From alt.pub.dragons-inn Tue Feb 14 12:12:33 1995 Xref: netcom.com alt.pub.dragons-inn:8123 Path: netcom.com!ix.netcom.com!howland.reston.ans.net!torn!newshost.uwo.ca!ts6-7.slip.uwo.ca!mdevries From: mdevries@julian.uwo.ca Newsgroups: alt.pub.dragons-inn Subject: [AT THE INN] On their way... Date: Thu, 9 Feb 1995 14:37:21 LOCAL Organization: ITS, UWO Lines: 190 Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: ts6-7.slip.uwo.ca X-Authenticated: mdevries@ts6-7.slip.uwo.ca X-Newsreader: Trumpet for Windows [Version 1.0 Rev B final beta #4] (Copyright 1995, all rights reserved) Authors: E. Laycock Sleeaeth (E.A.Laycock@sheffield.ac.uk) M. DeVries Tyloril (mdevries@julian.uwo.ca) S. Vanhorn Jason (svanhorn@xmission.com) Tyloril remained seated for a moment, turning the medallion over on his hand. He turned to look at Jason. "If this...man ...has any information regarding this, I would be most grateful. It is not the money that concerns me." "All you want is information about it?" Jason said, eyes full of silent laughter. "Sure, what ever you say." With that he dropped a few coins on the table for the wine walked to the door, sliding his lute into a thin tan sack and slinging that and his other leather backpack onto his shoulders. "You have horses?" he asked Sleeath and Tyloril who nodded. "Unfortunately, I have none. I prefer to run, though. My endurance is excellent; I can run as fast as a trotting horse for miles at a time. Galloping, on the other hand, is where my running cannot match for very long. If danger ever came and made me run away, I would rather lose my attackers and hide until they passed. My body can be very deceptive, especially in small, dark places." Jason smiled, his teeth white and pearly beneath his light lips. "Let us leave." Sleeaeth lifted another eyebrow at this comment, but shakes her head, smiling, as if disputing this last fact somewhat, but doesn't say anything. Still smiling she turns to Jason, "well, I suppose you could always ride behind one of us when you get tired, and carry we could carry some of your belongings" She looks at Tyloril. "Let's go, I'm tired of hanging about, doing nothing". One of the serving maids wanders over asks her name and hands over a scrap of parchment. Unfolding the paper and reading its contents, Sleeaeth made the parchment into a small ball and ficked it onto the fire where it became a small bright spot. "My friend Red will be several days before her business is concluded," she sighs, handing a small coin to the wench, shrugs and walks over towards the door. Without looking over her shoulder she steps out. Jason followed Sleeath out of the tavern and onto the road. "If you'd both get your horses ready I'll be ready to show you where the shop is. We follow this road out of town, north, and we should get there in an hour or so. I can't exactly remember how far it is, but I'm sure it's fairly close." A dirty stranger dressed in a leather jerkin over a stained once-white shirt walked past, smiling vaugly at Jason, his teeth yellow and brown, as he walked toward the inn. Immediately Jason stared hard at the man, eyes cringing slowly. The stranger quickly opened the door, the smile gone, and stepped into the inn front room. Looking around indifferently, Jason felt the side of his thigh where a small dagger was outlined in a small pocket. Tyloril followed Sleeaeth from the inn as they headed towards the stables. The elf nodded to the stable boy as he walked past, stopping at astall near the back. The horse inside, a deep black mare, nickered asTyloril pulled back the door. She was not a nice- looking horse, her legswere lanky and her head appeared to large for her body, but she appeared well cared for and nuzzled the elf's shoulder as soon as he was close enough for her to do so. Tyloril scratched behind the mare's ears as he removed his gear from the stall door which consisted simply of small padded blanket which he swung over the mare's back. From the corner of his eye, Tyloril glimpsed Sleeaeth handing a small piece of parchment with a coin to the stable lad, her other hand gesturing to one of the stalls, but without staring, Tyloril could not tell which. The boy bobbed his head up and down to show his understanding, the coin disappearing into his pocket and the paper into his shirt. As Tyloril walked towards the stable doors, his mare following dutifully behind him, he took a moment to look at Sleeaeth's mount. She had a mare, like himself, but hers was chesnut in colour. Her tack was well-worn but showed no signs of neglect, and all the metal pieces were either darkened until they lost their shine, or wrapped in black silk. As she outfitted her horse, her gear made none of the jingling one usually associates with such things, and Tyloril doubted it would make much noise as she rode either. Tyloril noticed similar gear for resting in the boxes outside two other stall doors, and assumed it must belong to those companions she had mentioned at the inn. Tyloril tossed a coin to the stable boy before leaving the stable, then swung himself up onto his mare's back and waited for Sleeaeth to finish her preparations. Sleeaeth swung herself up into the saddle with a practiced ease, gently easing her horse out into the sunlight. Her eyes squinted in the sunlight, a slight jingling seemed to catch her attention, she sniffed in disgust, dismounted and quickly located the offending piece of harness and silenced it, muttering "tsk, careless," under her breath. Seemingly better satisfied she look the reins of her horse and led it into the courtyard and towards Jason. When she was beside him, she paused for a moment, thinking about the figure she had seen entering the inn when she had left for the stables, "That man, did you know him?" Jason considered her face for a moment and said, slowly, "Yes he's.... just a...friend..." "Really, you have strange friends. Still, you are one of my companions now. Let me know if his presence ever becomes a burden to you," she smiles, a knife appears in her hand, likely from an arm- sheath, flicks up into the air, and dissapears into wherever it came from just as swiftly, "only joking," she says, lifting an eyebrow and smirking lopsidedly. Jason only replied with silence, and started off towards the shop. Tyloril, on the other hand, wore an expression of shock. Quickly, he regained control of his expression and watched as Sleeaeth's grin stretched even more. The casualness of Sleeaeth's remarks unsettled the elf. He had little doubt she knew her way around a battle, but he wondered whose wars she had been fighting. "All right, Tyloril and Sleeaeth," Jason said, interraupting the silent exchange, "Let's leave. Let's begin up north through the streets. I will direct you further as we get out of the public." Jason said, eyes scanning the street. "On second thought," he added, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. Suddenly he walked close to the two whispering, "Something tells me that I need to stay away from you two. It wouldn't seem right. I'll follow from behind and on the side. Just keeping riding straight up this street and onto the road north. I'll catch up with you once we are out of the city." Before they could protest, Jason added, "Just do it." With that he walked nonchalantly across the street and began walking north up the street, body close to the buildings. Both Tyloril and Sleeaeth were taken aback by the commanding tone of Jason's voice, but their instinct to question why was overridden by the urgency with which he spoke. The elf and the half-elf started their horses off to the North. When Jason was out of earshot behind them, Sleeaeth spoke. "You don't like my attitude much, do you?" she asked. There was no malice in the statement as she turned her head towards the elf. "You're not very old at all, are you?" she went on, as if suddenly seeing the elf for the first time. By human standards the half-elf in front of Tyloril appeared to be in her mid-twenties, but he realised that the mixed blood must make her older than that. She smiled, "You'll realise soon that the most important thing to do is to survive. Sometimes, to do that, we have to do things that we dislike, abandon friends, fight side-by-side with people we detest. I've seen friends cut down in front of me, held them in my arms as the life drained from their eyes, and their flesh became cold." Sleeaeth light tone had changed and she was trembling with anger and perhaps, Tyloril thought, grief. "This world is full of evil people, and good people, and people who just don't care anymore. I still care, and that is my weakness." She stoped, looking nervously over her shoulder, "I've said far too much." She touched the scars on the side of her face, "If it weren't for the loyalty of my companions, I'd have bled to death, or worse. They may not have liked what I did, or even liked me, and certainly few people have ever trusted me....Except him..." She pulls out the chain round her neck, with the battered ring on it. "One day we'll meet again" she said, quietly as if promising herself that. "Anyway, the thing to watch is your back, and your friends backs, 'cause if you don't you'll end up with a dagger stuck in them." Sleeaeth smirks, "and that can REALLY ruin your day!!!" All trace of her anger has gone now, she looks at Tyloril with a sympathetic eye, "one day, you'll thank me for what I do, even though I've done it for selfish reasons!" She leaves that enigmatic quote, and pushes her horse forward at a quicker walk. "Sleeaeth?" the elf said as he again moved his horse along side her. The half-elf turned to Tyloril and waited for him to continue. "Age is not a requirement of wisdom. There are many who have seen centuries of life that act as would a child deprived of his candy. You cannot presuppose that by my youth..." Tyloril paused for a moment, then continued, "To think that survival is the most important thing in life, to prize your skin above all else, is to deprive yourself of the things worth living. There are things more important than life." The elf spoke calmly, his voice barely a whisper, keeping his eyes down to avoid meeting Sleeaeth's gaze. He was not angry, but rather thoughful. The half-elf's comments had brought up some memories from his own life as well as making him wonder about the woman before him. But not only that. Sleeaeth seemed to be treating him oddly, as if she thought him to be something out of the ordinary, that she was surprised he would even be seen in her company. She had said that she was surprised he had agreed to have a drink with her, but why? She spoke with a candidness that Tyloril could only accept as the truth, and she had said things that Tyloril doubted she told few other people. At the inn, she had tried to hide the ring that hung from her neck, but she displayed it freely now, and even said enough that Tyloril could begin to guess its origings. Both waited in silence for a moment, but Tyloril spoke gain, raising his head so that Sleeaeth looked straight in the amber eyes, "And to think that caring is a weakness and compassion a hindrance..." He struggled for the words, "I pray that such a way of thinking never becomes my own." Again he paused. "But you need not fear. Should we be forced into battle, I will watch for `daggers aimed at your back,' although I doubt my skill comes close to your own." __________________________________ The lady, with guile in heart, Came early where he lay; She was at him with all her art To turn his mind her way. The Gawain Poet