by Tom Liberman
The agitators cheered even more loudly but, if anything, fewer joined them and Rhia noted a number of people had angry looks on their faces and stood stoically with their arms across their chests.
Pillswar looked out over the audience and frowned for a moment before regaining his composure. “I know you are worried, I hear your concerns, and I am the one who can lead us to victory. Would you see your children enslaved by the gnolls? Your brothers and sisters transformed into rock beasts? We are a proud people and we cannot allow such a catastrophe to befall us. We must take action!”
The response now came largely from the few supporters who yelled at the beginning and even they seemed tepid in their support as they looked anxiously at the angry faces around them.
“Free people of Tanelorn!” shouted Pillswar again.
Rhia shook her head and then gaped in astonishment for appearing next to Pillswar, apparently through the same hidden door, was Mike. She stood with her chin out and looked out over the crowd.
“Friends,” she shouted and for the first time, the girl’s voice carried loudly.
“Get off the stage!” said Pillswar turning to the girl.
“You had your chance,” shouted an older man near the stage. “Let the boy talk.”
There was a momentary pause and a young man’s voice shouted out from the back, “He’s a girl!”
The crowd erupted in laughter.
The old man up front squinted and shook his head, “I can’t tell one from the other with all these newfangled haircuts!”
Everyone laughed even more loudly until Mike raised her hands. Pillswar glared at her but said nothing.
“Friends. Would you trust your nation to a man who doesn’t understand you have to build outhouses if you’re going to have a party?”
The crowd erupted in laughter and Pillswar’s face went red with rage although he shuffled backward toward the edge of the stage.
“Pillswar is here and so are those he’s paid to cheer!” she shouted.
The crowd murmured in approval and the older man smiled and nodded his head, “You go on there, little girl!”
“Who is not here?”
A voice from the back called out, “The Gray Lord!”
“Who else?” she asked.
“Jane Gray,” said another voice.
“Who else?”
“The Gray Knights!”
“The Gray Druids!”
“Valary Gray!”
“Lady Gray!”
“Jon Gray!”
Cried the crowd over one another.
“Those people are not here because they trust you. They trust me. The Gray Lord trusts the people of the nation he created. He does not cajole them with words. He does not beg for their approval. He does what he thinks is best and accepts that you will follow his lead or you will not.”
The crowd erupted in a huge roar.
“You are free and with that freedom comes responsibility. The Gray Lord trusts you to act in your own interest and thus in his. He acts in his own interest and thus in yours.”
The roar rose higher.
“Many of you know what it is like to live under such as him,” shouted Mike pointing to Pillswar but the man had already fled the stage and was beating a hasty retreat along with Borrombo and a few others. “I am free to make my own way in this world and I will not trade that freedom for the promise of security. I will not trade that freedom for anything.”
“Freedom!” shouted the crowd and their words drowned out anything else Mike was trying to say. “Freedom!” they roared unanimously. “Freedom.”
Rhia watched with wide eyes, looked over to Marianna, and saw tears were running down her cheeks. Rhia realized she also was crying. She looked up to the stage where Mike stood and saw a slender woman with an elegant carriage taking the stairs up to girl.
Mike saw her also and they looked at one another.
“I’m very proud of you …, Mike,” said the woman.
“You can call me Sunny,” said Mike, tears streaming down her face. “Mom.” They embraced.
Epilog
Rhia wandered around the gathering as the day went on and more people set up tents to sell food and drink to the ever growing crowd. The people were smiling and talking jovially with one another. Such a gathering had not occurred in the history of Tanelorn and people who hadn’t seen each other in years renewed old acquaintances.
It was not all happiness and joy as Rhia overheard many people discussing the inevitable war that approached, not with fear but with cool reason.
She walked around in the crowd for an hour leaving Mike to a happy family reunion and Marianna to the attention of several handsome young boys that seemed eager to meet her.
As she wandered Rhia came upon a group of rough looking men who had the bearing of soldiers. Most of them appeared to be full-blooded orcs and several war patches indicating they belonged to one or the other of the Five Nations. Sitting in their center, at a table and sketching on a piece of paper, was Adusko. He looked none the worse from the previous night’s encounter.
Rhia had drunk a few tankards of beer and suddenly remembered how the man had strangled that young gnoll to death, how he had broken her nose, and how he tried to rape Mike. Anger welled up in her and she strode over to his table. “Adusko!” she said loudly and put her fist on the table with a bang.
He glanced up at her and put down the colored pencil he was using to draw. “Buffalorider,” he said and bowed his head slightly.
“Your boss is finished and you’re next. If you don’t get out of Tanelorn I’ll kill you myself.”
The ever-present scowl that adorned Adusko’s face suddenly vanished and a faraway look came to his eyes. “I remember the first time someone threatened to kill me,” he said his voice quiet and filled with overpowering menace; he spoke slowly and enunciated each syllable which drew out the words like a blade. “It was my fifth birthday. Barbarians, north men overran my village.”
Adusko closed his eyes as if imagining the scene in his mind. “He was tall, long blonde hair braided down the back like a dwarf. Piercing blue eyes. He said it to me as he was raping my little sister.”
Adusko paused and his full, baleful glare fell upon Rhia. The scowl returned to his face. “It did not work out well for him but, perhaps, you will be more fortunate.”
He stood, motioned with his head to the other toughs, and walked toward the Gray City. They followed.
Rhia felt her knees trembling and almost lost control of her bladder. It took her a moment to recover and when she did, she noticed that Adusko had left his sketching on the table.
It was a single piece of parchment with a line evenly dividing it in two. A picture of a young woman in some sort of clear coffin box was on the left. On the right was a precise image of the apparition that appeared on the stage next to Jane Gray all those weeks ago. They were the same.