The Man of Bel'Tasq Part 8

“You are a filthy braggart, Roder. A noisome and loathsome insect to your race, and a pitiful and cowardly opportunist.” Illannis drew what little moisture she could from her mouth, and spat at his feet. Roder rolled his eyes.

“Tsk, tsk, little mouse, name-calling is so… so… childish,” the troll shook his head and sighed theatrically. “You should’ve taken my offer. You don’t know how hard the captain was pressing me for your bounty. Pity though, I had plans to make you my consort, you with your pretty face, and now, since I can’t make you mine, I think I must give you to my dogs.” The troll gestured to some of the men around him, and they, grinning widely, stepped forward bearing clubs and ropes.

The laughter pressed in all around Illannis as she stood away from the wall. She placed her hand around the hilt of her sword. Broken or no, it would have to do.

“Take care not to damage her face too much, my friends,” said the troll, “The guards must be able to identify her when we turn her over. The rest of her body… well, who cares if she has trouble walking?”

The men bearing clubs came forward first, and Illannis leapt forward, drawing her broken blade, and stabbed one in the side. Before she had time to withdraw her weapon, clubs came down on her arms and back, and soon she was huddled into a little ball on the street, covering her head and sides, praying to the Weaver to end it now, to change her fate and move her death just a few second closer, just for her. It did not come.

The blows stopped, but then she felt sharp pin-pricks pierce her side and back, slashing at clothes, laughter roaring as she lashed out, trying to fruitless catch an arm that wielded a blade. She was now on her feet, but they harried her on all sides, bashing her legs and slashing her arms wherever she turned, and she was bleeding everywhere.

Her head was spinning. The world was spinning. She could not keep her footing. The crowd now pressed her in, and she fell on top of them as they shoved her to and fro, laughing all the while. Her feet fumbled over themselves, and yet they continued to toss her back and forth. Soon rough hands began tearing at her shredded clothes, and she felt many of the men feeling her body as her arms weakly tried to batter them away. Eventually, they bore her up above them, and she tried to struggle against the many arms which held her limbs apart from her.

She cried, pleading them, begging them to let her go. It was at Roder’s voice that they gently laid her on the cobblestone streets. She curled up into herself, her clothes torn to muck-smeared ribbons. She wept, and through her swollen and blood-smeared eyes she saw the tips of Roder’s highly polished boots.

“What say you now of membership?” asked the troll, “Obviously, the price to keep you will have to go up, seeing as how I’ll need to hire a physician to look at you and nurse you back to health, but you have a pretty face, and I have always been weak to a pretty face." The troll leaned in close and bared his many teeth at her.

"So, what do you say?"

The Man of Bel'Tasq, Part 7

Upon hearing the crash, Illannis ducked and then dove to the floor. When she spun around to see what had made the noise, she saw a giant man standing in the tavern common room.

He was tall, nearly seven feet tall, and he was dressed head to toe in black.  He bore a sword nearly as tall as he was and without hesitation, he swung his enormous blade.  The city guards scattered out of his way, and he buried his weapon half-way into one of the support beams. 

One of the guards leapt forward and stabbed the giant man in the side.  The man turned, wrapped his hands around the guard’s neck, and gave out a rasping, horrendous roar.  Illannis heard a pop and a crack, and the guardsman slumped to the floor, dead.  The captain of the guard lifted a whistle to his lips, and blew.

Illannis rolled to her feet, grateful for the distraction and frightened of the giant man who could take a mortal wound without a flinch.  She sprinted out the door as she heard more bootsteps and whistles. She was on the street, and putting as much distance as she could between herself and that creature.
It was when she had stopped running, hunched over and out of breath, that she stood up and realized she did not know where she was.  It was also when she realized that she had been followed as she escaped the tavern.

An old, toothless man smiled at her, and winked.

Illannis bolted.  She heard a laugh and the softly padding feet of the old man behind her. She ducked through alleyways, sprinted down avenues, hurtled over low carts and dodged through crowds of strangers.  Yet every time she glanced behind her, she saw the old man, toothless and smiling.

Her lungs ached, dry, empty, and gasping.  Her legs burned, and now she stumbled often, too tired to keep her footing. She fell to the cobblestone streets, landing on her palms and the shock sending pain to her wrists and elbows.  The old man was laughing openly, and she picked herself up and staggered to a wall.  The old man sauntered up to her, whistling through his gums.  He stopped two arm’s lengths away.  He cocked his head to the side and scratched at his ear.

“Had enough running now dearie?” he asked.
Illannis shook her head, swallowing loudly, her throat too dry, too dry.  No, she thought, Oh please, no.

Still smiling, the old man cupped his weathered hands around his mouth, and squawked like a gull. Illannis pushed herself up from the wall.  Her legs were tired, too tired.  Even through her gloves, she felt her hand slip across the filthy wall.

Soon, many boot steps approached and Illannis was measuring if she could still run.  As men and women began to filter around her, she decided that it would be better to save her energy to fight.  If she pressed them hard enough, perhaps they would kill her. Perhaps they wouldn’t try to keep her alive, to do other, much worse things, to her.

She saw Roder’s great horns floating above the heads of the crowd.  She swallowed hard, and drew herself up.  He was giving her a slow and measured applause as the crowd parted to let him through.

“My, my, my dear lady Revlin, you gave ole Nanker here quite a chase.  Not a very interesting one for him, at least, but a chase nonetheless.  You still have some fire left in you, no?”

The Man of Bel'Tasq, Part 6

The Revenant sprinted across the plains and roads. He did not eat or sleep or rest. The towns and villages he passed through would often remark about the black-cloaked stranger with a veil over his face.

“Did you see his sword?”

“Which one?”

“He had more than one?”

“Yes, a great, big one on his back, and one strapped to his side!”

“He was tall too, taller than a horse!”

“I heard the guards tried to chase him down, but after an hour the horses were too winded to continue!”

“Strange times we live in, strange times.”

The Bel’Tasq paid them no mind.  Something was drawing him west, further west, and he traveled on. He felt the sun rising, scorching his back in the morning, searing across the sky before it set, then blazing  into his veiled eyes as it dipped and sank below the horizon.  He paid no heed to the twinkling of the stars overhead, nor the bright moon as it lit his path in silver and shadow.  He ran on and on, west, further west.  He did not eat, or drink, nor slept.

It was when he neared a town based at the foot of the mountains that he slowed.  It’s walls were half in ruin, half in use.  Not wanting to argue with the city guards, he found a suitable crack, waiting for the guards to pass by, and slipped inside the town.

He wandered the streets then, smelling the rancid refuse pooling in the gutters, burnt tallow and wax, alcohol and urine.  First he went left, then right, then veered right again, unconcerned to the direction he was going, but slowly feeling out the edges of his sensations, that hook around his navel that pulled into the sky when he died, now drawing near and more near to his charge.

He did not know when he grasped his claymore, he only knew that he drew it when he heard it rattle out of its sheath and he felt its heft and weight in his hands.  Commoners dressed in threadbare rags saw him draw his weapon and scattered. His hulking steps drew him further down the street.

“GUARDS!” shouted a voice to his left. The Revenant spun on his heel, kissed his blade through his veil, and took a running leap, crashing through the window of a tavern.  Screams and shouts filled the room.  Cloaked men with drawn swords spun to face him.  He towered, far, far above them.

Smiling behind his veil, he drew his claymore back and took one mighty, giant swing.

The Man of Bel'Tasq, Part 5

“Why the rush?  Is someone looking for your blood?  I assure you, I have the resources to conceal you until I can properly discharge my financial obligation to you.”

“And have that deducted from my pay?”

Roder’s smile now reached his eyes.  “Well now, I am a business-troll after all…”

“No, thank you, just the gold, if your eminence would please.”

The troll’s smile vanished.  He tsked at her, shaking his head.  “Such a pity, Banbrig, or should I say Illannis Revlin?”
Illannis felt the shiver at her name more than she showed it, but the troll saw the subtle shift in stance, the mock reaction that came a second too late for it to be natural.

“Who?” asked Illannis.

“Dear me, dear me, Mistress Revlin, do you not think that I would enter into a business arrangement without knowing who I was working with?  Did you truly underestimate my network of information?  Did you not realize that I have built my humble empire by sending the random scrap to the city—“ Roder paused, then shouted one word:

“GUARDS!”

Boot steps clunked heavily against the wooden floorboards.  The once raucous and now silent patrons slowly filed out as four of the city’s watchmen entered through the kitchen and the front door, surrounding Illannis.

“More profitable to turn me in without paying me, and then collect my bounty?” She asked.

“Double the profits, dearie.  Standard economics.”

“And you would have kept me in debt, staying here, hiding me?”

“Very smart dearie, only a bit too late.  Captain, would you do the honors?”

A guardsmen with a badge sewn to his brown cloak stepped forward. “Illanis Revlin, for crimes against the crown and for the murder of Bontag of Ghas’Nokor, among many other heinous acts, I place you under arrest by the authority of the city watch.”

Illannis’s grip tightened around her sword again.  It had shattered in the flight from the merchant’s home.  All that remained was half the former blade length and the hilt.  It would have to do.

The Man of Bel'Tasq, Parts 3 & 4

It was dark.  Again.  He moved his limbs, and he felt his surroundings, finding himself laying in a box carved from stone.  He pressed against the surface before him, the linen wrappings around him unraveling as he pushed, and the stone slid to the side, then fell away with a crash.  He sat up, and looked around him.

“Greetings, Revenant of Bel’Tasq,” said a voice behind him.  He spun and saw a form clothed in layers of gray and rotting rags standing next to his sarcophagus.  It had the voice of an old woman, and her face was covered with a gray veil.  A Watcher, disciple of the Weaver of Fate.

He blinked in the torchlight, then stared at his leathery, linen-wrapped hands.  He took a deep breath, and spoke, dust spewing from his lips.

“Where am I?” asked the Bel’Tasq.

“The Bel’Tasq ancestral crypt.  You’ve been dead for over half a millennia.”

Bel’Tasq fingered the gaping wound at his collar bone, where the sword had plunged years before.  He climbed out of his sarcophagus.

“Where is Illannis Revlin?” he asked, setting one linen-wrapped foot on the stone floor.

“I do not know, Revenant,” said the Watcher, “The Weaver of Fate deigned only to reveal your resting place. Nothing more.”

The revenant drew himself up to his full height, looming over the old woman.  He did not remember being this tall before.  He tried to remember other things, mountains… rivers…

“Where is the Celes river?” He asked.

“Far to the west of here.  Much has changed since your internment.”

The revenant nodded, then glanced at the stone lid which had entombed him.  It had cracked and partially shattered when it landed on the floor, but he could see that his name was chiseled off.  His eyes were drawn to the faceless Watcher again.

“Where is my armor?” he asked.

---
 
Illannis gripped her sword tightly, her leather gloves murmuring against the hilt of her blade.  She took a deep breath, listening to the laughter and clatter from the open windows, and entered the seedy and ramshackle inn before her.

“Banbrig!” roared the troll at the other end of the room.  He was dressed head to toe in silk, purples and reds embroidered and inset with hammered glass that shimmered as he moved.  His twisted horns scraped the ceiling as he greeted her, and his long and bulky arms were spread wide.  The assorted men and women, goblins, and ogres, and trolls, had stopped to watch Illannis enter, and many were laughing behind their hands.

Illannis swept her cloak aside, her hand openly placed upon her sword, and strode in, chin lifted, her eyes resting on the troll alone.

“Greetings, Roder,” said she, half-way across the room now.  “I have come to collect my payment.”

“Ahh but you have already collected it!” said the troll, his mouth spreading into a wide grin. “You are now a member of our most noble order—“ many laughed at this comment, and Roder gestured genially for quiet, “and have been granted free entrance to our meager establishment, and free audience to our most august court!”  More laughter followed.

Illannis shook her head. “That was not our agreement,” she said. “I do not wish for membership.  Just the payment I was promised and then I will leave your august presence.”  The laughter began to die down.  The troll remained unfazed.

“Ahhh, but why the rush? Stay here a while! You may come to like it!”

She swept off her cap and rendered the most polite bow and smile she could muster. “If it would pardon your eminence, but I would not wish to strain your noble personage with yet another mouth to feed and manage.  Just the gold, and I’ll be on my way.”

“Well by golly gosh, aren’t you persistent?” said the troll.  “Well, unfortunately, most of my capital is tied up in many lucrative, and, dare I say, expensive affairs.  It may take a while for me to liquidate enough assets to accommodate your request.”  He turned to the crowd. “What say, two, three weeks?”  The sniggers were quite loud in the crowded, smoky room.

She replaced her cap, her eyes glancing about the interior of the inn. “I had hoped that I could depart tonight with the earnings of my labors, Roder.  Certainly, a person of your repute could easily establish a line of credit?”

The silence and stillness that enveloped the room then was sudden and swift.  Roder’s smile was plastered to his wide and toothy jaws.

Persephone Winter, Part 2

I can smell the diesel fumes and dust as the bus clears away from the entrance of our driveway. The walk is around a quarter of a mile, but the bus doesn’t have a place to turn around if it went to my doorstep, which is fine by me.  We have too much junk in our yard anyways.

Bobby wants to hold my hand as we walk to our house, and I let him.  His backpack is no longer bigger than he is, and he’s starting to discover girls.  Girls are apparently discovering him, but neither are quite sure what to do about it.  I know it won’t be long before he’ll stop holding my hand when we walk up to our house.  Nowadays he waits for the bus to drive away before he reaches for it.

“C’mon little fish,” I tell him.  He smiles up at me and begins skipping along, kicking the rocks with his dust-encased shoes.  “How was school today?”

“Good,” he says, breathless as he tries to keep up with my long steps, the steep climb, and sending the random bits of gravel left and right.  “Liam and I played handball and four square during gym. Rebecca and Joey played with us too. Ms. Griggs is teaching us how to divide fractions now too.”

He continues to chatter on like this, talking about the trading card games he played during lunch and before school, the stories he’s reading in language arts, convection currents running along the Earth’s mantle and how Hawaii is just a hotspot that’s moving below the lithosphere. I try to remember this moment, trying to file it away among the other moments that I have shared with him, knowing that they’ll smudge into this blurred mural of my memory, and echo of when Dad used to do this for me too. If he ever cared about me like I do for Bobby, then he never shows it. I know that I won’t be like him when I get out and find a husband.  If I find a husband.

Our driveway flattens out and it is a straight sprint to our front porch from here.  Bobby sees our Dad step out onto our front porch, and that’s when my brother lets go of my hand and bolts for our father.  Dad smiles, and crouches down, his arms spread wide as Bobby plunges through the tall grass and ascends our creaking steps.

Dad’s got the timeless facial features of Richard Gere.  A full head of completely white hair.  Clear and taunt skin.  No wrinkles around his eyes, but his grin reaches up to coax them out every once and a while.  I don’t know how old he is, but he’s been around for a while.  He sweeps Bobby up as my little brother giggles and screams.  I follow behind, arms across my chest, before I brush the bark of our birch tree in a silent thank you.  I can feel her branches wave and sway in response.  I want to get rid of the moss that is growing up her trunk, but she won’t let me.  She’s too kind sometimes.

We’re all eco-friendly at our house.  Solar panels on the roof. Windmills out back.  Dad doesn’t work, not in the traditional white-collar/blue collar way, but he helps with research for his friends and keeps the house, mostly. I keep the garden out back, growing our fruits and vegetables and maintaining our compost heap.  I make dinner most nights, unless Dad orders out for pizza.  Bobby mostly just plays, but Dad’s got him to help me out from time to time, along with beating back the jungle which is our front lawn.  Don’t know why Dad won’t do it himself.

“Ha ha! Hello little fish!” says our Dad, bouncing Bobby on his hip.  “Whoa, you’re getting too big for this!”  He sits my brother down, and turns to address me as I’m leaning against our tree.

“And how’s our Miss Sulky and Surly?”

Persephone Winter, Part 1

I’ve been seriously contemplating using toothpicks to prop my eyelids open.  The splinters would hurt terribly, true, but at least I’d be awake for math class.  Bobby’s got a better mind for this stuff, but he’s in middle school, and the stuff I’m working on is bit over his head.

Bobby’s my baby brother.  Half-brother, actually.  Same dad, different mom.  Dad doesn’t talk much about any of his past “conquests” in front of us, but Grandma made a comment about Bobby’s mother once.  We were sitting in the kitchen, and I was barely three days past fourteen.  Bobby was on her knee, bouncing him around.  She covered his ears before she said it.  It went something along the lines of “Oh Rusty, we all know that she was just a piece of tail.”

Apparently Bobby’s mom was a water nymph, and when dad has all of his warlock friends over for beers and football, and he thinks I’m asleep in my room, he often uses the phrase “furious copulation” when his buddies ask about her.  Cue the drunken laughter. 

I want to cover my ears when he talks about her, to press the sides of my head so hard that I could push that memory out, but I don’t.  I keep hoping, and keep waiting, that maybe one night, one of his buddies will ask about my mom, and Dad’ll at least say her name.

Today, though, is remedial math and trying to chart parabolas.  As it stands now, I’ll have to take summer school to catch up to junior year.  I’m alright at astronomy, but I do much better at biology.  It just… makes sense.  I was grateful that the school system didn’t have enough funds to make us dissect anything this year.  I can’t stand the thought of hurting any of those poor things.  Can you imagine your entire life’s purpose is to be bred so that you could be suffocated and drowned in your own lungs, and then cut open for bored and slightly nauseas sixteen-year olds to see?

I take my glasses off and try to rub the tears of boredom out of my eyes.  I watch as the teacher punches in random numbers into an elaborate string of numbers, parenthesis, and letters, before settling on swirling a miniature dot on the makeshift graph she drew on the board.  I dutifully copy the location of her orange dot on my graph paper.  I silently pray that I’ll be able to figure it out when I get home.

Grandma gave me these glasses.  Around the time I hit my first period, anything made out of metal or plastic gave me an allergic reaction.  That includes plastic or metal frames.  When I woke up the next morning, I put my glasses on as usual and within minutes I had a rash around my face exactly where the frames pressed.

I tried to convince Dad that I couldn’t show up to school like that.  He listened to me patiently, but at the end of my stormy tirade he handed me my backpack, and told me that if I’m embarrassed now, showing up to the bus looking like I had just cried would be worse.  The next three days I sat in the front rows of my classes and squinted at the boards and projectors.

Grandma finally showed up, and she asked our birch tree in the front yard to weave a set of wooden frames for me.  Dad popped the lenses out of my old frames, and the birch encircled some of herself around them, and gave me flexible, willowy frames.  Or should I say birchy?  She’s a nice tree.  I try to keep her pruned and clear out the undergrowth for her.

“Stephanie?” says the teacher. 

I close my eyes.  Please mean Stephanie Hill.  Please mean Stephanie Hill.

“Stephanie Winter?”

Craaaaaap.

“Yes?”

“Could you please demonstrate on the board where we should chart the next point?”

My chair legs scrap against the tiled floor as I stand up and approach the board.  Just another boring day.