User:Michael Bard/Pawned
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{{#ifeq: {{#ifeq: User |User| Michael Bard | Michael Bard}} | |
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Author: [[User:{{#ifeq: User |User| Michael Bard | Michael Bard}}|{{#ifeq: User |User| Michael Bard | Michael Bard}}]] [[Author::{{#ifeq: User |User| Michael Bard | Michael Bard}}| ]]
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Author: {{#ifeq: User |User| Michael Bard | Michael Bard}} |
Author: [[User:{{#ifeq: User |User| Michael Bard | Michael Bard}}|{{#ifeq: User |User| Michael Bard | Michael Bard}}]] [[Author::{{#ifeq: User |User| Michael Bard | Michael Bard}}| ]]
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Author: [[User:{{#ifeq: User |User| Michael Bard | Michael Bard}}|{{#ifeq: User |User| Michael Bard | Michael Bard}}]]
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 | Metamor Keep story universe |
"It's Metamor Keep!"
"Metamor Keep!"
"Metamor Keep!"
Sarpadon shook his head as he watched the family in the wagon in front of the one he was on pointing and exclaiming about their new home which they could see in the distance.
"At least it's not the model," he heard somebody mutter from further back. The comment would have made no sense if the caravan hadn't been carrying an architectural model of the keep somebody had paid too many tonnes of gold for.
Sarpadon had no clue what was being referred to. He knew some wierdos came here to settle, knowing of the curse, hoping it would make their lives better, or heal the sick, or whatever. He expected the family in the wagon in front, loading with all their worldly possessions, to last about three days before the lutins got them.
He turned away and sharpened his dagger. Sarpadon didn't care what happened to them. He was here for one purpose, and one purpose alone. His current boss had hired him because it was possible that the lost Sword of Songs was forgotten in the basement of the Bronze Unicorn Tavern. Sarpadon was being well paid to take a caravan in, grab it if he could, and get out of there on the next caravan before the damn curse got him too.
In and out and enough gold to keep him in whore-filled luxury for the rest of his days. Even if the sword wasn't there, once a truthspell confirmed it, he's till get enough payment to make this worthwhile.
The wagon bounced, the knife went schuckschuck on the whetstone, and Sarpadon dreamed of his life of sexual pleasure.
They had to make one more stop before arriving at the keep proper the next day. Sarpadon ignored it -- keeps had few entrances, lots of guards, and many powerful people who had a strong lack of respect for a thief. But, like every keep that charged gate tolls, a town had grown up outside where those who couldn't, or didn't want to pay, set up shop. That town was his goal.
As he walked down the street towards the bad side of town, away from the keep that had far too many stories whispered about it, he kept in practice by slipping his hand into pouches and across rings. He didn't take anything, no sense risking it, and the take was far to small, but it kept him amused. As to why he was here, he was tracking down someone, and all he had was a rumour that somebody had seen him at the Bronze Unicorn. Reason to be annoyed, reason to be there, and reason to be in and out fast when nobody recognized him. And it gave him the reason to look around, ask questions, stay off, and check out the basement and storage over night.
It took him half the watch to hunt down the tavern, going from one to another to another. Stinking animal people, little children that still used canes but obviously didn't need them, men who dressed like women and women who dressed like men. They were the safe ones. It was the ones he saw watching him, measuring him, that he kept a subtle eye on. They were predators, and he was a predator, and as they came to realize it, they gave him the benefit of respect and some room to operate.
He arrived at the Bronze Unicorn as the bells for the suppers rang, and his stomach grumbled at the thick stench of fatty greasy stew oozing out from the door. Setting his worn pack over one shoulder, he pushed the door open so that it clunked against the far wall.
The first thing he noticed was that the place did stink. Probably hadn't seen any liquid other than alcohol in a decade. Even the bubbling stew had the malingering odour of worn dirt. Everybody looking at him would probably have water scream and flee gurgling away if it was brought anywhere downwind. His worn boots and worn clothes fit in perfectly as he pushed his way over to the barkeep.
The barkeep, a big fat pig of a woman, literally, looked at him, and spit on the floor.
Sarpadon let his pack thump to the floor. "I'm looking for someone."
"And why should we care," the barkeep grunted.
Sarpadon reached into one of the side pouches and pulled out a dirty and rolled piece of velum and slapped it onto the counter. With quick movements he unrolled it, revealing a bad ink sketch of some King who'd died half a millennium ago. Somebody unlikely to actually have been at Metamor. "Guys wanted in Caralore. I got some information that he'd fled here, so I'm here after him."
Somebody from the behind him spoke up and Sarpadon saw that he was still human. "He won't be here then. Either you'll never recognize him, or he fled whilst he could. The curse, ya know."
Laughter rippled through the crowd.
"I know about your damn curse," Sarpadon spit out, "and I don't aim to stay here long enough for it to bother me. It's not far out of my way, and I ain't got no more leads." He picked up the vellum, walked over, and shoved it in the talkative stranger's face. "You seen this guy in the last six months?"
Instinctively the person backed away, blinking in the light. "And why should I tell you?"
"Copper for your info. True or false. True is better though -- I have a long memory."
"As though we're scared of you."
Sarpandon grabbed him by his neck. "Well, you better be. I don't forget a face, and one day, when I'm bored, I might just come back this way and look you up. Is the risk of that worth a copper I'll give anyway for the truth?"
The man snorted. "I ain't seen him. How do you know you're in the right place?"
"I had a reliable source. He may even be able to walk again."
A low grunting laughter circulated around the room.
"Now, you seen this joker or not?" Sarpandon held up the vellum.
"No I ain't."
"Then here's your pay for the truth," and Sarpandon tossed a copper.
"Let me see that!" somebody called out.
And Sarpandon began walking around, not expecting any answer, but asking anyway. It was late by the time he'd finished and the place was almost empty. "Figured it was a bum clue, but one's gotta try. Barkeep, you got a place I can sack out tonight?"
"Don't have rooms."
"Oh come on! I hadn't realized how late it was, and I don't aim to sleep in the mud."
"Told you, don't have no rooms."
"A silver to sleep on the floor. I'll leave at dawn."
Her eyes squinted, making her even more of a pig. He could almost hear the whisper of avarice in her mind. It was why he'd paid a copper to anybody who answered. If he didn't have to break in, it would be money well spent. "Five."
"Five! That's robbery! I could nap under a lupin hide for half that. Two."
"Three. And you ain't gone at dawn, I'll call the watch."
Sarpandon growled. "Three then you robber, you."
Her eyes glinted as he handed over the silver and watched her shoo out the last of the customers.
Sarpandon work up sometime after fourth watch in the blackness of the common room. With long practiced silence he pulled out a witchstone and cupped it in his hands and whispered the phrase that would make it glow just enough. With that, and his memorization of the tables -- which was another reason to spend so much time questioning people -- he made his way to the bar. It took seconds for him to trip the latch on the door and make his way into the back hallway. The barkeep lived overhead, so he stayed near the walls. The design wasn't unusual, and the trapdoor down into the basement was will worn and obvious. Holding the witchstone in his mouth, he climbed down the ladder into the hole hewn out of the mud.
As he'd been told, it was a mess, a pile of forgotten debris shoved into the corner. The barkeep was old, and she didn't want to climb down on her hooves, so she had just been tossing crap into the basement for years. It made his task easy in one sense, but impossible for another.
Except for the other thing his employer had given him. Another stone, this one covered in runes. According to his instructions, it would detect the Sword of Songs but only from a distance of a few feet. That's why he had to get in first.
He began rummaging through the junk, wondering once again who the hell the thing had gotten here in the first place, and if it even was here, how the hell his employer had known. Yet again, he cursed her. Never showing her face, never telling him how she'd found him, or how she was willing to pay so much.
It was so much like a trap, but there was so much money. And, he had given his word. To him, anyway, that still meant something.
And, to his amazement the damn runes began to glow just like she'd said. He started rooting through the abandoned debris of half a century and saw the gleaming silver of a sword.
"By Klepnos--"
For a moment he just stared. Damn thing was bigger than he'd been informed, but there was a sheath in his bag upstairs. He'd probably have to saw off the bottom, but at least the damn thing wasn't a two-hander.
He pulled a half rotten piece of leather off its glistening hilt, the cloth wrapping on its hilt looking as clean and new as when the cursed thing had been forged. Reaching down he grabbed it--
Light pulsed along its length, eye searing to in the blackness, and the tone of a bell rose up, swirling higher and higher.
Not perfect, he heard a voice, but he will do.
Like a living being the light pulsed upward and sparkled against Sarpandon. He didn't even have time to scream before he slumped into the dirt, not dead but asleep. The light snuck up the ladder, and grabbed Sarpandon's pack and dragged it across the floor and down into the basement with a loud thump, pulling the trap door closed behind it.
Then all was dark, Sarpandon's hand still wrapped around the hilt of the sword which softly, faintly glowed.
The next morning when the barkeep got downstairs to the empty common room, she grinned, and counted her silver, glad she hadn't been called on her threat to call the guard.
Days passed, a week, two-- The sword glowed, and its glow crept up along Sarpandon as he changed. Changed by the curse, changed the sword. Changed as he slept. Changed all unknowing of his fate.
It was night when Sarpandon awoke. The basement was black, the only light being the glow of the witchstone that had fallen from his grasp. The Sword of Songs was still in his grasp as he blinked his eyes opened.
His eyes, or so was thought as Sarpandon work up. Looking around, blinking, seeing only the dim glow of the witchstone. Hand fumbled for it, but before they could get ahold, the basement filled with a warm glow.
Sarpandon stared, for the glow was coming from between Sarpandon's eyes. From a horn on the forehead. Along the muzzle of something no longer human.
It illuminated the fur of an animal, the breasts of a girl, and the ivory hooves of a dream.
Above all a thief learns silence. Silence is the first and the most important rule, the one rule that is never broken. Sarpandon almost, almost screamed, when she realized that he was no longer applicable. Nor was the word human.
Instead, shaking, she looked at herself. At her clean white pristine body, at her ivory hooves and ivory nailed four fingered hands, at the softly glowing ivory of her horn, the golden white of her mane that hung over one eye, and at the silver white tuft at the tip of her tail.
At the tail of a myth. A unicorn.
"Damn you!" he whispered. "Damn you to the nine hells!"
It had been a trap after all.