by Eric Ugland
Hence why I was totally surprised when someone came up right behind me.
“This him?” a voice asked.
“Ayup,” Owen replied.
I turned around and saw an older man, balding with a trim beard, a little portly, and looking like it’d been a looong time since he’d had a good night’s sleep.
Involuntarily, I gripped my knife, not at all sure what was about to happen. I swallowed the urge to say something about not knowing it was his daughter.
The older man stepped closer to me, and pulled a huge sheathed sword out form under his cloak. Then he bent his head and held the weapon out to me.
“You managed to return my future to me,” the man said, face still down, looking at the ground as if he was afraid of looking me in the eye, “yet all I have to offer in return is something of my past.”
He pulled the sword just a little form the sheath, revealing the metal had a bit of sparkle and glow to it.
“Man,” I said, hands up after I let go of the knife. “I’m not sure what it is I did for you—”
“You returned my daughters to me.”
“It’s fine, I—” I started to say, but I felt a hand on my shoulder, and Owen pulled me close to him so he could whisper in my ear.
“’Tis a mighty bad idea to refuse a gift here,” Owen said softly, but in the manner where I knew it was a stern warning.
I really wanted to ask why, but with everyone in the tavern looking at me and watching this interchange, a tavern that seemed to be overflowing with all sorts of folk looking at me, I had no option but to slap a big silly grin my face.
“You are too kind,” I said, “but I accept your generous gift. Thank you.”
With just a tiny bit of a bow, I took the sword.
You have been given the greatsword: HELLREAVER
Greatsword
Item Type: Rare
Item Class: Two-handed Melee
Material: Fletium
Damage: 20-45 (Slashing)
Durability: 1845/2000
Weight: 24 lbs
Requirements: Str 18
Effects: +2 Damage on each strike, +10 Damage against any evil character.
Description: A large straight-bladed sword having a cruciform hilt with a grip for two-handed use.
My first magical weapon.
“Thank you,” I said. “Really.”
He nodded. “When I was your age, I thought a magical sword was something worth having. But when you get a bit older, you will see it is nothing compared to having yer family.”
I wasn’t exactly sure how to respond. The man nodded once, his eyes brimming with tears, and then left the tavern.
I just sat there, most of my food gone, holding a massive sword. Seriously, the thing was like, practically six feet long. Beautiful too. The hilt was wrapped in a supple leather with a big ol’ pommel, and the sheath was a strange red leather I’d never seen before. Everything about it was just super cool. Except that I had no where to put it. I mean, sure, I could slide it into my bag of holding, but that meant the entire town would know I had ta bag of holding. I figured that would be better kept a secret.
Thankfully, just as I realized more than one of the ladies in the room were making serious eyes at me, Nikolai came out of a door in the back and whistled. He made a sharp gesture, indicating I should already be following him, and then turned around.
I gave a half-hearted wave to the gathered townsfolk, and followed Nikolai on the double.
He led me to a small room with an even smaller table and three chairs. Cleeve sat in one of them; the other two were empty. Three mugs took up most of the table, all filled with a foamy liquid, either beer or mead. Either one good with me.
Cleeve pointed at the seat directly across from him, and though I expected Nikolai to join us, he merely shut the door and leaned against it, his arms crossed over his chest.
I sat.
“You are a mighty strange man,” Cleeve said.
“Thanks?” I replied.
“Take it however you like, for ’tis a truth. These past few days I have spent many an hour trying to figure you out, trying to understand who you are. All I have is that you are…different.”
“Hell man, I’ve spent my whole life trying to figure me out.’
“And you have no answers?”
“Not yet.”
“See, that is the thing,” Cleeve said, pointing at me, “you do not say, ‘no.’ You choose, ‘not yet’. Hopeful. You do not shy away from violence. Even if it is extreme and brutal. You make a choice to defend those you believe are innocent. These are uncommon traits in this land.”
“Really? Doesn’t seem that way to me.”
“I gave you a job,” Cleeve replied, “But I expected you might die. I chose to hire you, not give you anything.”
“You trained me.”
“Because I wanted you to protect my goods and my people.”
I frowned, taking a moment to think over my life. Which was easy because, at that point, it was only a few weeks long.
“I’ve had good luck with innkeepers,” I finally said. “But I’ve barely scratched the surface of this world. I don’t know the people here.”
“It is a hard world,” Cleeve said. “Violent. People do not live long here. They protect their own and rarely go beyond that. You had no reason to do what you did in the ruins—”
“Wait a minute — I had to complete the quest.”
“You did, but I refer to when you followed the young man into the dungeon below. You could have walked away at that point, left the young man to his own devices.”
“Dude had no idea what he was doing! He was what, under control of the aschenfucker thing.”
“Agachnern,” Nikolai offered from behind.
“Bless you,” I said, but no one else got the joke. “Yeah, that thing.”
“You had no idea, at the time, that the creature was controlling the man. You just went after him. I want to know why.”
I leaned back in my chair, looking from Cleeve to Nikolai and back.
“No offense,”I said, “but why the fuck does it matter why I did it?”
“Because I am curious.”
My hackles were raised. Why did he want to know — what was he curious about? And why did it matter why I did anything?
I took a deep breath and let it out nice and slow, doing my best to release my paranoia with the air. My original self, he was a creature of fear and paranoia. I often acted in a way I thought might protect me, just in case. That hadn’t worked out well. Here, I had the means mostly to protect myself from essentially anything that might serve to hurt me. Maybe it was time to trust.
“Ah hell, man, it just seemed like the right thing to do,” I said, swallowing my attitude. “Dude seemed in over his head, and he seemed like he was going somewhere he shouldn’t. There hadn’t been a single thing good in the whole castle. No way was it going to start in the basement.
“You didn’t think about a reward?” Cleeve asked.
“He tried to deny the reward,” Nikolai said. “Owen had to offer a little advice.”
“Bad idea to refuse a gift,” Cleeve said with a nod.
“Look, man,” I said, trying to get both men in view so they’d understand I was talking to them both, “there’s too many rules for this fucking world. Why? What does it matter if I accept the gift or not?”
“In the same manner you are given a quest, there are those who offer the reward. If they are unable to give the reward, they will suffer. As you must fulfill certain parameters to be successful, so must this father fill his. At a guess, this man promised something to the gods if they would bring his daughters back. The gods, hearing this, made the quest.”
“So he had to give me the sword because he said he would?”
“Likely.”
“So,” I pointed to Nikolai, “how did he get the quest? Did a god just wing it on down to him?”
“The man found me in the tavern in the morning,”
Nikolai said.
“So he—”
“You are becoming mired down again,” Cleeve said. “The world works in a certain way because the gods deem it so. You may question it, but the questions will never have concrete answers. It is better if you merely accept the manner in which the world works, and figure out how to best operate within it.”
I shook my head. “I don’t think that’s something I can ever fully do. I’ve always tried to understand things. I need to figure out how they work.”
Cleeve rubbed his this beard, and ever so slightly raised an eyebrow in Nikolai’s direction.
“Has your opinion changed?” Cleeve asked.
Nikolai scratched his chin. He looked at his nails, then at me.
“He is a bit of an idiot,” he said. “You know this, right?”
Cleeve just smiled as an answer.
“Hey,” I said.
“But other than that,” Nikolai said, “he fits the criteria you set.”
“Ah,” Cleeve replied, “but notice how you have yet to answer the question. How do you feel about him?”
“Couldn’t this have been done when I was out there eating?” I asked.
“Dye,” Nikolai said, “I do not think—”
“I asked you. I want an answer.”
“It does not matter what I think—”
“It will.”
There was a hard silence between the men, as if Cleeve had just said something intense. But I had no idea what that could possibly have been.
Nikolai stepped to the table, reached over me and grabbed his mug. He took a deep pull, then looked over at Cleeve.
“Yes,” Nikolai finally said. “I have changed my position on him.”
“Capital,” Cleeve said with a clap.
“I think I’m missing something,” I said.
“Always are,” Nikolai quipped.
“Well,” Cleeve said, pulling out a piece of paper and smoothing it out on the table. “I am preparing to adopt you as my heir, Montana of no house at all. That is, of course, if you would like to be a Duke in the near future.”
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Heir Today Pawn Tomorrow
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About the Author
Eric ran away from Seattle to join the circus. And then he came to his senses, and moved to Manhattan. Now he's a novelist in Los Angeles. Don't worry, it doesn't make sense to him either.
www.ericugland.com
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