When Chuggie entered the bar, no one noticed. The patrons were either too deep in conversation or too enthralled by the chesty singer and the songs she belted out. Her smoky voice sang of carnivals in distant lands and ships lost at sea. Now more than ever, Chuggie loved songs about the sea. Tonight, the song made him think about how, before long, he and Shola would smell the warm, salty air of the ocean.
Chuggie slid a stool up to the bar and plopped himself down. The décor featured dirty moon paintings, chipped moon carvings and cracked mirrors with moons painted on them.
The bartender made his way over. "What'll you have, stranger?" The man, a lanky fellow in his late thirties, jittered and twitched as if he lived only on coffee.
"Lemme get a pitcher of your best," Chuggie said.
"That's going to be four bucks," The barman said. He didn't move, as if he was sure Chuggie would decide to order something cheaper.
"I'll take it." Chuggie grinned and slapped some bills on the bar.
"All right then, a pitcher it is." The barman hustled away to the tap. His eyes darted around as if searching for the next thirsty customer. He itched at a metal collar around his neck as the beautiful, golden ale streamed into the waiting pitcher.
Chuggie smiled upon seeing the man tilt the pitcher. Here was a guy who knew how to pour beer, and that alone would earn him a good sized tip. Already, The Fifty Moons Inn had far surpassed The Gulping whatever it was.
The barman set the big, beautiful pitcher of frothy goodness in front of Chuggie, along with a single glass. Ignoring the glass, Chuggie lifted the pitcher and drank the beer down.
The bartender watched as if amazed.
Chuggie drained the pitcher and slammed it on the bar. "What the hell you got around your neck?" Chuggie asked.
The singer finished a song, and the bar filled with applause. The bartender raised his voice to be heard over the din.
"It's a torturgy collar," he said. "The sign out front — this keeps it lit. If I take it off, the sign'll go dark."
The barman grabbed the pitcher and refilled it. "If you can do that again, this one's on me. They call me Baker, by the way." He set the pitcher down in front of Chuggie.
Chuggie shook his head with a grin. Torturgy? For something as minor as lighting a bar sign? He chuckled, lifted the pitcher, and guzzled it down. Banging the empty pitcher on the bar, he unleashed a mighty belch of satisfaction. The ale had been masterfully brewed.
The bartender applauded.
A woman perched on a stool down the bar a ways cheered for him, too. She undid the top button on her blouse and tossed her hair. "Hey, big drinker," she grinned, displaying a smile with a few gaps in it. "Come and sit by me a while." She unbuttoned another button of her blouse.
"Alrighty." Chuggie said as he got up from his stool. "Hate to pass up some nice scenery."
At that moment, a big, burly man with a face scarred from brawling stepped up behind her. His sneer said he wanted a fight. Her hungry smile said she wanted to see the fight.
Chuggie veered from his course and headed toward an empty table along the wall. The young, blonde waitress smiled at him and leaned down to take his order. He smelled the liquor spilled on her clothes and felt a little bad for her. He ordered a jug of good wine and resolved to tip the young lady well.
"Nice hat." Another young woman, a girl really, called out from the next table over. Her friends agreed, and their voices merged in a chorus of giggling. He couldn't tell if they were making fun of him or not, but he tossed them a twenty-buck bill just the same.
Before he'd even managed to get his pipe lit, the waitress returned with his wine and a glass. Not bothering with the glass, Chuggie glugged his wine from the bottle and smoked his pipe. Glug, smoke, glug, smoke.
A man, skinny as a post and drunk as a monk, stumbled over to Chuggie's table. He sat himself down, nearly turning the table over. "'Nother bottle o' Hound's Head," the skinny drunk yelled across the room.
"Thanks," Chuggie nodded. "Don't mind if I do." He didn't know if he wanted a drinking buddy or not, but he was sure he didn't want it to be this guy.
"What you wearing that chain for?" the young man asked. A bit of drool slid down his chin as he pointed a wavering finger.
"Shipwreck." Chuggie put a hand on the anchor. "Every man who survived wears one o' these for the men who didn't."
Chuggie bowed his head thoughtfully, giving the impression that a long, depressing story would follow. This was an old trick: make it seem the story is as sad as it is long, and people will leave you right alone. That skinny young fella all of a sudden had important business to attend to. He tipped his hat and went on his way.
For a while, Chuggie watched a woman spin on her bar stool. In spite of the spinning she did a pretty good job of singing along with the crooner onstage.
Chuggie did his very best to ignore the conversations going on all around him. He'd have enjoyed himself more if he didn't speak the language. Who was belly-slappin' who didn't interest him any more than who owed money to the drunk hollering two tables away. Chuggie just wanted to be there, to glug his wine and puff his pipe like some kind of Steel Jack-designed coal engine.
"Hey, stranger!" The scar-faced brawler from the bar bumped Chuggie's elbow. "Do you know what we do to people like you when they come in here?"
Without taking his eyes off his pipe, Chuggie said, "Buy 'em a beer and a steak?"
"No!"
"Then I ain't interested." Chuggie's fingers tightened around his pipe. "Piss off."
The man grabbed Chuggie's shoulder.
Chuggie looked down at the guy's hand as he rose to his feet. He turned his gaze to that sneering, jigsaw face. "Get that hand off me, or I'll keep the damn thing as a trophy." And his night had been going so well.
The man threw a quick jab. His fist connected with Chuggie's mouth. It wasn't a powerful blow, but it stung plenty.
Baker the Bartender jumped from behind the bar and scurried to intercede.
Chuggie lowered his head. He spat blood. Did it always come to this? Sure seemed like it. His arm shot out, delivering a speedy back-hand to his new pal. One the fellow's bloody teeth flew through the air and landed in the giggling girl's drink. She and her friends screamed and laughed at the same time. The guy twisted and fell to the floor. His hands clapped to his face and he moaned as if he was pretending to be a ghost.
The man whimpered as he sat up, holding his mouth. His jaw hung open and off to the right.
"Got what you deserved this time." Baker dragged the man to the door and shoved him out onto the street. He delivered one last kick to the man's backside.
Chuggie dropped down into his chair and scowled hard enough to keep everyone away. He wished he was back with Shola, naked in the autumn sun, with clouds dancing behind her. One eye blue, one eye white. He held the rope of her hair to his nose. Maybe it was time to call it a night. Drinking in a bar wouldn't help him find the goat-face purse he was after. The mission, the mission.
Shola.
He puffed on the boar-tusk pipe. His cloud of smoke kept growing and growing.
"Aach! A man smokes like that, ought to do it outdoors."
Chuggie snapped back to reality. "Sorry 'bout that. Guess I got a little carried away in my thoughts."
A spry-looking woman with short hair had walked up. Her eyeglasses were amber rectangles that glinted when they caught the light. He couldn't tell her age, but her tone and posture said she'd seen a lot. Her stern brow said she didn't take any shit.
"I'm Faben Brassline." She dropped into the chair across from him without asking.
Intrigued, Chuggie held out a hand. "Name's Norchug mot Losiat." Maybe she was worth a minute of his time. If she wasn't worth talking to, he'd be on his way.
Faben shook his hand. "Where'd you get that fancy pipe of yours?"
Chuggie looked to his left and right as though he had a secret.
"On the afternoon I captured this here trophy," Chuggie stroked the smooth sid
e of his pipe, "I came across a whole herd o' firehogs. Dozens of 'em, no less than fifty. I tracked these wily beasts to their lair, silent as death and twice as deadly, I was. They knew I was coming for 'em, just not when. The crafty bastards, they waited and waited and planned their ambush." Chuggie's face was as serious as an empty bottle.
Faben helped herself to a glass of wine from his jug.
Deciding to act civilized, Chuggie poured wine into his own unused glass.
"I crept among those hogs, invisible. I could've walked right on top of any of 'em, and they'd just have thought it was the wind.
"I didn't have any weapons, mind you. I was the weapon. No conjury, neither. Just wits, cunning and balls. I leaned against the big male — the hog honcho — and I had a smoke. He never knew I was there, jus' that somethin' was wrong. He looked around in a panic while I puffed right behind his ear.
Faben narrowed her eyes and leaned back a little, like she was sizing Chuggie up.
"When I finished my smoke, I plunged my hand through his ribcage and tore out his liver." Chuggie shot his hand out and made a twisting motion. "That ole' hog turned and tried to gore me, but I fed him his own liver instead. A group of swine charged at me from the side, so I threw his twitching carcass at 'em. They flew through the air, squealing until they smacked into trees and boulders. Some of them came back at me, but I broke their spines with my fists.
"They blew fire on me and attacked in waves from afternoon till morning. When I finished, I strolled over to the big male and yanked out his tusks. I made this one into a pipe." He leaned his head back. "I like a smoke with my bacon."
"Let me see how it smokes." Faben grabbed the pipe from Chuggie and held it to her lips. She closed her eyes half way, inhaled deeply, and exhaled a plume of smoke. While her expression didn't change, Chuggie knew she was experiencing new heights of smoky bliss.
"It'll do." She handed the pipe back.
"It'll do," Chuggie sputtered. "You just smoked the finest pipe in all the land."
Faben rolled her eyes. "How come I've never seen you before, Mr. Norgit Mutt Lazy-tot?"
"Nor–chug Mot Lo-si-at. But everyone calls me Chuggie."
"You new in town? Norgmuggie? What brings you here?"
He grinned as he realized she was giving him a little shit with regards to his name. He respected that.
"Came to town to see a fellow name of Arden Voss."
"You don't say." Faben scratched her chin and studied Chuggie. "What you want with him?"
Chuggie shrugged. "Doesn't he, y'know, run the town?"
"You really aren't from around here, are you?"
The drunk two tables away guffawed and mentioned to someone they owed him money. The table of girls rose and fell in tides of ear-stabbing laughter. The singer onstage broke into a ballad about murder and an instance of double dealing. "That would be a factual statement," Chuggie said.
"Arden Voss is an old man. He doesn't run anything anymore." Faben helped herself to another slug of Chuggie's wine. She didn't bother pouring it in a glass this time. "The Chief Magistrate these days is a man by the name of Haste. What do you need with the Chief Magistrate, anyhow?"
Questions aplenty sprouted in his mind like witchgrass. This Faben dame seemed interested in asking more questions than she wanted to answer. Didn't she understand his questions were more important? No, she clearly did not. He'd have to indulge her a little if he wanted any information out of her.
"Couple of days ago, some guards stopped me from coming into the city," Chuggie said. "They told me I had to go north. Said there'd be easy passage and an old bridge to cross the river. That make any sense to you?"
"North?" Faben leaned forward. "Did you go?"
"Nah," said Chuggie. "I waited for dark an' went south. What's so special about the north?"
"Anybody who knows isn't saying. But when people mess around up there, they end up as a gut-pile found by patrols, if they're found at all. And for reasons I can't figure out it's the Carnies most often that end up that way."
"You've got a special soft spot for the Carnies?"
"Being I'm one of 'em." Faben scowled. "And I'm tired of scraping my friends and relatives off the side of the road." She furrowed her eyebrows until they met right over her nose, then leaned closer to Chuggie. "If you ask me, the Magistrates have something to do with whatever's up north."
Chuggie nodded and puffed. "Yeah, somethin's rotten up there. My hostages pretty much told me so."
"Hostages?" Faben froze with the bottle one inch from her mouth.
"When I came into town tonight, I got attacked by some guys on the way. I masterfully subdued 'em and made 'em bring me into town. They brought me to The Gulping Goat."
"Ha." Faben snorted. "And them whores let you out without a hitch in your walk?"
Chuggie pointed to himself with both thumbs. "I fought 'em off with an ax and a can o' beans. The service in there left somethin' to be desired."
Faben smirked knowingly. "You got to buy koochie to get friendly service there. Who do you think it was attacked you in the woods?"
"Names were Stinkface Dan and Jaron the Mutt," Chuggie said.
"I don't know any Stinkfaces or Mutts," she said.
"Guess they were supposed to kill me." He ran a thumb across his throat in a slitting gesture and poured some wine down his throat. "I'll give 'em credit, though. They had good position on me out in the woods. They were just five or six different kinds of sloppy."
"Sounds about right," Faben nodded. She lowered her voice until it was barely audible over the music. "For all the trouble these people causing for everyone they about got as much sense as a sack of gravel. Somebody who's got some sense ought to be able to knock them down a notch."
Billiard balls cracked. Across the room, a glass smashed to the floor.
Faben jumped and looked over her shoulder.
"What're you afraid of?" Chuggie asked.
"Nothing." Faben said louder than necessary.
"When someone's as jumpy as a frog in heat, that tells me they're afraid of something."
"Can't be too careful these days. You can get arrested and locked down just for talking to the wrong person in Stagwater. No offense, Chuckie, but I don't know if you're a wrong person." She swigged the wine.
Chuggie puffed on his pipe as he pondered this idea. "These guys that jumped me… they said they worked for a magistrate name of Kale."
Faben sat up straight. "None of the magistrates do jack shit on their own. All of 'em take their marching orders from Haste." She looked around to see if anyone might be eavesdropping. "If Kale wanted you dead, so does Haste. You got somebody's attention over there."
"That's good because I need to have myself a talk with this Haste fellow."
"Even though he wants to kill you?"
"Especially though he wants to kill me," Chuggie smirked.
"Why do you want to see him about?"
"I'm going to see the man about a goat."
"Pfshaw, keep your secret business secret, then. But you better watch out for the Steel Jacks. They'll get your secrets out of you if you cross their path."
Chuggie knew more about Steel Jacks than he cared to. Their alien kind had been on his butt like a bear on honeycomb for as long as he could remember. Those rift-crawlers always had some sort of proposal for him. From the time they first stepped out of the Tetracardi Rift three centuries ago, they seemed a little too eager to help. They claimed the rift opened one way, and that they couldn't go back through. True or not, there was no way to verify this, since the Steel Jacks had put that crackling tear in reality on lock down. He never trusted their otherworldly motives, and their offers always stunk of fine print obligations.
"So Brassline, you ever do any dancing?" Chuggie cocked his thumb in the direction of a sad little cluster of dancers swaying in front of the stage.
"Not with the likes of you, I don't." Faben crossed her arms over her chest.
"Aw, come on. I'll teach you." Chugg
ie held out his hand.
"I know how. I'm just not doing it. If you know what's good for you, you won't ask me again."
"All right, all right." Chuggie let his hand drop. "I had this pal once who said a woman who won't dance with you can't be trusted because they're always secretly plotting to have you killed. I think that part had more to do with the kinds of women Korkorahn shacked up with, but —."
"You know that name?" Faben's eyes grew wide.
"Korkorahn?" Chuggie asked, loud enough that she squirmed in her seat.
She put a finger to her lips. "Shh, are you crazy? You can't talk about him."
"You know him?"
"Yeah, I know him. Keep your fucking voice down. He brought all us Carnies here." Faben glanced over her shoulder and leaned closer. She whispered. "I'm the summoner for The Great Korkorahn's Traveling Carnival of Wonderment and Oddities."
"You don't say. Ain't that fuggin' something." Chuggie grinned. "This world is about as small as… good ole Korkorahn, how the hell is he."
"Shhh!" Faben clamped her hand over her mouth to demonstrate when the people at the next table turned to look. She took out a scrap of paper and a pen. She scribbled and handed the paper to Chuggie. "This is my address. Visit tomorrow and we'll talk. But not here." Faben jumped up from her chair and rushed out the back door.
"Hmmph. Could've said good night, you know." Chuggie picked up the wine bottle and tilted it on its side. "Empty."
"Closing time." Baker called out. He flickered the lights.
"Suppose I ought to put myself to bed." Chuggie lurched out of his chair and waded through the people leaving the bar.
"Excuse me, stranger," said a youthful-looking woman with startling red hair. Her silky white wrap clung to her body like a wet sheet.
"Apologies, my dear," said Chuggie, amused with himself for dozens of drunken reasons and trying not to stare at her breasts.
A pair of drunks rammed into Chuggie. "Hey, watch where you're going ass-hole," the tallest one said.
"Yeah," the other agreed.
Chuggie and the Desecration of Stagwater Page 12