Ch: 27 A Hollow Staff
In the evening, after the others were off to bed, Tawny caught Shai by the hand and led her to the bath where Gary still floated.
At a glance from Tawny, Shai made a pair of comfortable lounges appear. The two women lay down to address the human flotsam bobbing on the water.
“Gary, before you …” Tawny coughed slightly, hesitating, until Shai nudged her. “Before you ‘Caught the Crawdaddie Pimp Hand’ a few days ago,” She sighed, while Shai beamed and nodded happily.
“We were discussing matters of health and sexuality…” Shai was grinning amiably and nodding along.
“As your physician and priestess of Healer, I have certain duties, I must inform you of some things that are important to your health and well being.” Shai kept nodding along, while Gary grinned.
“Where do I sign to agree to the terms and conditions Tawny? You have my full and informed consent.” Gary snarked.
“Actually, that is the correct ritual response. One last thing, if you wish I can ask Shai to leave the room. These are sensitive matters.” Now Shai was not just nodding along. That brought her up cold.
“You have no idea how few secrets I have from Shai. I mean you think you know, but nahh.” He whispered softly. “She’s everywhere.”
“I feel you may not be lucid enough to have this conversation.” Tawny said with clinical precision.
“No, sorry, I’m good, carry on, mistress Shai may remain.” He gasped, shifting slightly to a position that tugged on his sutures less.
“Very well, after our encounter with Esperanza, we were discussing your… magical excess. I told you that sexual activity was among the least likely to cause complications.” She checked a small notebook, its cover was… tawny. So cute.
“Yes, complications. You seemed concerned. Is there a problem in that area?” She looked frankly, from one to the other.
After an extended pause she brought out her tiny tawny notebook and began to write, speaking as she did. “Patient declines to answer vis. Sexual dysfunction. Partner seems upset.”
She snapped her little book closed and smiled. “That will go in your permanent record. So sorry Gary.” She patted him on the knee in a very patronizing way.
“Even though the point seems moot, I should carry on. I am a professional. Gary, you may get physically intimate as much as you like, from a purely physical standpoint.”
Gary and Shai looked at each other and at Tawny before shrugging in unison.
“Gary can’t catch human diseases or get humans pregnant.” She grunted in frustration. “That was very difficult to get out.”
She fumed and rose to pace a bit. “There is no standard protocol for having a terminal case of Gary is weird.” She stomped up and down a little. Maybe it helped, she was so tiny it certainly didn't hurt.
“Because he is a demi human monster, he looks and mostly acts human and is in all the important ways, just a person.” She took Shais hand gently. “But he is also a monster and as such, cannot create offspring. I’m sorry Shai.”
Shai’s face fell into the depths of despair before she regained her control. Her eyes welled and those lovely knees trembled, but she was trying not to show it.
He loved that about her, she would wrench her insides out, trying to hide what she knew he had felt right along with her.
Damn relationships were complicated.
“You can always call on the temple of Joy.” Tawny said softly. “It is their sacred duty and gift. The celebrants share our grief as well as our joy and sometimes, theirs is the mending of them.”
Tawny turned to Gary. “There are acolytes of Joy whose gifts are more in line with Esperanza's, than Otho’s. They offer aid to those whose joy is curtailed by physical and or emotional challenges that are absolutely…”
“Sacred gigolos.” Gary said calmly.
“Hmm what?” Tawny asked, looking up from her notes. “What is a gigitylow? A giggity? Whatever.”
“A Gigolo is a man who lies with women... professionally.” Gary said calmly.
“Aye, he does have a song about it.” Shai said helpfully, looking more than a little lost at sea.
“You are taking this very calmly, I usually rough the men up about erectile dysfunction to redirect their angst.” Tawny smiled and relaxed, putting her terrible notebook away.
“Is that what you were doing there? Yeah, well my weiner works, I think. Most of my lower two thirds are not living their best life right now.”
“You seem surprisingly… not very Gary about this. You usually start to panic when we talk about sex.”
“My first winter on the street, I learned just how cold it gets in my hometown. A lady took me in, passed me off to her friend a night or two later. I went round and round, staying in the homes of a dozen sex workers that winter, men and women and neither, one was both.”
He shrugged. “They took in a crippled kid when no one else would, not without strings attached.” He said quietly, lost in remembrance. “It feels so long ago…”
He shook it off with visible effort. “Anyway, you’ve seen my dingdong a few times. Shai showed me which end goes where. I haven't walked dick first into a grain mill or discovered a sexy use for dead monster parts. Help me out here, what am I missing?”
“Nothing, that was very enlightened of you.” Tawny said, brightening visibly.
“I’m not closing any doors on Shai.” He smiled at his woman. “I don’t want to share you, but if you need something I don’t have… Adoption? Gigolos? Summoning children from the beyond? No, not that last one. All the others.”
“You need to rest now.” Tawny said to both of them fondly, before leaving them to float around hand in hand in privacy.
#
It was a charming home, not grand. It stood by the water side, with the front door facing up the road toward Port Ellis. There was a walled garden, but the wall was wildly overgrown with some kind of flowering vines. Easy climbing.
The front door was a sturdy affair, designed to roll back in a slot rather than swing. That was going to take some breaking if they couldn’t talk their way inside. All the lower windows were too narrow and too heavily shuttered to be of use, while the upper windows seemed to be sealed as well.
There was a wide gate in the garden wall that looked even sturdier than the front door. If anything it was more exposed, facing the road side.
From a lightly wooded hilltop a quarter mile away, Fallon weighed the risks of a staged monster, or better yet bandit raid. Monster attacks would trigger a hunt and if no creature could be found…
Fake bandits only needed for the raids to stop and a few ears be turned in. Ears were plentiful and delightfully portable.
Sadly, the Shore Road offered little in the way of ambush points or even opportunities to overtake the fast moving group. Fallon had a good idea what his uncle was interested in now though.
This whole week had been one upsetting misadventure after another. Drawing a patrol ride to Wheatford of all places, and with Nazar of all second officers. That promised misery enough, then that damn marsh monster notice came in.
If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.
Bog vermin were tiresome, dirty and smelly, the only thing worse would be if a pack of greenies, who should not have even been there killed the damn thing. At least that cut the abysmal journey short.
His Uncle’s instructions to go check on some filthy orphan in Wheatford, “while you are there” stank of being used as an errand boy.
Even more vexing, that very orphan was injured in the swamp fracas and looked likely to die, no doubt that would be his fault too. What that orphan trash was doing wandering the roads in winter, armed and badged as Adventurers was beyond him.
Finding Trelawny Belen there was irritating, it forced him to play nice, nice. That was not his strong suit. Not recognizing her initially, that had him furious with himself. Not that they had ever met formally..
At least this horse was shaping up, it twitched and frisked nervously whenever he approached now. He had been worried he might have to leave visible marks on it before the beast would behave properly.
That made him think of Khan and his damned horse… if he got the chance to kill Khan, he would ride that animal to death and feed it to the whores and drunkards in the dock ward.
The sun was setting soon, they had set out expecting to overtake their quarry in an hour and be back for dinner…
Now they were wrung out, exhausted and left with few supplies to camp on a winter night in the wild. His uncle would truly enjoy lecturing him on that.
“Come boys, let’s see if they have food at that inn… I think I smell humble pie…” This was going to be galling and humiliating at best.
With deep regrets for his choice of troops, he led them down to the brightly lit home by the sea.
#
The changes wrought from her first night in the madhouse were startling and deeply strange. With the now mostly alive Gary, shambling about and getting in the way. He interfered comically while trying to be helpful as he wandered around.
Gone was the aura of quiet and stoic patience. The dreadful hope and hopeful despair of an infirmary waiting room was blown away on a manic breeze.
Now, the small troupe was swaying drunkenly from one mood to another as their pet minstrel wandered around the musical landscape.
He played simple country dances, some familiar and some not, some seemed very innovative and new, while feeling old beyond reckoning. After some, he would expound briefly on who wrote the music, explaining it away as some strange tradition in his homeland.
“Copyright law is more dangerous than you can ever know, its magics are dark and sinister.” He looked about nervously. “Lawyers could haunt any shadowed corner…”
“Dinnae be so wi Luna, she dinnae ken yer madness boy.” The smith swept in just in time to save her from whatever that was leading up to.
That woman was everywhere when music played, and there was always music now. “Tis a tradition, when the author is known tae tell what ye know o them. He does say it be a bard’s duty. Ye may ignore him.”
“If you can go on about your fae folk and what not, I can tell this nice lady that Stevie Ray Vaughn should be considered a demigod at least.” He said, needling her in his quiet sing-song way.
“Fie Luna, dinnae be fooled, the fair folk be as real as thee and me, an so too be his strange tales.” She hugged her odd man awkwardly, trying to avoid his bizarre breastplate. He was still tinkling away on that thing…
Yet the music came from the instruments on the walls, seeming to be produced by the bronze disks worked into some.
“An aught seems mad beyond belief, remember what ye hae already seen.” Shai smiled fondly at her pet fool in a way that made Luna wonder where Khan was hiding.
Somehow the barely mobile creature was already gone. He was over by the clavaharpsiwhatsit in the corner, coaxing the gods' damned duchess heir, into playing in what amounted to a roadside tavern.
The madman had wheedled and begged in a hilarious display of abject and pitiable misery, just to convince the kids in the kitchen to make those ‘taco’ things again.
The priestess had decreed his bowels capable of solid food and he was nearly panting with anticipation.
He had been playing some exotic rhythms and coaching the two boys who held guitars on some kind of foreign music ever since.
They were flicking and thumping at their instruments, creating sounds that rang and fell silent in a strange tempo. The looks of concentration on their faces barely concealed their smiles.
While deeply entangled in whatever magic the young couple had spinning between themselves and the group at large, there seemed few limits.
Luna slowly eased into her magical vision, a gift from her Contract with the spirit of air. She usually kept it damped down, it could be distracting, with the gift active, magical emanations became faint auras of color and movement.
That was disorienting, the whole place was alive with swirling, flowing hues and auras, that was no surprise for a gift as unusual as this one.
Even after she used her will to damp down the rich green and brown hues of the house, colors were flying everywhere.
Just the ambient magical noise filtering in from the bath set her teeth on edge. That thing was all the colors that did not exist in any sane world. It sprayed undirected magic into the world like a fountain of eldritch… spookiness.
She ended her gift before the sight made her brain fray like a worn bowstring.
The music had resolved into a sweeping, swaying melody that seemed just the feeling for a winter night by the shore. With little warning the beat changed, becoming more complex, sending the two dancing women, Shai and Becky into even greater flights of fancy.
“Great job guys,” Gary gasped at the end. “I know ‘Flor d’Luna’ is a tough one, Santana is a legend for a reason.” He sagged to a stool that Luna swore did not exist a moment ago.
“Did you say my name?” She asked the boy as he slowly deflated.
“Mmm, ? Ss… the name of the piece.” He said slowly sinking. “Means moon flower. Or moon’s flower. Yeah, the flower of the moon, beautiful like my duskmoons.”
He began to mumble and Shai swept in with her giant. They plucked him off the stool the way a parent would a sleepy child and had him stripped and floating like a corpse in a moment.
Becky gave a sharp whistle and Otho trotted over from wherever he had been napping. “Keep an eye on Gary ok, we are gonna eat. Have Annie help ok?” The dog snuffled and ambled off to the stables with a wag of his tail.
“Gary is gonna be mad if he misses tacos again.” Becky warned the retreating mutt. “Let us know when he wakes.”
Shai and the giant returned, looking hungry, but not overly concerned. “He will be awake anon, tis only he be tired.”
She turned to Luna. “What did he say ere he slept, dae ye mind?” She asked, her mask slipping a little, revealing the worry behind the innkeeper guise.
“Something about my name, he named a song for me I guess? My name doesn’t mean anything.” She said. “That’s just what the old woman who made my tattoo said it was called. I took it for my handle. It sounded scary.”
“Luna means moon in a few foreign languages that Gary knows,” Becky sang. “...including the one they speak where tacos come from.” She said, placing a tray of tacos on the table with proud flourish.
“Just how much of this pinchy mud monster do you have?” Luna asked around a mouthful of plump, sweet, crunchy crawdaddie and cilantro.
“Let’s just say, we should be glad it is delicious… and versatile.” Ivy said. “There are rumors from Shia and Becky of something new… we will have to wait and see what they dredge up.”
Luna was just about to ask what that meant, when a knock sounded at the door.
Silence descended rapidly.
#
When his troop rode within bow shot of the door, they heard raucous and strange music, it swayed and lilted and fell silent as they approached.
His men seemed restive and excited, time to lay down the law. He brought them up and spoke clearly, but just loud enough to be heard.
“This is not some roadside inn, it is the mobile residence of a certain noblewoman, traveling under the veil. Do not reveal her identity or use any honorifics… or draw her ire. Do you all understand the dangers?” They nodded, but he wanted to hammer it home firmly.
“If you shame my house, any honor debt you incur to house Belen will be a pittance. You will surrender your balls to my house first.” Satisfied, he rode the last two dozen yards to the dooryard.
He dismounted in the pool of golden light and removed his helm. Short ringlets of golden hair framed a face not quite perfect enough to be beautiful.
His eyes were a cool, calm blue, beneath golden brows that naturally arched inquisitively. Square white teeth shone from a square jawed smile that was all well studied charm.
Tossing his reins to Malus, he strode to the door and knocked politely. A tiny hatch opened, revealing a green eye, before snapping closed again.
After a moment the door slid to the side, it was thick, that would be tough to breech…
“I hae nae thought ye would follow us. I say again, ye dinnae ken him ye need nae see him till he be well. Fly on man.” She barked. “Tae be clear ye nae be welcome in mine home.”
He tried to get an armored boot in the door before it slid home, but did not quite make it. He felt his men stir behind him, this could get ugly.
He knocked again, when the door slid open, the giant smith and the small warrior were there, behind Belen. “Yes?” She asked, all calm and polite manners from behind her veil. Fallon gagged down his fury and spoke with care.
“We are sent to ask a boon of yourself, mistress Trelawny. My uncle, baron Eglund Fallon, wishes to present a gift to lady Trelawny Belen, I was tasked with asking you to please deliver it to her…” He said with his most urbane smile, while acid churned holes in his bowels.
“...on a personal note, I would ask succor and guest rite of your band, as we are in the wilderness without supplies.”
That should place her in a pickling vat, as Malus would say. ‘God’s did I just reference Malus in my own thoughts?’ Maybe it was time to stop whoring around with commoners and settle down after all…
“Very well, your men may rest in the stable of this home. We will provide what aid and comfort we may. As is custom.” She said with cold finality.
“As you say mistress Trelawny. Will you accept delivery of the gift?” He asked, choking on humiliation.
“In the morning, after second bell, as is custom.” She said, still as frosty as a distant mountain peak.
“Malus, form a detail to empty the stable and make it habitable.” He said, just as the gate trundled open.
The cursed skinny one was there, smiling widely.
“Annie says you can stay in her rooms, just don’t make a mess.”
This commoner, he could dress her down with impunity. “My men will not be sharing a roof with a horse, girl. You can move that beast or my troopers will.” He gave his riding crop a sharp snap against his armored thigh to illustrate. Most common filth knew to bow when they heard that sound.
She giggled. Giggled! “Annie is going to have a sleepover with your horsies, she says your lordship can sleep in her stall, that is an honor!”
With slow growing dread he realized, they were really going to make the heir to the barony of Port Fallon sleep in a filthy stable?
“Annie says good night!” She called, just as their horses trotted past and into a second gate, roiling with steam in the cold night. That gate had not been there just minutes ago. At their head was that filthy Whorse, leading them into the garden.
His mystified troops just staggered inside, and collapsed into the fragrant sawdust bedding.
The giant came out later with a huge kettle of something he called ‘gumbo’, laden with lumps of fish and duskmoon pods of all things. This kettle’s contents would cost a fortune in the markets of the capital just in those exotic beans. It was good though, rich and dark, the pods made it slippery and soothing on a dry throat.
Redolent of cedar, pine and strange spicy and exotic scents, the sawdust bedding embraced him like a cloud.
#