James Takes a Sick Day

Well, guys, I'm sick. And it's the worst kind of sick too, because I'm too tired to be awake whenever my eyes are open, and then too awake to go to sleep whenever they're closed. As a result, my brain is currently functioning somewhere in the realm of the ethereal - that is to say, I have extremely profound thoughts that I cannot string together in a comprehensive pattern to save my life.

So, since I can't really write an interesting blog post today (without exerting near-fatal levels of concentration) I decided I'd just post up some of my work for y'all to read. This is the beginning of the back story for one of the characters in the fantasy series that I plan to be my crowning work... assuming I get all the groundwork done before I die. The thing about creating great fantasy is that you have to create an equally great world. So, anyway, here you go... Tell me your thoughts when/if you finish, even if it's just something like "I really enjoyed this!" or "I want more!" or "THAT WAS HORRIBLE!!!" or "Why am I here again? I was looking for that other company..."

The First Story of Taiel Half-Elven

“Many stories have been told throughout the ages,” the tenor of the old man’s voice rang out across the seated, silent crowd. The fires in the Great Hall were burning brightly, staving off the icy cold that accompanied Midwinter’s Night. It was the one night that the Hall was open to the common citizens – men, women, and children had come from all over the city of Telborn to hear this man speak. Of course, the nobility had retained their seats at the head tables, but dozens of smaller wooden slabs had been brought in to provide a place for the commoners to put their food.

Even though food was scarce on the streets of Telborn at this time of year, very few had come to the Great Hall seeking a meal. The Church of the One passed out bread for the two weeks of Midwinter, after all, and the Chruch’s dining halls were not nearly so crowded. The people here were gathered to hear the bard, Ellith – the living legend who had traveled with and, some claimed, even instructed the First Prophet during the War of the Demon. He was a very old man now, though – his back was arched at nearly a ninety-degree angle, and he leaned most of his weight against an ancient wooden staff. Even so, his voice was still powerful enough to travel throughout the entire hall without difficulty.

“Many men have endeavored to recount deeds of old as they truly happened,” Ellith continued. “Many have sought out truth and found it – far more have sought out truth and found only myth.”

If any of the commoners in the Great Hall had heard the Bard speak before, they would have known that this was the way that Ellith began every one of his stories. Only two of the men present had been blessed enough to have listened to Ellith before, however, and both of them were nobles.

“The words I speak, however, are truth,” Ellith’s sightless eyes stared out past the crowd, as if seeing some great work of art invisible to those who could still view the world around them. “Tonight, I tell you a tale of honor, betrayal, cunning, and deceit. Tonight, I tell you the story of a great friend of mine – Taiel Half-Elven.”

A general intake of breath circled through the hall. Tales of the elves, here? In the Great Hall of Castle Telborn, at the very heart of the Commonwealth? There was nowhere in the city where one could say the word ‘Elf’ without an accompanying curse and spit. Many of men in the hall – commoners and nobles alike – quickly made religious signs to ward off evil. No one dared stop the Bard, however, so Ellith simply scoffed at them.

“Fool and bigots,” he growled across the hall. “It is appropriate that we discuss Taiel here, tonight, for it was on Midwinter’s Night seventeen seasons past that he first made a name for himself on the street.” The Bard looked up toward the ceiling, drawing a deep breath. “In fact, it was a night very much like this one…”

“Snow, snow, snow,” Michael growled, taking an angry swig from his mug of ale. “Does it never end? What was the One thinking, inventing something so stupid as winter?”

“I wouldn’t complain if I was you,” his friend Amos replied with a half smile. “If it weren’t for winter, there’d be no Midwinter. And if there weren’t no Midwinter, ale wouldn’t go for a half-copper a pint once a year.”

Michael grunted. “If it weren’t for winter, we wouldn’t spend half our time dragging dead drunks out of gutters like the guard is supposed to do.” He spat off the pub-house porch into the snow that was clustered thick and heavy on the street. “And the same goes for Midwinter. How many do you think ‘ll freeze to death tonight ‘cause they can’t make it home, ‘eh?”

“I’d reckon not a single one,” Amos replied evenly. “The drunks who freeze to death ain’t got nowhere to go home to – that’s why they die out one the streets.”

“Even so, it just ain’t right,” Michael sighed. “I mean, we’re Gilded, for the god’s sake. We shouldn’t be doing the work that those street-wipers should be.”

“Gold’s a good man,” his friend offered. “You don’t get to be a really influential gang by letting the corpses of drunks rot on your streets, after all.” Amos smiled at his younger companion. Though Michael drank and swore like a full-grown man, he had barely seen his sixteenth summer. The boy had sworn his allegiance to Gold and become a member of the Gilded only a few months ago. Amos could remember his first few months in the gang – a seemingly monotonous blur of days spent running errands for widows, shepherding orphans out of places that were unsafe to sleep, and, as Michael constantly griped about, disposing of the corpses of drunks who had collapsed in the cold and frozen to death.

Quality of life in Telborn depended completely on which gang you had sworn fealty to. The simple fact of life on the streets was that the King’s Guards, who were supposed to keep peace and order in the city, were the worst kind of gang – they stole from everyone, beat anyone who tried to stop them, and never protected anyone who was supposed to be under their protection. Not outside the castle walls, anyway. Amos had heard rumors that things were completely different in Castle City – the street runner’s name for the part of Telborn that was fenced in by the white-marble walls of Castle Telborn and populated by the rich nobility.

Some people claimed that, in Castle City, the guards were nice and civil and you didn’t have to steal just to keep food on the table. Amos wasn’t sure whether or not he actually believed them, but figured it didn’t really matter, as there was no chance he would ever make it into Castle City’s walls.

What he was sure of was that he had a home in the best possible part of Telborn. In number of actual gang members, Gold’s Gilded – or the Gilded, as they were usually called – was not the biggest. They did not have the greatest weapons, nor did they have the most convenient placing in the city to intercept rich merchants or nobles on their way to market. Never the less, the Gilded was the most influential gang in all Telborn – a position Amos credited completely to Gold. The Streetlord was a shrewd man – he had very few enemies, and a great number of friends. He made sure that the people who lived and worked on his turf were happy and cared for, and as a result every man who lived in Gold Town was ready and willing to take an arrow for him. Gold Town was at least twice as big as the next largest gang’s turf – but, even so, Gold accepted only the most talented men and women into active service for the Gilded.

The people loved Gold because he looked out for them. Junior gang member spent most of their time helping the poor who could not fend for themselves and doing what the King’s Guard was supposed to do. Only a select few actually pulled off heists for Gold – but the Gilded never stole from anyone but the rich. It wasn’t a well known fact, but Amos knew that Gold never kept a penny his gang made, not even to buy bread. Of course, his inner circle made sure that the Streetlord never went hungry, but Amos still admired the man’s kindness and humility. What was even more amazing to Amos was that Gold was a very young man – barely twenty-five seasons old, if even that. He had founded the Gilded nearly ten winters ago.

“Hey, old man, you listening to me?” Michael interrupted Amos from his thoughts. The older man shook himself, swiping some white snow out of his thick red beard.

“Sorry. What did you say?”

“I think there’s a kid over there,” Michael pointed one gloved hand out toward a nearby alley. There was a shadow huddled in the darkness, out of the light of the pub-house’s torches.

“So there is,” Amos nodded, noticing the size of the figure. “Trying to hide, too. Probably hasn’t been in Gold Town very long.”

“There’ve been a lot of ‘em moving over from Red’s alleys,” Michael muttered. “Best tell him to get inside before he freezes to death, huh?”

“I’ll do it,” Amos said, “since you’re so afraid of snow.”

“Oh, stuff it, old man.”

Amos trotted down the steps to the pub, kicking his way though the knee-deep snow in the road. He approached the shadow of the shadow slowly, his hands extended in a peaceful gesture.

“Hey, there,” he said in a friendly voice as he reached the mouth of the alley. He could see the child a little more clearly now – he was thin as a rail, little more than skin and bone, dressed in nothing more than tattered rags. It was a common enough sight on Telborn’s streets. But, Amos thought, this child was slightly different – he was too angular, his cheek bones too high. His hair was a black mop that had probably never been cut with anything other than a knife, plastered to the top of his head by dirt and filth. “Aren’t you cold?” Amos asked him. “Would you like to come in near the fire, get warm?”

The boy’s brilliant blue eyes narrowed in suspicion. “What, so you can sell me to the Traders? No thanks.”

Amos shook his head. “This is Gold Town, kid. We don’t allow those slaving dirt bags on our turf.”

The boy looked him over once more, and Amos was shocked by just how intelligent the boy’s eyes really were. One thing Amos had learned on the streets was that you could always judge just how intelligent someone really was by a certain spark they had in their eye. It wasn’t very common in street runners and orphans.

“You don’t look like one of Red’s Legion,” the boy muttered. “You said there’s a fire in there? How much does it cost?”

Amos was taken aback. “Cost? What, has Red started charging people for being near a fire now?”

The boy just looked at him.

Amos whistled. “God’s head, kid. We don’t do stuff like that over here, especially not during Midwinter. Come on, you’re looking blue. We can’t have you catching the Ice and loosing any of your limbs, now can we?”

The boy grunted, but cautiously followed Amos back across the street and onto the pub-house steps. Amos waved Michael over and pushed the door to the taproom open, a relieving blast of heat rolling over them. The boy followed the two gang member inside with the utmost caution, warily investigating the bar for some sign of a trap. It was well past midnight by this point – the taproom that had earlier been filled to the breaking point had finally thinned out. The men who had drunk too much to even make it out of the door were slumped in puddles of their own ale and vomit, but all the other chairs in the taproom were empty. The boy quickly took up a vigil close to the fireplace.

“Oi, Melanie!” Amos called to the serving girl, who was busy polishing glasses behind the bar. “Get me a pint of hot cider for my little friend here.”

“I don’t have any money,” the boy said, taking a seat next to the fire.

“You don’t need any. It’s on me.” Amos didn’t know what it was about this boy, but something struck him as not quite normal. It wasn’t a bad thing – he just thought that there was something more to this boy than most of the orphans he saw every day.

“So, you got a name, kid?” Michael asked the boy.

He nodded solemnly as the serving girl handed him a mug of steaming-hot cider. “Taiel.”

“Taiel?” Amos repeated, scratching his head. “That’s an interesting name. Don’t think I’ve ever heard it before.”

“Probably not,” Taiel replied with a shrug. “I’m not in the habit of giving it out.”

Michael chuckled. “We’ve got a smart-mouth here. Where’d you come from, Red’s place?”

Taiel nodded. “It took me a couple tries to get past the guards, but I made it,” he said.

“Guards?” Amos repeated. “You mean the King’s Guards?”

Taiel smirked. “Are you kidding? I could run circles around them at noon. No, I’m talking about Red’s Legion. They don’t want anyone leaving their turf anymore. Things are getting bad for them – riots, fighting in the gang. I figured I needed to get out before I ended up buried under one of the burning buildings.”

Michael looked over at Amos. “I didn’t know anything about this.”

“Neither did I,” Amos shook his head. “Why is Red having trouble all of a sudden? I mean, I knew it was going to happen to him sooner or later, but rebellions don’t usually pop up out of nowhere.”

Taiel smirked. “Oh, Red isn’t having any problems anymore. It’s his gang that’s fighting to hang on.”

Amos blinked, not understanding. “Red’s gang…?”

“Red’s dead,” Taiel said, rummaging under his rags and drawing out a long, thin knife. Amos had never seen anything quite like it – it was about half as long as a man’s arm, forged of a silver metal that reflected blue light in the fire. The hilt was wrapped with black cloth, the cross-guard fashioned from simple iron. The blade looked like it was only a little thicker than a piece of parchment, but the weapon still looked strong.

Amos had never seen anything like it – but he’d heard stories.

“God’s head,” he swore. “That’s Red’s Cutter.”

“No,” Taiel shook his head. “It’s Taiel’s Cutter now. I took it from him, then killed him with it.”

Michael shook his head. “You’re telling stories, kid.”

Taiel raised one eyebrow at him. “Tell me, how in the world would I have come by this if I didn’t take it directly from Red? You both should know about him. He never leaves his ‘palace’ – if you can really call that brothel a palace – and he never leaves this behind him. It’s his icon – it’d be like your Gold appearing without that little coin he’s always flipping.”

“He’s right,” Amos could hardly believe that a child of this age was capable of besting a man who had earned his place as a Streetlord in a thousand fights, but the blade was near irrefutable proof. “If you did kill Red, than you’ve done that entire part of the city a favor. He was a tyrant.”

Taiel shrugged. “He insulted my mother. I don’t put up with people who insult my mother.”

Michael laughed out loud. “How old are you, kid? Eleven summers? Twelve?”

“Ten,” Taiel replied. “I learned to look older than I am a long time ago. It keeps you safe.” He ignored the looks of surprise he received from both men. “Listen, I want to talk to your leader. I want to see Gold.”

Michael looked over at Amos. “I don’t know how that’s gunna work, Taiel. Very, very few people get to see the Streetlord.”

“I just killed the second most powerful Streetlord in this entire city,” Taiel looked him with annoyance. “Very, very few people have done that.”

“He’s right,” Amos said. “Gold will want to see this kid.”

“Thank you,” Taiel sighed, then stood up. As he did so, a piece of his hair came untucked from under his ear. Amos hadn’t noticed how the boy had artfully arranged his hair so that they hid the tips of his ears, but as soon as he could actually see them he understood why.

Michael swore and jumped out of his chair, his hand going to the knife at his belt. Before he could draw it, however, the little boy was behind him, clinging to his back with one arm around the bigger man’s neck and the other pointing the thin dagger at Michael’s neck. Amos wasn’t able to react at all – the image of the ears that drew up straight into dagger points had literally stunned him.

Some men will say that it was sheer luck that saved Michael’s life. Others would say that it was the plan of the One. Regardless of who or what orchestrated the event, a voice rang out across the almost-empty taproom.

“Peace, little elf-child! If you truly wish to see me, it would be unwise to begin your actions here in my town with the murder of one of the members of my gang.”

A young man, cloaked in a dark green robe had stepped into the pub, shaking snow from his boots. He had the yellowest hair of anyone Amos had ever seen, with sharp green eyes and a pointy nose. He wore a short sword at his hip, but his hands were nowhere near the hilt. His right hand was occupied with a gold coin, which he was constantly spinning through his fingers.

“Are you Gold?” Taiel asked.

“I am. Unfortunately, I seem to have missed your name.”

“Taiel,” the boy replied. “Taiel, Killer of the Streetlord.”

Gold smiled at him, though not unkindly. “Methinks that title is far too long for a boy of your size. What about Taiel Thin-Knife? Or Taiel Back-Clinger?”

Taiel scowled and let go of Michael, who stumbled away, swearing profusely.

“A title is useless if it does not garner respect,” the little elf growled.

Gold squatted down to the boy’s level. “When you are this short, child, I very much doubt that any title you bear will garner respect. Now, tell me, where did you get that dagger?”

Taiel took a step forward, raising his chin. “I took it from the Streetlord, Red, and killed him with it.”

“Did you really?” Gold smiled at him. “That’s quite impressive for someone your age. Why have you come to my town, then? Are you running away from Red’s gang?”

Taiel shook his head. “I wanted to join your gang.”

Both of Gold’s eyebrows shot up. “Why would you want to join us, little elf-child?”

“Because you knew my mother,” Taiel replied. “She told me you were a good man.”

“Your mother…” Gold looked to boy over again, then drew in a breath. “By the One. You’re Amithyl’s child.”

Taiel nodded.

“Then you are not Taiel of the Elves. You are Taiel Half-Elven.” Gold drew in a deep breath. “It is good you came to me, little one. There are very few, even among those who no longer pay any attention to the Church of the One, who do not bear ill-will toward you simply because of your blood. Unfortunately, anyone who wants to join my gang must prove himself –”

Taiel spun the knife he held expertly through the air, catching it easily on the flat of the blade and presenting it, hilt first, to Gold. “A Midwinter’s gift,” he said with a half-grin. “And, I think, proof of my abilities.”

Gold laughed and took the blade from him. “So much pride from one so little,” he chided. “Very well. I may be able to find a thing or two for you to do –” he sniffed the air and wrinkled his nose. “Right after you are given a proper bath. Filth breeds sickness, you know. I think Amos can show you where that can be done.” Gold looked up at Amos. “Tell anyone who questions you that he is under my protection, and should be treated with the same respect that you would show any other member of the Gilded. Anyone who lifts a hand to harm him because of his blood will be answerable to my wrath – am I understood?”

Amos nodded. “Yes, sir. If I may ask, though, sir, why…?”

“Why am I here?” Gold shrugged. “The same reason I go anywhere. The wind guides me.”

Without another word, the Streetlord turned on his heel and left the pub. None of them knew what the little half-elven boy would grow up to be. None of them knew of the plans that the One setting into motion even as they trudged back out into the snow. None of them knew that the coming of the Second Prophet was nearly at hand.