Through all that exotic perfume, she smelled like warmed-over horse dung.
He broke free of the kiss. “You—you’re not Mary Ann!” he gasped. “You—you’re all the rest!”
Where the strength came from he would never know, but he lashed out hard and shoved her away, unbalancing her for just a moment. As she staggered and tried to retain her balance, the wind began to swirl and then scream around him.
“I tried to make this pleasant,” she snapped. “Now we’ll have to do it the hard way. Look, how about you just relax and don’t fight it? After all, you have no strength left, and I did sit here and listen to that interminable crap for hours and hours!”
The wind began to swirl and scream at him.
It was as if all the gods suddenly supercharged him with energy. “Crap!” he exclaimed. “CRAP!”
His new energy and his sudden rage loosened her grip on his mind; the girl seemed to blur and fade out in the firelight, and a new, more sinister shape slowly emerged from the mass: A skeletal body covered with coarse brown fur; thin arms linked to leathery wings, and a ratlike face with eyes of burning coal and a mouth with pointed teeth designed only to rend flesh. …
Because he was small and seemingly fragile, enemies always underestimated his fighting skills. He was a thief, but not merely a thief—the greatest of all thieves, the King of Thieves. His tuning was always perfect, his instincts always correct.
Even as the creature launched itself at him, he did the most unexpected of actions and, instead of backing up into the darkness, off the cliff or against a rock wall, he leaped forward at the thing, drawing his short sword with one and the same action. They met virtually in the air, the creature totally unprepared for anyone to attack it, and the sword blade came up and made contact. The creature and the wind screamed as one, and the thing dropped back to the ground.
He didn’t let things go with that kind of blow. Instead, he leaped upon the wounded thing, and with strength that belied his size and his condition pushed back taloned claws set now not to tear his flesh but just to keep him away.
“Crap, huh?” The sword pointed down at the thing’s chest. “I’ll show you crap!”
The creature’s eyes widened. “No!” it screamed. “We can make a deal! Anything! Anything!”
“Ah, no! I know you now for what you are! Critic! The only thing worse than blasphemers are critics!” he snapped back. The sword came down. If the creature were of faerie, the iron in its blade would be pure poison to it; if it were of flesh, however foul, it was so solid a blow that it would almost be a coup de grace.
The fire flared like a torch, the ground trembled, and the wind seemed to go mad as the sword pushed through the creature’s chest as if through air itself, the thing’s flesh hissing as it passed. He rolled over and, catlike, was on his feet, wary, prepared to do more if it were necessary.
It was not, although the thing was rolling around and screeching horribly in its death agony, and the elements seemed ready to join in. Suddenly, the creature stiffened, its back arched, its wings sprawled, and, for a brief moment it almost looked as if it were gaining new strength, but it was the last brilliant blast of energy before it collapsed into a stinking, smoldering heap.
Wind and fire seemed to rise into the air, and a bright ball of energy suddenly sailed skyward and was quickly gone. A wind swept through, forming something, of a whirlwind over the still smoking body of the creature, then seemed to pause in the air.
“You… you killed her… killed her…” it moaned to him.
He stared at the secondary creature that had led him to her. “And what of it, elemental? Would you avenge her, you bag of hot air?”
The whirlwind seemed suddenly agitated. “No, no!” it responded. “We like the saga, we do, we do…”
’ “Then you shall pledge yourself to me through these wastes!” he shouted. “You shall bind to me, the killer of your mistress, until I leave your domain!”
“We bind… we bind…”
“Very well, then. Stand watch, while I sleep, and let no harm come to me or my horse while we rest, or you shall die the true death of dissipation!”
“We obey… obey… ”
He moved as far away from the stinking body as he could and prepared his bedroll. He settled down, but still could not quite rest.
“Elemental! A gentle breeze away from me, so I do not smell the odor of that carrion!”
Instantly a very light but steady breeze came from behind him and the air cleared. He was impressed. Air elementals were more useful than he would have thought. But he was still too keyed up, perhaps too overtired to sleep. He needed to relax himself after the events of the evening.
“Well, blowhard, you say you like the saga.”
“We do… we do…”
“Well, then, follow along, sing the great ballad with me.”
There was no response.
“Just sit right back…” he started, then stopped. “You’re not singing along!”
“We know not the words… the words…”
“Well, listen, then! And we’ll serenade each other on the ’morrow!”
“We obey… obey…” the elemental responded, sounding resigned.
Now, at last, he leaned back, relaxed and closed his eyes, and a smile grew upon his face. Yet, in spite of the hopes of the elemental, he did not quickly fade to sleep, but, instead, started again to sing the ballad that was prologue to the object of his sacred quest.
He drifted off to sleep, and the elemental, too, seemed to relax, perhaps more because the saga would not have to be endured further that night.
He slept soundly, the sleep of the dead, but, occasionally, through the night, he would stir, that smile would return to his sleeping face, and he would breathe a line of the refrain: “ ’Twas Gilligan, the Skipper, too…”
CHAPTER 2
ON DANCING YOUR HEART OUT
Unless contravened by magic or other Rules, an individual’s role in life shall be determined by destiny and circumstance. However, once fixed in that role, only those things necessary to perfect one’s role may be learned, acquired or retained. In this way is social and cultural harmony and stability maintained.
They made a most unlikely looking group as they slowly made their way down the road away from the mountains, toward green fields and rolling hills.
In the lead was a big man with bronze skin and tight muscles, the kind you would never doubt could carry the horse he rode as well or better than that same horse carried him. His skin, darkened and weathered by the elements, was, nonetheless, bronze to begin with; his finely chiseled face was barren of facial hair unlike the local customs, yet seemed as if it had never known a razor, and his thick black hair hung below his shoulders like a mane. His high cheekbones marked him as an Ostrider, a continent weeks from Husaquahr over dangerous seas, yet he had never been to that fabled continent. He wore only a strange, broad-brimmed hat, a loincloth, and swordbelt, and from the latter one could see the hilt of a massive and elegant sword. He looked at once exotic, strange, and dangerous.