But no one did. She was good at being an unremarked passerby in the background.
She drew up short when someone stepped into her path. The orc spell-smuggler grinned at her “Evenin’ Ma’am. Would you mind joinin’ us?”
“Hurucair, right?” she said, carefully not answering the question.
“That’s right, ma’am. We got a bit of a debate goin’ on, and I think we’d appreciate your input, there.” He holds up a flask of moonshine to sweeten the offer.
Mathael and Seth sat at a small campfire, within sight of the central plaza. Mathael looked up from the cider heating in a campfire percolator. "Miss Theodora, I take it? Good to finally meet you."
"He's got a bunch of rude and uncomfortable questions for you," Seth said, "won't blame you if you wanna head to Fiora or something."
"What sort of questions?" Theodora said, taking a seat.
"Well," Mathael said, "ones about your brother. That kind.”
"Neither of us ever met him," Hurucair chimed in, "but it weren't hard to see he was on Seth's mind when he was with both a' us, back in the day."
Theodora shot a glance at Seth. This is where she'd expect him to squawk an indignant objection, but he was just relaxing by the fire. The way she could just barely remember him being back when…
"Well," she said, "S'pose if anyone's got the right to it's yall." She accepted the tin cup of hot cider and generous serving of moonshine added to it. "But first I gotta know, how'd Seth wind up involved with you two? You both seem a lot more… serious than I'd expect from him."
"Well, lotta folks got more sides to 'em, you know." Mathael spoke carefully.
"S'alright, I don't mind tellin." Hurucair shrugged.
"Seth came'n sought me out few years ago. Said he was onto something big.
I said I'd heard that before. Heard it every other week from some desperate grifter. I were runnin a bookleggin crew from Pastecuala to Huntswood through Devil's Crack, and I didn't have no idea who some two-faced Aven was. I said I weren't interested. So he said, what if he could get spells the likes of which nobody'd never heard of. From places like ‘Two Larry-a’ and ‘M'Leetus.’ Would that be interestin? I figured he was just doubling down on the lie, but something in the back a’ my mind made me give him a chance.
In hindsight? Maybe the fact that there's a goddess livin' in the wires I was siphonin' spells outa, who maybe had some ideas about makin this plan of his happen, was that 'somethin.' Whatever it was made me such a famously and lovably bad judge of character, turned out Seth weren't lyin. He brought back spells that felt like nothin I'd ever heard of before: felt like gears fittin together, like skies fulla stars, like city streets made of lightnin.’ And gadsdangit did they ever work! Other crews was runnin themselves ragged to get ya just a little cantrip that’d maybe blast out a tree stump? If you’re real good? And he brings you somethin that clears a whole field--weeds, stumps, brush, stone--and no harder to cast. And suddenly I was the top booklegger in the country, and it was thanks to him, and he were easy enough on the eyes, and if I was trustin him with my business then why wouldn't I trust him with my bed?"
“That… sure is some kinda way to make that kinda decision.” Theodora said.
“Like I said,” Hurucair grinned, “I’m a famously and lovably bad judge a’ character. Weren’t the wrong decision, neither-”
"That's when he stole the blueprints and built that beacon thing?" Theodora cut him off quickly.
"Well," said Seth, "I had to meet Sturmkraw first."
"We were smugglers, not inventors," Hurucair interjected.
"But that's when I started lookin for the opportunity," Seth finished.
"All I ended up contributin was a few extra hands to set up the beacon, and then being a witness when they pulled that Cape God outa the clouds, whatsisname, Setrivore?"
"Setirov," Mathael and Seth corrected him, in unison. Hurucair shruged.
"So," Theodora pointed at Mathael, "that means he must have been with you before he was with him?"
Mathael nodded.
"It were in the cool quiet after a Godstorm. I always watched em, y’know. I'd gone back inside after, so I didn’t see him arrive, and I remember thinkin when he knocked how I hadn’t seen nobody walkin up. Maybe things’d’ve gone different if I had seen him arrive, maybe not, though. I just remember him standin on the porch, soakin’ wet, glarin furiously at me like he were darin’ me to notice he’d been cryin. And he says, ‘you’re the fellow that used to say he was gonna revive the gods.’
I said I used to say a lot of things.
He said ‘That weren’t a question. You’re gonna teach me how to bring em back.’
I told him that was nonsense, and that he had best get back on the road and go back where he come from, there. He said he couldn’t do that, there weren’t no one left for him there. And I said that weren’t none of my affair.
I went back inside. When I went out to do chores the next mornin, he was still there, waitin. And I was maybe more callous then than I am now, but I weren’t that callous. So I said, “Look, I dunno what you expect me to teach you, but I aint lettin you starve or freeze, y’know. Gimme a hand with the chores here and there and then c’mon inside and have some breakfast.
He weren’t very good at the chores, but I could tell he’d least been to a farm before. And he ate like a starvin washbear.
Once he finally slowed down enough to talk, he said ‘So are you gonna teach me? I’ll do anything you want.’
‘What I want,’ I said, ‘is fer you to leave.’
‘Except that.’
I guess I would never’ve been much of a preacher if I didn’t have a weakness for stubborn determined types. Oh, he weren’t no better at learnin to be a preacher than he were at farm chores. Closest he could ever get to understandin the gods in the storms was usin that sorta wind magic he does to steer the storms just a little. But he wouldn’t take ‘you can’t’ fer an answer, there. And as long as he were still tryin, I couldn’t stop helpin.
Now, there were only one bed in the farmhouse. He’d been sleepin on a quilt on the floor by the stove, but he weren’t gettin up rested. I was having to make the coffee stronger and stronger every mornin, just to get him up an runnin. And what with winter comin on, it only made sense to share. He didn’t want there to any feelin’s in it--and now I heard of your brother, Miss, I think I can guess why--but that’s like tryin to keep dandelions outa a pasture. I’ll admit it’d been a while since I’d had anybody in my life either. Took me back to the days of hitchhiking, preachin a circuit, sharin a boardin house room for a single night, both of you tipsy on inspirin’ words, stayin up all night talkin because in the mornin you’ll be goin seperate ways so whatever you’re feelin you say it and you do it NOW.
Maybe catchin’ feelings is what made him finally realize, but come spring he said he were leaving. ‘Sorry. This ain’t gettin me no closer to where I need to be. Gotta try somethin’ else.’ And he just… burst, into wind, like the wave of cold air before a thunderstorm.”
“And I didn’t hear no more from him,” said Mathael, “till he brought a passel of well-meaning rogues from all sorts a other worlds right to my doorstep! Keepin in touch’s another thing he ain’t skilled at, y’know.”
“Oh,” Seth tilted his beak up and shut his eyes, “Here I thought you were the type who liked stayin up all night talkin--if that’s what you call it--cause in the mornin’ you’re goin seperate ways?”
“Didn’t hear you complainin’ none!” laughed Hurucair.
Theodora poured herself another cup of cider. “So he went from Mathael to Hurucair. How long ago was it, then, when he arrived at the farmhouse?”
“Musta been about three years, I’d say.”
Theodora looked at Seth. “So… not long after Terry died.”
Seth nodded through a deep breath. “Maybe, if you’re feelin ready, you oughta tell them about him?”
“Alright,” she said, “If you don’t feel like tellin it, suppose I can take a turn.”
“Me and Terry were born in Metropolis, for all my appearances of bein the archetype of a country lady. He weren’t old enough to remember our Ma and Pa. I was, but only barely. Cause when he was born, he was born already a werewolf, which is how my Ma found out she was --lifelong teetotaler--and that meant trouble with the law. That meant me and Terry, still a infant in arms, goin to live on our Aunt and Uncle’s farm on route 15 ‘tween Beemis and Last Wolf Hill. It was supposed to be only temporary till Ma and Pa got things sorted out, found out where they was goin, what they were doin. I figured they’d just come join us at the farm.
But we never heard from ‘em again.
Auntie Clara and Uncle Charley were good enough to us, and I don’t think Terry never minded. He’d never known anything else. But I minded. I used to climb out the window over my bed at night and sit on the roof, watchin the night trains go by, big lights on the face of whatever iron critter they had, mournful horn echoin from far across the plains, and I’d wonder if Ma or Pa was on that train. Or if I could catch it, how long it’d take me to wherever they was. That’s how it happened--one night I was just watchin a train go by and thinkin angry and I couldn’t feel the roof no more and next thing I knew I was nowhere at all and next thing I knew I was in the most colorful country I ever seen with all these little folks dancin and singing. Turns out it were called Lorwyn.
But that’s my story, that ain’t what I’m tellin. Terry were content enough livin on the farm. Had a talent for dealin with stubborn, opinionated sheep, which is mostly what we had. I’d come back from whatever world I was in and never once find him gotten into any trouble. Till Seth Sulimo blew into town.”
Every eye turned to Seth for an uncomfortable moment.
“He was a travellin singer in those days. Fly to some town, search up whoever could play decent on a banjo or fiddle, put together a show at a saloon for spare change. If’n you didn’t know about the bookleggin you wouldn’t have thought he could make a living doin it.
I don’t grudge him that. Lords know I don’t got no love for the Metro or their sheriffs. But I did grudge that he got Terry involved.
Terry weren’t no musician, but he’d travel with Seth as his “roadie,” and I know Terry liked the travel and I know he liked anybody who was willing to like him. Every time I was home, I’d tell him he didn’t need to be putting himself in danger, but he would say if I got to go have adventures than it were only fair if he did too, and I couldn’t argue with that.
How it actually happened I don’t know. Charitably--because I’m feelin more charitable these days than I used to--I’m gonna guess that Seth musta been off on his first Walk when the Sheriffs came for Terry. Dunno what they were doin, what law they were breakin, but it don’t hardly matter. Seth couldn’t get back--it’s hard, when you don’t know where you are or what you’re doin--and I didn’t know till after it was over with.
Am I guessin’ mostly right?”
“More or less,” Seth said, his voice hollow. “There was sherrifs coming down at us. I was up on the wire, listening. Terry was down below. The plan was I’d grab the spell, then blow up a gale to blow the sherrifs away and we’d scamper under the cover of the dust cloud. We’d done it a dozen times before. But the spell came down the wire and hit me in a way nothing ever had… and by the time I could figure out what’d happened I was in some desert, starin’ at a upside down mountain with a city built on top.”
“I doubt he fought. He woulda never hurt nobody. Woulda tried to surrender. Woulda been too trusting to know they wouldn’t let him. And I thought… we were supposed to have somebody on our side. Somebody who sees that happen, somebody who says it aint right. What’s the point of havin’ gods in the clouds if they stay in the clouds and never do anything?”
Noone spoke for a moment. Mathael and Hurucair each let a hand rest on Seth’s shoulder.
“You said,” Hurucair broke the silnce, “that he usedta be a singer?”
“Yeah,” Theodora said, “folk songs, ballads, classics like The Parting Glass or Shake It Out or The God of Passage.”
Mathael scratched his chin. “Don’t think I never heard him sing, myself.”
“Me neither,” said Hurucair.
“Well,” Seth plunked the last of the moonshine into his cup of cider and drained it in one gulp, “Maybe there’s a reason for that. Maybe I don’t got nothin to sing about.”
“Oh, I can think of one thing I bet you could sing about.” Theodora said. “You’re the only one ain’t told a version of their piece of the story.” She gestured around, at all the camps she’d wandered past. “From the sound of it, Terry were the startin’ point of all this! Don’t he deserve to have all these folk know who he was?”
Seth blinked at the Great Parliment. He considered a good while.
“All right, f’you insist. Someone find me a guitar player.”
One by one, the talk in the various knots around the various fires died down. The mournful song filled the empty space.
“The song it came on o’er the prairies one dawn,
In search of the voice that should have it.
It wanders the ways, on the wires it stays,
The ballad of poor Terry Chaplet.”
“The praries’ll tell you they see him no more.
The sheriffs’ll claim that they slew him.
The winds they’ll sigh, and its sighs they’ll roar,
Cause they cannot help but blow through him.
And the song it may blow to wherever songs so
To fields or to seas or to mountains.
And the winds may declare that they can’t find him there
But the song it’s got no time for doubting.”
“He took to the roads, or so the song goes,
He sought for to reach the horizon.
And some folk’ll swear they still see him out there
Wheresoever he’ll be most surprising.
And the song it it rolls on when the sunset is gone
You can sing it, if you can but grab it.
To carry the tune, over road, under moon,
The ballad of poor Terry Chaplet.”
“Does anyone know where us mere mortals go
When not even gods can keep steady?
And Terry wouldn’t say, for that weren’t his way,
But he set off before he was ready.
Well his sister were off on her venturesome ways.
His love was off lost in his lightning.
And a posse of sheriffs had somethin to say
With their sneers and their sidearms for fighting.”
“There Terry he fell. The song did as well.
Though the winds and the wires beseeched him.
Road back was too long. He was already gone
Before Sister or Lover could reach him.
But remember my friends that the song never ends
It outlives the fella who brings it.
And though I am gone it’s still carryin on
As long as there’s someone to sing it.”
“And of you and of me, well who knows where we’ll be,
And the world’ll have much to distract it.
They’ll forget me and you, but the one thing they’ll do
Is remember the name Terry Chaplet.”
Back by the fire, Seth relaxed again. “Well, I hoped you liked it, cause that’s all I got for now.”
“Wasn’t bad,” Hurucair said, “Though it makes me wonder what kinda song you’re gonna sing about me someday.”
“Thing it makes me wonder,” said Mathael “is what does happen to souls of those passed on? You said you saw him in North Metro, with Mistolin, and that don’t exactly fit with any story I ever heard, I got questions I wanna ask, when we get a chance.”
“Only thing I wonder,” said Theodora, “is why you didn’t put in nothin about what he looked like.” She blinked back at them. “What? You’re the one was lovin’ on him, f’you don’t feel like mentionin why, it just seems odd is all! It ain’t like it’s mysterious, now I met these two I can tell you’ve got a type!”
“I got a WHAT?” Seth cawed, indignant.
“A TYPE, plain as the beak on yer face--burly well-built well-meaning fellas that can boss you around when you need it!”
“This is the most preposterous thing anyone’s ever said about me, and there’s been more’n a few a those, mostly said by you, Miss Chaplet!”
“I ain’t never said nothing ‘bout you you din’t deserve!”
Hurucair leaned against Mathael’s side. The older lion man put his arm around the orc’s shoulder. They waited, by the fire, for the storm to blow over.
