by Ryan Drake
There was only one way up to the mezzanine floor and the guardsmen were heading straight towards it, elbowing halfling, man and orc out of the way as they went. In moments they would be up the stairs and I would be caught. Except that I had no intention of being there when they arrived.
A large, candle-studded chandelier hung from the ceiling over the main room. Without pausing to wonder if I could even reach it and choosing to ignore whatever was going on in my chest, I stepped quickly up onto the banister and leapt, catching the chandelier with both hands. A simple swing and I dropped casually to the ground near the door. It was almost too easy. I wasn’t even puffing.
Some of my pursuers had reached where I’d just recently been. So I offered them a cheerful salute and pushed open the door, intent only on getting out of there as fast as I could.
Unfortunately, the good Captain had seen fit to station a handful of guardsmen there as well. They grinned at me and drew their swords.
As quickly as I could, I slammed the door again and sought a new escape. There was a second door over the other side and the way was mostly clear. If I could just—
Poodle stepped in front of me. “Boss said no trouble,” he said. “Think he’s right. You won’t be.” Just like the guards outside, he was grinning.
I kicked him as hard as I could in the shin and he didn’t even flinch. It probably hurt me worse than him. Even so, I darted around him and… “Urk,” I said. He’d caught me by the collar of my tunic as I tried to pass.
He raised me into the air with one hand and held me dangling in front of him. I heard tiny laughter from somewhere and remembered that I’d held Max this way not so many minutes before.
I tried to kick Poodle in the nuts. Didn’t work. Maybe he didn’t have any to kick. Attempted to punch him in the face. Couldn’t reach. I hit his arm repeatedly, aiming to make him let go, but I might have been hitting stone for all the good it did.
“Captain!” Poodle called sweetly. “Oh Captain! Is this what you’re looking for?”
Mostly quiet until now, several of the tavern patrons joined in with Max’s laughter.
I hung there, fuming, not used to situations like this at all. I’ve said it before: I’m fairly tall and strong, and not bad in a fight. (I’m also good looking and wonderfully charming, but that’s a little off topic for now. Maybe we’ll go into it later.) So to be manhandled so easily, no, so nonchalantly, was frustrating at the very least. If I didn’t start making some sort of impact soon, I thought, it may well wreak irrevocable harm to my delicate self esteem.
I considered my options. I’d already tried everything obvious. My tail was no help at all in this situation. But I’m resourceful and don’t fight fair. I was outmatched, outmuscled and caught. And outnumbered. If I couldn’t get away now, I’d have a much more difficult time later on. Especially if, as Gabby had suggested, this had anything to do with Thork Yurger, who’d tried to put a crossbow bolt in me the last time we’d met.
Thinking of Gabby, I twisted my neck to look for her but she was nowhere to be seen. Maybe she’d already left, or maybe she was hiding somewhere. Maybe she was watching from her dark little corner and I just couldn’t see.
Oh well, I thought. Might as well get on with it.
I drew back, sniffed really hard until the snot started to collect at the back of my throat, then spat, aiming for Poodle’s eyes.
It was a masterful shot. Right on target!
Poodle snarled and wiped at his face with his free hand, but I wasn’t done yet. My tail wasn’t the only weapon I had. I didn’t carry a sword. To me, they always seemed too long and unwieldy. But I did carry a number of knives secreted under my clothes, as well as a few throwing stars, a couple of small cudgels, and even a garrote. While he was still distracted by my spit, I picked my least favorite knife (I figured there wasn’t much chance of getting it back) and buried it as deeply as I could in his forearm.
It went in all of an inch and a half. Not much, but not even Poodle could stand that sort of treatment. He howled in pain, tried to blink through the remnants of spit in his eyes, and turned the howl into an inarticulate roar of anger.
I’m not sure what he would have done from there. He could have punched me, thrown me to the floor, or maybe bitten my head clean off. But I hadn’t stabbed him randomly. I’d taken good care, and my aim had been true. I’d pierced a bundle of nerves that controlled a few key muscles.
He couldn’t maintain his grip on my collar.
I twisted free and scurried behind him. Several of the guards had joined us, so to add insult to injury I aimed a second, much stronger kick at Poodle’s nuts. This time I must have connected. His inarticulate roar cut clean off and he fell to his knees, uttering a much quieter whimper. The guards who had reached us took note of my triumph and approached cautiously.
“Now, now,” one was saying. “Don’t try anything rash—”
I lunged in his direction, watched him flinch, then picked up a chair and charged towards his companion.
That worthy hurried to get out of my way.
From there it was easy. I dropped the chair, hopped up on a table, leapt over a trio of halflings and threw open the door.
I threw it closed again just in time to stop a bolt fired from Thork Yurger’s crossbow. The irritating little man had been standing there, waiting.
I considered my options. Should I open the door again and rush him as I’d done before? Should I pick up that chair again and use it as a shield as I did? Or should I seek another way out?
In retrospect, perhaps I should have spent less time thinking and more time acting, because a couple of the tavern patrons decided to help out the guards by tackling me and sending me crashing to the ground.
“What did you do that for?” I demanded from my spot on the floor. That tackle had hurt. I’d skinned a knee and banged my head on the door. To complicate matters, whatever was going on in my chest had grown worse. It felt like there was a blockage somewhere around where my lungs ought to be, but my breathing still felt normal. I really needed to do something about that soon, I thought, but I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what.
“Sorry,” one of them said. “Thought we’d, you know, try and help.”
“And you chose to help them rather than me? Thanks a bunch!” I cuffed him around the ear. He cringed but didn’t let go.
I was in serious trouble and I knew it. Sure, I could have dislodged both of them without much effort, but the key problem was time. I didn’t have any left. Beyond these two I could see Poodle climbing back to his feet, but he wasn’t the real issue.
The real issue was that the Captain had arrived with about a dozen other guards. Several of them approached.
“Look,” I said, smiling sweetly and trying one last time. “I don’t know what you think I did, but I promise you I’m innocent.”
It was a weak effort, I knew that, and it was as far as I got before the nearest guards started kicking me. My tacklers finally figured out they shouldn’t be there and scurried away as best they could, leaving me to my own defenses.
I did what any self-respecting man would do. I squeezed my eyes tightly shut, brought my knees up to my chin, curled into a ball, hoped that my armor would protect me somewhat and prayed to all the gods I could think of (I might have invented a few) that the guardsmen would stop before they did any serious damage.
No such luck, I thought. They kicked me wherever they could and they weren’t holding back. My legs and arms bore the brunt of it, but now and then someone thought to stomp and I could only protect my head so much. I felt my consciousness slipping away at the same time as that blockage in my chest started to move.
My last conscious thought was to laugh. I’d figured out what the blockage was. It was wind, caused by that too-fizzy ale. As I faded away, I distinctly heard the large, loud and fairly disgusting sound that my body produced:
“BUUUURRRRRPPPP!!!”
5
&nb
sp; The Fracture Constrained
About now, you’ve probably got only one question in mind: how did I survive? Because it’s pretty obvious I did or I wouldn’t be telling this story. But then again, perhaps this is one of those tales told by a ghost. Or maybe it’s told from multiple perspectives and mine is just about to come to an end.
Or maybe it resorts to that tired cliché, “And then I woke up,” and you learn that all my adventures were just a figment of my own delusional mind.
Well, maybe I do have a delusional mind. I’m not saying I don’t. You see, I’m just as convinced of my own personal grandeur as everyone else is convinced of theirs, regardless of what the horrible truth may be. We are, after all, the protagonists of our own grand adventures, right?
But that isn’t what this story is about. And resorting to that particular tactic would just be bad storytelling. Nor did I die. Amazingly, I managed to walk away from that little episode with no more than a few bruises and scrapes, a singed tunic and an impressively sore head. I’m not going to tell you how right away, although I will soon enough.
As for the multiple perspectives thing … well, ok. There’s someone pivotal to this story that you haven’t yet met. I’m going to introduce him here because you really need to know what he’s been up to if the rest of this story is to make any sense.
Before I do, let me share a small piece of advice: don’t worry that this tale is told from my perspective. If you would, kindly ignore the reality that I couldn’t possibly know what this particular person was doing. I mean, I was miles away, oblivious to his very existence, and unconscious to boot.
If it helps, think of it as being entirely made up by me as a “best guess” of what happened to further the cause of my tale. Or try to believe that I pieced it all together after the fact from a variety of different sources. The truth is probably somewhere in the middle.
Right then, now we’ve got that out of the way. Are you all set? Here we go.
At about the same time as I was lying on the floor of the Rancid Pusball collecting bruises and slowly fading out of consciousness, Pingo T’Ong sat in what could only be described as a small palace set in the side of a mountain, contemplating his future. Or at least, contemplating the possible future he wanted to bring into being.
Pingo T’Ong was not a beautiful man. Far from it. Not yet past his thirtieth year, he was shortish, balding, and overweight in a soft, unhealthy way that led to excessive amounts of oily sweat and a very unpleasant bodily odor. His face was a round and jowly collection of hideous features all competing for the prize of the most offensive. His eyes were small and ratlike, set too close together and mostly hidden beneath brows made thick with black, wiry hair. His nose was bulbous and pocked as if he’d spent more than his lifetime pickling it in ale. And his mouth was just obscene. The top lip was thin, and would have been normal were it not paired with an enormous lower lip that looked swollen, hung partially open and occasionally dripped small spots of saliva.
All in all, a thoroughly repulsive human being. Nor am I exaggerating his grotesqueries for my own immoral purposes. Ask anyone, and if they tell you any different I’ll call them a liar.
Pingo apparently felt the need to make up for his personal deficits by surrounding himself in luxury. The seat he sat on while contemplating his future was a throne made of gold, with a fine fat cushion of red satin to protect his hind quarters. Nor was that the extent of his wealth. Though from fairly humble stock (it was said his family were poor farmers, but I’m tempted to suggest they were farm animals instead) by the time of my tale he’d amassed such a fortune that every room in his palatial abode was crammed with ornaments of gold, fine jewelry, exquisite sculptures and art from all corners of the land, as well as no small number of unicorn horns, griffin wings, roc feathers and the like.
“Wine!” he bellowed, for no reason other than to drive the narration. “Bring me wine!”
A scantily-clad serving girl, one of many who attended his needs, scurried to fill his request. In moments Pingo’s fat hand clasped a goblet covered in gems. He took a long swallow, shook his head and hoisted himself to his feet, leaving the print of his buttocks behind on the cushion.
Servants scrambled both to get out of his way and to ensure his path was clear of any hindrance. One was slow to shift an ornate stool. Pingo cuffed him about the head hard enough to send the boy sprawling. “Fetch my keymaster,” he grunted, and continued on his way.
In moments he came to what looked like a wall painted in intricate patterns, but was not. At least not entirely. He paused as an older man hurried to his side.
“I’m sorry, master,” this worthy said, puffing slightly and bringing out a large ring of keys. “I was momentarily indisposed. It won’t happen again.” He found the key he was after and inserted it into a lock that the painted pattern contrived to conceal. He turned it, produced an audible click and stood back.
“It better not happen again,” Pingo snarled. “Or I’ll have your guts removed, wound on a stick, and roasted in front of you.” He gave the wall a push and a door opened, leading into the mountain itself.
“Light!” Pingo bellowed. “Why do I always have to ask!?”
Another servant, this one a youth, scampered towards them cautiously enough to prevent the candle he carried from going out, bobbed his head in deference to Pingo and disappeared through the door to light a dozen torches set into the walls of the chamber beyond.
Pingo entered before the boy had completed his task, leaving the keymaster behind, and strode directly to the only thing in the chamber that held any interest for him. When he reached it, he stood there in silence.
It looked like nothing more than a shimmer in the air, edged with delicate tendrils of fire or lightning. An unobservant man might have walked past it, oblivious to the wonder that it was and the wonders it could offer. But Pingo T’Ong knew it was there and knew what it was capable of doing. It was the Fracture. Pingo had captured it through the use of dark magics. He held it trapped within a sinister symbol, a pentagram etched into the floor itself.
The youth finished lighting the torches and hesitantly approached his master. “D-do you require anything else?” he asked.
Pingo barely noticed. “No. Leave me now,” he said in dismissal. When the boy had gone, he addressed the Fracture itself. “So, my lovely. What can you show me today that will lead me closer to my goal?” Within the Fracture, images of pasts and futures coalesced.
This was how he had come by his wealth, but such was far from the limit of his ambition. His true goal was power.
Pingo T’Ong had been ugly throughout his existence. People had scorned him, sneered at him, spat at him and worse. He had no true friends and commanded companionship of all kinds only by the coin he could spend.
Such was not the life he desired. Perhaps, deep in his heart, he only wanted one thing: to be loved for who he was. An impossible ask, in my humble opinion, as he was as twisted in nature as he was in looks, and about as lovable as a disfiguring disease.
Likely, he’d been rejected many thousands of times. But with the Fracture’s help, all that could change. He could seek within his various futures for someone to call his own, and seek them out. Maybe someone who was blind and deaf with no sense of smell. Or someone with very low standards.
Instead, he sought adoration from all. He would be a God, worshipped by those who had scorned him before.
Once again he sought this future in the Fracture’s depths. He saw the path he had set himself upon appear within. He saw himself using the Fracture’s power not just to seek his future, but more directly as well.
“Yes,” he muttered. “This is how it will be.”
He saw himself siphoning the Fracture’s power through methods that the Fracture had shown to him. He saw that power collecting in the amulet he wore around his wrist.
He saw himself, once he’d gathered enough, using that power to summon a monster that none could oppose. He sa
w the people bow down to that monster and to himself as its master. And he saw the Fracture fading to nothing once he was done.
He also saw something that stood in his way. Someone. Me. Even though I had no idea he existed, or what he was up to, somehow I would upset his plans. And he was watching it now, in the depths of the Fracture.
“Excrement of an orc,” he muttered, gritting his teeth in frustration. “How could this be?” He’d seen this before and had dispatched Thork Yurger to fix it. Obviously, the man had failed. But hadn’t the Fracture shown him Thork Yurger’s success? Then he understood. “Possible futures,” he grumbled, reminding himself, “are not guaranteed.”
Fortunately for Pingo, Thork Yurger was only one of the resources he had to command. There were others he could use to tip the balance his way, turning “possible” to “probable” and then “nearly certain.”
Because of his wealth, one of those resources was an army of orcs, all kitted out with fine armor and an assortment of weapons.
Nodding to himself, he sought the best options. “Come, my lovely, show me what I need. Show me. Show me.”
And so the Fracture showed him not his future but mine, from when I woke from my beating.
6
The Taste of Smoke
I was sitting on a fallen log, cooking a haunch of rock-lizard over a cheerfully crackling campfire that shot occasional sparks into the air. The smell of roasting meat was making my mouth water and I felt warm and relaxed, as if nothing in the world could possibly be amiss.
Then something stung me on the cheek.
It hurt. I tried to rub it and to chase away whatever had stung me, but for some reason my arms wouldn’t move. Was I tied up? I wondered. I’d been tied up more than once before, but this felt different. It wasn’t as if my hands were restrained, but rather as if the muscles wouldn’t do as I told them. And anyway, why would I be tied up when I was cooking a meal?
“That’ll teach yeh!” said a small voice. The sting came again. I flinched but could do nothing more. Annoyed, I frowned and tried to tell whatever it was to go away. But my tongue felt as leaden and unresponsive as my arms.