by Joseph Lallo
"I am very sorry if I had seemed rude a moment ago," she said, pulling the second chair out for him.
"Rude?" he said. "Am I to take it that you are not tired, then?"
"Well, I am, but--" she began.
"Then what is there to warrant apology?" the stranger asked.
"I should have asked you in. The room is yours, in all reality. You paid for it," she said.
"You hold the key, the room is yours," he said, easing himself onto the chair. "Interesting, the fellow sells wine but has no wine glasses. No matter, it is not the glass but the contents, eh?"
He placed two tankards on the table while Myranda found a lamp and managed to light it. She turned to her guest, who still had his heavy hood pulled entirely forward, hiding his face far back in its shadow.
"You know, thanks to your generosity, this room is near enough to the chimney to provide a comfortable temperature. You do not need the cloak," she said.
"I would just as soon keep it," he said.
"Well . . . that is fine, I suppose," Myranda said, removing her own cloak and hanging it on the bed post.
The stranger carefully poured out a third of a tankard of the wine for each of them.
"Here's to you, my dear," he said, bringing the cup beneath the hood and sipping awkwardly.
After getting a taste, he lowered his glass to the table, smacking his lips thoughtfully. Myranda sampled it herself, immediately startled by an intensity closer to brandy than wine. It was quite a bit stronger than she had expected. As it dripped down her throat, she felt the fiery heat spread, finally taking the lingering chill from her insides, just as she hoped it would.
"Intriguing flavor," her guest commented.
Myranda coughed a bit as the powerful drink seemed to hollow out her throat.
"It does the job, though," she managed.
"Admirably," he agreed, lifting the cup to his lips for a second awkward sip.
"Wouldn't it be easier to drink if you pulled the hood back?" Myranda asked.
"Drinking would be easier, I am sure, but things would become . . . uncomfortable," he said, tugging his hood even further forward.
Myranda looked uneasily at her guest. There was something very unsettling about his rigid refusal to reveal his face. She sipped at the wine as the darker reasons for such a desire flooded her head. He might be self-conscious, or perhaps if he were to reveal his face, he would place her in some kind of danger due to some dark past that is haunting him.
"Well, since we are here under the pretense that we are old friends, I think it would be best to learn your name," he said, breaking the uneasy silence and Myranda's train of thought.
"Oh, yes, of course. My name is Myranda. And yours?" she asked.
"Leo. A pleasure to meet you, Myranda," he answered, putting his hand out for her to shake. She did so graciously.
"And a pleasure to meet you as well, Leo. I really cannot thank you enough for helping me. I have yet to meet another who would have done the same," she said.
"I do not doubt it," he said, a bit of anger in his voice. "So tell me, how did you come to be in such a predicament?"
"I had brought a bag of coins with me. It must have been stolen," she said.
"Where you were sitting, you were asking for that to happen," he said.
"I know it," she said. "Had I been thinking I never would have chosen that seat."
A moment of silence passed. Myranda took another glance at the hood.
"Is it because you are cold?" she asked.
"Pardon?" said the stranger.
"The cloak. Are you cold?" she asked again.
"Not particularly," he said. "You do not strike me as a local. Where do you call home?"
"Nowhere, I am sorry to say. I honestly cannot remember the last time I had spent more than a week or so in one place," she replied.
"Really? We have something in common, then!" he said, pleased. "I spend most of my days on the road myself. In my case it is the nature of my career. Is it likewise with you?"
"If only. My nomadic nature is strictly by choice," she said.
"Hmm," he pondered. "You have chosen a life you hate. You will have to elaborate on that."
"Well, suffice to say that those that I encounter tend not to be especially fond of those like myself," she said, immediately worrying that she had said a bit too much.
"Oh? Another common trait," he said.
"Really? Is . . . that why you have got your face hidden?" she asked.
"Alas, I am found out," he said, throwing his hands up in mock despair.
Myranda's imagination seized this new fact and constructed a new set of possibilities. What about his face could make him an outcast? He may be the victim of some terrible disease. Worse, he could be a wanted criminal. There were more than a few outlaws who would find themselves in a cell for life if they ever showed their faces again. She was even more uneasy now. What sort of man had she let into this room? Could the kindness have been nothing but a ruse?
"What sort of man are you?" she said, her worry showing through. "I must know."
"Now, now, Myranda, fair is fair. If you pull back your hood, and I will pull back mine," he said. "What are you hiding?"
"Very well," Myranda sighed. It would seem tonight would be spent outside again. "I am . . . what you would call . . . a . . . sympathizer."
She hung her head, awaiting a voice of disdain. She did not have to wait long.
"A sympathizer!?" he said in a harsh whisper. "Oh come now! Is that all!?"
"What?" she said, looking up.
"You are a sympathizer. I would hardly place us in the same boat. Sympathy is nothing!" he said angrily.
"You mean you don't care?" she said, a hint of a grin coming to her face.
"I have got quite enough worries of my own. What do I care what side you root for? It hardly seems fair that I have to show you my face after a measly little confession like that," he complained.
A full smile lit up Myranda's face and she let a bit of joy escape in the form of laughter.
"You, Leo, are too good to be true. Generous, gentlemanly, and understanding," she said.
"Well, let us see if you still think so highly of me in a few moments," he said, lifting his hands to his hood.
"Leo, after all you have said and done tonight, I cannot imagination anything behind that hood that could keep you and I from being friends," she said.
Leo's leather-gloved hands clutched the edge of the hood and quickly drew it back. The smile dropped from Myranda's face. A mixture of fear and revulsion spilled over her. It was no human that looked back at her. Protruding from the neck of the cloak was what appeared to be the head of a fox. It was in proportion to the body, with a deep orange fur covering all but the muzzle, chin and throat, which had a creamy white color. His eyes were larger and more expressive than an animal's, brown and the only remotely human feature. The corner of his mouth was turned up in a slight smirk as he read her expression.
He twitched a pointed, black-tipped ear as he pulled a fiery red pony tail from inside the hood. It fell to nearly his waist, lightening along its length to the same color as his throat. Myranda couldn't keep a gasp from escaping her lips.
"Not what you expected, eh?" he asked. "I told you things would become uncomfortable."
Myranda closed her eyes and reached for the glass she had put on the table. Leo slid it to her searching fingers. Grasping it, she gulped down the contents hoping to settle her churning stomach and rattled nerves. When she lowered the glass, Leo filled it to the brim, then stood and began gathering up his ponytail.
Myranda ventured another peek at her visitor.
"What are you doing?" she asked.
"Unless I have greatly misread your reaction, it would seem you do not much relish my presence," he answered as he tucked the hair inside his cloak and restored the hood.
Now knowing the shape of the face that the hood had concealed before, Myranda wondered how she had not noticed earlier. Thoug
h a normal hood might conceal him, it would be perilously close to revealing the tip of his snout, even with the hood pulled comically far forward. Yet his face seemed to vanish into inky shadow the instant the hood was pulled into place. Leo was nearly to the door before she had finished sputtering and coughing from the powerful wine she had forced down.
"Don't go!" she coughed.
He stopped.
"Please--" Cough, cough. "--sit down, I should not have reacted so horribly. I was startled," she said.
"Are you sure you do not want me to go?" he asked, turning to her.
"I insist you stay for a while. Nothing has changed. I still owe you for all of this, and you have still treated me with more kindness than anyone I have met in years," she said.
Leo returned to his seat. "Would you prefer me to keep the hood up?" he asked.
"I want you to be comfortable," she said.
Leo opened his cloak and removed it, tossing it to the bed. Now that it was no longer obscured, Myranda finally got a glimpse of his build. It was lean, bordering on gaunt, but healthy. His clothes were plain and gray, quite simple and very worn. He slipped the leather gloves from his hands, revealing a second pair of black gloves, these composed of his own fur.
"You . . . you are a . . . m--a m--" Myranda stuttered.
"A malthrope? Indeed. To my knowledge half fox and half human," he answered.
"I was not sure if it was alright to call you a m-malthrope," she said, the word sticking in her throat.
"Mmm, I understand. It is not exactly term for mixed company. Certainly one saved for the end of an argument," he said knowingly.
He was right, of course. The term carried the very most negative of connotations. Speaking it as a child was a sure way to a sound scolding. Malthropes were the thieves, murderers, and scoundrels of horror stories told to frighten children into good behavior. Half man and half some manner of beast, they were monsters and fiends. The kindness and consideration Leo had shown could not be farther from what she had been taught to expect from these creatures.
"I thought there were no more m--no more of your kind left," she said.
"You are not far from correct. I've more fingers on my hands than I have memories of others like me. Clearly we are not the most popular race," he said, his demeanor was somehow cheerful despite the loneliness and isolation he described.
"How is it that you have made it for so long in a world so hostile to your kind?" asked Myranda.
"Well, thanks in no small part to that little wonder I threw on the bed. I had to spend every coin I had and more than a year searching for a wizard willing to produce it for me. With it on, no one can see my face," he said.
"But, how did--" she began.
"Now, now. By this time you should know my policy. Money has its value, but information the greatest treasure of all. You must give to receive," Leo said.
Myranda sipped at the wine again. She had consumed quite a bit of the powerful stuff and done so very quickly. Her judgment was a bit impaired. Had she her wits about her, she likely would not have said what she said next.
"A trade then. I will tell you all you care to know about myself and my people, and you return the favor," she offered.
"A fair proposition," he said, extending his now-bare hand.
Myranda grasped it and gave it a firm shake. It was peculiar experience shaking the hirsute appendage, but she was careful to appear as though she didn't notice.
"Now, where to begin? I was born in a large town south of here called Kenvard," she said.
"Kenvard . . . was that the old western capital?" he asked.
"One and the same. My father was Greydon and my mother was Lucia. She was a teacher. The teacher, really. Because of that she knew every man woman and child in town by name and so did I. When I was about six years old, though, the front came very near to our walls. Father was away, serving in the army somewhere else as he often--no, usually was. I was in the garden with mother. The church bells started ringing, which at that time of day was the signal to meet in the town center during an emergency.
"We had not even made it halfway there when the arrows started to fall. Flaming arrows. They fell like rain. In a heartbeat the whole town was aflame. Panic spread as it became clear that a force had surrounded the town, and siege was not their intention. A siege we were prepared for, but they wished to destroy us. To eliminate the town. My mother gave me to my uncle and sent us away to find safety. She went off to round up the screaming children that had been separated from their parents. Somehow, we found an exit clear of attackers and escaped the town. To this day I have not seen another familiar face from Kenvard," she recounted, tears welling in her eyes.
"I had heard about the Kenvard massacre. Totally pointless. The city of Kenvard had no military value. It was filled with women and children. Perhaps ages ago, when it was the capital of the entire kingdom of Kenvard, such an attack would have made sense, but ever since it was merely made part of the Northern Alliance, there are dozens of cities that would have fallen more easily, and done more damage to the war effort. Needless destruction. Until now I had thought there were no survivors," Leo said.
"There were at least two. My Uncle Edward and I spent a dozen years trying to find a place that would have us. It was not easy. Uncle never forgave the Alliance Army for failing us, and he could not quell his hatred for the men who had attacked either. He became a man consumed with hate. He was not shy about his feelings, either. Before we had been in any community for very long, something would trigger a rant about the uselessness of the Alliance Army. It did not matter to the townsfolk that his hatred for the enemy burned just as brightly--he was a traitor for speaking ill of the beloved army.
"Then, when I was eighteen, we stayed just a bit too long. His words had been heard by a neighbor, and before we could gather our things to escape, an angry mob battered down our door. I do not even remember which village it had been, all I know is that for the second and final time a member of my family met their end due to this wretched war. Not by combat, but by the war itself. Since then, I have been on my own, going from place to place. I am a bit more discreet about my feelings for the war, but I am constantly on the move regardless, either because I misspeak, or I fear I might, or . . ." She trailed off.
"Or what?" Leo asked.
"No, it is just foolish," she said.
"I would still like to hear it," Leo said.
"Well . . . I saw the death of my mother and uncle with my own eyes. My father, he was a soldier, and by this time he would have been one for nearly thirty years. My head tells me that he must have been killed by now. Soldiers who make it past their first few years are few and far between, let alone their first few decades. My brain tells me he cannot be alive. My heart pleads me to believe that he still lives. Whenever I find a nice home, and I have been careful to behave as the other villagers do, it is the hope that my father might be in the next town that tears me from my place," she said.
"Sometimes hope is all we have. Tell me, though, if the Tresson army stripped you of your home and loved ones, why do you feel sympathy for them?" he asked.
"At first I didn't. I shared my uncle's blinding hatred for them. Years passed and slowly my eyes began to open. The men who performed that terrible deed, they were only soldiers. Our men have laid siege to targets to the south time and again. It is not through spite or malice that these men kill, but through tradition. This conflict started more than a century ago. None of us have ever known any other life. They kill because their fathers did, as did theirs before them. The war is to blame, and every man woman or child, regardless of which side, is a victim of it," she answered.
"You are wise beyond your years," he said, and began to ask another question but she stopped him.
"Uh, uh, uh. You know the rules. I give, you give. Time for you to answer one of my questions," she said.
"Right you are, though I must warn you, yours is a difficult tale to follow. Let us see. I am not sure where I was born,
but it was somewhere in the deep south. I spent the first ten years of my life in an orphanage for, shall we say, unfortunate children. It housed children of every race and background that were, for whatever reason, left behind. Be it due to injury, illness, deformity, or . . . species, none of us would ever see a home.
"I would wager to say that there were only two things that all of the other children shared. A longing to be a part of a normal family, and a healthy hatred for me. I am frankly shocked that I was allowed to live as long as I did. One of the caretakers was a softhearted old man who, for whatever reason, did not loathe me. I am certain it was only through his intervention that I was not murdered by the other orphans and caretakers.
"By the way, you would think that if a child just so happened to be the spitting image of a story's villain, they would spare the child that tale. Not so. I heard so many stories of my kind performing unspeakable evils so many times that I know them all by heart. The others remembered the lessons taught by those stories as well. Never trust my kind," he said.
"Now, clearly those were not the most ideal years one could hope for, but after I turned ten, things found a way to become remarkably worse. The old man who had protected me for so long died. His body was not even in the ground when the others proved once and for all that he had indeed been my savior for all of those years. They showed me what they thought of my kind in no uncertain terms.
"I was forced to run away and go into hiding. As much as my differences had seemed a curse before, they began to show their blessing side when I was faced with life in the forest for months at a time. This nose may not win me any friends, but it can sniff out a rabbit half a forest away, that is for sure. It was years before I set foot in a town again--at least, during the day. I had managed to sneak into farmhouses and such to steal an easy meal on occasion, but I never let anyone see me.
"To this day I wonder what made me decide to return to the world that had chased me away. I suppose the human in me has as much say in what I do as the fox, because one day I wandered into a small town. What was it named? . . . Bero. Well, I looked about as you would expect after years in the woods. I was wearing barely a shred of clothes, absolutely filthy. My hair was about so long," he remarked, indicating shoulder-length with his hand. "and a knotty, matted mess. As a matter of fact, I have yet to cut it since that day, so somewhere among these tresses are the very same locks I wore on that day."