T.H. Lain - The Living Dead

"The prophecy!" howled the little old woman. "Your coming was foretold!"

Every head in the crowded, smoky confines of the Silver Goblet tavern turned to peer at the goggled-eyed, humpbacked crone. She jabbed her index finger at a tall, young elf woman in golden robes and a man with a lute slung over one shoulder. The two swiveled in their seats, regarded the harridan with equal degrees of puzzlement, glanced at each other, then tried to concentrate on their drinks. Although the pair sat on adjacent stools at the bar, they seemed not to know one another. The elf woman sipped self-consciously from a glass of white liquid while the man guzzled his second mug of ale.

"It is you! The lute and the-the hair! The wild black hair! It is prophesied!" She let the last word end in another good screech for emphasis, but undercut herself by asking, "Or is that 'prophesized'?"

The elf woman was obviously a traveling wizard-her waist was hung with leather bags and scroll pouches, her shoulders were crisscrossed by packs laced with pockets and sleeves, and a black wand tipped with a flame-colored stone was thrust through her belt. She opened her mouth to ask if the old woman might accept a copper coin and leave, but the lutist held up his hand. He was curious to hear where this was going. The wizard, Mialee, held her tongue but could not restrain a smirk. The bard had finished a set of ballads half an hour earlier. It had been impossible not to notice him staring at Mialee while he sang. Happily, his attention diverted the moment the first mug of ale hit the table in front of him.

His stare was not that surprising, she supposed. His softly pointed ears betrayed his partial elf blood. Other than him and Mialee, there were no other elves in the place. He probably thought shed be a pushover to his brooding musician act.

The man grinned and ran a hand through a thick head of black hair. As the shriveled creature argued with herself about word choice in public prophecy, he broke into a melodious laugh that boomed throughout the smoke-filled tavern.

Mialee sipped her milk and rolled her eyes.

"It was a message," the woman whispered. "A warning, of black days and horrors to walk the earth." She sidled up to their stools and rather rudely stuck her nose between them. The woman might have been four and a half feet tall, but she looked even shorter than that because a grotesque hump and twist in her spine forced her into a bent stance. Mialee wondered how the woman could walk without a cane to support herself. The old body was bent down as if tremendous weights were hung about her shoulders. She wriggled her backside to the bar and sat on the wooden foot rail below the counter.

The tiny woman peered up at the pair with twinkling, mischievous eyes. "You don't believe old gakkakkgek-"

Mialee blinked and turned back to her glass of milk. This was not the woman's name, but a sound the hag made when preparing to spit something truly monstrous onto the bar floor.

"-old me! Listen up!"

She jammed her fingers into either knee that sat a few inches from her tiny, cauliflower ears, and cackled as the pair jumped in tandem. The old woman hacked and spit once more for good measure, then launched into a singsong ditty that made no sense whatever to Mialee.

"One and one and one is three,

"One for the elder, one is for me,

"The Buried walks beneath thee,

"The Buried walks beneath thee,

"Elf on my left, lute gold and prudent,

"Elf on my right, black-haired student,

"Elf yet to come, guardian true,

"One elf is the teacher,

"The last one is his muse.

"Death beneath the sleeping mount

"But wait they must for the day he counts."

Something about the way the old woman looked at Mialee made her uneasy, and it wasn't the smell, the twisted hump, or the bug-eyed stare directed somewhere above her right ear. The old woman smelled of illusion. She also had terrible grammar.

Mialee spoke the soft elvish words of a minor detection spell to take a closer look at the cackling little creature.

"What?" said the man on the stool next to hers.

Mialee faked a few coughs. "Nothing. Prophecies. Never had any use for them."

The woman raved about flame, death, and the end of the world as Mialee focused the spell. The old crone was wearing an illusion all right, it was all over her. Mialee couldn't make out what sort of creature was hidden beneath the magical energy. Whatever she was, the crone had not actually threatened anyone, but only warned them about the end of the world.

"Old woman," Mialee said, "or old man, why do you disguise your true appearance with illusion? I admire the strength of the spell. Who are you? What is your true shape?"

"Wha-er, arr! Fire, and doom, dead walk the earth! Await the one in the garish robes with the silver hair! It is foretold!" the crone babbled quickly, suddenly sounding much younger than she looked, and much less sure of herself.

The half-elf beside Mialee gaped but said nothing. Mialee heard him hum a short refrain without touching the lute, then gasp. She didn't need to look to feel the subtle, magical vibrations of his detection spell. Interesting. She knew some performers could harness arcane sorcery with harmonically sensitive energy, but she'd only met a few. Most were con men, or worse.

The crone straightened and grew by a foot as she spread her arms and backed to the door. The little woman turned and bolted out the swinging doors of the Silver Goblet Inn.

Mialee returned to her milk. The bard stared at her for a second, then tipped his ale glass.

"Can I do something for you?" Mialee asked.

The man with "lute gold and prudent"-had the little troll really said "gold and prudent?" -laughed. "Not right now, miss. By the way, I wouldn't recommend ordering much more of that milk. I know where Gurgitt gets it."

Mialee eyed her milk queasily and pushed it away. "Thanks."

"No problem."

The elf woman reached into a pack and removed a small, leather-bound book embossed with silver runes that stated simply "Spellbook" in Elvish and a magical quill that never needed dipping. She scribbled a few equations and notes in arcane script. Occasionally Mialee ducked her head to the bar with frequent, furtive squints at the yellowed pages. She was not keen on her bad eyesight becoming public knowledge.

Life in the cold, northern forests could be dangerous for a traveling wizard, and she'd done plenty of exploration over the past decade or two. Trickier to explore were the secrets of earning a living, which usually involved delving into some hole in the ground or setting up shop in a place like Dogmar. The knowledge she gained was worth the trouble, though. She'd learned that from old Favrid. Now she sat in this stinkhole because of him.

An old teacher of hers, Favrid had summoned her to this olfactory gauntlet of a tavern. He was a day late. And he wore garish robes. Whoever the strange little woman had really been, Mialee was not surprised she'd known the old man. Old Favrid knew a lot of people stranger than that.

The wizard woman found the entire city of Dogmar distasteful. The place simply smelled. Thousands of dwarves, half-elves, humans, halflings, and gnomes, maybe even half-orcs, were crammed together in a seemingly random jumble of wooden buildings on the edge of the only decent harbor for miles. The roads made no sense, and Mialee had gotten lost constantly over the last day and a half trying to navigate the stinking place. The odors of all these people, most of whom were in serious need of a bath, mingled with the smell of dead fish wafting in from the docks. This was smothered in the aroma of a hundred different foods coming from inn kitchens and street vendors. Under it all flowed a rich current of sewage.