her.

  “I thought we were here to discuss an adventure,” Melissa sighed.

  “I’d rather talk about handsome men,” Cinder said, teasing Dirk.

  “Stop it Cinder,” he warned. Dirk had met Cinder as she finished work, and they met Fiona and Melissa outside The Unicorn’s Run, which was an equal distance from their homes, lying in the heart of the city, in the mixed central district, a combination of government facilities and noble interests.