Realms of Infamy - James Lowder [79]
He spoke then, and his hollow voice and rasping tongue made the patrons jump a bit. "Can any of you spare a silver for a bowl of blood soup and a quaff of ale?"
None responded except by blank, refusing stares. Not even Horace behind the bar would offer this stranger a glass of water. Apparently, all would rather dare his wrath than know their charities had provided sustenance to him.
The man was apparently all too acquainted with this response, for he shook his head slowly and laughed a dry, dead-leaf laugh. A few staggering steps brought him to a chair, vacated upon his arrival and still warm from its former occupant. There he collapsed with a wheeze like a punctured bellows.
"In the lands of Sossal, whence I hail, a man can earn his blood and barley by telling a good tale. And I happen to have such a tale, for my land gave birth to the greatest hero who ever lived. Perhaps his story will earn me something warm."
Those who had hoped to dismiss him with bald glares and cruel silence now tried turning away and speaking among themselves. Horace, for his part, retreated through a swinging door to the kitchen, to the gray dishwater and the piles of pots.
Unaffected, the shabby wanderer began the telling of his tale with a snap of his rigid blue fingers. Green sparks ignited in air, swirled about him, and spread outward like a lambent palm in the heavy darkness. The sparking tracers lighted on all those seated in the taproom, and each tiny star extinguished itself in the oily folds of flesh between a patron's knotted brows.
The faint crackling of magic gave way to a single, hushed sigh. In moments, the place fell silent again, and the tale began. "The lands of Sossal were once guarded by a noble knight, Sir Paramore, the greatest hero who ever lived…"
* * * * *
Golden haired, with eyes like platinum, Sir Paramore strode in full armor through the throne room of King Caen. Any other knight would have been stripped of arms and armaments upon crossing the threshold, but not noble Paramore. He marched forward, brandishing his spell-slaying long sword Kneuma and dragging a bag behind him as he approached the royal dais. There the king and princess and a nervous retinue of nobles ceased their conference and looked to him. Only when within a sword swipe of His Majesty did Paramore finally halt, drop to one armored knee, and bow his fealty.
The king, his face ringed with early white locks, spoke. "And have you apprehended the kidnappers?"
"Better, milord," replied Paramore, rising with a haste that in anyone else would have been arrogance. He reached into the bag and drew out in one great and hideous clump the five heads of the kidnappers he had slain.
The king's daughter recoiled in shock. Only now did King Caen himself see the wide, slick line of red that Sir Paramore's bag had dragged across the cold flagstones behind him.
"You gaze, my liege, on the faces of the hoodlums you sought," the knight explained.
In the throat-clenched silence that followed, the wizard Dorsoom moved from behind the great throne, where his black-bearded lips had grown accustomed to plying the king's ears. "You were to bring them here for questioning, Paramore, not lop off their heads."
"Peace, Dorsoom," chided the king with an off-putting gesture. "Let our knight tell his tale."
"The tale is simple, milord," replied Paramore. "I questioned the abductors myself and, when I found them wanting of answers, removed their empty heads."
"This is nonsense," Dorsoom said. "You might have simply cut the heads