A line in the stand

Esmiralda and her companions, the Optimist Monk Broo Fang Tane and the odd, loutish warrior Seymurh, have paused to rest in a tavern outside of Veral Ski, one of the largest cities in all of Korin. Here they wash the blood, gore and dirt of their recent adventure from their bodies but Mira finds the memory of their lost comrade Merrick is as restless as the living dead that claimed his life. In a dream, he hints at a new quest that Esimralda must undertake...


The street was already teeming with unwashed peasantry making their way to the stout gates of the great city. I fell in line behind a lean, crooked man dressed in rags who carried a bundle of pelts over his right shoulder and tried not to look at the vacant eye sockets of the hapless creatures. Seymuhr stood beside me, picking at his teeth. Carriages rolled by, unhindered at the gate, while we stood and slowly shuffled toward Veral Ski's impregnable walls.

"You could hide a small army in those carriages and deliver them to the queen's privy," I grumbled, impatient. "Yet we must wait, the insignificant masses, to be poked and prodded for the amusement of these so-called guards."

"I could stop one of those coaches," Seymuhr said. He wore one of his maces on each hip and he fingered one of them.

"You'd only cause a scene," I told him. "I'm merely voicing my displeasure."

"That's how they rule over you," he said. "They expect the complaints, but not the action. As long as these 'insignificant masses' you refer only voice their complaints to each other they are content to do as they please."

"Oh ho! Look at you! When did you become a social critic, so knowledgeable with the workings of the upper class?" I lowered my voice. "Let's just wait. We are nearly there."

"You pick up things when you travel," he said. "That, and things are the same everywhere. they always have been."

I had to nod. "True. These are trying times. Is this wisdom imparted to you from your parents?"

"I never knew them." He responded.

"Oh." I fell silent. I remembered, then, something that Merrick had told me shortly after I fell into his troupe: that Seymuhr claimed to have been abandoned by a river and raised by fish. Surely, that was impossible, a farce he told to deflect from his true heritage. Wasn't it? I studied him again from the corner of my eye: he was shorter than I--and I was not a tall woman--but broad and thick with muscle. I knew him to be fearsomely strong and ferocious in battle. He fought with a mace in each hand, not with any apparent skill, but with a strength and energy that battered and maimed any opponent we had come across. He was bald and loutish, with a thick nose and low eyebrows, but a sometimes disarming smile. "Well, it is true, nonetheless."

We moved forward, slowly, as the sun climbed into the sky. Soon the shadow of the Great Gate overtook us and we stood ready to enter the city.

If I can market there, I can market anywhere

Esmiralda and her companions, the Optimist Monk Broo Fang Tane and the odd, loutish warrior Seymurh, have paused to rest in a tavern outside of Veral Ski, one of the largest cities in all of Korin. Here they wash the blood, gore and dirt of their recent adventure from their bodies but Mira finds the memory of their lost comrade Merrick is as restless as the living dead that claimed his life. In a dream, he hints at a new quest that Esimralda must undertake...

"By the way, where is Broo Fang Tane?"

Seymuhr shrugged his thick shoulders and cracked his neck. "He said something about going to the market."

"The market? Alone? Are you sure that's a good idea?"

"He seemed to be in a good enough mood."

"That doesn't necessarily guarantee anyone's safety." His mood was just what I worried about. Tane was an Optimist, one of the champions of good news and a positive outlook, dedicated to his cause--and that was a dangerous thing in Korin, particularly during times as troubled as we lived in. Optimist Monks were fierce fighters, trained by masters of power and grace, for their message was often so ill-received that it required immediate self-defense. Sometimes, trying to spread a smile was enough to start a fight in Korin. Telling someone to cheer up or that things weren't as bad as they seemed...depending on your audience, those simple, kind sentiments could spark a blood feud.

Moreover, Tane's normally quiet presence attracted teasers, ne'er-do-wells and pranksters of all sorts. Bullies flocked to the little man like hornets to a picnic. His journey toward inner and outer peace met setbacks anytime he ventured into public or, indeed, was noticed. In the short time I had known him, I watched him try to contain his short temper on many occasions, only to erupt into shocking, violent action when provoked too far.

"True," Seymuhr said. He glanced down at my plate, where I had pushed aside the spider leg. "Are you going to eat that?"

"Not on your life." I pushed the plate toward him. He snatched up the spider leg and bit through it, sending a small river of grayish ooze over his lips. "They didn't even cook it!" He was genuinely excited.

I turned away. "We should go after him." I wanted to go into Veral Ski anyway and hopefully purchase some better clothes before I met with the queen and shared the news of Merrick's death. Going to the market without Tane also gave me the option to pretend that I didn't know him, if his temper flared up. "I don't want him to hurt anyone--or worse."

"There are too many people in the land, anyway," Semuhr said with a belch. He scratched his groin and lifted his cheek. "Nobody will miss ten or twelve."

"I suppose that depends on who they are," I growled, waving a hand in front of my nose.

"Besides, you should give him more credit. We can always hope that nobody bothers him, or that his mind and soul remain at peace."

I grunted. "You know what they say about hope, don't you?"

"No. I don't."

"Neither do I." I tossed two coins on the table, waved to Mallyn, and headed for the street.

The morning after

Esmiralda and her companions, the Optimist Monk Broo Fang Tane and the odd, loutish warrior Seymurh, have paused to rest in a tavern outside of Veral Ski, one of the largest cities in all of Korin. Here they wash the blood, gore and dirt of their recent adventure from their bodies but Mira finds the memory of their lost comrade Merrick is as restless as the living dead that claimed his life. In a dream, he hints at a new quest that Esimralda must undertake...

I basked in the warm rays of the sun and ignored any impulse to leave the bed and find my companions. My dream still troubled me and I rolled the images around in my mind, poking at it from every angle, equally afraid that it would fade or come true. Find him, the dream Merrick had implored me. Find who?

Eventually, I pushed aside the scratchy blanket and rolled to the side, placing my feet reluctantly on the coarse floor and stretched, my hands clasped over my head. My hair had grown into a tangle overnight; my fingers snagged as I brushed them through it. the ache of the road and the recent fight still tightened my muscles and I sat for a some long time listening to the sounds from the tavern room below or the slow parade of people guiding their wagons to the market in Veral Ski. I pulled on my boots, arranged my skirt and blouse and navigated the stairs like one of the undead minions we had so recently sent back to the ground.

Seymuhr and Mallyn sat together, their heads close. She had a smile on her face and a hand buried in her mop of reddish hair. Seymuhr leaned back, fingers entwined over a slightly swollen belly, tapping his thumbs together. Broo Fang Tane was nowhere to be seen. I sat down heavily beside the girl and gave her a weary nod.

"Good morning to you," she said, getting up.

I grunted.

"I've seen that look before. I'm on my way," Mallyn chuckled.

Seymuhr looked me up and down. If he felt as sore or tried as I did, he showed no sign. "Trouble sleeping?"

"Why do you ask?"

"You look like you slept in a barrel."

"Well, thank you for that." I ran my fingers through my hair again, then patted it down. "I thought you meant something else."

"I didn't."

"Obviously," I snapped. Mallyn was on her way back, a steaming cup of liquid in her hand. "Was your sleep...untroubled?"

"Like a hound by a fire," he said cheerfully.

"Hmmm." Perhaps his mind was too dull to dream. I thanked Mallyn for the brew and asked her what the tavern served for the morning meal.

She brightened up immediately. "I'm surprised you haven't heard of it! We call it Traveler's Temptation."

"Sounds...tempting," I said, unable to come up with a better word. The liquid she served was slowly peeling away the fog in my brain. "What's in it?"

"We take three eggs, mix 'em up with some special spices--we're not supposed to talk about those--cook them up and fold them over some chopped spider that's so fresh it twitches when you bite into it." She beamed at me. "Would you like that?"

"Can I get it without the chopped spider?"

Her face fell. "Why in Korin would you want to do that? That's the best part!"

I patted my stomach and shook my head. "I'm sure it is. It's just that we've just come in from a long expedition in the wilderness with nothing much else to eat. I'm afraid I've had my fill of spider."

"Wha...? She said she's had her fill of spider!" Mallyn called out to the room.

Silence followed, and then the creaking of benches as the few people left in the main room turned to look at us. I felt their eyes run over me, floor to hair and back again."

"Looks like she's had her fill of something," someone muttered and Seymuhr chuckled.

"Please," I said to Mallyn after shooting Seymuhr an irritated glare. "I don't wish to cause a scene or offend your cook. Can you just ask?"

She sniffed. "I will. But it's a bit weird." Her short skirt snapped around her hips as she whirled away. Seymuhr watched in appreciation.

"You have a gift for making friends," Seymuhr said.

"I just don't understand it. Just because spiders are everywhere doesn't mean we have to eat them with everything."

Seymuhr adopted a grave expression. He nodded slowly. "You're right. They're like people that way."

I didn't respond right away, but just looked at him, blinking. Then  gave up. "I. I...guess so. Look don't mind my foul mood. I had some unsettling dreams last night." I recounted the entire thing to him, right down to Merrick's urgent request. "Did anything trouble your sleep?"

Seymuhr shook his head and clicked his tongue. "Women. Always overthinking things."

"What do you mean? What have I done now?"

"Chances are, it was just a dream," he started, but then his eyes grew wide and he leaned in, his raspy voice little more than a whisper. "You know, you're right. It probably was a sign, a message of great import."

"Do you think so?" I glanced around the room. Seymuhr's sudden conspiratorial tone made me think that others were listening in. It didn't look like it.

"Of course! It was from your bladder. Those messages are always the most urgent. This 'him' Merrick spoke of probably had the chamber pot. Tell me, Mira, did you find him in time?" He leaned back and laughed like a donkey, obviously pleased with himself. I just pressed my lips together and kept my response to myself.

Then Mallyn appeared a plate of steaming eggs in her hand. She looked fondly down at Seymuhr, then placed the plate in front of me with a suspicious look on her face. "He said he did the best he could."

Sure enough, the Traveler's Temptation was nearly spider-free. I folded back the top layer of egg to find a single long, hairy spider leg placed conspicuously in the middle of an otherwise light and fluffy fare. I ate around it.

The Dark Dream

Esmiralda and her companions, the Optimist Monk Broo Fang Tane and the odd, loutish warrior Seymurh, have paused to rest in a tavern outside of Veral Ski, one of the largest cities in all of Korin. Here they wash the blood, gore and dirt of their recent adventure from their bodies but Mira finds the memory of their lost comrade Merrick is as restless as the living dead that claimed his life...


The cold stench of the cavern returned to me, clogging my nostrils and prickling the skin on the back of my neck. I felt cold, wet and small. Everything was silent and I was alone in the dark--a dark so complete that I could have poked my eye before I saw my finger.

I stood, filled with the certainty that the smallest move in any direction would send me tumbling into a deep pit and I would fall and fall and fall until my body was dashed open at the bottom. I strained both eyes and ears, listening for something that would guide me to some form of safety. At first I could not tell if my eyes were open or closed and the only thing I heard--or, perhaps I only felt--was the beating of my heart, steady and strong.

Gradually I heard something, so faint at first that I thought it was a trick of my own mind: a whisper, long and low and hoarse with pain. It was my name. I licked my lips and leaned forward, trying to catch a firmer grasp of the sound and slowly, painfully slowly, inched forward my right foot to test the surface ahead. It was solid. There was no pit--at least not directly in front of me.

Whimpering and hating myself for the sound of weakness, I moved in that direction. I slid my foot forward and only rested my weight on it when I felt solid ground. Tears leaked from my eyes and I couldn't stop shaking. I could not tell how far I moved, or how long it took me. I only know that my knees were weak and my whole body shaking before I saw the faintest glimmer of light ahead.

I fought the urge to run toward it. the cavern floor was still pocked and treacherous covered with protruding rocks or damp dimples that would surely turn an ankle or worse if I let my concentration lapse. The whisper grew louder, more urgent and more pained. I felt things moving in the air around me, imagined shadows flitted in the scant gloom at the corners of my vision and I clamped my mouth shut to keep from crying out in fear.

Where were my companions? Why was I alone? Sweat formed in my hand and made my knife slippery.

Slowly, I began to see more clearly and I felt confident enough to move a bit faster. I wiped my hand on my trousers and looked around me, hoping to see the shape of either Seymuhr, Tane or Merrick. Perhaps they were that close, and laboring in silence beside me.

They were not. I was still alone. I rounded a corner and saw why: Tane and Seymuhr were dead, their insides dripping and hanging from iron manacles attached to the damp walls of the cavern. Their eyes had been eaten out and their lips were gone; their teeth showed, crooked and yellow. Merrick was on the floor beneath them, a grievous wound at his center. He reached toward me, groaning my name.

I rushed forward, my stomach lurching, looking wildly about me as I bent down toward him.

"Don't talk," I urged him. "I will set you free; let us escape this place."

"I am free," he wheezed. "You...you are bound. You must help. Find him! Find him soon!"

"Find who?" I felt something moving in the shadows behind me, a cold air preceded it. It curled around my neck and dripped down my spine. "Bound to what?"

He pressed something cold into my hand. "Bound to him," he gasped. "You are bound to all."

The presence was right behind me, so large and terrible and cold that it left like my bones had turned to ice and my blood boiled to my skin. I looked up into a darkness so black it hurt my eyes and saw dancing red globes--eyes filled with a malevolent mirth. They grew closer and the cold started to surround me...

I woke with a start, covered in sweat, panting alone in my room. My fingers were clumsy as I reached toward my knife. My left hand ached and blood dribbled from my clenched fist. I slowly pried my fingers open and saw the symbol of the Ministry of Human Preservation; in my sleep I had clenched it so tightly that it bit into my skin.

I sat back against the wall, holding the knife in one hand while staring at the wound on the other. Merrick's dream words floated back. Bound, I thought. The meaning was obvious. But who was...him? Or was it just a dream, after all? The answers were as elusive as sleep.

Zombie stew

Esmiralda and her companions, the Optimist Monk Broo Fang Tane and Seymuhr Skullsquasher were enjoying a brief respite outside the walls of Veral Ski, the largest city in the land of Korrin. Soon, they must visit with the queen and tell her of the demise of their colleague.

Later, much later, I staggered up the stairs to the room that awaited me. Broo Fang Tane had already retired for the evening, but Seymuhr was still down in the main room, alternately singing in his hoarse voice and belching bubbles of ale. I paused, leaning against the doorway, for a moment tried to determine which was which--and which elicited more cheers from the sparse crowd. Soon, he would start in with his battle poems and that, more than my own exhaustion, drove me up the stairs to seek solace.

The room was small, but tidy. There was a solid-looking bed on the far wall and a chair at its foot. A small alcove held a large caldron of water over some dim coals. There was a tub beside it resting evenly on water-marked boards. I lit the lantern that hung on a hook by the door. Then I collapsed in the chair, my head spinning from the ale, and looked at the bed and then the tub, and then back again. I was woefully tired, but didn't think I'd be able to rest with my own stench in my nostrils. The tub it was, then.

The coals were dying, but the water was still lukewarm--warm enough to feel like a soft, heated blanket as I slipped my body into it. I laid back and let the water soak into and lift the grime from the forest and the road and the fight with the Hunen and the undead horde from my skin, then set about scrubbing my hide and hair. The water was gray and scummy by the time I had finished, a sort of stew made of grime and dead flesh, but still I dipped my clothes into it to rinse them as much as I could. They still smelled like a grave-filled swamp, but I felt a little cleaner and I no longer disgusted myself.

"A proper bath can change your outlook on the world," I muttered, although there was no one else to hear.

I laid down naked on the bed. Tomorrow there would be plenty to do, decisions to make and problems to solve. I could scarcely think of the first before sleep claimed me.

A low and mighty sound

Esmiralda and her companions, the Optimist Monk Broo Fang Tane and Seymuhr Skullsquasher were enjoying a brief respite outside the walls of Veral Ski, the largest city in the land of Korrin. Soon, they must visit with the queen and tell her of the demise of their colleague.

Seymuhr woke with a start and an embarrassed expression on his face. After a moment's confusion, he dove into the scraps of food in front of him, slurping up the remainder of his spiderfat soup, crunching up what was left of his spider flank steak. then he turned his attention to the few spider legs he hadn't ingested before, biting off the ends and sucking the ichor from their crunchy shells.

I found his dining habits to be truly disgusting. When he finally had picked clean every carapace and soaked up every drop of spider goo, popped and chewed all the eyes, he brushed all the plates and bowls and platters to the floor with a single swipe of his thick arm and then, cradling his distended belly with both his hands, let out a belch so mighty, damp and rank that the pure volume of it stopped passersby in the street.

Mallyn, her nose hidden in the crook of her elbow, nevertheless let out a long, braying laugh as she refilled the flagons on a table where two farmers sat. One of them whistled appreciatively.

"If I could belch like that, I never would have left home," Mallyn called with a snorting laugh. She disappeared into the kitchen with a swirl of her skirts.

I didn't know what that meant and I was too busy furiously waving my hand in front of my face to ask her. I scowled at Seymuhr, who patted his belly and then lifted his cheek to tilt to the left.

"If you wanted to attract attention, you've done so," I snapped. "If you wanted to make me ill, you've done that as well! What manner of man makes a noise like that? Or a smell?"

He shrugged. "Not a hungry one." He flashed a smile that he probably thought was charming. "The wench seemed to like it."

"It didn't get her wet."

"You get....used to I..........t," Broo Fang Tane, his head still bowed, added.

"I hope not." I poked at my empty bowl, then set my spoon aside. The tavern was beginning to clear out, and I felt myself relax. Outside, night had fallen and the road was growing quiet. Mallyn dropped off three more flagons of beer, but only managed a quick smile. She blew an errant hair away from her face.

I took a long, slow drink and thought back on all that had happened to me--to us--within the past fortnight. I saw Merrick again gasping and fighting for breath, his face red and his eyes wild as his life left him. I smelled the gore of that horrid cavern in the mountains and I remembered his final words as his soul left him.

Tomorrow, I would see the queen and try to articulate all of that to her. What would she require of me, an old, sad woman? I couldn't even imagine writing the Tale of Merrick's End. And what would I do after that?

"What will you do now?" I asked Seymuhr. He had already finished his beer, somehow, and was holding the empty cup above his open mouth in hopes that another drop would somehow spill out. He jerked it, twice and Mallyn took note.

"Now?"
"Now that our companion has perished," I said. "Will you continue your work for the MOHPs*?"

Seymuhr shrugged. Tane looked up, and nodded.

"Haven't thought much about it," Seymuhr said. His eyes were distant.

"You must have some kind of ambition," I pressed him. My hair fell in front of my eyes and I brushed it aside. "Some land to travel to? A cause to fight for? A...woman?" I hesitated, perplexed at the sudden hitch in my voice. Why would that thought bother me so? I certainly had no designs on this brute...

"Well, I always did want to knock someone's teeth out through their arse," he said, his face brightening and, just like that, the bothersome feeling was gone.

I sat back and crossed my arms over my breasts. "Your mother would be proud."

"Do you really think so?" He leaned in, an eager expression on his face, and I shook my head--but I felt the beginning of a smile all the same. I still had plenty of ale, but I knew I would need even more.

A talent for slaughter

Esmiralda and her companions, the Optimist Monk Broo Fang Tane and Seymuhr Skullsquasher were enjoying a brief respite outside the walls of Veral Ski, the largest city in the land of Korrin. Soon, they must visit with the queen and tell her of the demise of their colleague.

Mallyn bent down, bucket and sponge in hand, and started to sop up the blood.

"We really should just paint the floors red," she called to us. With a snorting chuckle she added, softer: "And the walls and the windows and the ceiling, perhaps the door..."

Broo Fang Tane smiled slightly at the attempt at humor. "I coul....d help," he said.

"There you go," I was relieved that his good humor was returning. So, I think, was everyone else who had witnessed the rather lop-sided fight. "Don't think of it as a talent for slaughter, but redecorating!"

"Either way, you'll never want for work," Seymuhr put in.

"I must admit, you do have a propensity to attract unwanted attention," I said after another mouthful of spiderfat soup. Indeed, I had been in three taverns with Tane and seen more than a dozen men dead or maimed because of it. "Is that what first took you to the Temple of the Sun?"

The Temple of the Sun, in far-off Nicaria, was where pilgrims went to learn the Way of the Optimist, and the fighting skills required to spread good cheer during these troubled times. Korrin was often a silly place, but it was a dark place, too, and anyone who tried to cheer someone else up had to know how to defend him or herself.

"I do not know," Tane said. "I was to....o...youn...g to understand much a...bout that place and i...t's teachings."

"Oh? I'm afraid I do not understand. I thought most boys who joined the order sought it out when they were of age. Is that not the case?"

"It is, usual...ly," Tane said. "But not for........................me."

In his slow, halting way, Tane told us of how his father had led him into the snow-slickened slopes of the Jagged Peaks and wept with joy when he found the temple gates. He remembered his father's heavy fist pounding on him and then not much else. When he looked up, his father was already walking away.

"Oh. He just left you there?"

Tane nodded. Mallyn had scooted near the table, her pink sponge working furiously at a thick blood stain.

I could only imagine how frightened Tane must have felt, and confused. I shook my head in wonder. It was no wonder Korrin was such a dark and silly place when parents took no responsibility for or joy in their offspring.

"With no word at all?"

"Oh, he said one...thing. But it was to the monk who....opened the...gate and...not to...me."

"I hope it was 'thank you,' at least!"

Broo Fang Tane shook his head. "It was: 'Good luck with this one.'"

"Well that's the next best thing," Mallyn said with a snorting chuckle and then, when I shot her an irritated glare, scrubbed the floor with renewed vigor. "I've heard worse," she muttered.

I favored Tane with a sympathetic glance, but the monk was looking down at the table and did not see it. I patted his hand, instead. Seymuhr, his belly full of spiderfat soup, roasted spider flank, spider silk noodles, spider jerky and whipped spider cream, had dozed off.