In the last installment of the Tale of Jarthen, the strange newcomers made an enticing proposal to the rebels. Meanwhile, Bertronius and company made the long trek to Susselfen - a journey that was hardest on Lem, by far.
______________________________________________________________________
Despite their travels through the Erkenheld and across the great Brovnajian Steppes, Jarthen could have sworn that the walk from the rebels’ lodging house and the Inalan section of town was the longest he’d ever been on. The previous night – which had started as a sort of hazing for the felintarks and tinker elf – quickly digressed into wanton bacchanalia when the three newcomers proved themselves to be as able drinkers and smokers as the red elves themselves! Sadly, Jarthen was still very much a novice in the art of reverie compared to his companions, and found himself once again with a rather nasty hangover. He felt uneasy and slow moving, and was fairly sure he looked pale and sickly, possible tinged with green. He sighed, shouldering his pack, and found himself dreaming wistfully of his mother’s mush – so bland, so delightfully filling! – while he mindlessly followed Rethnaki and the others to the bandits’ camp.
Jarthen was stirred from these wistful thoughts when Glothnafar cantered past, once again taking pains to kick as much dust up in Jarthen’s face as possible. Jarthen, who was suspicious to begin with, was convinced that Glothnafar had consciously done this when he heard the centaur snickering to himself. The young boy stopped, letting the dust settle on him and gave a great sigh. His skinny frame slumped, as if his very will to move had slowly been drained from him like air escaping a leaky dirigible. The young lad sighed again, wallowing a bit in his physical discomfort and feelings of persecution, but then decided to pull himself together. He brushed himself off and scrambled to catch up to the rest of the rebels.
Up ahead, Rethnaki was talking to the male felintark. Jarthen noted that the two had already developed an easy, comfortable manner with one another: Jarthen mused that they had, perhaps, bonded over their shared love of smoking various substances. Jarthen felt a twinge of jealously when Rethnaki did not seem to take notice of him, but it dissipated as soon as it had reared its ugly head, overcome by yet another wave of nausea.
“Can ye do me a favor, friend?” asked Rethnaki the felintark.
“Of course! Ask and it’s yours!” he replied, clapping Rethnaki warmly on the back.
“I know ‘tis a frightful t’ing, but I’ve forgotten yer name already! I was hopin’ ye’d take pity on a poor ol’ elf such as meself, seein’ as how me mind’s been addled wit’ all ta pipeweed an’ all, an’ tell me yer name again?”
The felintark laughed in a way that told Jarthen that he was used to such requests. “Don’t mind at all! I am Bali’Ekt Safir’al’Chaya’Radij din’Matesha.”
“Ah, I’ll call ye Bali then!” said Rethnaki.
The felintark chuckled and patted Rethnaki’s shoulder. “Well, I suppose as long as you don’t call me that in front of eligible ladies you won’t damage my reputation too badly.”
“What do ye mean?” ask Rethnaki in a confused voice. “We red elves have it right, if ye ask me. Rememberin’ one name’s more ‘n enough trouble fer me!”
“Maybe you’re right about that. Felin names are quite…intimidating to those unfamiliar with them. Many of our customs are like that, although between you and me, the names are one of the few I actually adhere to. In the strictest, my name is Safir. I’d prefer if you call me that, everyone else does.”
Rethnaki nodded, repeating the felintark’s name a couple of times softly as if to help him remember it later. Jarthen wondered why Rethnaki did so – Jarthen had never met someone better with names than Rethnaki! “Well Safir, tell me, what would I be calling ye, were I ta call ye Bali? Just fer curiosity’s sake.”
“I’ll take you through the whole thing. That’s what it’s there for after all, for someone to know all about you just form your introductions. We felintarks like to know what we’re getting into, you see. Anyway, ‘Bali’ means I’ve been divorced, ‘Ekt’ gives my level of education – which is not particularly high – ‘Safir’ is my given name, ‘Chaya’ is my mother’s surname, ‘Radij’ is my father’s surname, and ‘Matesha’ is how people know my trade. So, you see Rethnaki, you would’ve just been calling me The Divorced One!” explained Safir. 1
“Dammit, keep yer head about ye, Lem,” McNab said as he dragged the boy by his shirt collar away from a very large and angry bouncer of one of Susselfen’s many houses of ill-repute. Lem had gained the enmity of the imposing, well-muscled man by showing a decided interest in the female commodities housed within its seedy, smoke stained walls – apparently, the boy’s relative poverty was betrayed by his overly large pants and generally disheveled appearance.
“I could have taken him in a scrap,” Nelhoepher said idly, referring to the behemoth whose deeply scarred visage betrayed his all-too-great experience in the realm of physical combat.
“He was seven feet tall, and just about the same as wide! Have you ever even been in a fight, Nel?” Bertronius asked the erstwhile pugilist, highly skeptical that his young friend could defeat the gargantuan guard.
Nelhoepher considered Bertronius’ query a moment, trying to decide what he could count as a fight on technicality alone. “Once…with one of Lemmy’s aunts, and I must say I walloped her quite soundly!” the towheaded youth replied proudly.
“That you did, ol’ buddy! Although, truth be told she did a get a few good shots in on you with her parasol,” Lem added in a reflective tone as he tightened the belt that held up his comically oversized pants.
Bertronius, fighting the urge to point out the difference between a slap-fight with a middle-aged woman and a man whose arms were about as big around as Nelhoepher’s torso, turned his eyes back to views afforded by the city of Susselfen. As they had observed even from a great distance the day before, Susselfen was completely shrouded in the deep mists that rolled off of the surrounding waterfalls.
the misty streets of SusselfenNestled between the rocky cliffs of the Klevarcht Mountains where rain clouds meander down in a near constant stream, Susselfen enjoys very few sunny days even during summers. This rather inhospitable weather seemed perfectly suited to the tastes of the city’s inhabitants, who, as far as Bertronius could tell from his observations along the route to their lodging, preferred to scuttle along in the shadows with their faces obscured from view to walking in daylight.
After a few more delays on the part of Lem and Nelhoepher, the four spies arrived at what would serve as their lodgings for the foreseeable future. Like the majority of its counterparts in the city, the inn was a hodgepodge of clapboard and fieldstones rising shakily three stories from the ground with a sloping, shingled roof capped with a dingy, belching chimney. Once they had deposited their packs in the series of small, low-ceilinged, musty chambers that McNab rented for them, the spymaster gave the boys leave to explore the city, as he had to report to his superiors immediately.
a delicious Felin feastFeeling happily full and a little sleepy from the wine, Jarthen glanced around absentmindedly and noticed with some delight that Glothnafar was missing. Quickly glancing around, Jarthen noted that Jellihondor and the tinker elf, Moshel, were also gone. He wondered idly where they had gone – surely now, of all times, they should not be off taking one of their constitutionals?
Jarthen sat up slowly, propping his chin up with his hand. He cleared his throat and turned to face the felintark sitting nearby. “Hey, umm, Safir?” he asked, very pleased with himself that he had remembered the felintark’s name correctly.
Safir smiled warmly and threw and arm around the lithe human boy, apparently just as proud as Jarthen was that he had gotten his name right. “Yes! Yes, how can I help you, my dear friend?”
“Oh, I was just wondering where the tinker elf went? Shouldn’t we get to the human’s camp soon?” asked Jarthen hopefully.
Safir chuckled softly and refilled Jarthen’s wine glass. “Oh, we’re not heading there today. As Nyabel mentioned last night, they don’t care for our kind, or the red elves, and it may not be wise to venture to their camps en masse like this. So, Moshel’s going there alone to secure the guide we’ve used before and bring him here to reach an agreement with your group. Why so impatient, Jarthen? Is the food and wine not to your taste?” he asked, genuinely concerned.
“Oh, no, it’s delicious! It’s just…been so long since I’ve seen humans, you know?” Jarthen said in a wistful tone.
Safir nodded knowingly. “Ah, yes, that is the traveler’s conundrum, is it not? To see new and exotic lands at the expense of being close to those who know you, and sometimes even your own kind.”
After a moment, Jarthen thought to himself that the wait for Moshel’s return could go on forever, but that he wouldn’t mind so much if it meant he could stay here surrounded by good company and enveloped in a relaxing atmosphere.
“For god’s sake, hush!” Bert hissed to his gawking comrade. “First, it’s rude to point like that, and second we’re spies, remember? Keeping a low profile is part of the job description.”
Nelhoepher was about to retort that it was perfectly sociably acceptable to point at prostitutes and that she couldn’t possibly have heard him anyways, when he was cut off by Lem shouting excitedly from a few doors down the narrow alley that they were exploring, “Oi, lads you’ve got to help me!”
“What’s the matter, Lem?” Bert asked, trotting up to his friend.
“Yeah Lem, is there a scruff a-brewin’?” Nelhoepher added, in a jaunty manner.
“No, no, none of that. Something much better…this fellow wants to sell me some ‘authentic elvish pipe weed!’” the lad said this so loudly that several other pedestrians turned to look disapprovingly in their direction.
“Shut it ye confounded git!” a hunched, hooded figure said, shrinking from the attention brought by Lem’s hollering. “Dammit, ‘tain’t no way I can sell it ta ye now what wit’ all o’ Susselfen lookin’…” the aged figure added as he shuffled away from the young spies, cursing them as he went.
“Well now ye’ve done it, Lemmy,” Nelhoepher said chidingly, as he clapped his friend on the shoulder, “ain’t I always telling ye to be careful about letting our cover drop?”
Bertronius was on the point of remarking that Nelhoepher was as guilty as anyone of flaunting his status as an undercover agent to any and every person of the opposite gender who would listen, but he was halted by a sultry, seductive voice, “I can help ye lads find what yer lookin’ fer…an’ maybe a few other t’ings what ye may want too if ye’d like.”
The three spies turned in unison to discover that they were being addressed by a statuesque elf, with flaming red hair, and whose dramatic curves were accentuated by her rather scant clothing. Though he was somewhat weary of going along with a strange woman to who-knows-where in this city of intrigue and shadowy dealers of illicit substances, Bertronius knew from one look at Nelhoepher and Lem’s gaping, drool-streaked maws that there was no keeping his companions from following the mysterious woman and thought it best to go along to keep an eye on them.
The beautiful elf beckoned towards Bertronius and his beaming friends as she walked down one of the nearby winding alleys that make Susselfen an impenetrable labyrinth to the uninitiated. She led them into the great maze, taking a turn here and there down another unmarked, foggy street. There weren’t that many people on these streets and those that were out seemed to be in a hurry to get back inside as quickly as possible.
Eventually, their companion, who had remained silent while leading her charges, came to the unmarked wooden door of a non-descript stone building that resembled most of its counterparts throughout the city. A slot at eye-level slid open and a pair of eyes looked at the woman, and then her young charges, and then shut again quickly. Bertronius heard a number of latches and locks being unfastened.
The door creaked open revealing a dusky room, heavy with the scent of incense and pipeherb. Beautiful women – both elves and humans – were lounging about on careworn, but lavish couches all over as a handful of customers smoked water pipes and quaffed deeply from their mugs of ale.
Taking in the scene that lay before them, Nelhoepher summed up the sentiments of his two companions, commenting under his voice, “jackpot, lads, jackpot.”
jackpot indeed
Nagoa: clearly a survivalist of the highest orderJarthen couldn’t help but stare at the girl: she was heart-stoppingly beautiful with delicate features and skin the color caramel candies. But her physical beauty alone was not what Jarthen found so compelling – after all, he had been bunking with some rather attractive red elven girls for months now – but rather her carriage. The girl had a toughness and cunning air to her that Jarthen found captivating, and he found himself wondering idly about all the adventures she obviously had had and all the strange things she had learned along the way. She could not be much older than himself, and certainly Jarthen felt that he had had his far share of exciting times being with the Rebel Army and all, but he couldn’t help but feel that she was somehow substantially older and wiser than he was.
“Where is your leader? Nagoa wishes to work out a price with him,” asked Nyabel, the female felintark, to no one in particular.
“Oh, Jelli an’ Glothnafar are…erm…finishin’ up a few las’ errands,” said Rethnaki as he stood and strode over to the tinker elf and human guide. “He asked me ta secure ta guide in his stead.” Rethanki offered his hand to Nagoa, the human guide, wearing his finest and most friendly smile. The human stiffened slightly, perhaps a little unnerved by the eerie familiarity of Rethnaki’s features, but took his hand and shook it nonetheless, murmuring something in his strange language.
Rethnaki nodded respectfully at Nagoa and turned to the two felintarks and tinker elf. “Now, I don’ speak a lick o’ this fine gentleman’s language – although, were ye ta give me a couple o’ months I migh’ be able ta pick a bit up – an’ he doesn’t use Common Tongue. Can one o’ ye t’ree translate?”
Before anyone had a chance to respond, the girl stepped forward. She tugged on Rethnaki’s shirtsleeve lightly and said, “Ma vather says he wairld prefer iv I spoke ver him.” Her voice was melodious, and Jarthen noted the way she stretched and softened each syllable, making such simple statements sound almost like a lullabye.
“Oh, no problem at all, dearie. What’s yer name, then? Ye can call me Rethnaki.”
“Ma name is Leila, ma vather’s name is Nagoa. What are yair prepared to offer us?”
Rethnaki seemed a little thrown at Leila’s forwardness, as if he was expecting to get into the negotiations through a roundabout route of small talk and flattery. “Well, to be honest, lass, we lot don’ ha’ a particular price in mind. What’s yer goin’ rate?”
Leila answered quickly without consulting her father. “We charge Moshel and his crew 120 Felin marks ver the round trip. As yair going one-way, but there air so many more ov yair, I think we can settle ver 250 marks.”
Rethnaki scratched his head and thought for a second. “Erm…how much is that in Elothninian crowns?”
“Close to 600 crowns, friend,” replied Safir.
“Ah! Is it? Well, now, I’m a-feared ta be a bearer o’ bad news, but I doubt that this motley crew could scrape together more’un 400 crowns at all! Can ye not take pity on us, poor soldiers fightin’ fer right as we are, and take us fer tha’?” asked Rethnaki, laying the charm on thick.
Leila translated this offer to her father and the two commiserated for the moment before turning back to Rethnaki. “Ma vather says that iv yair air as low on funds as yair say yair air, yair shairld just go by yairselves – yair do have weapons, don’t yair?”
“Aye, but we don’t know the way!”
“He’ll draw yair a map ver 200 crowns.” At this, the felintarks couldn’t help but giggle.
“Hmmm….ye know, we rebels, seein’ as how we’re such fine, upstanin’ folk, have some lines o’ credit here an’ in Susselfen. Tapping those out completely, we could get up ta 500 crowns.”
After another round of translation, Leila turned to Rethnaki, this time barely concealing a wicked grin. “Ma vather has heard ov yair kind, Rethnaki, and he wonders iv the stories of yair dancing circles and musical abilities air true.”
Rethnaki swelled with pride. “Indeed they are true! Red elves are finer musicians than anyone, save fer satyrs, o’ course. Why do ye ask?”
“He says that ver a group as talented as yairs must be, given yair composition, it wouldn’t take long to earn 50 crowns singing on the street. He says that he’d be willing to go down to 550 crowns, given yair noble pursuits.”
Rethnaki looked at Leila long and hard, and then looked at her father, clearly sizing the two up. “You two do drive a hard bargain, don’t ye? More’n a match for a red elf like, I suppose. But, if ye are generous enough ta wait until we’ve got ta money, we’ll pay ye the 550 crowns ta be our guide.”
While Jarthen watched Rethnaki shake hands with Nagoa and Leila to cement the deal, Sellior leaned over to Jarthen. In a confidential whisper, he said, “’Tis a good t’ing tha’ Naki got ‘em down so low – Jelli only gave him 650 crowns to deal wit’!”
___________________________________________________________________
1Curious readers may wish to know that the translation of the female felintark's name is as follows: Emba (not married) 'Ekt (secondary education only) Nayabel'al'Djejji (mother's surname)'Chadesh(father's surname) din'Matesha (works as a caravaner)
No comments:
Post a Comment