"Ailen!" Darrin shouted to his wife, trying to
find out just where she had gone. He stood atop the stairs of the small
two-story building the couple had called home and, still not finding her,
continued his excited shouting. "What is the meaning of this?" He
held out a crumpled sheet of parchment as he marched trouserless
down the creaky wooden stairs. Scrawled across the sheet was a short
handwritten note, signed by his wife.
Darrin Trailsong,
as was so often in his long life, felt absolutely miserable—today perhaps moreso than he had in weeks. It began when he had received
the news three days earlier that his inn, the Whistling Swan Inn, needed to be
closed down not for the first, not the second, but the third time in his days
as proprietor for major repairs to the oft-damaged structure. To make matters
worse, the next night he broke the whole acoustic base of one of his favorite
lutes while strumming idly. Finally, to add insult to injury, a spell battle
the night before between two very drunk and very argumentative apprentice spellcasters from the nearby
And this, for Darrin, this was the
last straw.
"You know full well what it is
about, Darrin Trailsong!" Ailen
snarled as she tossed another hunk of carelessly wrapped meat in her small frontpack. It was a rather ingenious device, created by a
friend long since gone, but the frontpack served the elfwoman rather well, for not only was she an elf, but a
remarkable, relatively unique specimen at that. It wasn't the long blond hair
that cascaded down her back that set her apart. It was, in fact, how the wavy
strands were interrupted: by the large, alabaster wings that protruded from her
back, graceful, feathered appendages that had adorned her since her birth. And
if there was one thing Darrin appreciated more than anything in the world, it
was the exotic—which was but one of the many things that attracted the elven bard to his winged elven
wife.
"I do?" Darrin sputtered.
"Now see here, Ailen—"
"Hold your tongue, Darrin Trailsong!" Ailen snapped.
"You have lied to me for the last gods-know-how-many years, and now are
not even possessed of the courage to admit it?" she said accusingly to the
bard. In her right hand, she held an envelope and letter, scrawled on a waxy,
well-preserved paper, a letter that had been sitting on Darrin's reading desk
the night before.
The color drained from Darrin's face
for a moment. An old
love letter from Corene? Good gods, she must
think… "Ailen, love, it's not like that at
all." he said quickly, instantly assuming the worst.
True to form, the semi-retired bard
could have said nothing more damaging. His wife's face gained the color that
Darrin's lost as she screamed, "Not like that at all? Not like what? Not
like you have cheated on me? Not like you have lied to me ever since we met
back at the Clearbrook Inn? Explain it all to me,
then, Darrin Trailsong!" she said, shaking the
crumpled note. "Tell me what it is
like, then!"
Darrin wandered over to his favorite
chair in the middle of the room and sat down. This was not going to be easy.
"Well, Ailen," he said, inhaling deeply,
"it all began a couple of decades back after we had first severed our ties
with one another—"
Ailen flipped closed the cover of her frontpack
and stared at her husband. "Wait just a moment. Are you about to tell me
this note is more than twenty years old?"
Darrin nodded slowly. "Aye,
though I believe thirty might be a bit more accurate."
The winged elf shook her head
slowly, peeking through a few strands of the honey-gold hair that had fallen
around her face. "I assume that the explanation is not one of your shorter
ones. "
"It
does go on a little," he
admitted sheepishly.
Ailen sighed and turned a
chair around, straddling it to sat down.
"Perhaps, Darrin, you had best explain this all from the very
beginning."
"The very
beginning? Well, I believe it all started about four and a half decades
ago, give or take a couple years..."
* *
* * *
The nomad's life was not as easy for
the young bard-in-training as he thought it would be. Between the hard ground
that made sleeping difficult and the horse that time forgot, traveling was no
joy for the gallivanting rogue of the normally reclusive
To be sure, Darrin Trailsong was having another in a series of not-so-good
days. But for all his complaints over trivial things, life on the road made the
rogue elf feel more alive than he had ever felt within the borders of his
relatively safe and secluded kingdom.
"So,
A few hours later, as they neared
the gates of Marnet, Darrin awoke to the sounds of
the growing seaport at night, the busy sounds of drunken revelers trying to
out-boast one another from one direction and the refined musical tones of a
considerably more upper-class establishment from another. "Lovely
place. Of course I’m heading
in the opposite direction," he muttered sarcastically, tucking his pointed
ears beneath a brown leather cap to disguise his heritage and pulling on the
reins to steer
Darrin stared at the sign for a
moment, a shiver running involuntarily down his spine. "Come,
"Right," Darrin mumbled,
dismounting as the stable boy appeared. Dipping into the temporarily meager
pickings of his money pouch, he plunked a couple of gold pieces into the
raggedy boy's hand. It wasn’t much to the elflord and
bard, who was always sure to keep a spare purse with a bit of ‘emergency money’
handy, but to a stablehand that likely hadn’t seen
more than a few coppers tossed his way each work, two gold pieces constituted a
small fortune. "Young man, if you can figure a way to get him settled and
resting before I leave the inn tonight, there'll be more where those came
from."
The young man's eyes lit up
immediately and he quickly snapped to attention, giving Darrin his best
attempted salute. "Yes, sir!" he said, running to get a carrot or
other morsel from the back stalls, grinning from ear to ear, anticipating of the
luxury of exponentially more spending money than he had seen in a long time.
Dusting himself off and pulling his cherrywood
instrument case from
Adjusting his clothing and doing his
best to look dignified in the face of adversity, he walked into the taproom of
the Nymph with all the poise and assuredness he could muster, and announced
himself to the burly tavern keeper behind the long, perpetually decaying oak bar.
"Darrin Trailsong, bard for hire, come to play as you requested, sir," he said with a
slight bow. Gods, but I hate that! Bowing prostrate before such rabble. Oh, for the love of the
act... and if there's one thing that survives because of the act, it's the
money.
"'Bout time you got here,
boy," the barkeep huffed through his oily black moustache, not looking up.
"We been waitin' fer
you half the night!"
"It's not my fault, sir—I,
um," Darrin, who long since lost track of time, feigned sorrow as best as
he could. Taken aback by the unexpectedly brusque tone of the barkeep, he tried
to salvage what was left of this paying job by laying the blame squarely on
someone—or something—else. Stay calm.
Need an excuse. Play for sympathy. "He sprained his ankle about a
half-day's ride outside town and we've had to make rather slow time since then
as not to further aggravate his injuries." Blame your transportation. Good start.
The barkeep crossed his arms and
glowered at Darrin through his good right eye for a couple moments. "All
right, all right," he said finally, not entirely accepting the impromptu
excuse. "Just you get up there and start playin'
now, y'hear? They's
gettin' a mite restless out there, what with no
entertainment and all."
Darrin smiled and shook the
barkeep's hand. "Thanks kindly, sir," he said, going into the forced
and over-exaggerated bow once again. "They'll be calmed once again before
you know it, or my name isn't Darrin Trailsong!"
He
ducked into a small room to change into his performance attire—brown vest,
white shirt, and a pair of well-kept leggings, a set of sensible performance
clothing designed to give the illusion of riches while still maintaining his
appearance as a humble traveling musician. Once dressed and back in the taproom,
he spun on his heel and walked up to the makeshift stage at the head of the
taproom. The one-eyed barkeep didn’t seem to really notice or care about
Darrin’s change of clothing as he began wiping the bar down with his dirty rag
once again, spreading the night’s spilled ale in a fine layer over the bartop rather than trying to soak it all up.
Dragging one of the barstools over
from the counter, Darrin balanced himself carefully on its loose, wobbly legs
and began what he steadily hoped would be a fair performance. He glanced around
at the crowd of ruffians and ladies of the night, slightly repulsed by the
dirty, depraved atmosphere of the Nymph's taproom. Once again, I’m stuck at one of the world’s finest alehouses, he
mused sarcastically to himself. Just play,
get paid, and get out of here. Maybe then I can find a better place to stay the
night—or, at the very least, a better class of company for after the
performance.
"Good evening, ladies
and..." Darrin began loudly, smiling broadly, watching the crowd for some
sort of sign. To his disappointment, the crowd kept right on with what they
were doing, eating, drinking, and talking, not paying any attention to the
bard. He cleared his throat loudly and began a second time. "Good evening,
patrons of..." Again, they continued as before, seemingly oblivious to the
musician. Nope. This is not going to be a
good night at all.
Struck with sudden inspiration,
Darrin fumbled around in his other side pouch for a moment, palming a little
red pebble—a little street magic he picked up in the town of
The talking in the bar instantly
stopped. All eyes were on the young man who had, to those not paying
attention—in effect, everyone but the bartender—seemingly just appeared on
stage.
"Good evening and well met,
ladies and gentlemen! I am the Master Bard Darrin Trailsong,
here for your entertainment and enjoyment this fine evening!" For
emphasis, Darrin pulled another smoke pellet out of his pouch and slammed it
down for effect. This one puffed blue smoke that Darrin hid behind while
shifting the stool to a new spot on the stage, giving the drink-dulled crowd
the illusion of minor translocation. "So far so good," he muttered as
he sat down on the stool with his lute at the ready. He strummed the opening
chords of an old ballad and began to sing:
"In
a time gone by, in ages past, there was a love 'twould
ever last
Twixt
a maiden above and a bard from below—folk separated by station, you know.
Tis a story of a love for the ages, told in the homes of
the greatest sages
So
gather ye 'round and listen in, for The Bard's Tale is about to begin."
Darrin continued on through the next
eleven stanzas of his ballad and wondered if he was singing something
appropriate for this atmosphere. Perhaps
something a bit more ribald would better suit this crowd... He played on,
glancing at the crowd every so often while looking down at his instrument to
concentrate on his fingering. As he finished, he glanced at the crowd, who
seemed to finally have changed their attitude from mostly hostile to politely
belligerent, not only to gauge their overall reaction to his music but also to
get a feel for his audience.
Instead,
he was drawn to her.
He fumbled his fingerings
momentarily as he began his next tune and, for a few long moments, Darrin's
conscious mind left his body and floated freely, his fingers and his voice
still working their practiced craft but his thoughts utterly detached from his
playing. Her eyes! So beautiful, and face
is just... If ever the goddess walked the earth, it must be her! Eyes drawn
to her, the vision of perfection before him, his heart
jumped, and he played and sang on in near perfection. Years later, the bard
would still recall this as one of his finest evenings, amateur, professional,
or otherwise.
After playing the three sets he had
been required to play per the contract from the Nymph, he found himself diving
through the thinning crowd to find that woman. It shouldn't be too difficult, he reasoned. No two women could ever look the same as she—none other could be so
beautiful! What was she doing here? She didn’t look like some sort of common… I mean, this can’t be the type of place she
would frequent... can it?
By the time he arrived at the
woman's table, however, she had long since disappeared. Darrin's heart
immediately sank. I was so close to
her...! "Barkeep!" he said, rushing over to the bar.
"Please, you must tell me... have you seen what became of the young woman
at that table? Who was she?" he asked hopefully.
"Boy's a bit addled," the
barkeep explained to the patron he was waiting on as he turned to the young
bard. He tossed the dirty rag over his shoulder and turned to Darrin.
"Now, boy, tell me... what'd yer girl look like?
Mebbe I c'n tell you if
she's been here afore."
Darrin searched his memory for the
image of the lone young woman. "Well... she had rather long blond hair,
wavy like the ocean... her eyes were this deep sort of blue—blue as the summer
sky, I tell you! Her skin was quite fair, the pale of fine porcelain, like
she's never seen the sun..." His voice trailed off as the once-sharp image
became less clear in his love-struck mind.
The barkeep looked slightly
confused. "And yer sure you saw her in here
tonight?"
"I've never seen her before
tonight, sir," Darrin said. "Please, tell me where she went, or when
she left—I must find her! She's the one!"
The barkeep chuckled.
"Scrambled more than breakfast eggs, y’are,
boy," he said. "There's not been anyone matchin'
yer description in here for many a year! If'n yer lookin'
fer a lady like that, try the Three Coins up the road
a bit. Sounds like you seen yer girl in a bit
classier place than this. Or mebbe y'hit yer head fallin' from that horse o' yers."
The
color drained from Darrin's downtrodden face. "How could you not notice
her?" he said, regaining his composure after the initial shock. "She
was sitting right there and... and…"
The barkeep chuckled once again.
"Must'a been part of yer dreams, boy. P'rhaps after a good night's sleep, you'll wake up and
remember that it was a dream." The bartender slipped him a key with the
number twelve stamped upon on side. "Here. Go upstairs 'n sleep it off.
It'll do you a world o' good."
"Yes... sleep," Darrin
said, turning toward the stair, his lute dragging on the floor behind him, all
thoughts of finding another place to stay or any excitement of the eve behind
him. "It can't have been a dream..."
* *
* * *
"...And that was the last I saw
of her for quite a long time," Darrin finished, praying that his wife was
at least calmed down a little bit by now.
"Just how
long?" Ailen asked, less angered by this
time, yet still far from calm. Her attention rapt, she leaned forward on the
back of her chair, wings wrapped around her body, fully drawn into the tale
that her husband spun before her.
"About five years passed
between that night and the next night our paths crossed," Darrin said.
"By then, I had become a little more famous—more recognized, really, than
famous—and had been asked to perform to larger crowds in the Free Cities and
for the courts of some of Askandor’s minor nobility.
At last, I could finally enjoy the life I had chosen for myself. It was during
this time of new-found freedom and popularity that I crossed paths with the
merchant-mage Shasta Rameko..."
* *
* * *
"...still can't decide what it
is about your music that I like young man, but I know what I like and this is
definitely it!" Shasta Rameko rambled, clapping
one hand on Darrin's back and shaking his hand with the other. The fest hall
was nearly empty now; all that remained was for the last few chairs to be put
up and for the two men in the center of the room to leave. "As a matter of
fact, if you're quite willing, I should like to hire you on as a sort of
personal musician!"
Darrin's looked at the merchant
skeptically. "Personal musician?"
"Why of course, my boy!"
Shasta said. "With your talent—and, of course, a little financial
backing—you could become one of the most famous musicians in the world!"
The possibilities opened wide before
Darrin. "And just what will you require of me, Lord Shasta?"
"Just Shasta,
please. We’re all friends here, aren’t we?" the man said, smiling.
"What I ask is merely the right of first audition: the right to hear you
perform on a regular basis, perhaps the right to hear your newest works as they
become available. Perhaps a private concert here and there to
entertain potential customers. Any other odd jobs I might find—your
natural charisma makes you just the right man to act as my courier and
spokesman, if need be." Shasta let his voice trail off and looked at
Darrin. "So, my boy... what do you say?"
An ear-to-ear grin spread across the
bard's face. "Do I have to pretend to think about it?" he asked.
"So it's a deal, then,"
Shasta said, shaking Darrin's hand again to seal the verbal contract. It was a
firm handshake, returned tenfold by the grinning bard.
"A deal and more, milord
Shasta," Darrin said, regaining a measure of his composure. He still felt
giddy, but now was not the time to let those emotions show entirely. "I do
have a rather odd question to ask, though."
"Go ahead, m'boy;
as I said, we're all friends here."
"Certainly there are dozen of
bards more talented than me, and yet they would give various limbs for such a
generous benefactor. Why me, of all people?"
Shasta turned serious for a moment. "For many reasons, Darrin, a great many reasons. Let's
just say that looking after your well-being clears me of a longstanding debt. A very old debt indeed." His eyes took on a bit of a
wistful look as he spoke.
"Who?"
"Your sister, Keryl," Shasta said. He continued staring off into the
distance as he stroked his brown beard. "She and I were great friends many
years ago. She mentioned that you'd gone missing and had perhaps had gone
adventuring. She charged me to keep an eye out for you and to keep you out of
trouble. By hiring you, I'm fulfilling that very request, as well as keeping your
secret… But I digress. When might you be available to make Marnet
your permanent home?"
* *
* * *
"For a while, I made a very
good living by entertaining the wizard and his guests every other tenday with private concerts and running around the world
with little missives. Always trying to influence peoples’ lives without
directly interfering in them, he was." Darrin explained.
"That's all fine and good,
Darrin, but what does that have to do with us?" Ailen
said, her anger virtually evaporated by the long-winded explanation.
"I'm getting there, I'm getting
there. A story needs to be told in its proper order, you know." Darrin
cracked his knuckles as he stretched in his chair. "Anyway, I played my
last concert at Shasta's court about ten years after I'd begun. From there, I
returned to my former life as a wandering bard—after all, it's often been said
that a bard needs to keep himself and his ideas constantly fresh, you know.
During my second set of new travels, you and I met at the Clearbrook
Inn. Of course, you know that part of the story."
"Yes, I do," Ailen said frostily, fond and bitter memories
simultaneously coming to mind.
Darrin sighed. This was going to be
the toughest part of the explanation. "A few years prior to that meeting,
though, I began my first fresh excursions and journeys from Marnet.
I traveled throughout the Free Cities, playing to increasingly larger crowds at
both roadside inns and city squares. It was in those roadside inns that I met a
host of individuals who've since gone on to become, with a little help from my
tales, modern legends—yourself included, in fact. Eventually, though, the lure
of a long respite at my first true home since my days in the wilderness called
to me, and I found myself back at Shasta’s home in Marnet..."
* *
* * *
Darrin
lay sprawled out on his bed on the third day of his return to Marnet and to Rameko Manor, a
return for which the city had been well-prepared. Shasta, ever one to make a
major social event out of the slightest of situations, had spared no expense in
readying the crowds for Darrin Trailsong. He'd rented
the finest and largest hall in the entire city for a night. He commissioned the
printing a number of flyers and leaflets. He even went so far as to change the
concert date and time to coincide with the arrival of the emissary from the
undersea kingdom of Midia, who was coming to discuss
the problems of the city's fishing fleet and how it was endangering the
protected waters of the Deep Kingdom. For Shasta, Darrin’s return couldn’t have
been timed better; there was no better way to expand the cultural ties between
the surface and ocean dwellers than to present the greatest musician Marnet and the world had to offer.
"Darrin, m'boy!" Shasta remarked brightly, clapping the
younger man on the shoulder as the bard finally cracked open his door and
emerged from his room. "Ready for your gala
performance?"
Darrin yawned and tried to shake off
the headache resultant of the previous night’s exploits, when Darrin tried to
visit all his old haunts in a single night. "Not entirely sure. Had a long
night last night... feelin’ a bit tired. Jus’ got up t’find the chamber pot ‘n lie back down f’r
a bit—"
"Lie back down?" Shasta
said. "You'll do nothing of the sort, m’boy!
You're scheduled to sing before the Midian emissary
in less than thirty minutes!"
Darrin paled. "T-thirty
minutes?" Shasta nodded. "If you'll excuse
me then, I, uh, yes! To get ready! You know, to perform..." The
panicked bard turned around, walked into his room, locked the door, and managed
to relax his body, his fingers, warm up his voice, and clean himself up in
exactly eighteen minutes. Nothing cures a
hangover like a good panic, he mused as he boarded the waiting carriage and
sped through the streets of Marnet, praying to make
it to the performance on time. Once backstage, Shasta relaxed visibly upon the
bard's entrance; he'd a full 36 seconds to spare.
The stage was ready; the sitting
room in the festhall ballroom, decked out to look
more like an official embassy in resplendent sea greens and ocean blues, was
filled to capacity. The crowd was ready to applaud Darrin Trailsong
as he entered the grand parlor in the same humble yet well-kept outfit he had
worn more than a decade and a half earlier at the Naughty Nymph. He began to
sing for the crowd...
…And,
as a decade before, he saw her. The
hair... the eyes... this has got to be a dream...! There's no possible way in
the world that she could be here!
Immediately following the hour-long
command performance (and after declining an unprecedented fifth encore), he
hurried off the stage to find his one-time patron of the arts. "Shasta! It's her!" he said, nearly
hyperventilating. "The woman I always told you about! She's here!"
"Whoa, m'boy! Calm yourself and start over," Shasta
said, nearly spilling his drink. He nodded politely to the assorted noblemen
talking around him and dismissed himself and the bard from the rest of the
conversation. "Now... tell me what you're talking about, m'boy."
"The woman from the Naughty
Nymph," Darrin whispered, barely restrained ,
nearly on the verge of screaming. "The one for whom I've been searching
the last decade and more!" He pointed to the young lady, her long blond
hair hanging in short, perfect waves, her face even more perfect than he
remembered it from ten years and more earlier.
"Her?" Shasta laughed
heartily. "Darrin Trailsong, you must be kidding
me! That's the emissary—the Lady Corene of Midia! You couldn't have seen her in a dingy little
flophouse all those years ago, boy. She's a high-born lady of some virtue, not
some common tavern trawler." He scratched his beard thoughtfully, looking
over to the emissary and studying her for a few moments. One thing Shasta had
learned while Darrin was in his emply was the bard’s
uncanny knack for remembering faces. Could
he be telling the truth?
Slowly,
he ceased entirely dismissing Darrin's rambling thoughts. "Besides,
Darrin,” he continued, still scratching his beard, “how could you tell? I
consider myself to have a rather advanced mind, but even my memory's not good
enough to immediately spot a woman I'd but glimpsed a dozen years ago."
"I'm telling you, Shasta, it's
her!" Darrin insisted.
"Whatever you say,
Darrin," he soothed. "Regardless, then, I assume that you would
entertain an introduction?" Darrin nodded rapidly and followed the mage.
The mage and the bard approached the
emissary. "Your Ladyship, may I present to you the Master Bard Darrin Trailsong, the young gentleman who played such excellent
music for this reception tonight." Although the title of 'Master Bard' was
more honorary than official at the moment, he hardly felt like contradicting
Shasta in front of the woman who’d
haunted his dreams for so long.
Corene
nodded courteously to Darrin. "A pleasure, Master Trailsong."
"The pleasure is all mine,
milady," he replied, bowing and kissing her hand in one deft movement.
Shasta coughed politely, watching
the two star-crossed youngsters to start unabashedly at one another.
"I'll, um, I’ll leave you two to get better acquainted with one
another," he said, taking this earliest opportunity to exit the
conversation. He hoped Darrin knew what he was doing; he really didn't wish to
be around if the bard made a fool of himself by
reliving a strange episode from his past.
* *
* * *
"So, was she the one?" Ailen finally asked.
Darrin took a deep breath before
continuing. "Yes, Ailen, she was. We spent the
rest of the night talking to one another about ourselves and our lives, and by
the morning..." Darrin paused. "Corene and
I fell in love and spent a part of our lives together. I was undersea, in Midia, for the better part of that missing decade, Ailen, building a life and a family with Corene.
But we just… we were too incompatible. She was too busy running her kingdom,
and I was too busy comparing her to someone else from my past.”
"Who was that?"
"Someone you know well,"
Darrin said with a half-smile. "I admit that taking out that old note was
not the brightest thing I've ever done, but in all honesty, I came across it
entirely by accident while going through a huge stack of old papers and
notes."
He
leaned back in his chair and flashed her the slightly
embarrassed, slightly silly grin he called his ‘idiot grin’ he always wore when
he knew he'd done something his wife could label as 'bone-headed'. "My
reminiscing just got the better of me, and I left it out when I was done...
where, unfortunately, you got hold of it and misread the intentions behind it.
She and I did share some wondrous times together, Ailen.
I won't lie to you about that. But now..." He shrugged his shoulders.
"What I had then perceived at my heart's quest had already been
fulfilled."
Ailen
looked at him, her expression softer as she brushed a lock of honey-gold hair
out of her face. "What exactly do you mean, 'then perceived?'"
"What I mean..." He
thought for a moment, stood from his stool, and took a chair right next to his
wife. "What I mean is that things have been rather rough between us for a
long time, and it's all my fault. My more... primal
urges told me I was on a quest to find the perfect woman, but in the meantime I
ignored the voice inside my heart telling me that my quest was over before it
even begun."
"When was that?"
"My quest truly ended decades
ago in a small inn in the middle of nowhere, where a young woman with hair of
gold, eyes of blue, and wings of ivory stole my heart on sight." Darrin
took Ailen's hand and gave it a gentle squeeze as he
settled his gaze upon her. "I always regretted our first parting, and when
we finally married, I knew I could never live with myself if I happened to
drive you away again. I swear to you, on my honor, that such shall never happen
again."
The was a
long pause as Ailen looked at her husband, weighing
his story carefully. "Darrin?" Ailen finally said sweetly, taking a deep breath and
looking down to keep him from seeing the tear from falling from her left eye.
"Yes, love?"
"I know you better than
that," she chuckled as the tear of happiness broke free and slid down her
cheek. "You honor only your craft and the feeling of the moment. You are
the consummate bard, Darrin Trailsong."
He again grinned
his trademark grin. "That's as maybe, but I do have you... I hope."
"Aye, love, that you do," Ailen said, wadding up Corene’s
love note and tossing it over the bar before pulling the bard into a gentle
embrace. He finally listened to the song of his heart, and knew that his quest
was finally and truly over.