Newsgroups: alt.pub.dragons-inn From: djb6@ellis.uchicago.edu (Dennis Brennan) Subject: [NTY] The prodigal son Message-ID: <1993Aug1.044159.16827@midway.uchicago.edu> Date: Sun, 1 Aug 1993 04:41:59 GMT The party stopped. Although the hood covering his face kept Gunther from seeing anything, he suspected that it was night since the oppressive heat of the sun seemed to have tapered off. Relieved of his hood, Gunther blinked as daylight hit him brightly in the eyes. It appeared to be an hour or two before sunset, but certainly not night yet. The moons of Nexus (numbering two, three or possibly more pending the consensus of a number of students and professionals on a distant planet) were already visible, augmenting the waning rays of the sun with their own feeble illumination. "Sit," a youthful voice commanded in the Rameshander tongue. Gunther obeyed and observed that his friend, the scholar Sadaget, was nearby. His other companion, the slave Crussen, was nowhere to be seen. Gunther wondered aloud where the mighty Parahander might be. "The bandits hit him over the head and left him in the desert somewhere," Sadaget responded. "They refused to bring him along, even as a prisoner, because his people are farmers. Some kind of clan rivvalry at work here, I suppose." "Be silent," the same youthful voice demanded. "The large one was abandoned since he cannot eat our food. We did not want our food to be polluted by his lips. We did not want to corrrupt our blades with his filthy blood. Let him go back to his own miserable people to dig in the dirt." "More than rivalry, I'd say," Gunther offered. "Our hosts must be one of those hunter tribes of Parahan. I've heard of their disdain for civilization. They refuse to eat anything they haven't killed themselves." He swwitched to the Generican language. "I can imagine them up north in Generica, raiding a grocer's and stabbing at vegetables and jarss of preserves, slaying bushels of corn and shooting arrows through turnips..." "Can you?" the Parahander youth surprised Gunther by replying in Generic. "You think we're barbarians or somesuch. While you wade through the filth and the crime of the cities you're so proud of consnstructing." "And capturing us isn't a crime?" Gunther wondered. The young man struck him with the blunt end of his weapon- sosome sort of spear adorned with feathers and beads. "Shut up. There's a war on." That was news to Sadaget, a Rameshander. "That's news to me." "And you. Shut up." The youth hit Sadaget. "We're throwing all of the Rameshander goat-head tax-collecters out of Parahan. And we're winning." `Goat-head' was an insult directed at Sadaget, who was bearded, as well as at the notorious Rameshander civil servants. "Fine, fine. Good luuck with your little war. Now, my friend here is not a tax collector, and I'm not even a Rameshander. So why don't you... gentlemen (Gunther used a diplomatic term as the youth readied his weapon for another swing at him) let us go." "You're city-people. Worse than that fat village-grub you were so worried about. We're going to have a little fun with you. We'll build a rack and roast you over a bonfire so that the fat that drips from your Generic bones flavors our meat and bread. Or perhaps we'll eat you instead. Or merely cut your legs off and leave you in the prairie for the jackals to find. That's always a hoot." As the youth rattled off his list of torments, Gunther was puzzled by something he couldn't quite place. Then he realized... "Say, haven't I seen you someplace before?" The boy looked a little nervous for the first time. "I don't see how. I live a thousand miles from Generica." "Ah, but how is it that you speak Generic? And you don't have black hair like the other tribesmen." "I.. was found by the tribe. When I was very young." "Couldn't have been that long ago, since you lived next door to me two years ago back in Generica." Sadaget wondered, "Gunther, what the hell are you talking about." "This `Parahander warrior' here is Ulrich Sachsen's kid. His father is a bigshot in the Bank of Generica. His son, Tod- if I recall, ran away from home a couple of years ago and was never seeneen again. Looks like this is where he ended up." "Shut up." Tod whalloped Gunther again. "My name is Mad Winter and if you tell anyone any different I'll skin you." The youth's eyes were cold as steel, but softened for a moment. "So, you're from Generica? How are things back there?" -- Dennis Brennan djb6@midway.uchicago.edu