D2
I had found my power, but I could not keep my life. I tried to fit in, but my new legs were strange to me. They moved like they were mine, but I felt nothing from them. I worked the plow better than any Hobbit could, but all knew of my condition and whispered that I had made a deal with the Devil. I wish that I had.
Father was afraid of me. He tried to hide it, but I could see it in the dark of his eyes. He spoke to me only to order chores. He stopped inviting me to church and I was afraid to go on my own for fear that if I set foot on hallowed ground my legs would fail or burst into flames or something. I stayed on for the harvest but as soon as the crops were in the silos I packed my rucksack and left. Father saw me leave and he didn’t even wave farewell. He just stared.
I made my way through the Iron Hills begging. I was getting better with the legs so I could fake a limp and claim to be a lamed war veteran. That got me through the winter but I had to remember to keep my lies straight but also keep my truths to a minimum.
It was in the Harbor that I first saw Kallina. She was a bard who took residence in the Dirty Dog. The Dirty Dog was a dive of the lowest order and Kallina was deserving of a court appointment in my eyes, but she was at home there. She would play bawdy songs or start singalongs, but the night I first saw her she was singing a lover’s dirge. Her voice was thin with an agony that had to be true to be so beautiful, and I was transfixed. She was small for an elf and a bit more well fed to be the classic image of a delicate elf maid, but her silvery hair flowed down her back like water and I would have done anything for a smile from her.
I don’t think she ever noticed me. She had her regulars, her favorites who showered her with silver coins and she didn’t have time for a moody Hobbit beggar with no money to speak of. Some nights I sat in the back and listened, envying more boisterous patrons and the attention she gave them. Other nights I sat outside in the rain, listening through the shuttered windows. I had no purpose for myself, no dreams to pursue. I only wanted to hear her sing and forget my existence.
I knew things were going to be bad when Papa Starlight sat at my table. I was lost in her song, nursing a drink to keep from being thrown out again. He sat down next to me without even asking. He knew he didn’t need to.
As soon as I saw him I tried to hide my thoughts but that was pointless. Papa could know a man’s mind with a glance and I was far from inscrutable. I wouldn’t have been more obvious if I was drooling.
“That one, powerful sweet voice she has, don’t she Derrick Sawyer.” I stared dumbly. “Be a fine thing to have the affections of one such as that. You think she has kisses for you, Derrick Sawyer?” Papa laughed that horrible laugh of his.
“No, Derrick Sawyer knows what he is. That girl would look at you like something she stepped in at the track, is that not right Derrick Sawyer?”
I swallowed hard, hoping he wasn’t going to humiliate me by making be acknowledge my own pitiable station.
“One like that, there only one way into her bed. You want Papa Starlight to help you, Derrick Sawyer?” I was terrified of what it would cost me, but hope kindled in my heart. Papa had the power to do this, didn’t he?
“Papa Starlight be moved by this love story you made for yourself, Derrick Sawyer. Papa will help you with this thing.” He set a dark wooden case on the table and pushed it toward me.
I reached for the case. It felt strange, like it had been only recently conjured from some place untouched by any warmth. I flicked the silver clasp and opened the lid.
Inside sparkled a beautiful silver flute. It was worked with etchings of swirling ocean waves and sparkled with minute crystals where the waves crested with foam. It was so detailed and perfect that it was hard to look at directly, and if you caught a sideways glance at it you were certain that the waves were moving only a second ago. I had never seen such craftsmanship. Papa took the wooden case from the table and tucked it away. I didn’t even remember picking up the flute but I realized that I was holding it in both hands. If anything could buy the love of Kallina, this must be able to. I felt offended at the thought but part of me wanted dearly for it to be true.
“You take this thing, Derrick Sawyer. It belongs to you now and you belong to it. You want it for yourself, you may keep it. You want to make a gift of it, you may do that as well. But wherever it goes, it is you who answers for it. You understand me Derrick Sawyer? No matter who hold this fine instrument, it be your instrument now and you will answer for it.” With that cryptic statement Papa Starlight got up and left.
I wanted to rush up to the stage and shove my gift in Kallina’s face right there, but I hesitated. What was the meaning of it, why would Papa Starlight do this thing? I spent days doubting, suspicious. I tried to spot poison on the mouthpiece, looked for needles in the valves, some manner of subterfuge that Papa Starlight might have hidden inside to hurt me. I found nothing. Eventually my desire overwhelmed my caution and I resolved to give it to Kallina.
I caught her before her performance. At first she thought I was bringing her a drink order. I was too flustered to speak, so I just held the flute out to her dumbly.
She squealed when she saw it. She hugged me and kissed my forehead and told me it was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen. She asked me where I got it, asked if it was stolen. When I still couldn’t speak she laughed and told me that she didn’t care. She dragged me by the hand to the front of the room and bellowed for everyone to shut up.
“All you dock whores and perverts shut your pie holes! Tonight we have a proper gentleman in our midst and I want every last one of you shit-heels to buy this little fucker a drink!” The crowd laughed and swore that Kallina was up in her cups again.
“No, seriously! This little midget just handed me the finest whistle I ever seen and he didn’t paw my tit or make me suck down his chowder for it or nothing! In my book that is a God damned SAINT!” The crowd cheered and laughed and told her to play for them.
“Damn right I am gonna play it! I am gonna put a fire in your nuts that is gonna make every last damn one of you wish you was this bastard right here for what I am gonna do to him after.” She winked at me and I felt more alive than I had ever felt. She set the flute to her lips and played.
For a moment I was lost. I felt the music cut my whole being to ribbons and my spirit flew away into the inky black beyond the last twinkling star. I saw dark forms writhing through the void, shapes that spanned the horizon with unseeing eyes wider than the moon. I saw colors beyond any light, and great alien forms flying through space and through the spaces between space. I understood things that would never fit inside my mortal brain, truths that made me despair at their knowing.
In a flash I was back in my body and I could feel only normal things again. I could feel blood coming from my temple and I realized that I had been struck by an antler from the stuffed moose that hung behind the bar. The whole room was chaos; murder and lust and madness in the eyes of every one of them. And at the center of it all was Kallina, playing as fast as her fingers could move. Men were tearing at her clothes and a woman was bashing her head with a pewter mug, but she didn’t stop playing. I saw the terror in her eyes and I knew. She wasn’t even there, she was lost in that place that I had gone and she couldn’t find her way back.
I gathered up every bit of the power that Papa Starlight had given to me and hurled bolts of dark energy at the insane mob, every last drop of the magic that I had tried so hard to deny. I blasted a path to Kallina and painted the walls red with the blood of anyone who got between me and her. I tried to reach into her mind, to guide her back but part of me knew that she was lost forever. I wept and pried the flute away from her, watching as her fingers continued to work the missing valves. As soon as the music stopped the death orgy spun to a halt. I walked out of the door in the confusion.
One woman stumbled out of the bar screaming at me. She was trying to call the guard, tell them that I was responsible for all of the carnage, that I should be arrested and hung, not necessarily in that order. I turned on her and poured into her head a torrent of pure, unadultered grief so overwhelming that she collapsed, unable to speak through the tears. I maintained that stream of agony in her head until I was clear of the streets, then made for the docks. Whoever survived that scene was going to need someone to blame for the chaos, and they all had a solid description to go on. The whole of the Iron Hills would hear about this. People love lurid gossip, and they are going to want someone to answer for this, regardless of if I am innocent. Or maybe I deserve to be drawn and quartered for this. Is there such a thing as criminal stupidity?
Either way I needed to get as far from the Iron Hills as possible. I signed on with a ship heading north, a ship that passed through deep water where currents would not dredge up evil artifacts thrown overboard. I sent that flute sailing to the deepest trenches of Davy Jone’s locker. I sent it down three times. Each time I woke up the next morning with it laying on my chest.
I was just short of useless as a deckhand. The sailors said I needed to find my “sea legs” but they didn’t realize how right they were. I served my term and the quartermaster kept my mustering pay as “the price of not throwing your useless ass overboard” as he put it.
I made port in the Storm Isles. From there I heard the stories of gold and glory waiting in Grol Baar, and of Scaleys in the tundra who followed Scurithix, the God Who Walks. I thought that surely a Godling could break my bond to Papa Starlight, but Scurithix turned out to be another loud talking warlord with delusions of grandeur. I stayed with Scurithix for a time, helping his tribe deal with outsiders that greeted Scaleys with torches and pitchforks. I did what I could to help, and in time I earned the tribe’s respect. They granted me the great honor of squiring for Scurithix’s daughter in her first foray against the Orc horde. I think Scurithix was hoping that I would keep her out of harm’s way.
With great ceremony Scurithix presented me with an ornate set of gauntlets set with iron plates. As much trouble as he went finding or making them he could have found me a good warm coat. The damned things weren’t even fur lined and couldn’t keep the cold out on a windless, sunny day and the Baar doesn’t get many windless sunny days. The Scaleys never really understood cold anyway, they thought they were damned silver dragons and there wasn’t one among them that would admit to a chill if they were trapped under a glacier.
Maybe if we had met with Orcs I might have been able to keep Scurithix’s whelp alive. Maybe not, she was damn near suicidally dumb. In any case, we didn’t meet Orcs, we found a full pack of Winter Wolves. Maybe the Scaleys’ heritage took the edge off the ice breath of the Winter Wolves, but it didn’t stop their massive jaws from tearing the whole company into iguana kibble. I was knocked prone and I thought I was heading for the same fate but the wolf towering over me took one whiff of my dead legs and buried me in the snow like a smelly turd.
Once I was absolutely certain that the wolves had moved on, I dug my way free. I probably would have lost my feet to frostbite if they weren’t already dead. I found what was left of Scurithix’s last heir buried in three separate piles. As decent as Scurithix had been to me, I didn’t think that he would forgive me for coming back without his baby girl, not because she died but because I didn’t. I wouldn’t blame him if he ate me right in front of the tribe. She had fought with a spear in one hand and an oversized Kukri in the other, her spear was shattered but the big knife was still serviceable so I strapped it to my back and started making distance between me and the Scaleys. Maybe the Orcs could use a trading liaison too.
