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From: kjc@aramis.rutgers.edu (Kelly J. Cooper)
Newsgroups: alt.pub.dragons-inn
Subject: [KAN] (a tangent) Sorrow Learns To Swim
Date: 20 Mar 1995 13:04:17 -0500
Organization: Rancho Apocalypse
Lines: 470
Message-ID: <3kkg31$pf@aramis.rutgers.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: aramis.rutgers.edu
Keywords: a boy and his vampire, a girl and her sanity, a singer of blood


[Admin: If you've been following the [KAN] thread, you probably know
what's going on here, but knowing is not truly integral to the story.
If you don't, mail us for details.  This is also, hopefully, the start
of getting the [HA] (Home Again) thread back on track.]


"And Sister Death is very beautiful
 And never very far away 
 So get me out of here
 Looked across a crowded room
 I said get me out of here
 To the girl with the mad eyes and serious earrings 
 It's hot in here
 Too hot in here"
	-The Jazz Butcher

"A man must have chaos within him to be able to give birth to a
 dancing star."				- Friedrich Nietzsche

			    --**<<00>>**--

  Jameson had a table against a wall, three chairs around it and a
picture, looming above, depicting representations of the various gods
of chaos.  Squinting up at it thoughtfully, Jameson decided it was
just disturbing enough to be interesting.  

  The picture promptly fell off the wall and slammed down into the
table to land on its vertical edge, then slowly, but with increasing
speed, dropped flat upon its face.

  The loud thump followed by the abrupt slap briefly stopped all
conversation in the common space.  A few of the more tense patrons in
the dinner crowd dropped into defensive stances, their eyes darting
around the room.  Some just fingered the pommels of their swords and
daggers and wands and things.  Others merely looked sharply.  A few
didn't care at all.  

  With a bit of muttering, conversation resumed as Mary Littlefair
bustled over to the table and joined Jameson in staring at the back of
the fallen picture.

  Written there, in clumsily scrawled purple media (Jameson was
immediately convinced that it had to be crayon) was written "HaHa
ChAoS gOdS gOnNa GeT yOu!"  Jameson looked at Mary, who replied to the
obvious question in the Walker's eyes with a bewildered expression of
her own.

  "It's not one of Kaalzic's.  I don't know who painted it.  And
further, I don't remember when it showed up there."  Mary continued to
look slightly confused and vaguely disturbed, her grandmotherly
features puckered into an expression of concern.

  Jameson ran her hands along the smoothness of the frame and the back
of the picture.  Then she ran her hands over the wall where it had
hung.  "Um.  There doesn't seem to be any nails, hooks, bumps, wires,
or sticky anything here."  She sniffed.  "Smells a bit of magic, but
then everything in this ruddy building does.  I think it's just
someone's idea of an elaborate practical joke."

  "Or a warning."  Jameson glanced up to see Listener draped across
the rafters above her.  He gave her a brief, mischevious grin and
walked the rafters back toward the main hearth, strumming something
vaguely familiar.

  Mary shrugged.  "In any case, time to do something with it.  If we
can't hang it back up, we could give it away."  She thought a moment,
then asked abruptly "Do you want it?"  Her voice held an odd note of
anxiety.

  "Honestly?  I don't know.  Let's just leave it under the table."  A
sly grin crept across her face.  "I'm sure _something_ appropriate
will happen to it.  Or I'll take it with me.  Who knows.  These are
Chaos Gods after all."

  Mary nodded somewhat pensively, tentatively returning Jameson's
smile, and watched as she leaned the picture against the wall under
the table.  Then she walked slowly back to the bar.

  Jameson considered pulling out her computer and working on all the
information she'd gathered in the last few months.  It still needed
considerable work before it was in a reasonable enough shape to use
for debriefing her friends.  Then she pondered the recently clobbered
table top and the possible effects upon her computer to have ended up
under something like that.  Bits everywhere.  Bytes too.

  While she sat, lost in thought contemplating whether her computer
was strong enough to withstand that sort of blow, she lightly scrubbed
her cheek with one palm.  To look at her was not to see anything in
particular.  Her hair was long and brown and tied back at the nape of
her neck with a bit of leather string.  Loose tendrils escaped their
bondage to curl around her throat and make her look even more
unfocused.  Her clothes were a bit irregular, especially for a woman -
heavy cotton shirt, vest of many pockets, patched trous, walking boots
- but not unusual.  Traveling clothes, in earth tones, and very well
worn.  Slightly frayed about the edges.  She was clean but held an air
of being rumpled and dusty and recently drawn out of the deep personal
daze, like a lifetime librarian out from between the stacks and lost
in the real world or a cavenewt trapped under the bright sun.  It was
only if you looked into her eyes that you might see something truly
different, something almost frightening.  A hint of wildness and
terror and even beauty.  The bright light of clean madness.  The
intimate knowledge of death.

  The front door slammed open, rebounding loudly off its leather
bumper, and two incredibly opposite figures staggered in out of the
early evening darkness.  All the vagueness in Jameson's face vanished,
pulled into a smile that lit her like a candle.  And like moths to
flame, the pair saw her almost immediately and swayed across the room
toward her, laughing wildly.

  One was a giant of a man, a barbarian clad in barely enough leather
to be decent.  Golden skin, a mane of flame-red hair, ruggedly
handsome he grinned a crooked grin.  But his eyes held jagged mirror
shards and reflected a kaleidoscope of distorted images.  

  Incongruously, his weight was more than halfway supported by a
smaller man with pale skin and dark, dark eyes.  This man had a
savage, feral look covered with dangerous amusement, like candy coated
poison.  A swath of patrons cleared to make plenty of room for the
pair's uneven staggering.  And, as if fulfilling prophesy, they left a
path of damage behind them in the form of broken chairs, broken
bottles and dented pannikins.

  They were singing something that had devolved into "na na naa NA, na
na NA NAA, hey-heeey-heeeey, gooooood-byeeee..." and eventually
managed to collapse giggling at Jameson's feet.  Three of the nearest
tables emptied quickly.

  Their laughter was catching and Jameson shared their mirth, but part
of her was puzzled.  There was an air of dangerous intensity to these
two that worried at the back of her mind.  A razor gleam to their
smiles, a wildness that cared nothing for control, a glitter in their
eyes that might be desperation as easily as laughter.  Then they
picked themselves up, leaning heavily on each other, and began dancing
a spontaneous jig and all the sharp edges faded for the moment.
Eventually their legs tangled and they again collapsed to the floor.
They looked like they were getting used to it.

  One thick, muscled barbarian finger was lifted into the air.
"BARKEEP!" Came a roar from the floor.  "BHEER!  Littlefair!  Bring
bheer!  Big bloody barrels of beer!"  The barman was already wheeling
a massive cask to their table.  H'ro climbed to his knees and pondered
it, eye to bung hole, for a bheer-sodden moment before hefting it up.
But from that position, all he could reach was the table and he
dropped it there, heavily, near the edge.  The table creaked and
started to tip.  Jameson leapt up and sat on the opposite edge.  For a
moment she feared the table would split rather than balance, but it
settled groaning and she was able to cautiously climb off.

  Expertly weaving, H'ro tapped the barrel's side, then dropped to lay
upon the floor and open the spigot.  The bheer splashed into his mouth
and was swallowed as fast as it could flow.  Kadrys beamed
beatifically at Jameson and sank ever so slowly to his knees,
eventually keeling over next to H'ro.  He lay there, smiling dreamily,
but his eyes intent and focused on emptiness.  Of its own accord, his
hand reached for H'ro massive arm.

  As soon as Jameson saw Kadrys' fangs flash, she kicked a table over
and shifted another one so the two were neatly hidden from the casual
observer.  She smiled, sweetly dangerous, at all lookers on.  Most of
the few left nearby quickly averted their gazes.

  When she looked down, Kadrys was clamped to H'ro's arm, drinking
furiously while H'ro was still improbably keeping up with the bheer
flow.  Jameson observed, impressed, then amazed as the cask smoothly
emptied itself into H'ro and finally came to a gurgling end.  Bheer
puddled around his head like an incongruous halo.  A slow, muffled
sigh signalled the end of Kadrys' own drinking binge and both
clambered out from under the tables to stand swaying.  

  They bounced off each other once and then dropped into seats.
H'ro's chair exploded and Kadrys burst out laughing and fell off his
own.  While the two cavorted on the floor, Jameson perched on a table
and winked at Littlefair.  The man brought his sturdiest chair over
and, shaking his head, left it nearby.

  On hands and knees, H'ro crawled to where Jameson sat and leaned
back until he was just on his knees.  With tremendous effort, he
yanked one knee up and took up a noble posture (with a little help
from a table).  He took one of her hands in his own and left a
sloppy, bheer-laden kiss on the back of her right hand, looked up with
sincere eyes and began to recite:

  "Around with the hoop with the loop
       of my love
  Lies longing my heart sinking low,
       thinking of
  Wonders and magic and worries of woe
   With windows all waddled 
       in yesterday's snow.
  The sun in its tower tolls out the noon
   While here in the sphere
       of the moth-eaten moon
  All huddled befuddled with night
       in the eyes
  The whoop of my heart
       in its wilderness lies."

  He held the final moment for a full breath before dissolving into
giggles and falling on top of Kadrys.  The vampire in question gave a
massive "whoof!" and heaved the giant off him.  H'ro rolled away,
guffawing and snorking to himself, and tried to stand up, only to slam
his head into the back of a heavy table.  He tried again.  Thump.  And
again.  Thump.  Finally, a giggling Kadrys grabbed at him and knocked
his right leg out.  H'ro landed on his knee and tried to stand again,
this time from a different posture, managing to miss the table.  He
looked at Jameson with a dazed expression as his head slowly fell over
to one side.

  "My brain too heavy.  Is."  His eyes crossed and drifted out of
focus and he started to tip over.  Deftly, Jameson skidded on the
bheer puddle and somehow ended up behind him quickly enough to shove
the sturdy chair under him.  She only winced a bit when he landed
heavily upon its frame and it shook, but held.

  Kadrys crawled back into his chair and sort of sat up straight.  The
two looked at each other and started laughing like maniacs.  Jameson
rolled her eyes and grinned wolfishly.

			    --**<<00>>**--

  Another barrel or so later, H'ro had managed to prop himself up on
the table by using his chin to support the rest of him.  Kadrys was
sitting on the floor, humming a monotonous little tune, his back
resting against the barbarian's back.  Jameson sat on the table,
tracing bheer butterflies on the tabletop.

  "Hey!" The table rocked as H'ro started to speak.  "Y'know, the
three of us, we've been places, losta, uh, lotsa places, right?
Right?"

  "Right, quite right, s'all right," Kadrys echoed.  Jameson watched
her butterflies drip away and looked over at H'ro, nodding.

  "So, you wanna know...Hey, where'd he go?"  H'ro raised his head,
causing the table to rock again.  The Walker rode it easily.  H'ro
looked to the left, "Ow," then to the right.  "Ow, my eyes don' wanna
move," then looked up at her.

  "He's _gone_!  Where'd Kadrys go, Jameson?"  Before she could
answer, a fuzzy voice near the floor wafted up, "waitaminute...umph,"
and slowly, Kadrys' head popped up over H'ro's shoulder.  "Ghods, yer
big," the vampire grumbled.

  "There you are.  Good ol', old, old old Kadrys," H'ro giggled.

  Kadrys frowned, lifted a hand to whack the barbarian, then "ooops,"
and slid bonelessly over H'ro's enormous shoulder and landed in his
lap.  Kadrys smiled up at him fondly.  "Don't mock your elders, boy!"

  H'ro returned the smile. "Wanted you.  Why?"  He looked again at
Jameson.  "You know why?"

  She looked down at him blinking.  "Something about the places we've
been?"

  "That's it!" and he slammed a meaty palm on the floor, making the
empty bheer bharrels bhounce.  "Was gonna tell ya about one of the
worst places I ever was.  At."

  "I _like_ stories," Kadrys confided.

  "Not this one.  First off, was high mana and low tech.  Not my kinda
place."

  "But this's that kinda place, too."

  "What?  The bar?"  H'ro looked more confused than ever.

  "No, you bigdumbass.  This place.  Generica!"  Kadrys flung his arms
up to indicate the all overness of place, whacking H'ro quite nicely
in the face.

  "Ooof," H'ro observed.  "Right.  Gotcha.  And _not_ a bigdumbass.
Bigdumbjock.  Difference.  Hey," as a new thought inserted itself with
difficulty into H'ro's bheer-thickened brain, "If not my kinda place,
mebbe I should leave."

  "No."  Kadrys observed.  "Gotta finish story."

  H'ro had to think about that.  Just as Jameson looked for smoke to
start coming out of his ears, the marbles fell back into place with an
almost audible click.  "Right.  Story.  Well, this place was a buncha
kingdoms and clans and stuff.  And a buncha gods who were real
interested in meddling in alla it.  Heh," he grinned reminiscently,
"Think I made one of 'em jealous.  The people she messed with called
her 'the Star-Eyed'.  Mine," he preened, "are much nicer."

  "mmmmmMuch nicer," replied the echo curled up cosily in the
barbarian's lap.  H'ro looked up at Jameson again.  "You think so,
too, huh?"

  Jameson looked into his eyes, twin broken kaleidoscopes.  "Um, not
right at this moment."

  "Oh," the big shoulders sagged.

  "They'll be better later."  Jameson's own eyes were large and solemn
with promise.

  "Really?"  He brightened.  "OK.  Uhm, she wasn't the worst one.  The
absolute worst ones were those damned horses."

  "Huh?"  Kadrys' eyes were crossed.

  "Yeah.  Big, white, blue-eyed horses.  But they weren't really
horses.  Not really gods, neither.  More like big, hairy angels or
sumpin'.  They made themselves look really pretty and nice, then
they'd go out an' recruit young, impressh *HIC* impressh *HIC*
imPRESSH *HIC* moldable kids an' make 'em fall in love with 'em and
make 'em wanna be friggin' heroes, goin' off and getting killed for
their ruler and their kingdom."

  "Kids?" Kadrys tried to sit up.  "They did that to kids?"

  "Yeah."

  "Damn 'em." The vampire glowered and slid back down into H'ro's lap.

  "Yeah.  It was real bad.  They were takin' the sweetest, the
neediest, the loneliest ones they could find, and fooled 'em into
thinking they were doing Great Deeds an' stuff.  Really pissed me off.
Those horseguys had some uh, hidden agenda."

  "Didja find out what?"

  "Uh, no.  I sorta pissed them off, too."

  "H'ro.  You didn't.  Did you?"

  H'ro only grinned.

  "Didn't what?"  Jameson asked.

  Kadrys shook a shaming finger at H'ro.  "Yooooou greedy thing!  You
_ate_ one, didn't you?"

  "Yeah.  Well, he was sorta dying, anyway.  Being full of arrows
does that, y'know."

  Jameson's eyes grew wider, remembering.  "Is that where that horse
of A'ree's comes from?"

  H'ro nodded, still smiling.

  "So?"  Kadrys looked at him expectantly.

  "So?  So what?"

  "So what does a god-horse angel taste like?"  He asked, around
H'ro's wrist, which he happened to be sucking on.

  H'ro's smile grew wider.  "Like chicken!"

  Kadrys just looked up at him for a moment, eyes wide and mouth full.
Then he started to chuckle, then laugh, then howl, until bheer-scented
blood gushed out of his nose.

  "Thought that might do the trick!"  H'ro said smugly.

			    --**<<00>>**--

  Yet another barrel later and deep into the night the three pretty
much had the common room to themselves.  They sat - at least, Jameson
sat, while the other two more often lay on the floor - partially
blocked by the bar and partially hidden by a hastily constructed spell
of distraction that Listener had graciously sung across them.  Eyes
looking at them tended to slide off and find something more
interesting, like ring stains on a table, to gaze upon.

  Kadrys was sitting, more or less, on a stone stool - they'd taken
all wood out of his way a few hours ago - swaying gently back and
forth, blinking slowly.  Jameson could almost hear the click when his
lids met.  He looked like an owl and would occasionally slip into a
fog - literally, as he would drift partway into mistform and go
ghostlike - then snap back into focus.

  Suddenly he spoke up, breaking a bit of silence that had been
puncuated only by astonishing feats of belch-hood for the past hour.

  "Do you know?  _H'ro._ ...D'you know when was the LAST time I tried
to drown my sorrows?  DO you???"

  H'ro frowned.  His brows drew together with a massive CLUNK as he
contemplated Kadrys' question deeply before finally answering, "Nope."

  "...ohdamn.  Neither do I."

  They snickered and snorted and H'ro asked if anyone had a match
because he wanted to see if he could light his belches.

			    --**<<00>>**--

  Two more barrels later and so deep into the night that gray dawn was
scraping sharp claws along the window glass their moods had shifted.

  "Eeessa... er, issa a rotten rot rotted idea, anyway."

  H'ro took a minute to find his tongue before asking "WHAT is?"

  Kadrys had slumped to the floor and was leaning against the wall.
"Drowning your sorrows.  Never works.  Sooner or later, the li'l
bastards always learn to swim."  Kadrys turned his head aside and
slurred, "...And thasss when they return the favour and drown you."
He began to fade until he was almost totally mist, just a vague
man-shape left.

  Swaying steadily H'ro picked a heavy swing leftward to drop off of
his chair and land beside his frappe friend.  "Play misty for me?" he
asked, then tried to scoop up the mist as he sat snorking and giggling
quietly to himself.  "Must to take silly vampire home."

  Jameson looked at the overnight barman, a quiet ageless looking
part-timer who handled the room from the small hours of the morning
until full dawn.  "Ya gotta fog bag under the bar?"

  He looked at her with a very dry expression and glanced briefly
under the bar.  Jameson was gratified to see his eyes widen slightly
and he pulled out a box labeled "FOG BAG" in flowing script.  "How come
I've never seen that before?" he asked her, his curiosity evident.

  "Cause we never needed it before," Jameson replied sweetly as she
walked over to take the box.  Muttering to herself, "I hope Serene
doesn't mind too much" she returned to her friends.

  H'ro was sitting with his arms wrapped around his knees, making as
small a package as possible for such a huge man.  He was looking at
the little cloud that was Kadrys and reciting quietly...

  "And what is the happy ending
   When the foot fits the shoe?
  And where are the knightly wending
   In the vast blasts of blue,
  Tracking up clean tomorrows
   In search of a bright today,
  Counting their well-worn sorrows
   In the hope they'll go away?"

  Jameson lightly rested a hand on H'ro's shoulder before opening the
box and taking the bag from within.  It looked like sealskin and had a
tight drawstring but could be opened completely flat in a huge circle.
Jameson opened it up and slid it under the Kadrys-mist then gently,
slowly, carefully pulled the strings until she had him completely safe
in the bag.  Tucking a cloud strand in here and there, she snugged the
strings up, but did not tie the bag.  It look incongruously full of
*something* and had a certain amount of weight.

  H'ro poked it and giggled.  With a surprising amount of strength,
Jameson helped H'ro to his feet.  With the bag slung over her left
shoulder, and H'ro on her right she moved across the room.  They
stopped at her original table and she said "H'ro, open your hand."  

  The Barbarian did as told and was immediately fascinated with the
lines on his palm.  Jameson picked up the picture of the Chaos Gods
and stuck it in H'ro's hand.  "H'ro, close your hand."  He did and
they resumed their stumbling toward the door.  

  Neither of the two of them, nor certainly their non-corporeal and
thoroughly unaware friend, noticed that three of the figures in the
picture had changed.  One looked like a muscular barbarian leaning at
a severe angle, one a small, pale vampire with cloudy edges and the
third a woman with a wilding smile.

--
Written by Kelly J. Cooper, Penny Hutchison, and Andrea Evans.
[kjc@apocalypse.org writer for Jameson, penny@agora.rdrop.com for
H'ro, and Andrea.Evans@orb.nashua.nh.us for Kadrys, respectively.] 
Copyright 1995.  All rights reserved.  Feedback appreciated.  (The
poetry bits are snagged sans permission from Walt Kelly, btw).