Critical Failures VII

by Robert Bevan

  Chaz in his flamboyantly colorful bard outfit didn't seem, at least from Julian's perspective, to warrant the benefit of the doubt.

  “Thank you, sir.”

  The bartender had another laugh at that. “Please! The bugbears of Blackwood Forest call me sir. At least they started to after I caved in their leader's face with my bare fist. You call me Lodor.” He poured Chaz a shot of what was in the bottle, then poured another one for himself.

  Chaz stared down into his glass. “Thank you, Mr. Lodor.”

  Lodor gulped back his shot, then squinted as he sucked in air through his teeth. When he regained his composure, his gaze fell to Chaz's still full glass. “Pussy.”

  “Excuse me?” said Chaz.

  “That's what you came here for, right? That's what all men your age come to the Crescent Shadow for. Of course you'll tell your parents that you're here for the cultural experience, to hobnob with more experienced wizards and pick up some tips on how to improve your craft. But we know the real reason you come is for the pussy.”

  As uncomfortably vulgar as that was, Julian saw it as the perfect opportunity to bring up the bargirl from last time. He poked Chaz in the side, hoping he'd take the hint.

  “YAH!” said Chaz, apparently more ticklish than Julian had anticipated.

  Lodor narrowed his eyes at him as he dried a glass with a dirty towel. “Huh?”

  “I mean, yeah! Pussy!” Chaz picked up the shot glass in front of him.

  He'd be worthless for the rest of the day if he got trashed this early in the morning. When Lodor turned around to put away the glass he was drying, Julian snatched Chaz's drink away, gulped back the contents, then shoved the empty glass back into his hand.

  Unable to control himself when he felt the effects of the booze, Julian wheezed as he sucked in air.

  When Lodor turned back around, Chaz made his best effort at faking a wince.

  Lodor grinned. “Good stuff, is it not?”

  “Oh yeah.”

  “Care for another shot?”

  Though he knew Chaz couldn't see him, Julian shook his head.

  Ask for something else. Ask for something else. Ask for –

  “Sure,” said Chaz.

  Lodor poured another shot for Chaz, but his own glass was only half full when the last few drops dripped out of the bottle. “That won't do, will it?” He winked at Chaz. “No worries, I've got another bottle in the back.”

  As soon as his back was turned, Julian grabbed Chaz's drink off the bar and gulped it down.

  “Hey!” said Chaz as his empty glass slammed back down on the bar.

  Lodor stopped and looked back at him. “Yes?”

  “Huh? Oh, um... Do you have peanuts?”

  Lodor's eyes widened with rage. He looked like he might leap over the bar and beat Chaz's head to paste. “One big enough to split your blessed mother in twain!”

  “No no no!” said Chaz. “Pea-nuts. Like, to snack on.”

  Lodor's rage dissipated and he bellowed out a laugh. “I thought you'd gotten a couple of drinks down you, and you sought to challenge me manhood.”

  “No, Mr. Lodor! I would never.”

  “I'll see what I can find in the back.” Lodor disappeared through the doorway behind the bar.

  Chaz whirled around and glared at a point about three inches above Julian's head. “What the hell are you doing?” he whispered. “Why do you keep stealing my drinks?”

  “We're not here for you to get hammered,” said Julian, swaying on his stool. “You're supposed to be trying to get information from this guy. When he started talking about pussy, that was an opportunity to steer the conversation toward the girl who works here.”

  “How am I supposed to do that?”

  “Subtly.” Julian heard Lodor's heavy footsteps returning from the back room. “He's coming back. Shut up and act natural.”

  “I found some hard tack,” said Lodor as he reemerged from the back room with a fresh bottle of booze and a small basket of crackers. “They are not terribly tasty, I'm afraid, but they should help soak up your bitch tears.”

  “I beg your pardon?” said Chaz. Julian had to agree that was kind of a harsh thing for Lodor to say to his only customer.

  Lodor laughed. “That's what this is called.” He held up the bottle. “Bitch Tears.”

  “Oh.” Chaz nodded as Lodor poured him a third shot. “By the way, speaking as we were of pussy, I was told there was a young girl who worked here.”

  Julian cradled his face in his hands and willed himself not to punch Chaz.

  “Nadia?” said Lodor. “You don't want to get mixed up with a woman like that. You should thank the gods I finally cut her loose last week. Always droning on about this Darton fellow to anyone patient enough to listen to her tale of woe.”

  Chaz sighed. “Yeah, that sure would suck.”

  “It's bad for business. Men talk to women in bars because they want to bend them over and give them a good rogering.” He held his hand in front of him, grabbing imaginary ass while he thrust his pelvis, presumably in case his choice of vernacular was unclear. “A bar wench's job is to provide the customer false hope of that fantasy becoming a reality.”

  “And here I thought it was to serve drinks.”

  “A man can drink anywhere. The bar business isn't about drinks. It's about pussy.”

  “Is that right?” Chaz gave a small smile in Julian's direction before gulping down his firs shot of Bitch Tears. Then he started choking and coughing. “Jesus! That's some strong shit.”

  Lodor laughed. “That one didn't go down as smoothly as the first two, it seems. Perhaps you've had enough?”

  “I'm fine,” Chaz croaked like he was being strangled. “Sorry I interrupted you. You were talking about Nadia?”

  Julian had to hand it to Chaz. He'd set that train right back on the track.

  “She has no self-respect,” said Lodor. “If you don't respect yourself, others will not respect you either. And there is nothing in this world more important than respect. Do you know what I did to those bugbears after I killed their leader?”

  Chaz shook his head.

  “I made every one of them lick my testicles in front of their families.”

  “Oh,” said Chaz. “Whatever turns you on, I guess.”

  “I did it not to satisfy some depraved fetish, boy. I did it to command their respect. No man will have the confidence to stand up to you once his sons have watched him lick your testicles.”

  Chaz thought for a moment while he watched Lodor pour the next round. “So you're saying Nadia should have made the customers lick her balls?”

  Lodor stared at him as if he wasn't sure whether or not that was a serious question.

  Julian likewise didn't know if Chaz was making a joke or if he was drunk from his one shot of Bitch Tears, but he certainly wasn't being helpful. He gave him another poke in the ribs.

  “OH!” yipped Chaz.

  “What's wrong?” asked Lodor.

  “Nothing. I was just admiring that bottle.” Chaz pointed to the far end of the shelves behind the bar. “What's that?”

  As soon as Lodor turned his head, Chaz let loose with a barrage of retaliatory pokes in Julian's direction, which Julian dodged with ease. As an added bonus, he swiped Chaz's drink, gulped it down, and put the glass back while Lodor walked over to fetch the bottle Chaz was pretending to be interested in. Unfortunately, he missed his stool when he went to sit back down and took a hard fall on the floor.

  “What was that noise?” asked Lodor as Julian lay still and panicky on the floor.

  “Huh?” said Chaz. “Oh, nothing. I accidentally kicked over my lute case.” He leaned over and gave Julian the finger as he picked up his lute case, then sat up and set it on the bar.

  “So you're a musician,” said Lodor as he set down the bottle on the bar. “Mayhap I can persuade you to play a tune?”

  Chaz got down from his stool, opened his lute case, and carefully removed the exquisitely-crafted lute giv
en to him by the pixies of Glittersprinkles Grove. After a few initial strums, Julian quickly recognized the song from Chaz's playlist at Millard's keep. Neil Diamond's America.

  Part of Julian wished that Chaz would expand his musical repertoire. On the other hand, why mess with a tried and true crowd pleaser?

  And pleased Lodor was. Several times, as Chaz belted out a cover that Neil himself would have wept at, Julian caught Lodor wiping a tear from his eyes.

  Chaz's confidence grew stronger with each verse, and near the end he was bellowing out the lyrics. Even Julian felt himself getting choked up.

  “My country, 'tis of thee

  Sweet land of liberty

  Of thee I sing

  Of thee I –”

  “Mercy of the gods!” cried Lodor, looking directly at Julian. “Where in the Seven Hells did you come from?”

  Julian looked down at his hands. They, along with the rest of him, were perfectly visible. His Invisibility spell had timed out.

  Maybe I should have held onto that ring after all.

  “I, um...” Julian fumbled for some reasonable excuse to have been sitting there invisibly listening to their conversation, then the door burst open behind him.

  A grizzled old wizard with bits of dried vomit in his long white beard staggered up to the bar. “That song! What was that beautiful song? Did my old ears deceive me, or did it not come from within this place?”

  “Yes!” cried Julian, forming the lie as he spoke it. “I was just walking by, and I heard this lovely music. I'm an elf. I have really good hearing, and I... uh...”

  The old wizard spotted Chaz holding his lute. “Was it you? Did you play that song?”

  Chaz turned to Lodor, who nodded eagerly.

  “Uh... yeah.”

  “In all my years, I've not heard anything like it,” said the wizard. “Play it again, I beg you.”

  Lodor cleared his throat. “This is a place of business, sir. There is a two – No, three drink minimum to stay and listen to the bard's performance.”

  The wizard reached into a pocket of his blue satin robes, then slapped a shiny platinum coin down on the bar. He scanned the selection on the shelves, then his gaze fell to the bottles right in front of him. “Oooh, Bitch Tears. Line them up!”

  Lodor raised his eyebrows expectantly at Julian. “And for you?”

  Julian was barely able to stand up as it was. “I think I've had enough for tonight. Maybe I could buy some drinks for the bard?”

  Lodor smiled broadly at Chaz. “His drinks are paid for in song.” His smile faded as he turned back to Julian. “Yours are paid for in gold, or you may see yourself out.”

  “Oh, no. I couldn't possibly miss this.” Julian fished a few silver pieces out of his coin purse and set them on the bar, hoping they would only be enough to cover this world's equivalent to Zima. “Three of whatever this will buy me, please.”

  “Very well,” said Lodor as he frowned at what must have looked like sofa-cushion change next to the shiny platinum coin. He poured the wizard's drinks into proper shot glasses, then ladled three scoops of some murky brown concoction from a barrel behind the bar into dented tin cups and placed them in front of Julian.

  “Thank you,” said Julian. He took a sip from the first of his drinks. It tasted like the sweat of two raccoons that had just finished having sex in a dumpster, but not any less strong than Bitch Tears. “Mmmm.”

  Lodor nodded at Chaz, who immediately began strumming his lute strings again.

  He started with I Am... I Said, then followed that up with Brooklyn Roads, then Love on the Rocks. Each song he played brought in a few more drunks from outside. When he picked up the tempo a bit with Cracklin' Rosie, Kentucky Woman, and Cherry, Cherry, every wizard with an avian familiar sent them out to go fetch their friends. By the time he got to Brother Love's Travelling Salvation Show, The Mortar & Pestle was packed to capacity, and Lodor was openly weeping tears of joy. Julian suspected that had less to do with being moved by the evangelical nature of the song, and more to do with the amount of money being dumped in his till at this hour in the morning.

  The crowd went wild when Chaz started Done Too Soon with the opening lyric of “Jesus Christ”. They no doubt assumed he was referencing the fifty-foot tall Pillsburg Doughchild which had recently manifested as a god and singlehandedly saved the city of Cardinia. But as Chaz rattled off the list of names in the song, Julian sipped the third of his horrible drinks and pondered why Neil Diamond felt John Wilkes Booth was “done too soon”. Surely, the world would be a better place if he'd been done a few weeks sooner.

  Visibly exhausted and audibly drunk, Chaz thanked the crowd and announced that he only had one more song in him. Unsurprisingly but appropriately, it was Sweet Caroline. Not Neil's best work, in Julian's opinion, but so legendarily popular that it wouldn't do to close a show with anything else.

  Most of the crowd left when Chaz put away his lute, but a few people hung around for another drink. When Lodor made sure all their glasses were full, he excused himself and walked over to Chaz.

  “That was quite a performance, kid. What is your name?”

  “Charles,” said Chaz. “But I go by Chaz.”

  “You've got quite a gift there, Chaz. Did you write those songs yourself?”

  Chaz's gaze flickered to Julian, who nodded. “Yes.”

  “You referenced a lot of names and places which I did not recognize. From where did you draw you inspiration?”

  “They're, um...” Chaz smiled. “They're from a fantasy world that I created.”

  Lodor rubbed his massive chin. “Interesting. I don't want to tell you how to do your job or stifle your creative process or whatever, but I was thinking you might appeal to a broader audience if you sang about real people and places instead of this silly fantasy nonsense.”

  “Oh?”

  “I don't mean big sweeping changes. Just little things. For example. Katookie Woman? Nobody knows what that is.”

  “You mean Kentucky Woman?”

  “Whatever. It's just some goofy made up word. But what about Efreeti Woman?” Lodor grinned. “See that? Now you got yourself a song that invokes feelings in people. It's terrifying.”

  “That song's not supposed to be terrifying.”

  “And what about that Coming to Amalaga?”

  “It's America,” said Chaz, a hint of annoyance in his tone.

  “It doesn't matter what it is. It's a place that doesn't exist anywhere but in your mind. People can't relate to that. I mean don't get me wrong. You know how to stir up a crowd, I'll give you that. But would it kill you to change it to Coming to Cardinia?”

  “I'll certainly take that into consideration.”

  “You do that. Now go get some rest, and be back here before dusk.”

  “What? Tonight? I don't think I can –”

  Lodor grabbed Chaz by the arm and shoved his meaty fist into Chaz's much smaller hand. Instead of a clap, Julian heard a distinct jingle. When Lodor took his hand away, Chaz was holding a small but weighty-looking coin pouch.

  When he looked inside the pouch, his eyes widened. He looked up at Lodor. “That's very generous of you. Thank you.”

  “If you can pull in that kind of crowd at this hour in the morning, imagine what we'll be able to accomplish at night.” He scratched his head as he scanned the room. “If I get rid of these tables, we could easily pack twice as many people in here. And I'll have to hire on some new bartenders. Merciful gods, do I have work to do. You run along and rest those pipes of yours.”

  Chaz stumbled toward the exit, and Julian followed discreetly behind him.

  Chapter 22

  Stacy idly perused an assortment of hats, bonnets, and scarves, still feeling self-conscious about her new hairstyle, though she found that men on the street didn't seem to be checking her out any less frequently.

  “Why don't you try one on?” asked the kind-looking old half-elven woman manning the booth. She tapped the top of her walking stick against a
mirror to let Stacy know it was there.

  “Thank you, ma'am. But I was just browsing.” She hadn't walked across the whole city to go hat shopping after all. She needed to keep her eyes fixed on Dolazar, who was across the street keeping her eyes fixed on Cooper, who was a few booths down from Stacy, supposedly keeping his eyes fixed on her. Each of them had coin purses filled with copper coins hanging at their sides begging to be plucked by wererat thieves.

  “I can't blame you,” said the old woman. “'Twould be a pity to cover that bold, yet elegant, choice of hairstyle.”

  Is this lady screwing with me?

  Stacy took her eyes off Dolazar for a moment to glance at the mirror. She was amazed to discover what a fantastic job she'd done cutting her own hair in the dark with a dagger. She'd expected it to be uneven and blotchy, with patches of near-baldness, but it actually came out really nice and even. It wasn't a style she'd thought she could ever pull off, but it was working for her.

  Now that she thought about it, it kind of made sense. Her Charisma score was an 18. It would be nearly impossible to have bad hair, no matter how she styled it. She turned back to Dolazar, wondering how it might look in a bob after it grew long enough. She'd always wanted to try a –

  “Shit!” Dolazar's coin purse was missing.

  “Excuse me?” said the old woman.

  “I'm sorry. I have... um... Tourette's.” Stacy scanned the street for someone running away, but the market was crowded enough for the thief to easily disappear into. She sighed. Of course it was. That was the whole point of operating their petty theft crime ring here.

  She jogged across the street to the Holy Biscuit booth where Dolazar was doing a good job of pretending to be fascinated by bagels.

  “Your purse got snagged,” Stacy whispered as she pretended to be interested in the same bagel Dolazar was staring at.

  Dolazar glanced down at her side where her coin purse was supposed to be. “Not bad. I didn't feel a thing. Which way did he go?”