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Chords In The Rift, Pt 2

By: Gellor

Bucolic… was that the right word? It seemed critical to him that he used a good term. He knew, at least, that he was a bard, and that such things were important to bards.

Bucolic… The word simply seemed to have a tinge of the negative. Maybe that came from the disconnection he’d felt from the world around him, as if the air itself felt guilty touching him. He imagined a kingfisher suddenly finding itself on a mountain peak: bewildered, cold, dizzy, curious. The image felt apt.

But bucolic seemed to fit the village just as aptly. It had a few crisscrossing cobblestone streets, through the town square marked by a temple of bleached stone, but the rest were dirt paths tamped hard by the footsteps of laden workers. There were thatched houses, a pair of wells built of rough-hewn stone, and up a twisting path lined by blue-flowering shrubs stood a sturdy manor house of more coarse, grey masonry. Were he to choose a song for the place, the notes would be low and long of bass and high of a twittering flute.

Aside from a few merchants in brocade garb, the locals were generally thin of body and thick of face, a sign in Mathosians of decent food and frequent labor. Some detached perspective in him observed them almost as scenery in themselves rather than people, and he found his eyes darting to the most glaring colors to be found, whether they were hanging from vendors’ tents, adorning girls with stiffened hair and upturned noses, or flying from pennants near the temple and the village’s sole inn.

The inn, whose walls were built of softer stone and which was roofed with thatch upon timber, was called The Twig and Tinder, as if the owner dared a spark to set his place alight. The bravado in the name belied the stolid dumpiness of the structure.

Stolid and dumpy, two more good words, he thought. The townspeople, despite their trend of thinness, projected the ideas in their movements – slow and measured and stiff, as if nothing might stand in their path but the path led nowhere. A few had given him second looks as he stepped lightly through the town, looking for… for what? The inn? It must have been, because only standing before the inn did he feel any sense of comfort or cause in being here. Nothing else had sparked anything but a sense of placid scenery.

“The Brass Wagoneers? You people coming to town after all this time?”

The gravelly voice startled him enough, but the name practically yanked at his ear, and it was as if a gust blew smoke from his thoughts. He had a name, he had comrades, he had…

He had an obligation not to be rude, and turned to face the speaker: a wizened gentleman of silvery hair and simple twill garments, whose eyes were scanning the bard with intensity.

“My pardon…Brass Wagoneers?” What did the old man know?

The older gentleman’s mouth twitched. “What, you’re wearing a gypsy’s brooch and you don’t know why? You’re either a thief, or you’re coy, and if you’re one of those lot, you’re probably both.”

The bard smiled, and words seemed to flow out of him, making him a spectator to his own show. “Gellor, sir, and yes of the Brass Wagon Troupe… disbanded, somewhat. You know of us?”

The old man let out a perturbed puff. “Yeah, your scruffy bunch came through twenty years ago, put on a play about such-and-such a king, and one of your danged elves darn near wined the mayor’s daughter out of her virtue. Lucky for you, I’m the only one here who’s probably gonna remember, after the war and all.”

The bard made an effort to relax his shoulders, gradually losing the sense of being a stranger in his own head. “Then perhaps, sir, I might buy you a drink, and you can tell me what else you remember of these old, aha, players, and how we might make amends…”