The dot on the road grew a fraction.
Sergeant Todder massaged his aching eyes.
“Here’s another coming up the road.”
“I have eyes,” Todder said.
Twenty years, he thought, guarding the city. All while the real army was off fighting wars, the knights jousted at tournaments, and the navy sailed the seas.
All for a stupid horse. And when it came down to it, it hadn’t been a very fast horse. And the girl—oh, he hated thinking about her. Not even impressed. Her face resting naturally in a scowl, her lips pursed in a constant frown, she hadn’t even come to his trial. Granted, that was how all the maidens wore their faces, all catty with painted red lips and dark circles drawn around their eyes.
Todder hated when she popped into his mind. She was so large, he remembered, but that suited him. Todder clocked in at around the height of the gate itself. He needed a large woman.
“Are you going to stop him?” Brendan asked. “You didn’t stop the others.”
“They were regulars,” Todder said. “I knows ‘em all by name.”
“You didn’t seem to know their names.”
“I know their faces.”
The traveler stepped closer, now this perfectly awkward distance away, too close for a wave yet still too far for a hello. A wee person, Todder thought, a dwarf perhaps? Most of him was hidden beneath a brown traveling cloak, protecting him from the sun. Hopefully not a goblin. Todder hated goblins; his gobbledegook was rusty. And what Todder loved most about his job was some idle chitchat with a newcomer.
The lack of proper footwear drew the sergeant’s eye. He pulled a notepad from his pocket and flipped through the pages of his notes. Each day had two headings; both underlined: Coming and Going. Underneath, there were dashes, every fifth one crossing out the other four. He pulled the half a pencil from behind his ear, ready to jot down the next dash when the sound of gravelly footsteps drew near.
Only, the sound of footsteps never drew near.
“Do you know him?” Brendan asked.
Todder looked up. He stood as the traveler was now only a mere few feet away.
The traveler slid the hood of his cloak off his head, revealing a set of pointed ears. A crop of ginger curls flopped out over them. Sea green eyes speckled with blue hid behind a fair amount of cheek and jowl. The halfling smiled.
Sweat pooled on Todder’s forehead and in the crinkled crows feet beside them; he was forgetting something.
“Traveling papers?” Brendan asked.
Sergeant Todder nodded, gruffly—too gruffly. He regained some composure. “Right, um, traveling papers?”
Epik fished under his cloak, finding the paperwork in his back pocket.
“Right here, sir.”
Todder chuckled—sir, he didn’t hear that every day. He looked the papers over.
“A fresh start,” he read, chuckling again. This one wasn’t new. Maybe ole Sergeant Todder could impart some wisdom on this lad.
“What do you think Brandon, should we let this suspicious fellow in?”
Brendan shrugged.
“It’s Brendan, Sarge.”
“Right oh,” Todder said. He looked down at Epik. “What, were you the town beggar? The fool? Ya know, lots of folks come to the city for a fresh start. They don’t find much. ‘Specially little fellows like yourself.
“If I were you,” the sergeant said, “I’d go back to this—erm—Bog. Sounds like a right fine place for a wee person.” Todder thought a moment—the horse. The girl. “Unless o’ course, a woman chased ya out o’ there?”
Epik nodded glumly, thinking of his mother.
“I see,” the sergeant said practically. He shoved the paperwork back into Epik’s fist. “Good day to ya! And welcome to Dune All-En.”
Epik lingered at the gate. Open and welcoming, it was made of thick wood and iron. There was a small compartment to the side of it where the locking mechanism hid from view. Had the gate been closed, maybe it wouldn’t have looked so welcoming.
Instead of continuing north, on into the city, Epik took the first street, to the east and explored. The buildings on his right edged up against the wall. From their roofs, a man could leap across onto the ramparts and defend the city.
Not really knowing where to start and slipping into old habits, Epik asked for a job at the first pub he came across: the Rotten Apple Tavern. Down the way from the gate but a mere twenty or thirty strides from the expansive opening in the wall, the pub was the perfect mix of shabby and well-kept—the kind of dive that had a usual crowd of patrons but didn’t serve many tourists or newcomers.
Plus, it was a stone’s throw away from a magical supply store. Epik had tried the door, and only when he found it locked did he notice the closed sign hanging in the window.
The interview at the Rotten Apple consisted of spit shining one hundred fifty-six glassware and scraping off anything rotting from the cutlery and dishes. After he was done, the barman said he’d give him the job for half the pay he was giving the current dog. His name was Jed, a funny name for a dwarf as their names were usually adjectives like Ornery, Cantankerous, or Frank. He looked enough like any dwarf Epik had ever seen, like a halfling, but with more hair, a meaner temperament, and a rather bulbous nose.
“You ever serve their kind before,” Jed grunted, pointing to the men around the bar.
“No sir, never.”
“They’re not like us. You see?” Epik could see. They were much taller, and they smelt of alcohol and smoke while Epik always smelt of pine needles, no matter how much he washed.
“Not so good with the drink,” Jed said. “Do funny things when they have too much of it.”
“What kind of funny things?” Epik asked.
“Let’s see.” Jed scratched his red beard; the braids in it were coming undone. “Sometimes they’ll take a piss over yonder on the wall over there. Don’t even have the decency to stumble out to the alley,” he said. “And sometimes, they’ll sing.”
“They’ll sing?” Epik gapped. “But what’s so odd about that? We sing.”
“Aye.” Jed smiled. It was the kind of smile that Epik didn’t want to get too close to, teeth everywhere, coming from all directions. “But they do it all out of key and without any rhythm.”
“Without—,” Epik started.
“Aye,” Jed said again, nodding. “Some nights, I wear hearing protection. Can get you a pair with your first wages, if ya like.”
“Yes,” Epik said. “It does sound necessary.”
Things were going pretty well that first day. He’d found a job and a place to stay: a motel, just like they did in the stories he’d heard in the Hog’s Toot. It was called the Dayz Inn, probably because it looked better in the day than it did in the night when the rats and other vermin scampered about—cut-throats, thieves, newspaper deliverymen, and Dune All-En was known for its raccoons with the size and dexterity of baboons.
All in all, it went far better than Epik’s mother had expected.
“You’ll have your throat cut, and all your money stole the second you enter that godforsaken place,” she had told him. His mother wasn’t much for things outside the Bog, come to that, she wasn’t much for things inside it either.
“What makes you want to go off to the city now?” she had asked. “Still trying to find Limp Dicken Cornflake Brains, are you? I told you, son, he got his throat cut—or worse.”
“What could be worse?” Epik asked.
“Dunno,” she said. “They’re always going on about worse, aren’t they? Can’t think of what’s worse than being dead though. Whatever it is, your father would be worse, if he showed his face 'round here. Don’t know what you’re thinking, want to go off and be dead like him.”
Epik allowed his mother to continue along this line of thinking, never telling her about the wizard. He loved her about as much as it was possible to love an overbearing control freak of a mother, and she was ninety percent of the reason it took him so long to leave. She�
��d fall ill with an incurable disease that seemed to vanish after a few weeks mysteriously. She’d broke her leg once, falling down a whole flight of stairs when Epik mention he was off to the city. And Epik was positive she’d stolen his savings of coins on at least two occasions. The first, she came home with a necklace made of pearls, claiming it was a gift from farmer Tuck, who plainly denied it. The second time, he found his purse stashed away in his mother’s dresser, next to her lace knickers, of all things; he couldn’t retrieve it without her being in the know.
“There’s just not much for me here in the Bog,” Epik had said to her the last time it came up. “I don’t know if I can take another of Fatty Cheapskate’s stories, down at the bar. That man’s been on repeat for six years. Haven’t heard a new word out of him.”
In reality, the notion of magic had bubbled up once more, and Epik had remembered the second time the wizard had visited him. It was as faint a memory as being born.
Epik had gone swimming that morning before work. The river was slow moving, but still, no matter where you stepped your toe in, you’d find yourself a good distance away from your clothes and blankets upon your exit. Epik had floated down it a good way, lying on his back and picking out formations in the clouds.
He heard the laughter of children and rolled over to peer at them, only his eyes and nose bobbed out of the water. When he floated by, they found him. Pointing, they said, “It’s the swamp man, the swamp thing.”
“Help us,” they cried, running. But Epik knew he was nowhere near the lower river basin.
It jolted something inside him.
He had been to the lower river basin—just once—on a dare. As a child, he was desperate for friends, so desperate that he’d do about anything Frank Biggle asked of him. That’s how he found himself dipping into the river just a few hundred feet from where the plant man lived.
Now, most of the children thought the stories weren’t true. They thought it was a rural legend, something their parents used to scare them from going too far down the river. So there they were, egging Epik on; he waded into the muck and mire. Frank Biggle and his gang gave him a thumbs up. The river took him then, and even with the kids jogging alongside it, they were soon lost from sight. Epik wasn’t sure whether to be scared or not; his breathing was shallow, and no matter how tight he shut his lips, black water seeped inside.
A jerk on his lower foot caught him off guard. No plant could hold him so tight. At first, he thought an alligator had him, but the pressure on his ankle was more like a hand—a strong one. He kicked and flailed, too scared even to scream. Then the plant man’s head rose out of the water. It looked made of cabbage and seaweed. Nothing but empty mushy sockets stared back at him. Suddenly and without warning, the swamp man let go. Not on purpose, the minute his hand had betrayed him, he followed, grasping at Epik like a straw. Epik found his way to shore, running through the brine with all the speed he could muster.
This was where his memory failed him. He could have easily been making it up. But as his memory was jogged of this event, he was sure now that a man stood in his periphery, there at the edge of the water. He had held the beast at bay, giving Epik enough time to run back to town; the laughs of Frank Biggle’s gang echoed behind him.
Epik never told his mother the true story. And now, he’d left her without saying goodbye. He sat down to write her a letter, give her some explanation, but he thought better of it and blew out the lamp.
Tomorrow, he thought. Tomorrow, I’ll find a wizard. Tomorrow, I’ll find my fortune. Tomorrow, it’s only a day away.
He slept soundly; the sounds of a giant raccoon digging in the trash can outside was like a bad but consistent lullaby.
The Men in the High Castle
“Sire, I believe it’s time we have a serious talk about protecting the city.”
Nacer remembered speaking those words. He’d had a plan, one to steer the King’s musing to his agenda, or rather, one he’d come into by agreement. But that was nearly three hours ago. Before the King’s diatribe about his victories in battle, before his boastings of things he’d done for the city in his tenure. They’d moved from the great hall to the banquet room for supper and now finally to the King’s own bedchamber.The King had barely allowed his Grand Counselor to get a word in edgewise.
Where first Nacer had hoped to impact policy, now he just wished for bed.
He would try again tomorrow. “Will that be all, sire?” he said.
“Will that be all?” the King mocked. “Who do you think I am? Some simple lord—some peasant? You’ll stay right where you are all night if I need you.”
It was one thing to see the King distressed and a whole other to see him in his privies. He paced around the room; it made Nacer nervous. The man looked less stately than a piglet in pajamas and half as greased. He wore oversized boxers, cut off at the knee, with stockings on so high they almost met them. He was shirtless; his nipples pointed cockeyed to opposite sides of the room. Apparently, there was a draft.
The King circled back to Nacer’s original line of thinking. “Now really,” he said, “how long has it been—that I’ve been king?”
Nacer feigned moments of calculation, then said, “Nine years, three hundred, and sixty-one days. Four hours.”
“That long?” the King scoffed. “Can’t have been.”
He took several uncomfortable steps toward his bed, running the numbers in his own head, using his fingers to count out each year, before turning and striding back across the room.
“We could call back the 6th regiment,” Nacer offered. But why? Why was he talking about troop movements? That wasn’t his aim in the slightest. His original plan had called for it though, and Nacer wasn’t one to go off script. But three hours was a long time. To hell with the plan, he thought.
“No,” the King said, “what about the 4th?”
“In one of those friendlies with Foghorn—a hundred days march back to the city.”
“Do we know who’s winning?” the King asked.
“Oh you know how friendlies go: they always end in a draw.”
The King nodded. Backing up to his chamber pot, he pulled the linen shorts down in one motion. Nacer let out a sigh, averting his eyes across the room. His nose had no such luck.
There was something subservient about doing business in places that business should not take place—bedrooms, lavatories, brothels. Where the King went, the Grand Counselor followed.
Nacer found a glimmer of moonlight through a crack in the King’s curtains. The King’s bed took a small portion of the room. An inlet was carved out of a turret on the northwestern side of the castle; it fit a king sized mattress but nothing more. The room itself was ornate; it looked more chiseled out of marble than made of stone. If the King wanted, each morning he could open his bedside curtains and look out at sea. He never wanted, at least, not anymore.
As nine years in the city crept toward ten, the King was losing sleep, though he’d never admit as much to Nacer. Up before the sun rose and to bed late in the night, he issued proclamations and orders, doing what any King would do to cling to the last thread of life or monarchy—ten years in Dune All-En usually meant both.
“And the Navy?” the King asked, grunting.
“Searching for pirates, I’m sure.”
“So where does that leave us?”
“Exactly where we started,” Nacer said, “sire.”
The Grand Counselor, the right hand of the King, looked at his liege impatiently. The hour was late, and he was rather fond of his bed. He was rather fond of the ladies that were now in his bed, waiting for him. He looked at his watch. Jade’s hourly rate alone sent silver coins spinning in his head. And the other, what was her name? Veronica?
The King nodded again as if this was exactly where he’d meant the conversation to lead.
Nacer sighed. He made one last attempt, prodding. “So you leave the city to be guarded by… By the Watchmen?”
“Not just the Watch,” the King s
aid. “The Royal Guard is well equipped, well trained. I’d trust them with my life.”
“You often do,” Nacer chided.
The King smiled despite himself.
“So, we do nothing with the 6th?” Nacer said. “Only a two weeks march away?”
Back to troop movements; Nacer was never one to go off a good script.
“No,” the King groused. “I’m sure of a threat from Kings Way! The 6th will stay saddled between us—all the protection we need.”
“And that’s the only threat you’re aware of?” Nacer said; his tone suggested he knew otherwise.
“No, no, of course not.” The King took the bait. “Could be anyone this time, I guess. A martyr maybe? God knows we haven’t had a decent martyr in years. A religious uprising is just what the kingdom needs. No, not a martyr. Another king?”
Not a king, Nacer thought. He wasn’t keen on moving the conversation back to damn troop movements. “You command a powerful army, sire. The world’s most veteran Navy.”
“Only because they stay out at sea,” the King argued. "You know I'd like to see those beautiful ships out in the harbor from time to time. Half the reason I don’t open up that window."
“Noted sire,” Nacer said. He felt the conversation slipping from his grasp. “I don’t think it will be another king,” he said plainly. “For one, there’s that constant reminder of the Battle of the East Rampart—your greatest victory. Few kingdoms wish to contend with that. Your tenacity brought down that wall.”
“And a lot of gunpowder,” the King said snidely. “You know, I would like that fixed. It’s been ten years.”
“Noted, sire." Nacer smiled; his efforts were coming to fruition. He could feel it, there on the tip of the King’s tongue. He was almost there.
“Maybe you’re right,” the King agreed. “No one’s going to go about overthrowing me that way. Too obvious, I suspect. But let’s double the night watch on the wall anyway. I suppose we can't be too careful.”
Fog Lifted: An Epik Fantasy Short (The Great Ranger Book 1) Page 6