1
My story
does not start very long ago. I was then, as you see me now, a handsome
figure of a man. From inclination, rather than necessity, I was always
interested in the possibility of learning more efficient ways of
increasing my fortune. Gold is not my sole motivation in life, I assure
you, but the reasons
I do things do make an occasional visit in that neighborhood. On one
such an occasion was my visit to the Omergunts and Oghar the Valiant,
Chief
of the Omergunts. But I am getting ahead of myself.
A few days
before, on my piece of the square at the Iskandar market, for I could
not afford a stall, there was a lesser magician named Jorkis who was
shopping for
a flying carpet. I had the usual weaves imported from the sleazier
districts of Iskandar's blemished jewel bearing labels from as far away
as the exotic kingdom of Ahmrita. What eventually transpired concerning
this alleged
magician, incidentally, was not entirely my fault. After all, the
fellow
was shopping for a carpet that any fool would expect to cost thousands
of reels. Here he was in the market square with a purse holding barely
enough
coins to weigh down a mosquito. I believe at least a portion of the
blame
should rest upon his shoulders.
Be that as
it may, this magician was searching among my carpets, and when his back
was turned I blew upon a silent whistle. A carpet, one of the better
blue
designs on loan from the Zivenese, began twitching.
"Great
Yhandra!" he cried as he invoked the ancient Itkahn goddess of flight.
Inwardly
I smiled, for I knew I already had my fingers in his purse. As I
silently whistled my signals, the carpet crawled around left, then
right. "Yhandra herself is in this carpet, Korvas."
"She is
there, true enough," I answered. "She only awaits a great magician such
as yourself, Jorkis, to bring her chariot to life."
"Then the
carpet would fly?"
"Fly? That
is such an ordinary word---such a feeble word." I looked toward the sky
and pointed toward a cloud. "Say instead that it would soar." I pointed
with the movement of my hand at an imaginary flight far above
consisting
of dives, loops, and great reaches of height and speed. I was about to
blow the signals for the rug to roll and wrap itself when Dorc, a local
fool the merchants use to send messages, ran up to us.
"Master
Korvas, I have---"
I quickly
hid my whistle. "Silence, Dorc! I am with a customer." I turned to the
magician saying, "My apologies, Jorkis."
"What is
this?" Jorkis's voice sounded quite puzzled.
"I beg your
pardon?" I looked at where the magician was pointing and saw about
fifty of my
trained mahrzak beetles running from under the carpet pell-mell into
the
square. I could not spare the time to explain them away to Jorkis. It
had
taken me years to train those bugs, and of course I ran after them.
"Hold, sir!
Madam, watch where you step!" I confess, my composure was already
threadbare
just wondering what Jorkis would do, but suddenly a madman from one of
the stalls came at me with a horrible contrivance surely designed to be
used by Quaag the Torturer in the king's dungeon.
It was a
huge drum run by a handle. As the drum rolled, it rumbled like an
earthquake. It quite stopped me in my tracks. Before I could get moving
again, the
creature had run his contraption over my precious mahrzak beetles.
I was
aghast. I was ruined. Who wants to buy a carpet that just lies there?
To add
more distress to my portion, I thought of the beetles I had known well
enough to name.
There were
Benthia and her children, Nab and Tib, that I had nursed through the
croup, brave Bomba who lost a leg to a hungry mantis and who still
carried his share of the rug using the tiny peg leg I had whittled for
him, ancient Hadrubba who was the first to come to me after I had been
cut down from the whipping post and had nothing....
I was
devastated. Before I could recover, the creature with the torture
instrument returned, his face beaming. "There is no charge, brother,
for my services."
"Charge?
Charge! Charge for what, you maniac? And don't you brother me, you
crawling, muck-sucking, son of a Vulot slug!"
The color
came to the fellow's face. "I find your words a trifle offensive,
ragman."
"Ragman?
Ragman? I am Korvas the rug merchant, and I sell the finest magic
carpets in
this or any other universe. Just who and what are you?"
"I am
Obushawn the Shrubber. I am a merchant, as well."
"Merchant,"
I sneered. "What merchant rolls about on such a torture instrument?"
He laughed
at me, and I would have throttled him had he not placed that thing
between himself and my aching hands. "Brother Korvas, this is no
torture instrument. I sell these. This is a lawn roller."
"Lawn
roller?" I looked at the thing, the surface of its drum stained with
the corpses of my faithful beetles.
"What is it
for?"
"Why, it is
for rolling lawns."
I shook my
head and laughed back at him. "Do I look like I have hay in my ears,
fellow? Just why, madman, would anyone want to roll a lawn? There would
be nothing left but mud, and the grass would die from lack of sun."
"No,
Korvas. Rolling
means to flatten."
"No, it
doesn't. A roller rolls; a flattener flattens."
Obushawn
sighed and nodded. "Very well, it is a lawn flattener. It's for
flattening lawns."
"I see no
purpose in it. If I wanted a flat lawn, that's what I would have
planted in the first place. I think you are a failure at business, you
obviously drink to excess and beat your wife, dog, and children, you
steal from the temple and blind beggars, and are most likely well on
your way to being put away in a home. I do not want to talk to you
anymore. Go away."
I turned
back to my place of business to find the magician Jorkis, as well as
his golden reels, gone. In his place was the fool Dorc. He groveled to
excess. "Forgive me, Master Korvas! Forgive me!"
"Forgive
you!"
He picked
up a
stick, handed it to me, and presented his back. "Beat me, master. I
deserve it. Please beat me!"
"Make up
your mind, idiot!" I broke the stick across my knee and threw the
pieces into the dust. "Give me your message, Dorc, before I obtain a
small piece of drainpipe and reacquaint you with the experience of
birth."
"Eh?" He
froze as he attempted to discern the meaning of my words.
"Never mind
what I said, fool. Just give me the message."
"Message?"
"What
message do you have for me?"
Dorc
appeared to panic. "Forgive me, master, but it seems that I have
forgotten."
"What?" I
took a step toward him and he fell backward onto my remaining rugs. As
fate would have it, in the process of falling upon those rugs he also
landed upon my remaining mahrzak beetles, ruining both beetles and rugs
forever. I have never found a cleaner who could remove the dark purple
mahrzak stains. So much for the vaunted wizardry of Iskandar.
I rubbed my
eyes as I shook my head. The gods of commerce play jokes every now and
then, and I do not begrudge them their recreations. However, the number
of times I have been singled out as the object of their humor often
gives me pause. Surely there are others who could amuse the gods for a
bit.
"Master?"
I opened my
eyes and Dorc was standing. He nodded toward the market's Sunset Gate.
"The magician said that he was going for the King's Guard to have you
flayed alive for fraud?"
"Did you
have anything else to impart to brighten my day? Has the Heterin faith
reopened the Unbeliever Pogroms again? Have the bug monsters of Chara's
Sea attacked the city?"
"B-b-b-bug
monsters?"
"I was only
joking, idiot."
"You aren't
laughing, master."
"It was
only a
joke," I shouted. "Tell me what you want now. Ruined carpets? I have a
fine
selection."
"This." In
his outstretched hand was a piece of paper. "Here is the message I was
supposed to deliver."
He dropped
the piece of paper and ran. From every side of me there were snickers
as
my colleagues and their customers found amusement in my suffering.
I pulled
out
my whistle and blew assembly. Only three of my mahrzak beetles---Amram,
Tiram, and Iramiram---managed to struggle out of the carnage. I put
them in
the pocket of my robe, wiped away a tear in memory of their faithful
comrades, and picked up the paper containing the message.
It read:
Korvas,
My Benefactor,
Years ago
an old beggar asked you for the price of a cup of soup, and you gave
him
instead ten gold reels. I was that beggar, and I took that small
fortune
and used it to buy my way into a business. It has become quite a
success,
enough so that I was able to hire help in locating the family from
which
I was stolen as a child many decades ago.
I am
dying now,
and am returning to Ehyuva to be with my dear sister for my remaining
days.
I have left my valuables and instructions at the Nant Temple where I
have
found comfort these many years. Seek the priestess there called Syndia
and
give her this message as proof of your identity.
When the
dark closes over me, I will intercede on your behalf with the Nant
gods, and I have no doubt that they will honor my wishes for you, for
the Nant gods favor the compassionate.
With
grateful thanks,
Olassar
After
reading those words, my feelings were quite uncertain. It was warming
to feel
so generous, as well as so generously remembered. However, I could not
for the life of me call to mind any beggar named Olassar, nor indeed
any
beggar to whom I would have given ten gold reels without the beggar
first
holding a razor at my throat.
Still, with
the demise of my beetles, and the subsequent fouling of my carpets, I
headed my footsteps past the end of the bazaar and up the hill toward
the Nant Temple. There was little point in waiting here for the King's
Guard, and perhaps my inheritance might be enough to purchase the
indulgence of Jorkis the angry magician. It should be at least
sufficient, I thought, to have my rugs replaced.
2
I suppose
if there were a god of justice with a realistic sense of proportion
regarding humor it would have been sufficient that even the thought of
approaching the fearsome mercenaries who guarded the Nant Temple
curdled my phlegm. Of course, I wouldn't have a tale to tell if the
gods led more balanced
lives. It is always wise to remember that it was the gods who put
nipples
on men, seeds in pomegranates, and priests in temples.
Temples
make me nervous, priests and priestesses bring anxiety, conversation
not concerned with making money causes stress, and my least favorite
color is black. In addition, I am not fond of the dark. So there I was,
in a black anteroom in the Nant Temple speaking to a Nant priestess
named Syndia about a beggar whom I had no memory of ever having met,
for the purpose of---
Well, I had
quite forgotten the purpose. Perhaps I should also mention that the
priestess Syndia was a great beauty. She was beyond beauty. She was a
veritable goddess. Her beauty was such that it made me feel unworthy to
look upon her.
"Your name,
sir?"
"Yes! My
name!" I swept my hat from my head, caught a feather from it with my
teeth,
and stood there looking as though I had just eaten a raw pheasant.
Quickly
I pulled the feather from my mouth and attempted to hide it behind my
back. The swing of my hand knocked over an immense iron candle stand.
The clatter was shattering, to say the least. In addition, the room was
now even darker. Again, the humor of the gods. It does not take much to
amuse them, for
they keep playing the same tired jokes over and over.
"You appear
to be a bit nervous," she said with a smile. Oh, that smile! For
another such I would have taken on the entire Nant Guard with a
hairpin. She nodded at a temple servant and the fellow bent to the task
of restoring the candle stand to an upright position and cleaning the
wax from the flagstone
floor. Oh, friends, her diamond-ticked black gown was so, and contoured
just so; their temple gowns are nothing like those dull rags they wear
on the street, I can vouch truly.
Her face,
her hair, her lips, her scent, by the Great Nasty's toenails I would
have
converted on the spot could I have remembered the god or gods to which
I belonged. The form beneath that cobweb of a gown. Great Elass, my
hair
fairly smoked with imagination!
"Korvas!" I
burst out.
Her lovely
brow
knit in a wee sign of confusion. "Korvas?"
"Yes! My
name! Korvas!" I must have sounded like some pimpled whelp trembling in
the
parlor of a bordello for the first time. My face was so red it must
have
glowed in the darkened room. There was nothing left to do, so I pulled
the message from my sash and held it out.
Her hands
gently enclosed mine. Mine could feel the warmth of thine, and she held
my hand for so long that I could see us writhing in endless passion,
rearing children, growing old together. Why else would she have held my
hand so gently,
so long?
"Korvas, I
cannot
read it until you let go of it."
My fingers
sprang
open and quickly hid within the folds of my robe. The movement was done
with
such deftness and speed that I managed to punch myself right in my, eh,
heritage.
"Of course," I gasped. "My apologies, Syndia."
