Solo Whispers of the Faedong

[Fabell]

Fall 17, 519 AV The sound of the waves crashed against his ears. He stood on the precipice of a cliff overlooking the swells that moved, undulating, across the veil of salt sea and into the cavern within. The monotonous beat of the earth's heart thrummed through his leather shoes, shivering up his lanky legs, until his mind fresh and clear from the weeks before, sieved apart and lay open to the sunlight that broke through the cracks in the cave ceiling. Two weeks, two weeks he worked, harder than ever before, harder than when living with his mother and his aunts and his grandmother and the gaggle of women that protected from his from what came next. He never realized how safe that embrace kept him until he left. Until he stepped off the port and onto the rickety ship, into the blue beyond and the dangers he knew nothing of except in storied, colorful tales of vagabonds with mettles of steel, cities stitched in dark magic and gods who walked the streets they bled on eons before. Since arriving in the city, he learned more than he knew how to process. While the bar where he worked sheathed itself in an almost imperceptible quietude that sometimes dimmed even the music he played, voices still bled out of the waterworks. Stories arrived on the wings of conversation that he imbibed through just being, sitting, relaxing. And the old man told plenty of stories. Fabell didn't know the old man's name. He didn't know his birthplace, nor his culture, nor what brought him to Lhavit, only that he lived in the city for a long, long time. Long before the troubles began, and even during the troubles, and the troubles brought him many. He often (under the influence of drink) told the story of his son who perished during the troubles, a murder he claimed not even the authorities cared to look into. During the troubles, however, many perished (he learned), and many disappeared, vanished into the ether of slowly lifting fog that kept the city of Lhavit in a dreamland away from what might constitute normalcy. The old man told stories in a way the young man both envied and pitied, reminding him of a scholar from a neighboring tribe (he forgot his name, difficult to remember in the ever-shifting sands of his youth) who reminisced about his youth aboard a fishing trawler but glittering his tales with such exuberance and ministration that something as simple as a dish he might taste took upon a tongue of the divine, like a fruit that might fall from a tree in the heavens to the lips of a girl below and grant her immortality in a moment, yet his only fame lay in the apple he consumed greedily while shipwrecked off a forgotten desert isle. This particular night, the disheveled gnome of a man leapt to the tip of his stool, bellowing out his tale to the din of an exasperated night-time crowd, interrupting Fabell's song and forcing him to lower his flute and wait until the gentleman at the door escorted the inebriated man back to his wifeless and childless home on Sartu Peak, where he mostly received care from the same folk who tended the okomo, seeing his needs met while allowing him the opportunity to pick the weeds that grew at the edge of the peak. Bob Kacee (the man of the hour) however took care of the situation in a way that Fabell marveled, winking at the musician on stage for a quick exit and letting the old man shamble up to the stage for his performance. Kacee knew instinctively how to deal with men like that and how to prevent uprisings within a place as illustrious and imaginary as the Obsidian. Let him have his say, and when finished, no doubt (Kacee believed, as least according to the young boy who watched and observed him for several weeks now) the audience would travel home with tales and wonder on their lips, with no one the wiser. The old craven began, a bit surprised to find himself thrust upon the stage, but his half-toothed grin relishing the opportunity, cracking his knuckles, and taking the performer's stool in one hand to begin his tale. WC: 712

[Fabell]

Once upon a time, there lived two boys atop a glittering hill made of diamonds. Now, as you all good people know, these weren't just any kinds of diamonds. But I ain't gonna speak too much of that, poor simpleton that I am. You all see me on the hill, mining each day the weeds of the wind. No, I don't intend to pay much credit to my own mind regarding these here diamonds. They are beautiful to be sure, but I ain't gonna measure myself against none of you here. These two boys, they were good boys, they loved their momma and they loved their papa. But the city was sick back then. The streets ran with lion's blood, I'm telling you. What's a lion? Beggar if I know. But I'm almost positively sure the streets were running with their blood, thick and crimson and all them big words like that, that I hear you all speak to me every night under the cup. No, back in those days the skies ran with the sound of tears. Your tears, your little children's tears, petch it all we all are here in some way because of those times. I ain't gonna try to relive them now. We all came here to forget, did we not? Na, maybe you lot didn't, but I sure did. So see here, these two boys were training to be smithies. Not the fancy smithies you see up at the temple, with them their bending glass this way and that, no, they were intending to just shape plain old metal into spoons and tables and other nice things for normal folk. These two boys had a gift though, let me tell you. They could wipe the frown off one of them tower folk with the stuff that came from their heads. They didn't care much for religion though, and I gather they were the more happy for it. No begging or ratting or bowing or scraping, just good plain living and eating. Every which day people came from all over the place for something, a Lhavit spoon, a Lhavit fork, a Lhavit plate, who knows what they made but they sure sold 'em. Now I'm sure it was their trade that saved 'em, just as I am sure I am somehow standing on this stage here telling all you people what's going on with them. But no slaver nor people trader nor criminal element came to them and took anything of theirs. See, they were loved by the people, and they were loved by the travelers who came to the city but whose coin was a bit on the downside, yeah. One of the brothers, his gift though was better than the other. He never asked for it, but let me tell you how it gave him trouble. See, he could speak to animals, like birds and the like. Now you all, don't give me them faces. Yeah? Yeah, I said he ain't had no religion to him, but I see you don't believe me. It don't matter whether you believe me or you don't, cause you gonna like the end of this story. Anyway, and you over in the corner keep your hands to yerself, yeah? Okay, so I was talking about this brother who could talk to animals. He ain't asked for this, and ever day he prayed to whatever to get rid of it. Maybe it was a practical joke, maybe somebody was jealous of he and his shop and their success, I really can't say. I weren't around much back then, still same old same old me you know. I just know this cause his momma told me and blamed me. Ah, don't give me that face boy, you ain't ever had to father a couple a brilliant kids when you knows you ain't got the stuff for it. So one of these boys, he likes to go to the park, you know the big one on the big hill? The one with them damned flies that light the whole place up and get in your face when you trying to take a walk? Yeah, that one. He likes to go there to talk to the birds, cause he don't know what else to do. He goes there to tell them to shut up while he's working, cause they always flying in and out of his workshop window when he's melting the iron and making little mistakes. They aren't too big, but see this boy he likes to make things perfect, so he don't abide no bothering twitters and twatters in his ears see. Now his brother, he ain't happy about this whole mess. He thinks some fool wizard is playing a trick on his brother, and he has quit a rage in him. Every day when folks come in the shop to buy a knickknack or a plate or what have you, his eyes be looking out the window at the wizards and the mages and them people walking by who consort with the spirits and consort with powers that normal people like you and me ain't got no need for. And like a hawk, he watches each and ever one of them, watching and waiting to see if one of them stops by the shop for a minute too long, and he swears he's gonna go out there and give the man a piece of his mind. No, not a literal piece, dummy. How many drinks have you had, Sammi? Get yer house in order and listen to my damnable story. No need for your antics tonight. Keep 'em in your pants please, for all our sakes. So back then, in those days, the guard weren't the guard today. See, they let things slide, and sometimes these things might slide really far away. Nevil, I know you are a good bloke, but some of your people back in the day, they could have used a whippin' or two. You are a good lad. I knew your papa. He was a good lad too. But the times as they were ain't what they are now. So the angry brother kept a knife under his shirt at all times of the day, and he swore he would go out swinging that contraption and whatever wizard stared at his brother for too long. Then one day, some bright mid-morning hot-as-hell day, like we having today, with winter not a wink in sight, he sees this blue robed fellow hanging around the shop, looking hard, really hard at his brother. So he goes out of the shop and gives him a whupping. Not anything dangerous of course, he ain't that stupid, but the kind to scare the man away. But the man, he weren't scared of a crazy blacksmith yelling at him for looking through his windows at the two burly men covered in sweat. Instead, he just look at the boy with these pale white orbs without even an iris in 'em, says a single word, and the brother falls to his feet as if he can't feel 'em anymore. The wizard knows his intention, see, and he wasn't going to stand for no low-born fiend with a jackknife up his shirt to speak to him that way. So the younger brother, he was the one that was angry, as soon as he gathers his wits he picks himself up off the ground, and with a huff he runs in the direction of the blasted wizard. The older brother, the one who kept getting bothered by the sparrows and hawks and whatever else he heard off the air, he didn't even notice until his brother was gone. When he finally looked up and saw his brother disappeared from the shop, he shrugged and closed up the shop. That night when he was getting ready for bed, he wondered where his brother had gone off to. See, usually they closed up shop and ate together and walked home over the bridges, but tonight his brother was nowhere, and hadn't even come home yet. Then, as the moon was rising in the sky, he heard a knock on the door. When he went to the door, there weren't no person there, except a note. When he read the note, it said: "Tick tock, tick tock, bloody fingers on the stall, little ears do well to fear the lionness in fall. Before the moon lifts from her shroud, set upon the blackened pond. Do you wish to live another day, or wish to live to see the coming May? Tarry not good man, while steel still on your hands, take your heart to task and find the sand where brother's blood is spilled and brother sets upon brother in thrill." Now folks, before you think I can't speak them fancy words, see? I know something from something. My memory is fresh as a daisy the day picked, so don't be thinking I'm making nothing up. Yeah, yeah, you don't believe me, I get it. Shut it Sammi. You lucky Nevil is here or I'd knock you in the head. Now the brother, after reading those enchanted lines, he wasn't right in the head. He didn't even bother locking his door before he was out the door, and in those days ever body double and triple locked their doors to keep the shadows away. To the park he went, cause he knew exactly what it meant. And he knew it had something to do with him. He was scared and excited at the same time, know what I mean? He thought maybe his brother was playing a trick on him or something, but he ain't told nobody about going to the park to talk to the birds, so he wasn't quite right in the head. At the park the birds be all amazed and talking, even though the night be ok. Usually birds be really quiet when the moon was high, cause it was so dark even their beady little eyes can't see nothing, so they sleep on their nests like normal folks. But something was happening in the park. The brother, he saw signs of a struggle in the park, he saw a body being carried out toward the pond. Now he got worried, cause he knew his brother kept screaming bloody murder at every which mage that came around. And you good folk know, people who ain't right in the head going off afraid of mages and the like, well they be a bit crazy and there be no explaining what they be doing. So the brother thought his youngling may have taken this a bit too far. The birds were chattering more than ever before, and he didn't have no problem making his way through the forest to find where the body ended up. And it ended up right at the pond, near the old shack up near the top of the hill. The birds around him, they were shrieking now, and before he could know what hit him, he was clobbered on the head and in his dizzyness, carried with a gruff hand toward the pond. He tried to look up, but he couldn't get a good look at his attacker. The attacker called to him and said, "So you thought you could save me, did you? Well, too late for you!" And with that, the brother was put his head into the water for a long while, and the long while lasted even longer, until he could see no more. He kept hearing the birds though, they were shrieking crazy. They song never ended, and when the brother woke up from the pond, he couldn't believe his eyes. Cause he could still see, but the world it was weird and different now. He saw his clothes laying by the water, folded neatly into squares. The birds kept talking to him, and he could even see them talking, see their little beaks moving up and down through the branches. He didn't know what happened, and as each day went on, he forgot more and more who he was. The last I heard of him, some sailor told me about a ghost living down in one of them caves by the port, who kept on and on about the cave being the only place he could escape the birds. I been down there myself of course to look for the poor soul, of course. See, that night both my boys disappeared, and they mother didn't last much longer. I have a bit sterner stuff than her, but even me, my mind went soon after. I don't remember much of the days after my boys went missing, but I'm sure my boy is still down there. If I could only find him, I'm sure I'd get some of that peace. Thanks for listening folks. Here's hoping you have a nice evening, and thanks for listening to an old man's story. WC: 2167