Hunter's Folly

by Josh Vogt

Chapter 4: Essence of the Hunt

At the warning cry, Aberny looked back and noticed the crude frame of branches that propped a large rock pile above the tunnel they'd emerged from. Even as he did, a scrabble of talons alerted him just before the beast burst upward, jaws snapping every which way. It clamped onto the ledge with one claw and swept the other out.

Ralynn jumped away, but the claw tore out the supporting branches instead, dropping the pile in a dust-raising crash and sealing off any escape. The chimera fell back to the floor, crunching Tali's bone sculpture beneath its feet as she scrambled for cover.

Ralynn leapt to the ground after it, whipping out a second sword. He kicked a skull at the chimera and ran in after, blades leading the way.

Aberny hurried to see if he could dislodge the rock fall and give them a chance to flee. He threw aside several smaller rocks, but realized the boulders would require massive effort to budge.

Tali's view of the hunt is nothing if not unique.

The chimera bounded all about the cavern, with plenty of room to maneuver despite its bulk. It flapped up to the far wall, clung there for a moment as its claws dug in, and then dropped to crush the fighter. Ralynn somersaulted aside, and the chimera landed with a boom that shook the whole place.

Aberny grabbed up a larger rock and lugged it to the edge. He took aim, and then flung it down at the chimera. He howled and raised a triumphant fist as the rock smashed into one of the beast's wings, preventing another leap-and-crush attempt.

Ralynn darted in, using the distraction to gouge the creature's flanks. Aberny went for another rock, as yowls rose from below. Right as he reached the edge a second time, the chimera lunged up, abandoning Ralynn to attack him instead. He threw the rock, but the dragon's head snapped it out of midair. At least now it couldn't spew acid in his face.

The other two heads drove forward. He fell back, grabbing for his weapons as fangs and horns strained inches from his feet. Then the chimera bellowed and fell back. Aberny leaned over to see what had happened.

Ralynn had hacked off a hind paw, and the chimera now hobbled after him while trailing a ragged, gore-soaked stump. The fighter grinned and flicked blood from his blades.

The chimera stumbled forward and Ralynn thrust for the kill. However, the dragon head rose and spewed a wide stream of acid. As Ralynn twisted desperately to dodge this, the chimera threw itself forward. A claw snagged Ralynn's leg and pinned him to the ground. The chimera leaned in, all mouths gaping.

Tali's voice rang out. "Ralynn, shut your eyes!"

The half-elf squeezed his eyes closed right before a flash of dazzling lights burst before the chimera's faces. It reared and staggered on its remaining hind paw.

Freed, Ralynn rolled up and raised both swords as the chimera dropped back in front of him. He brought the blades down on the neck of the nearest head—the goat. The head gave a gargling bleat as it was hacked off to splatter at Ralynn's feet.

A frenzied wing beat knocked the fighter back, while the lion and dragon roared and screeched in pain. The chimera hunched and launched itself toward one of the wider cracks in the cavern walls.

The crack must've been formed in soft earth, for it burst wide under the chimera's impact, raining roots and rock all about. The creature shoved most of the way out. Its hind leg gave a last kick to free itself, and then only its fading cries could be heard as it fled.

Tali emerged from her hiding spot behind an oversized ribcage, while Ralynn caught his breath and Aberny made his way to the chamber floor. By the time he got there, the half-elf and gnome were inspecting the paw and goat head.

Ralynn probed the head with the tip of a blade. "Poor trophy. Might as well have killed an oversized goat."

Aberny eyed the hole in the cavern wall. "Even if it survives that wound, I doubt it'll return to let you claim the rest."

"Just in case," Tali said, "maybe we should get out of here?"

The three climbed back to the ledge and began the arduous job of clearing the path out. Before they left, Aberny made sure to retrieve his sword, feeling an odd desire to never travel without one close at hand again. Ralynn grabbed up the paw and head, while Tali chose a few blood-speckled rib fragments.

Once they emerged into sunlight and fresh air, Aberny leaned on his staff, suddenly more weary than he'd ever been. "I've a proposition."

The two looked to him.

"Since our contract was hastily made and without the clearest of wits, what say we mutually dissolve it and let survival be its own reward? We can tell whatever version of what happened here that we wish."

Ralynn lifted the chimera parts. "So long as I keep these." He caught Aberny's eye. "I'm not as stuck on our original deal."

Tali glanced between the two, curious, but shrugged when neither was forthcoming. "Good enough for me."

Aberny smiled, pulled out the battered parchment, and tossed it back down to languish with the bones.

∗ ∗ ∗

Aberny entered the art gallery, double-checking the card delivered the previous day to make sure he had the right time and place.

Master Aberny,

It would be the greatest honor if you would attend the opening exhibit of "Horrors of the Hunt," under the patronage of the Gilvreau Gallery. We feature the finest paintings and sculptures ever to grace our town, being a testament to Whistledown's continued contributions to the pinnacle of society that is artistic inspiration and craft.

Sincerely,
Steward Feles, on behalf of the Gilvreau Gallery

He scanned the main room. Humans, gnomes, elves, and others crowded the hall, where at least a dozen paintings hung alongside another dozen sculptures and carvings. Some of the pieces even combined sculpture and painting, with molded bronze, steel, and silver interwoven with canvas to give the work a surprising depth and substance.

In one painting, a shadowy beast loomed over a trio of figures, framed against a background of vivid firelight. There, fighters engaged a chimera on the edges of a rocky pool. And there, random bones had been wired together to create a miniature model of a chimera skeleton, wings spread, looking ready to leap on viewers.

Never had Aberny seen such raw depictions of dread and violence. Not only had the artist captured the chimera's bestial qualities, but also the underlying terror and imminence of death it evoked. Many of the scenes even gave the impression of the hunters being the prey.

After perusing the selection for a while, he found Tali chatting in a ring of admirers. A month had passed since the ill-fated hunt, and her attire had taken a turn for the fashionable. Adorned with a gem-studded tiara, she wore a dress of blue and crimson. When she spotted him, she excused herself and rushed over to grasp his hand.

"Master Aberny! So glad you could make it."

He smiled and they exchanged pleasantries, such as her rise in society and how his sword-fighting lessons progressed. When they found a corner beyond the press of the crowd, he cleared his throat.

"I've been thinking a bit since we last saw one another. Reflecting on a few oddities of our time in the grasslands."

One of her emerald eyebrows twitched. "Such as?"

"Such as how the chimera tracked our scent so quickly. Why it took off with you when it had the upper hand with Ralynn. And how you knew enough of its nature—even its language—to appeal to its bestial vanity."

Her lips tweaked at the corners. "Quite strange."

"As I recall, a large portion of our first dinner went... well, not missing, but perhaps unaccounted for would be the better description. Now, I'm not one to doubt a voracious appetite, but for a gnome, such a repast would've likely split his or her stomach wide—if it was actually devoured at all. And then there was a particular item that would've drawn the creature's ear from a goodly distance."

He drew out the Whistledown charm she'd dropped when the chimera had taken her beside the pool. "A memento of our little hunt and congratulations for your success."

Tali licked her lips as she squirreled the charm away. Then she glanced about, no doubt looking for a particular half-elf.

"Are you going to tell him?" she asked.

He chuckled darkly, suspicions confirmed. "I haven't decided. He's not in town at the moment, either way. While the head and paw weren't exactly the trophies Ralynn wished, they worked well enough to boost his reputation—especially after an alchemist confirmed the chimera blood. He left two weeks ago with a band of treasure hunters."

Then he shed all mirth. "But I want to know how you managed to come to an agreement with the chimera."

Her nose crinkled. "Agreement?"

"How did you get the creature to act as a model for your art? An offer of safety in exchange for leading it to us?"

Her eyes widened. "No! I might've aggravated the situation a bit, but we had no dealings. It wouldn't have been real, if so. I had to live it. The struggle had to be authentic, or else it wouldn't mean anything."

"You understood it. Spoke with it."

"Languages are art, like I said. Each one I can converse in adds to my palette of comprehension."

"But why? What possessed you to tempt our deaths that way?"

"Oh! This, of course." She wobbled her head, indicating the gallery. "My art can now be infused with unparalleled passion and perspective."

"You got my men killed."

"We all accepted a certain amount of risk, didn't we? I faced the same dangers as everyone else."

"You could've told us. We could've set an ambush from the start."

"That would've been just as bad as if I'd collaborated with the beast. It would've undermined the reality I needed to experience."

He sighed, trying and failing to summon fury at the deception. Sadly, he understood all too well the lengths one might go to for personal advancement. Should he reveal the deal he'd struck with Ralynn? Or perhaps scrawl another debt in his ledgers?

Aberny rubbed his chin, as if pondering the virtues of the piece they stood before. "Perhaps Ralynn will never find out, so long as certain steps are taken. A favor paid, say, to avoid dark rumors besmirching the reputation of a promising young artist."

Tali squared up with him, thin arms crossed. "So! What's the bargain, then?"

He waved at the surrounding artwork. "Your work should be admired by lovers of art far and wide. I would... politely... request an exclusive contract as distributor and representative of your craft beyond Whistledown. Sole purveyor, receiving a significant percentage of every sale for my efforts."

Tali grinned. "Ah! I'll have to talk to the gallery owners, but I'll be as persuasive as possible for an old friend." She stuck out a hand. As his engulfed hers for a brief squeeze, she held it a moment longer. "Good fortune, Master Aberny. Of course, I say that hoping you'll funnel some of that my way in the end."

His laugh drew a few askance looks. "Be careful what you hope for, dearest Tali. In the end, fortune makes fools of us all."

Coming Next Week: Viking-style adventure and the return of Jendara in a sample chapter from Wendy Wagner’s new Pathfinder Tales novel, Skinwalkers.

Josh Vogt is the author of the Pathfinder Tales story "The Weeping Blade." His short fiction has been published in such venues as Orson Scott Card's Intergalactic Medicine Show and Shimmer. For more information, see his website at jrvogt.com.

Illustration by Glen Osterberger

Hunter's Folly

by Josh Vogt

Chapter 3: Lures

The trio hiked along the base of a scraggly knoll under the midday sun. Tali had at least stopped complaining about the dirt soiling her dress, and now joined Aberny in eyeing the skies for any sign of their foe. Ralynn kept an easy, if steady, pace ahead, one blade always out as he scanned the wild brush and every dip and curve of the earth in case the chimera crouched in wait.

When the others weren't looking, Aberny wrung a pinky finger in either ear.

How did he still hear Whistledown's fluting charms in the distance? Even if they remained closed enough, normally they only played at night, when the lake breezes blew through the village. Had the chimera's attack jarred him more than he thought?

He tried to distract himself by scanning the rolling landscape, with its high grasses, occasional groves, and streams. How did such a verdant area host such a deadly creature? Where did it lurk? Chimeras often holed up in their dens between meals. Yet this stretch of land lacked any significant caves he knew of, having hastily studied a few maps before they set out.

Vicious hunger gleams in each set of the chimera's putrid-yellow eyes.

Not more than half an hour later, Ralynn crouched and touched a patch of earth. Aberny and Tali hesitated, checking all about until the fighter waved them closer.

"Sign?" Aberny asked.

Ralynn shook his head and displayed fingers stained with mud. "Water nearby."

Aberny nodded, but Tali pouted in confusion.

"Water," the merchant explained, "suggests a spot where animals might come to drink on a regular basis. Tempting for predators."

They crept forward, weapons in Aberny's and Ralynn's hands, a charcoal nub and parchment in Tali's. They crested a subtle ridge and found it sloped down sharply into a rockier area, where a stream funneled in and formed a wide pool ringed by crumbling earth and stones. The place appeared undisturbed, but Aberny well knew appearances deceived only the foolish.

Tali wriggled in delight. "Gorgeous. I must fix this place in my mind."

As she dangled bare feet over the ridge and outlined the geography, Ralynn shifted closer to Aberny, voice lowered.

"I think the beast is close, but waiting to catch us off guard again. How about we use her as bait?"

Aberny narrowed his eyes. "You're that desperate for the bounty?"

Ralynn raised both hands. "I never make a bet I don't intend to win. But I'm not saying we let her get eaten. We'll divert it before it reaches her."

The screams of Aberny's men briefly intruded on his thoughts until he shoved them back. He shook his head. "No. I'll go down with her while you watch our backs."

Ralynn shrugged. "Won't stop you."

Calling Tali to help him refill their waterskins, Aberny led her into the depression, trying not to skid too much on scree and raise a clatter. When they reached the pool, he set his staff down and kneeled to cup a palm of water. As he swallowed, he glanced at Tali's sketch, noting she'd expertly captured the rocky pool, but had added a few embellishments, including scattered animal skeletons and the chimera itself crouched among the bodies.

"Preparing a morbid masterpiece?" he asked.

She held the parchment out, eyeing it critically. "Hm. Are the bones taking it too far?"

He peered at the chimeric figure as she filled in various details. "Are you managing that from memory last night? Impressive."

She pointed with her charcoal nub. "Oh, no. It's right over there."

Aberny raised his eyes and met the triple gaze of the chimera as it stood from its hiding spot across the pool. Its tawny, dappled hide had blended in with the yellow earth and stones, and its goat and dragon heads emerged from where they'd been tucked under the wings until then.

Ralynn must've known it was there the whole time. It couldn't have eluded his half-elven sight that easily.

The chimera's dragon maw drizzled acid, while its goat teeth gnawed a scrap of flesh that Aberny hoped didn't come from any of last night's kills. It began prowling around the pool toward them. Its ears twitched, and it spoke through its lion head alone this time.

"What's it saying?" Aberny asked Tali.

Her tongue darted over her lips. "Oh... er... something about me not being more than a nibble, while you might make a few mouthfuls."

Aberny rose, taking up his staff and drawing his sword. He used the staff to pull Tali along with him as he backed away toward Ralynn's concealed spot on the near ridge. But before they took two steps, the chimera filled the area with a three-throated roar and a great beat of wings propelled it straight at them.

The first leap sent it splashing into the middle of the pool. The second brought it onto the bank before them, where it shook itself like a wet dog, whipping out a vortex of water. In the midst of that half-blinding spray, it rushed in.

Ralynn's yell resounded as he landed on the chimera's back, swords driving down to plunge into its lungs and heart. Its water-slicked fur, though, offered no firm footing. He slipped and what might've been a death blow merely scored across the beast's ribs. The chimera screeched and reared. Ralynn dropped one sword to grab a fistful of fur, holding on as he readied for another strike.

Aberny forced himself forward, spearing the staff at the lion snout while chopping the sword whenever the dragon head wove too close.

The chimera fell back to all fours, and its wings slammed back over Ralynn, briefly clamping the fighter against its back. Then the chimera threw itself into a roll. Ralynn cried out as the creature's bulk crushed him into the earth, and he dropped off to lie stunned in the muddy gravel.

The chimera flipped back to its feet. Fangs slavered drool and acid as it approached the stunned fighter.

Then a harsh keening filled the hollow, painful enough that Aberny almost dropped his weapons to clamp hands over his ears. The chimera's heads swung around to fix on him. The creature growled deep enough to make the waters ripple, and snarled in its own tongue.

Aberny braced as it loped for him. He lashed out when it neared, but a claw struck him across the stomach, throwing him aside. He lost staff and sword as he rolled and slammed up against the base of the embankment.

The keening cut off, followed by a shriek from Tali. Aberny's jarred vision cleared just as the chimera flung itself into the sky, Tali screaming and writhing in its lion's maw. He stared aghast as the chimera made off with their small companion, following the stream as it wound out of sight among the hills. Her cries dwindled into nothing.

The merchant pushed upright, groaning at a clench of pain where the chimera had struck him. His chest would be a mass of bruises, and breathing already proved strained. A quick inspection revealed four tears and shallow cuts across his torso. Seemed he owed Desna, the goddess of luck, a few prayers.

He struggled to his feet and limped to Ralynn, who lurched up, gasping and reaching for his weapons. The half-elf stilled as he realized they stood alone.

"What happened? It fled?"

Aberny gestured to Tali's parchment, abandoned when the chimera nabbed her. It had fluttered from her grasp and landed in the pool, already a pulpy mess. "Maybe it wants to work up an appetite before it feasts."

Ralynn grimaced and rose to retrieve his short swords. Then he grunted and bent over, hand pressed to his side.

"Damn it to Hell. Must've broken a rib."

Aberny rummaged through the satchel of food and supplies he'd brought. While several had been smashed in his tumble, one healing potion had blessedly survived. He considered his own minor wounds and chances for survival. Then he handed the vial to Ralynn, who nodded gratefully and downed it.

As the fighter recovered, Aberny went to where Tali had been standing and closed his eyes to whisper a prayer of protection. Desna smile on the gnome, and may she be lucky enough to live, despite all odds.

When he opened his eyes, his gaze fell on an item where Tali had been standing. He bent over to investigate and found... a Whistledown charm. The wooden carving formed a complicated spiral, the tip secured with a metal hook where it was meant to dangle from eaves or doorways. She must've had it altered to produce the music on command, rather than just at night. Had she brought it thinking to actually mesmerize the beast or use it as a distracting weapon, as she'd just done?

He tucked this into a pocket, inert for the time. Then he turned to Ralynn, who stretched and twisted to test his healed ribs. "We have to go after her."

Ralynn frowned. "Actually, I've been rethinking my rule about never backing off from a bet."

Aberny strode over and grabbed the half-elf's collar. Ralynn stiffened, but didn't draw a blade.

"You sent us straight into its grasp just now, and her potential death is on your soul. You want to leave this hunt a coward?"

Ralynn jerked out of his grip and brushed himself off. "Better a coward than dead! And since when have you cared about someone's fate unless they put coin in your pocket? Oh, don't look surprised. You act so friendly, buying us rounds all night long—but only because we're spilling gossip you can use to get better deals. I know how it works."

"That was... that was idle business. This is life or death!"

"Thought it was all the same to you."

Aberny threw up his hands and spun away, sick of them both.

Ralynn's voice softened. "Look, there's no shame in knowing when to cut your losses. The biggest payoff doesn't mean a thing if you aren't alive to collect it. Even if we find wherever it's hauled her off to, we'll be walking straight into its territory. And it has a hostage."

Aberny stared into the water as if it might offer a solution. Then he focused on his reflection and realized he still had certain resources available. Best use them.

He turned back to the fighter. "I'll make you an offer."

Ralynn eyed him in suspicion. "Like?"

"Help me rescue her, and the bounty, plus a thousand from me, is yours. You don't even have to kill the chimera. Just as long as she lives."

The half-elf blinked. "You're serious."

"Entirely."

Ralynn scowled, looking like a trapped beast himself, sleek figure coiled as if ready to sprint for freedom. Then he sighed and straightened. "Fine. You've got a deal."

Relieved, if slightly, Aberny pointed out the direction the beast had flown. He and Ralynn followed the river, finding it broadened farther up and cut through a ravine that would've been invisible from their trek up in the fields.

At last, Ralynn crouched and pulled Aberny down with him. He pointed ahead. The stream poured out from a wide crevice, not a hundred paces ahead. Half-hidden by overgrown grasses, the opening led into the earth beneath a large hill.

They split up and approached the crevice from opposing angles. One sword readied, Ralynn eased up and peered inside for a moment. Then he slipped in.

Aberny held his breath until the half-elf leaned back out and waved him on.

Once beyond the low stony lip, the ceiling quickly rose enough for standing room, and outside light reached past to show a natural tunnel leading into the depths of the hill. They paused, listening.

Tali's voice echoed from somewhere deeper in, indistinct. A guttural murmur followed, as if she conversed with the chimera.

Aberny's heart rose. Alive! But not for long if they bungled this.

Ralynn took the lead, using his heightened sight to guide them. After creeping through a darker section, light once more appeared ahead. After ten paces, the tunnel ended, exiting onto a wide ledge that curved around the edges of an earthy cavern.

The chimera's den lay within the hollow hill, the walls all root-snaked dirt and rock. Several wide cracks allowed shafts of sunlight in, illuminating the scene below as the pair sneaked to the edge.

Tali stood before the chimera, which lay basking in a narrow splay of sun, forepaws crossed, tail twitching. All three heads watched her, cocked as if fascinated by this odd creature it had brought back.

All around them lay spines and skulls and femurs of a dozen different creatures, including at least a few humanoids by Aberny's estimation. Tali had gathered a pile of bones and now worked them together, linked and stacked into a grisly sculpture—a fragile spread of ribs that evoked wings.

"See?" she said, as she crafted the piece. "Even in death, there's beauty. Think of it! If you let me live, I could craft you a gorgeous necklace out of nothing but vertebrae and finger bones. I don't suppose you have any gems lying about? Those could be socketed to enhance your natural glory. No? Pity. But one must work with what one has."

Ralynn and Aberny drew back while the chatter continued below.

"I don't suppose you'd let me paint you? Trap your essence for all to admire?"

Ralynn made several circling and grasping gestures with one hand. Aberny shook his head, not understanding. Did he think to try and sneak down the ledge without drawing the beast's attention? Or attempt another leap onto the chimera's back?

"Oh! Have I mentioned how I love the way your fur absolutely traps the light? Divine."

At Ralynn's impatient pushing motions, Aberny edged along where the ledge sloped toward the cave floor. The half-elf nodded, moving the opposite direction.

"I once saw a chimera trapped in a menagerie, you know. Such a horrible thing to do to such a magnificent beast."

A snuffling made him freeze. The chimera's gravelly voice rose, the words alien, but the tone unmistakable. It had detected the intruders.

Tali sighed. "For Shelyn's sake. It's a fools-be-damned trap. Run!"

Coming Next Week: Three-headed horror in the conclusion of Josh Vogt's "Hunter's Folly."

Josh Vogt is the author of the Pathfinder Tales story "The Weeping Blade." His short fiction has been published in such venues as Orson Scott Card's Intergalactic Medicine Show and Shimmer. For more information, see his website at jrvogt.com.

Illustration by Glen Osterberger

Hunter's Folly

by Josh Vogt

Chapter 2: Foes by Firelight

Aberny gaped at the body for a moment, blood staining the earth at his feet. Then the scene around the campfire snatched his stare away.

The chimera crouched on the far side of the fire, a guard pinned and twitching beneath its massive forepaws. One of the servants crawled for the trees. Entrails dragged from a horrible gash along his side.

Leathery wings tucked back along the chimera's body as muscles bunched for another attack. Its three heads wove independently—a maned lion's, a horned goat's, and a green dragon's. Each set of eyes gleamed with a putrid yellow-green light, alive with vicious hunger. Triple maws drooled in anticipation of a feast. The lion snarled, while the dragon puffed an emerald haze that sizzled as it plumed over the fire. Acid, Aberny realized.

He nearly ducked back inside, but he'd not built his reputation on cowardice. Taking up a knobbed walking staff from beside the tent flap, he emerged and grasped it in both hands. A gasp drew his glance aside to Tali, who'd poked her head out from her tent, and sketched furiously on a parchment.

Then the chimera—roaring, screeching, and bleating—lunged at the second guard, who'd tried to circle around to flank it in the brush. A sweep of a paw and wing knocked the man back and the sword flew from his hands.

Ralynn dove in from the other side, a wordless battle cry erupting from him.

Ralynn combines the ferocity and grace of his half-elven heritage.

Aberny never knew such an immense beast could move so fast. It snapped its lion fangs while trying to gore the fighter with its goat horns. At the same time, the dragon head curled back around to spew another stream of acid onto the hapless guard. The man's screams wrenched Aberny's guts, but there was nothing he could do.

Wielding two short swords, the half-elf had to get in close to do any damage, putting himself within range of wings, talons, and fangs. The chimera lashed with its bared claws while snapping at Ralynn from several directions at once. The fighter evaded the bites, but one claw stuck him across a shoulder and sent him tumbling.

Ralynn rolled through the blow and back up to his feet, swords readied. The dragon head clamped down on the guard's body and flung it through the air at the fighter.

Even as Ralynn dodged, the beast pounced, leaping through the flames of the campfire. The stink of burning fur filled the air as its hind legs trampled the blaze, and the beast's roar shook the shadows themselves. Burning logs scattered about, casting just enough residual light to limn the fight in a red glow.

Ralynn hurtled forward, swords raised. As the chimera pounced, he tucked and rolled, trailing a slash at its belly. The chimera yowled and threw up chunks of grassy earth as it dug in and reversed course.

Aberny lunged and swung his staff, trying to distract it so Ralynn might get in a solid blow. The unsatisfying thump on the creature's hind side only served to irritate the beast, which sideswiped with a paw, while the goat's head jerked toward the merchant. He threw himself aside, almost crushing Tali, who yelped and rolled out of the way at the last instant.

She hurried to his side and tugged at his robe. Aberny lurched to his feet, fearing the chimera might decide to eliminate the two unarmed party members.

But Ralynn had reengaged, combining the ferocity and grace of his mixed parentage. Blades flashed in the light of dying embers as he turned the chimera away from the others, expertly rushing in and twisting aside before it could land another blow. However, he couldn't maneuver for any serious strike.

The horses had already gone near-mad in their proximity to the chimera, and their efforts to escape only grew more frantic as the creature dove into their midst. In a frenzy of teeth and talons, the beast laid several of the hapless pack animals low, while two others at last tore loose and galloped off.

Then the poisonous green gaze of all three heads locked back on the companions, who could only watch in dismay. Three voices spoke in unison, each a bestial utterance that tortured Aberny's ears. He'd traveled widely enough to recognize the language of dragons, but didn't speak any of it.

Ralynn winced as well. "What's it growling about?"

Tali perked up. "It says to be happy it's already feasted tonight, but it'll be hungry again tomorrow and has our scent. Also, it called you a weakling coward."

Aberny raised an eyebrow her way. She knew its language?

Ralynn flourished a sword. "Drop in for lunch and I'll have your heads for trophies."

The chimera snarled at Ralynn's challenge. Then, with a final chuff, its leonine head snatched up the one of the servants' bodies. The creature spun about and charged into the darkness. Moments later, a flap of enormous wings indicated it had taken flight.

The survivors studied the starry sky for several minutes, ensuring the beast didn't intend an immediate return and ambush. Then Ralynn glared at the few dribbles of blood on his blade and headed for the nearest brush where he wiped it clean.

"Well, you two were useless," he said over a shoulder. "Try running screaming into the night with the horses next time and at least provide a distraction."

"Useless?" Tali shot back. "I interpreted its warning, didn't I? That's doing plenty. Want me to fight for you? Then offer me your share of the reward. Didn't you say there was no sign of the creature around when we camped. Piss-poor tracking! Certainly let our guard down. How'd it know we were here?"

"Beyond our fire and earlier noisy arguing?" Aberny shook his head. "It must've caught detected us while prowling about." He frowned at the corpses. "It took the most vulnerable first."

Ralynn scowled at Tali. "Then why's she still here?"

"Because!" Tali lifted her chin. "Even a chimera is more perceptive than you when it comes to strength of spirit. Maybe if you had three heads, you'd have enough brains to—"

Aberny flung his arms wide. "Enough. The beast caught us off guard and marked us for later. Can we focus on that?"

"Dumb boasts," Ralynn said. "In a fair fight, it doesn't stand a chance against me."

"Chimeras don't fight fair," Tali said. "And they're wickedly cunning."

"What do you know?" asked Ralynn.

The gnome tapped her cheek with a silver-painted nail. "Much! Most chimeras live in prides, hunting in groups to outnumber prey. This one could be a younger male or an outcast, and hunting more aggressively as it tries to establish dominance of its chosen territory. Oh, and they like shiny things!"

Aberny eyed her. "How've you learned all this?"

"Besides everyone around town talking for the past few weeks since the first deaths?" Tali drew herself up. "I always—always!—study my subjects in-depth. It's the only way I can properly convey their essence through my pieces."

"You learned the tongue of dragons in a few weeks?"

She sniffed. "Of course not. Languages are a form of art. I've immersed myself in many of them over the years."

"What of you, Aberny? With your investments..." Ralynn indicated the bodies with a flick of his eyes, "not paying off, want to renegotiate?"

Aberny hitched his shoulders back, trying to project his usual confidence, which had alarmingly fled. He'd thought himself sturdier than this. "The hunt continues." He slumped again. "But first, let's respect the dead."

They found a patch of soft earth and Aberny procured a small shovel from the supplies his deceased servants had brought along. Ralynn dug four shallow graves, and then they dragged the fallen over one by one. Tali surprised them by joining in, though she took care to only grab the bodies where blood or bile hadn't marred them.

Aberny and Ralynn took turns shoveling dirt over the holes, even though it proved more manual labor than the merchant had experienced in a long while. He'd sweated through his robe by the time he stopped to pray Desna's blessing, wishing the dead good fortune in the afterlife for their loyal—if short—service.

Ralynn rebuilt the fire and claimed the watch for the rest of the night, but the other two didn't return to their tents. Tali claimed inspiration for a piece she called "Foe by Firelight" left her too roused to sleep, though Aberny noted she kept well within the circle of firelight and sat a bit closer to the fighter than before.

For himself, Aberny settled on his stool and sipped wine to soothe his nerves, while pondering this ill turn of fortune. How could he, bereft of his guards, expect to triumph over such a vicious beast? He'd underestimated the creature, since reports had it picking off one or two victims alone. Now it appeared emboldened and loath to spare any threats to its territory.

Yet he'd always found a way to turn even the most dire circumstances to his benefit. This time, though, it wasn't just about recouping losses. If he considered the chimera a bandit as well as a beast, it put things in the proper perspective. It hadn't just attacked their party. It had robbed him, specifically; and no merchant worth his abacus allowed thievery without consequences.

He slugged back the last of the wine in silent oath to himself. So be it.

The scratching of Tali's sketching nibbled at his ears until just an hour before dawn, when she gave an enormous yawn and slumped, snoring against Ralynn's side. The fighter sighed, but didn't push her away. As the sun lit a candle on the horizon, Aberny rubbed his eyes, wishing he could follow the gnome to rest, but knowing it'd be a futile effort.

Once morning rose in full, he made them a quick, cold breakfast. Ralynn gulped his down and then jostled Tali awake for her portion, which she took with a grimace. Then they debated what to do with the tents and equipment.

"Leave it," Aberny decided, "except for any food we can carry. If the creature plans to return, we might not need to go far before picking up its trail. And we don't want to be overburdened if it ambushes us."

As the others prepared to head out, Aberny retrieved his staff, and then—after a moment's thought—took up one of the swords from a fallen guard.

Ralynn raised a slim eyebrow. "Planning to use that?"

Aberny gave an experimental swing, trying to awaken long unused arm muscles. "I was a caravan guard once, long ago. I didn't leave that profession entirely unscarred."

"You?" Tali asked, goggling.

He grunted. "During a trip through Cheliax, our caravan was ambushed by orcs. I alone survived, managing to get most of the goods to Kintargo in the aftermath. I then established my name based on my former master's reputation. Turned out I had an even better knack for it than he ever did." He tucked the sword into his robe's belt and thrust his staff toward the hills. "Onward?"

Ralynn smirked. "Still willing to brave the danger?"

"By all means. When it slaughtered my men, the chimera made this business rather... personal."

Coming Next Week: On the trail of the beast in Chapter 3 of Josh Vogt’s "Hunter's Folly."

Josh Vogt is the author of the Pathfinder Tales story "The Weeping Blade." His short fiction has been published in such venues as Orson Scott Card's Intergalactic Medicine Show and Shimmer. For more information, see his website at jrvogt.com.

Illustration by Glen Osterberger

Hunter's Folly

by Josh Vogt

Chapter 1: The Threefold Wager

Aberny chuckled at the sight of the gnome squaring off with the half-elf, paintbrush crossed with a short sword. The campfire cast the dueling partners into bronze-and-shadow relief. Ralynn glowered down his sword, while Tali glared back up at him, both as riled as if one had slandered the other's parentage.

"This is ridiculous," Ralynn said. "You can't seriously believe your brush is equal to my blade. They're leagues apart in use and value."

Tali flourished her brush, spraying azure droplets about. "So! You admit art is superior to swordplay."

Aberny never backs out of a wager.

Ralynn's fair skin reddened up to the tips of his ears. "Not what I meant, and you know it." He twitched his blade, notching the wooden shaft of her brush.

Tali's emerald eyes widened even further, and another flick struck drops of paint across Ralynn's pants. This drew an outraged splutter from the fighter, whose grip tightened on his sword hilt.

Knowing Ralynn's temper, Aberny stood from his cushioned stool, wide hands splayed to separate the two before their verbal sparring came to true blows.

"Friends, might we dispense with the arguing? After all, we didn't come out to hunt one another. And the simple matter is, you're both wrong."

The two turned to him, and he grinned, knowing the firelight would enhance his broad smile and dark, plump cheeks. His jovial demeanor often allowed him to turn even the harshest haggling to his advantage, and he hoped the image he'd cultivated through years caravanning along the Dry Way would work just as well with his companions.

Nothing threatening to see here. Just a common human merchant, arrayed in a colorful robe and adorned with silly trinkets. Don't mind him making off with your coin.

At last, Tali lowered her brush. "Hm? Wrong? What do you mean?"

Aberny gestured to the small dining array his servants had set up. "Let's consider matters with fuller bellies, shall we?"

After another smoldering glare at each other, the two hunting partners went to fallen logs on opposite sides of the campfire. Ralynn began tending to one of half a dozen blades he carried, while Tali adjusted her violet and silver-trimmed dress and plunked down before the canvas she'd been painting on earlier. Aberny gave silent thanks that Ralynn couldn't see her work from his angle, as she began to paint his likeness in a most unflattering manner.

Aberny's servants tended to cuts of venison sizzling on the fire, a contribution from Ralynn, who'd downed a deer on their journey out from Whistledown that morning. A pair of Aberny's caravan guards stood on the edge of the firelight, hands resting on sword pommels, alert to any danger the night held—though Ralynn had scouted the area and assured them no sign of the chimera existed anywhere near.

They'd set a first camp in a bushy grove among the hilly grasslands between Whistledown and Sanos Forest; haunting melodies could still be faintly heard, produced by the popular enchanted wooden carvings that gave the distant town its name. The eerie keening was broken up by the occasional whicker of their horses, which had been tied up nearby for the evening.

"You're both wrong," Aberny said, "because art and battle submit to a greater power."

Ralynn paused in worked a grindstone along an edge. "Like what?"

"Commerce. Profit."

Tali let out a tinkling laugh. "Oh! Of course the trader would think so."

Aberny accepted the mocking with another smile. "Without merchants like myself toiling along the Dry Way, turning coin to goods and back again, neither of you would even have the supplies or equipment necessary to pursue your passions. Profiteers are the lifeblood of civilization."

He accepted a slosh of wine from a skin, and a servant handed him a prepared plate while the other began slicing off cuts for his companions.

Tali hopped up from the canvas and scampered over to the fire, where she began to portion out the proffered meal for herself. "But! Think. Without artists, merchants have nothing to sell. Fighters nothing worth crossing swords. Commerce paves the roads through a city, and fighters build the walls, but art is..." She shut her wide eyes briefly. "Art is the towering pinnacle that defines us."

Ralynn chuckled. "Pinnacle, huh? Take all day to come up with that?"

Aberny raised an eyebrow as Tali piled meat onto her plate. By the time she finished, she staggered under a mound of venison that looked almost twice her weight. How exactly did the gnome intend to devour such a vast repast?

"Some say fighting is an art form in itself," he suggested.

Tali crinkled her nose. "Fighting? Art? If you want bloodshed and death, fine, but I don't see the beauty in it yet."

Ralynn speared a bite of meat and pointed it at her. "Sounds like we got ourselves a blind painter."

"Yet! I said I don't see it yet. I'm not saying it's not there. That's why I cast my lot in on this hunt. To bring greater insight to my craft."

"Yeah?" Ralynn smirked. "Even if it costs you a thousand gold?"

Tali bowed her head, the fire casting half her face in shadow. "I...I'd sacrifice anything for the sake of true art. It can't be faked. It must be lived. But you're only here because—"

"Because I was drunk as slime at the bottom of a wine barrel when you two decided to make a contest of this bounty. I've made worse bets, but I don't back out on a wager." Aberny locked eyes with each of them in turn over the flames. "Ever. Besides, I stand the best chance of winning. Think your gnome trickery will help you beat the beast?"

Tali perked up. "Master Aberny! If you'd read the contract aloud?" She settled back to work on her canvas.

Aberny reached into the pocket where he'd secured the unusual contract they'd drawn up the previous night, when deep in drink back in Whistledown's popular inn, the Azure Cup. Over the years, the three of them had made a habit of meeting there during his stopovers in town. Odd companions, but familiar faces who helped ground him. Still, he never let personal attachments, however fond, get in the way of business.

He unrolled the parchment, revealing their three signatures at the bottom, and read the main statement.

"‘With the evidence of a chimera prowling the nearby countryside—reportedly responsible for at least a dozen deaths of travelers and homesteaders alike—a bounty of one thousand gold has been placed on the monster's head. We, the undersigned, do swear to partake in a hunt of the unnatural beast, employing our individual skills and resources toward the ending of its foul appetites. Furthermore, the first of our party to kill or capture the beast will receive not only the publicly posted reward, but an additional thousand gold pieces from each of the other two challengers.'"

The artist flourished her brush. "Aha! Hear that? Kill or capture." She popped to her feet and swept a bow. "And I will capture the chimera."

Ralynn snorted, an indelicate act that marred his fine features. "Sure. Gonna grab its tail for a moment before it gobbles you?"

Tali turned her canvas around, revealing Ralynn's face, painted with his tongue stuck out, eyes crossed, and cheeks puffed. "There. My first victim. I've captured you. You're trapped in my art forever."

Aberny couldn't quite contain a chortle.

Ralynn's ears reddened again. "Oh?" Before anyone could move, he dashed over and slashed through the sketch, leaving Tali holding ragged fabric on either side of her head.

Her face twisted in fury and she flung a hand out. A burst of dazzling lights exploded before Ralynn's face, forcing him to squint and turn aside.

"Brute!" She cast the scraps away and leapt up, slashing her paintbrush across Ralynn's chest, leaving a cerulean streak.

Ralynn snarled and Tali yelped as the half-elf grabbed the front of her dress and jerked her up inches from his scowl, sword clenched in a white-knuckled fist.

Aberny lurched up, scattering wine and food. "Ralynn! Let her go."

The fighter hesitated until the guards shifted, hands on sword pommels. As soon as her feet touched the earth, Tali jumped back out of reach. She brushed herself off and fixed her viridian hair back into its sweeping coif. Aberny held out a silk handkerchief so the half-elf could clean off his face. Ralynn snatched it away, muttering thanks.

"As host of this hunt," Aberny said, "I won't abide violence towards one another." He fixed a serious look on Tali. "The same for you, little mistress, even in jest."

Tali bunched her fists. "Hmph. I take my leave of you barbarians to dine in peace." She hefted her plate, still mounded with meat, snagged a wineskin, and staggered off into the brush surrounding the campsite.

Ralynn finished wiping off the paint and offered the silk back, but Aberny waved it away. The half-elf frowned in the direction Tali had gone.

"She can't just sketch the beast to win."

"She's technically correct, though," Aberny said with a sigh. "Same as my using hired guards to slay the beast for me, since they're personal resources."

"At least they could give me a real challenge—though I doubt it. She's missing the whole point of a hunt."

"Don't worry. Art is subjective. Even if she does manage to paint the monster, we'll argue the work doesn't truly capture its essence and so falls short of the prize."

Ralynn grinned. "You've thought this through."

"I always do."

Tali returned a bit later, plate and wineskin empty, while her stomach strained at the confines of her dress. With a few unladylike burps, she excused herself to bed and crawled into her gnome-sized tent. Minutes later, high-pitched snoring mingled with the far-off music of her hometown.

Claiming a preference for sleeping beneath the sky, Ralynn laid a simple bedroll beside the fire. He stretched out on this, still dressed in his fighting leathers and with multiple blades strapped to him.

Aberny then retired to his own tent, almost a small home in itself with a portable bed, desk, and chest of select personal items. When one spent countless weeks traveling between anything resembling civilization, investing in personal comforts paid dividends in return.

He spent another hour going through a ledger of contacts back in Whistledown, evaluating how he might invest the reward he fully intended to collect for the chimera's demise. Not that he believed Ralynn or Tali immediately possessed a thousand gold. But their debts would add to the many he'd accrued from others over the years and he'd inevitably find a way to translate them into profits. After all, why have friends if they didn't add value to one's life?

As he pondered snuffing the lamp for sleep, a scream tore the night's peace in two. Shouts rang out from the guards, followed by a defiant cry from Ralynn.

Aberny raced out of the tent just as the body of one of his servants flopped to the ground before him—missing a head.

Coming Next Week: A fireside attack in Chapter 2 of Josh Vogt's "Hunter's Folly."

Josh Vogt is the author of the Pathfinder Tales story "The Weeping Blade." His short fiction has been published in such venues as Orson Scott Card's Intergalactic Medicine Show and Shimmer. For more information, see his website at jrvogt.com.

Illustration by Glen Osterberger

The Cloak of Belonging

by Chris Willrich

Chapter 4: The Ultimate Weapon

Mortil spun only just in time to let loose a spell. Colors ravaged Gull's eyes, and he felt dizzy, as if a full drunken night were compressed into one heartbeat.

When his senses returned, Mortil was gone, a crowd of people was combatting the fire in the kitchen, and Tambour was speaking urgently.

"She'll be all right, Gull, but we must speak, now."

"Corvine..."

"I'm telling you, your friend will be all right."

Gull stumbled onto the veranda where Admiral Kasaba and Governor Bozbeyli themselves were among those tending to Corvine Gale.

Not a mark was on her, but Corvine looked as weak as Gull's elder brother the day a horse kicked him and permanently scared Gull away from honest work.

"Corvine..."

"Gideon... It will be all right. Whatever that bastard's up to, you stop him, okay...?"

"Me?"

"Hey, you're Gideon Gull, gentleman adventurer... I saw..." She handed him a crumpled piece of paper, patting his hand. "Take it, for luck..."

"Corvine..."

He took the poem, and she closed her eyes.

"Is she—"

Mortil, the governor's man, is more than he seems.

"I've seen this sort of injury before, Lion Blade," the admiral told Gull. "She should recover."

"Go with Tambour," the governor said. He passed a bejeweled ring to the corsair. "You Lion Blades are authorized to do anything necessary to hunt down this traitor."

"'Lion Blades?'" Gideon said, rising.

Tambour took his arm. "We'll talk as we walk."

The corsair steered Gull through garden and guards and gate, out into the moonlit streets of Old Cassomir. They passed the public gallows called Pharasma's Pulpit after the goddess of graves, and Gull was unhappy with the omen. He made the sign of the antlers, but good Erastil seemed as far away as Andoran.

"There's no time to spare, so we'll plan as we go," Tambour said. "Most destinations in Cassomir are south of here."

"What plan?" Gull said.

Tambour's response was a grim laugh. "You aren't thinking like a Lion Blade, my friend."

"That's because I'm not a... whatever that is..."

Tambour seemed not to hear him. "We don't need a plan of our own so much as we need to guess Mortil's. He spoke of a target, yes? I don't think he could have meant the admiral. Mortil had enough opportunity, and enough power, to kill her just now."

"But—" Objections crowded Gull's brain as thoroughly as rich houses crowded this walled section of the city. The Admiral's Citadel rose ahead, its towers jabbing at the moon. Beyond, across the harbor, lay the even larger edifice of Grayguard Castle. "Isn't the admiral key to all of Taldor's defenses?" Gull said. "She was vulnerable tonight. Why else plan an assassination for now? Who else to kill?"

"Ah! Now you're thinking, rather than mooning over your diva back there."

"Shut up. She could have died."

"Count yourself lucky. I've lost comrades tonight. Rack your brains, gentleman adventurer. Did the dog Mortil specifically speak of killing?"

Gull thought. "No," he admitted. "I don't think he did."

"I fear he has another target in mind. Something important, something less carefully guarded what with the admiral's party. Something Mortil could still attack with his magic—and certainly will, now that he's exposed."

"The shipyards?" Gull guessed.

Tambour nodded. "That's my thought as well. We have magic-sniffers scattered throughout that district, but as a governor's man, Mortil could bypass them. As ever, betrayal is the greatest weapon."

"Magic-sniffers?"

"I don't have to tell you everything, Gull. Come, let's be quick."

They ran through Old Cassomir's gate and dashed near the looming ruins of Quickfall Abbey. To distract himself from ghosts within and without, Gull said, "If not magic-sniffers, can you tell me of Lion Blades?"

"Why not? Since Lion Blades don't officially exist. We serve in the shadows and the light. For it is a dark time for Taldor. We Taldans are a mutinous crew on a sinking ship—at each other's throats when we need to patch the hull and watch for sharks. Sometimes it's only those who do not properly exist who can do what must be done."

"Why did the admiral and the governor call me a Lion Blade?"

"Well, it was an understandable error. From their perspective you helped me, so you must be one of us."

"Am I not obviously a minstrel—not a spy?"

Tambour chuckled. "My dear Gull, we recruit from the all the bardic schools of this land. Most of us sing quite well. I am a rare exception."

Gull laughed. They were approaching the shipyards, and the lights of the dens of ill-repute lightened his spirits. "If you wore this cloak," he said, "you would no doubt believe yourself a fine singer. Just as it made me think I was an adventurer."

"Yes, that cloak... At first I thought it a strange tool for an infiltrator. Why not a blade? Or something that makes one invisible? But I see now that the cloak allows one to enter into any setting and be accepted—in its way, a greater power than invisibility."

Gull said, "That suggests the agent needed to get very close to something... what's wrong?"

Tambour had stopped. "Listen."

There was a lapping of waters, patter of conversation in a nearby tavern, chirping from the marsh.

"I hear nothing."

"Exactly. No sound of assault."

"Mortil may have fled the city."

"Perhaps... but what you said just now... the Chelish agent wanted to get close to something. Perhaps it isn't a target as big as the shipyards. Perhaps it's something enclosed. A treasure, a device. Can you think of anything else Mortil said?"

Gull could not. Yet his mind was twisting something else, as he'd twisted the poem that lay now in his pocket.

A river swells to spill, dark and rapid through the silent room—

He'd awakened that morning startled from a dream, a dream of the music of the spheres...

What if I'd rolled it out, banquet-carpet, banner unfolding?

And what awakened him was a sound of mechanical grinding, stamping, booming...

Dancing dark, shadow-whisper, marked for crumpling.

"A device..."

"What?"

"Do you know of any mechanical device, Tambour, a large one, inside Grayguard Castle? For I've heard such, from the Dog's Teeth."

"I do not, Gull. But I think we should be going there."

∗ ∗ ∗

"This is most irregular," the castellan of Grayguard said, even as Tambour flashed him the governor's ring and led Gull inside the vast grim fortress.

"We've had no trouble here," the man continued, getting in the pair's way.

"We intend to keep it that way," Tambour said airily. "Can you point us to the machine?"

Wariness entered the castellan's voice. "What machine?"

"The one that wakes up drunks in the Dog's Teeth," put in Gull. When the castellan blinked, Gull added, "Oh, yes. We have informants everywhere."

Whether it was the cloak or Gull's voice or the governor's ring, the castellan gave in. "There's nothing about the apparatus that need worry the crown, Lion Blades."

"Show it to us," Tambour said.

The castellan muttered to himself, told a guard, "Send a runner to the governor," and led Gull and Tambour through a wide, soldier-lined passage into the castle courtyard. After passing a magnificent temple dedicated to many gods (none of them the being that Mortil had sworn by) they reached the far wall and there entered a much smaller passage with a stairway snaking up.

"You realize," the castellan said, "the governor is entitled to his personal projects..." He stopped as he nearly stumbled over a dead guard, whose face was frozen in pain though he bore no obvious wound.

"No!" the castellan cried.

Looking up the stairway, the trio beheld more armored corpses.

"Summon help," Tambour said. "I will deal with the wizard behind this."

"The castle is my responsibility," said the man.

"That's why you must summon help."

The castellan hesitated, but Gull gave him a curt nod and the man turned and descended, bellowing for guards.

Tambour motioned in the direction of the retreating man. "You too, Gull."

"No," Gull said. "I'm finishing this."

"Is that you speaking, or the cloak?"

"Either way, I do this for Corvine Gale."

Tambour grunted and led the way.

The torchlit room at the top was stuffed with machinery—or rather with one single machine. For a long disoriented moment Gull could not understand the sprawling steel mechanism's purpose, but it came to him that the walls of the room were lined with paper and books. He saw titles like A True History of House Thrune and The Benefits of Infernal Rule for All Chelaxians.

"It's a printing press," Gull said. He'd seen them before, for his politically minded compatriots back in Andoran grew ever more fond of posters and pamphlets and broadsheets. But this machine was to a normal printing press as a hydra was to a newt. An octopus of hinged arms terminated in presses that seemed poised to hammer out publications at a blinding rate. The heart of the mechanism possessed a steel face with eyes of blue crystal and a flat, determined expression. It reminded Gull of a bookplate.

"Yes," Mortil said from across the room. The man grasped a tome of great thickness, bound in red leather, and Gull suspected no printing press had ever touched it. This was surely the stern elder kindred of Corvine's gentle reference works: a true book of spells.

Mortil continued, "This thing, this apparatus, this is the great weapon Taldor dares aim at Cheliax."

"But it's all merely words," Tambour answered, voice full of honest confusion. As he spoke crept around the mechanism toward Mortil. "For that matter, it would seem to be words praising Cheliax and its masters."

"'Seems' is the correct term," Mortil answered. "This printing press is producing official-seeming works that are to be smuggled into Cheliax. But unlike the approved works, these contain ideas that would plant the seeds of sedition."

"You mean," guessed Gull, sidling toward Mortil in the opposite direction, "they tell the truth."

"'Truth' is hierarchical," answered Mortil. "Wizards all understand this, though some may deny the knowledge. Not all revelations are appropriate for all people. The common folk need not know every detail about the lives of their betters. Certain lies are, for them, better than truth. Only Cheliax understands this reality and acts upon it. That's why Cheliax will triumph."

"I don't understand," Tambour said. "It's just a printing press. With all this effort, you might have thrown our navy into chaos."

Mortil laughed. "You lack the immortal perspective of our patrons. To you, the struggle is all about land and gold. We understand it is equally about thought. This weapon here is more significant than any warship. And more insidious. The words it prints, though brimming with Chelish pride and patriotism on the surface, magically imbue the reader with sentiments quite the opposite. We need to discourage Taldor from trying this tactic again. I would come no closer were I you."

"You're finished, Mortil," Gull said. "You can't kill both of us and destroy the printing press all at once."

"I don't need to." Mortil cried out in a strange tongue Gull did not understand, and the crystal eyes of the printing press glowed as it rumbled to life.

Inert, it had allowed Gull and Tambour just enough room to step around the perimeter; active, its gyrating arms—grabbing paper and bindings, sinking stamps into ink buckets, pounding out text—made hazardous any path to Mortil. The machine was so thunderous Gull could barely think. He needed to hug the wall to avoid a concussion and at best could only inch his way along.

Tambour was in worse shape, having been tripped by a metal arm and now lying flat for fear of being beaten with the weight of history.

Tambour shouted the strange words the wizard has used to activate the machine.

"Alas!" Mortil cried, laughing. "To shut it down takes a different phrase!"

Gull swore.

"That's not it!" Mortil said. "Now, you've cost me enough time and magic." The wizard began incanting.

Unless the spell was absurdly convoluted, Gull doubted he'd reach Mortil in time to stop its casting. However, his movements did bring him near a bucket of red ink.

It was not so big he couldn't lift it—

Gull ducked and grabbed and heaved, and red ink spilled across the room. Most of it splashed the printing press or the floor, but enough of it hit Mortil to distract the wizard and ruin his pages.

"You!" Spattered with red, Mortil looked as though he bled from a thousand paper cuts. "Whom do you work for? Taldor? Andoran? Rebels in Cheliax?"

"I work for a sad, sweet moment on a long winter's day." Gull shifted ever closer. "I work for the lumberjacks coming home with too little pay."

"What?" Mortil began a spell, this time one from his own memory—perhaps nothing that could destroy the magical press, but surely enough to slay one minstrel with delusions of grandeur.

Gull kept going. "I work for the child's laughter and the lover's kiss. I work for weeks of sorrow and seconds of bliss."

"You're mad!"

Gull laughed. "I am Gideon Gull."

"Then die, Gideon Gull." And Mortil began the words that would make his spell complete.

And screamed.

Sebastian Tambour had crawled beneath the swinging limbs of the machine and planted a dagger in Mortil's foot.

Now Gull reached Mortil, knowing he had just moments to act.

He removed the cloak.

Standing there beside the contraption, the corsair, and the traitor, Gull suddenly felt frail and foolish, like a mouse chasing cats. But he did not falter.

He threw the cloak over Mortil's head and shoved him into the works.

The wizard howled with the pain and outrage of being pummeled with the very propaganda of his Chelish masters. Yet amazingly, Mortil scrambled free of the machinery and on some blind instinct dove for the window.

By the time Gull and Tambour could reach that location there was only moonlight on the waters outside, and the silvered crags of the Dog's Teeth, and no trace of Mortil.

The governor of Cassomir appeared in the doorway and shouted something in a strange tongue.

The printing press slowed and ceased, and the light faded from its eyes.

"It seems I owe you a great debt, Lion Blades," Governor Bozbeyli said in the silence that followed, lowering his scimitar. Armored guards beside him looked around in wonder.

"I'm just a singing drunk, Governor," Gull said, looking again toward the Dog's Teeth. He shivered as his body recognized the danger was over. "Not a Lion Blade."

"Perhaps we should fix that," said Tambour.

"At any rate," the governor said, "I repay my debts. You've exposed a traitor and preserved my little project. What might I do for you?"

Tambour smiled. "I assign my prize to the captain of the corsairs. I'm sure he'll think of something."

The governor frowned a little, but eventually nodded. "And you?"

Gull began to refuse any reward, but he withdrew Corvine's poem from his pocket, stared at it. "This printing press..."

"Yes?"

Gull smiled and held out Corvine's poem. "What I ask is that you print enough copies to make the author of this poem, one Corvine Gayle, well known in Cassomir and Oppara and beyond."

Governor Bozbeyli took the poem. "Corvine Gayle. Ah, the young lady from the birthday party. Yes, it shall be done."

As the minstrel and the man in motley took their leave of the governor and walked through the castle courtyard, Gull watched the constellations and heard Tambour's voice as if from a great distance. "I have two questions."

"Yes?"

"I was in earnest, Gull. You could join us."

"I'm no corsair. I'm a singing—"

"A singing drunk." Tambour laughed. "Yes, I know. That's why we are visiting the Knotty Mermaid. But it's also why I bring up the Lion Blades."

"You know I'm no bard."

"You could become one. We could ensure you are enrolled in an appropriate school... and an appropriate Shadow School at the same time."

Gull did not even bother to ask what that meant. "I'm not a Taldan man, Tambour. I'm Andoren. More so now than ever."

"Yet you've seen what Andoran and Taldor face together. We have our differences. But if you stand with us, you'll stand with civilization, against whatever it is that Cheliax represents."

Verses came to Gull's mind. He wondered if that would happen more and more, now that he'd left the Dog's Teeth behind. He hoped so.

I'm halfway down the road to dead
But woman you have cleared my head
And now the best that I can see
Is to make me worthy of thee.

"The college," Gull said. "Just the college, for now. We can speak again about the rest. In a year."

Tambour nodded.

And I'm busy with the living.

They left the castle, passed the barbershop, entered the muddy streets of Admiral's Fen. Gull said, "You said you had two questions."

"Will you see her again?"

"Ask that also in a year, Tambour. For now, I am not worthy, or ready."

"Much can happen in a year. She may be someone else's then."

Gull shot him a look. "You?"

Tambour shrugged.

"Love is risk, sir," Gull said stiffly. "I would not burden her with the man I am now. But the man who returns in a year—perhaps."

To the wild corners of the page and back again.

Tambour laughed as they reached the threshold of the Knotty Mermaid. "You are ever the hopeless romantic, aren't you, Gideon Gull?"

"No. There is always hope."

Coming Next Week: Chasing down monsters in Chapter 1 of Josh Vogt's "Hunter's Folly."

Dive into more adventures with Gideon Gull in the new Pathfinder Tales novel The Dagger of Trust!

Chris Willrich is the author of the Pathfinder Tales novel The Dagger of Trust. He is a former children's librarian best known for his sword-and-sorcery tales of Gaunt and Bone, which have appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction and elsewhere, and which continue in the novels The Scroll of Years (Pyr, 2013) and The Silk Map (forthcoming). Chris lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his family. Visit his website at www.chriswillrich.com.

Illustration by Glen Osterberger

The Cloak of Belonging

by Chris Willrich

Chapter 3: The Unexpected Assassin

Old Cassomir was like a stately anchorage of petrified ships, and in the case of Madame Velm's domain, one strewn with harbor lights.

Gull, Corvine, Thea, and Nicolaus presented their invitations first to the constables, then the navy officers, then the manor guards, and finally the doorman. The doorman proved the most difficult.

The man, a thick-built but by no means thick-headed Taldan, was by his accent from Zimar and the Qadiran frontier. Luckily he was new to Velm's service and unacquainted with Gull, but he frowned at Gull's invitation. "Seems to me I've heard you sing, Mr. ‘Alaric Reynard.' The harp looks the same, but seems to me you looked different then. Younger. Healthier."

"Perhaps I have degenerated some..."

"Degenerated. De-gen-er-ate. Sounds like a word a Chelaxian would use. You Chelish? A Chelish sympathizer?"

The objection that he was a free man of Andoran rose to Gull's lips. It was Corvine who saved him from such a foolish declaration. She glared at the doorman. "Are you a Chelish inquisitor, to speak thus to my partner?" She linked arms with Gull, squeezed his hand.

The doorman blinked, though his face remained stern. "My apologies, Madame Gale."

The musicians entered the mansion, Gull whispering to Corvine, "Thanks."

"Don't mention it. And don't rely too much on that cloak of yours. It doesn't seem to work on everyone."

"Agreed. Those of mighty spirit seem able to resist."

She blinked at that, as though turning the remark this way and that to discover the hidden insult.

Inside they got a glimpse of the powers of Cassomir. There was Governor Bozbeyli, gray-bearded and stout, holding forth on the promise of magical mechanization, bearing a war-trophy scimitar where weapons were otherwise forbidden. There was Admiral Kasaba, frowning in obvious impatience at all the fuss, in her dress uniform the plainest woman among the mighty, and, despite these things—or perhaps because of them—a striking presence to Gull.

There was the high priest of Gozreh beside Madame Velm, white beard beside black crown of hair, silken sea-green robe beside shimmering evening-blue gown. The first had tried to convince Gull to set aside the crude worship of Erastil for the fickle benefits of the god of ocean and weather. The second had seen Gull as a project, a gem to be cut, before disgustedly tossing him aside.

He turned away from the mighty. Household staff steered his group from the party proper toward an unobtrusive passage and the narrow hallways and rooms beyond. While not secret, these servants' domains were easily ignored by the family and guests. It was clear to Gull this was not to be his party.

He looked around for signs of trouble but saw nothing.

And why should he? The true assassin was dead, and since Gull had no intention of harming Admiral Kasaba, why, surely all would be well.

Except that by morning Mortil would know he was a fake. Soon enough Gull would meet a Chelish killer again, and this one wouldn't be conveniently dead.

As Thea and Alaric located the free food (an important skill for musicians), Gull and Corvine claimed their waiting spot beside the garden, where statues of heroes embellished a stone veranda. They stood beside the visage of Sir Gothmoor, shown carrying the head of the enchanted Knight of the Pit, who according to legend had cheerfully continued talking after Sir Gothmoor beheaded him, and whose advice proved surprisingly helpful on subsequent quests. Gull rubbed his neck as he regarded the Knight of the Pit's fey smile.

"All right, Gideon," Corvine said, "I think we can talk. I asked around. There were indeed sightings of a man in a purple cloak. The sightings today all match your story. But the sightings last night had him fighting a group of corsairs at the shipyards. They said the man fell into the harbor with a knife in his back."

Gull felt the rip in the back of the cloak. "That fits."

She shook her head. "What have you gotten yourself into?"

"The sort of thing a bard gets into."

"You're no bard, Gideon."

"Perhaps I will be yet. A little fisticuffs, a little swordplay, a little magic—these seem achievable talents, just now."

"It's that cloak. It will get you killed."

"No. I have a plan."

"This ought to be good."

"I will seek a new patron tonight, and thereby find security."

"Just like that?"

"With this cloak I can do it. I feel it."

Her eyes searched the garden's topiary as if the green animals could offer up auguries. "It's a false confidence, Gideon. It will betray you, and you'll be back in the Dog's Teeth."

"Amazing. You broke off what we had because I failed to rise as a singer—"

"That's not—"

"And now that I have a new chance, you want to reject that too."

"Gideon—"

But the call came for the quartet, and there was no time for argument.

There was indeed a giant cake, and there was Admiral Kasaba beside it, her stern face registering resigned patience. She brightened a little as the quartet performed.

Gull struggled to pull his weight. It was not that he lacked skill with voice and harp; rather he lacked formal training in this sort of music, as well as the practical experience that might compensate for such a deficiency.

He forced himself to smile. A frown could poison a perfect performance—and this was not going to be perfect.

Happy happy (la la la) happy birthday (la la) birthday birthday (la)...

And yet, where in the past an icy winter of fear might freeze his throat and stiffen his fingers, a spring returned to his voice and his joints, and he was at least able to carry his part. The audience clapped and even the admiral looked pleased. No one jumped out of the cake (and that seemed just as well to Gull, for Kasaba's earlier glares looked sharp enough to cut rope) and the group was briefly free to mingle with the elite.

"Bravo," said Admiral Kasaba. She squinted at Gull. "Have I seen you before?"

"I have sung here and there."

"I hope we'll hear more of you. And your companions, of course."

And Gull understood. The listeners had been unaware of Gull's struggle; from their point of view he was the strongest singer, because of the effect of the cloak.

It was unfair. And yet... why should he not enjoy their mistake? Having sold himself through magic, he would apply the hard work necessary to make good on the deal. Was that really so dishonest?

He abandoned any thought of the satirical song they'd discussed at Corvine's. He gave Alaric's harp into Nicolaus's keeping and commenced weaving in and out of conversations, collecting promises of future performances, encounters that could secure patronage. At first he avoided individuals he'd met before, but he needn't have worried. Even Madame Velm seemed to consider him somebody new. Everywhere he left some witticism gleaned from unwritten songs, and was greeted with rapt attention.

"Common sense can't be that common. It's mainly brought up when people are accused of lacking it."

"People talk about being fat and happy as if that were a bad thing. I'd like to try it, just to make sure."

"You live long enough, everything's a phase. Live a little longer, life looks like a phase, too."

However, even with the cloak there was an ebb and flow to the party, and as desserts vanished and drinks took their place, Gull began getting hints the powerful wished to keep their own company. He found himself alone in a corner among gilded eggs on display, counting his unhatched chickens.

Corvine reappeared. She actually seemed a trifle shy.

"I..." she began.

"Yes. It's okay. Say something."

"You were wrong."

That was not exactly what he'd been hoping for. He tried to sound unconcerned. "I'm shocked."

"I didn't break it off because you were failing to rise. Do you have any idea how many good musicians never get anywhere? Even among bards—"

"Don't."

"I just need you to know. I always respected you. Except when you were trying to be someone else."

"You mean, sophisticated. Charming. Witty. The things the nobility appreciate. What I was finally managing to do, just now."

"I liked my blunt Andoren man," she said, "who wasn't afraid of anyone, high or low." She leaned in closer, touching his face, as if reading the music written in his weathered face. "Except, you were afraid, weren't you? Down deep, where no one could see. Afraid of not measuring up."

"Not anymore."

"I wanted you to read this." She passed him a scrap of paper filled with words, and also strikes and smudges and second thoughts. "I don't have the music yet. Something I've been working on."

He read it.

Spilled Ink

I dressed your name in inkwell silks
And curled it slow through the dance of hand and pen
To the wild corners of the page and back again
Dancing dark, shadow-whisper, marked for crumpling.
What if I'd rolled it out, banquet-carpet, banner unfolding?
Would you have divined the grace that runs
From hand to pen to eye, from me to you?
Or would words and grace have drowned together in your eye—
Spilled ink, black oil, a blot on white water.
A voice dams up behind a quiet smile.
A river swells to spill, dark and rapid through the silent room
Where I'd sing or swim, your hand in mind,
In the water-dance where voices break
Crying ever over spilled and unspilled ink.

He twisted the paper in his hand.

"What do you think?"

The first thing that came to his mind was not words. He wanted to take her hand. He wanted to kiss her lips.

But something old and bitter rose within him, and it glittered like the courts of Oppara and smelled of the Dog's Teeth.

"It's... precious."

She hesitated. "Precious?"

"I mean, its heart is in the right place but it's a little... adolescent, don't you think? A trifle... twee?"

"Oh." She took the paper back. "I see. Thank you for looking at it."

He'd expected an angry waving of hands, lashing like wild calligraphy. But her manner, her voice, was compact, withdrawn, controlled. A blot of ink.

"I mean—don't misunderstand—it's good..."

"Don't." She turned and strode to where the servants were scavenging the leftover desserts.

He stared after her, reaching out. His glib remarks of the past half hour were like dead moths on his tongue.

He shuffled toward the veranda.

"Leaving so soon? You haven't tried the cake." Gull glimpsed a servant with a tray veering in close.

"I am not hungry..." Gull began, and felt a dagger against his back.

"Look at that," came the voice of the thug Eutharic, whom Gull had last heard what seemed a thousand years ago this morning, outside the Knotty Mermaid. "There's even a rip here in the cloak, just right for a dagger. Guess it's an unlucky bit of treasure. For you."

"Um, no need to be prickly."

"I got a message for you. From Tarik the Unclean."

"Is it really necessary to say Tarik the Unclean? It's not like I'm going to confuse him with Tarik the Washerwoman, or Tarik the Singing Barber, or—"

"Outside, Gull."

They stepped among the statues of heroes. Eutharic herded Gull toward the statue of Sir Gothmoor. Gull wished the Knight of the Pit's head would give him advice. "What's the message?"

"You know," Eutharic said, "I got confused. The message isn't for you. The message is you. Your bloody corpse at a fancy house, showing the whole city no one cheats Tarik the Unclean—"

"There you go again."

"Cheats Tarik the Unclean of his salvage. They won't miss you, Gull. You're fooling yourself with this lot. You're just another commodity. Plenty more where you came from."

"You might be right." Gull closed his hand on empty air where verse had been. "But you wouldn't be talking about this message unless there was another option."

"You're right. There's stuff going down with Cheliax, stuff you maybe know about, stuff Tarik might profit from. I whistle, my pals Adamantius and Thok create a diversion, we get out of here, you spill to Tarik."

Spilled ink, Gull thought.

"So..." came a new voice. "It is as I thought."

It was the governor's man—and Chelish agent—Mortil. He emerged from the veranda's shadows and raised his hands in a way that instinctively made Gull as nervous as if Mortil had raised an axe. He'd seen such poses from Corvine, after she'd consulted certain books.

"You have not sought the target," Mortil said to Gull. "Instead you have wasted your time on nonsensical activities—or so I thought. But your true purpose was to sell your information to the highest bidder. Disgusting."

"Who's this guy?" Eutharic said.

"I am your death," Mortil said, "if you do not leave now."

"Nobody talks to me like that."

"Hey, that's right," Gull said, "you lose face like that, I might have to write a song..."

Eutharic lunged. It wasn't clear which—Gull or Mortil—he was seeking, especially as Mortil immediately spoke some manner of trigger word and a blast of blue light engulfed Gull's vision.

When he could see again, the Knight of the Pit's head lay at his feet, freed from Sir Gothmoor's stony grip by an eldritch blast. The same blast that had burned a hole through the chest cavity of the gaping Eutharic.

The thug fell, smoking, and Mortil stepped forward. "I will say," he said thoughtfully, "that I exposed enemy agents. It is true enough..."

"You!" called a strident voice. "Governor's man. Stand back from that musician. He may be a spy—and a sorcerer it seems!"

It was Sebastian Tambour, stepping ahead of the astonished partygoers, a few of his fellow corsairs close behind.

Sebastian Tambour is first mate of the Happenstance.

Mortil stepped back, chuckling at his good fortune.

Gull's normal tactics in this sort of situation would be to stare, or plead, or duck, or pray.

Instead, he did two things. With one hand he jabbed his thumb toward the statue and shouted, "Would I blast something behind me?"

With his other hand he hooked the Knight of the Pit's curly stone hair and flung the bemused-looking boulder at Mortil.

The Chelish agent swore—and the being sworn by had an address far removed from those of Taldor's patron gods. Gull did not wait for the crowd's reaction, however, but dashed for a servants' entrance and the kitchen.

At the door he paused only to stick two fingers in his mouth and whistle.

Once inside he was confronted by pots, pans, dangling meats, a brick oven big enough to roast two boars, and a gaggle of scattering servants who'd probably already heard the shouted word sorcerer. "Boo," said Gull.

He was doomed, so he might as well enjoy it.

Once alone in the kitchen he grabbed a large iron skillet and crouched beside the door. It was Sebastian Tambour who entered first, and Gull found it rather satisfying to swing something heavy at Tambour's head.

Alas, the corsair ducked sufficiently to be merely clipped. Tambour rolled, snarling, into a bucket of fish heads.

"I'm not a sorcerer!" Gull said. "I'm not a wizard! I'm not a Chelish agent!"

Tambour swept fish guts from his eyes. "Hit me again, Gideon Gull. That will make your case more convincing."

"Would a sorcerer use a skillet?"

Tambour was up now, knife unsheathed. "I might just believe you, Gull. If you are a spy, you are perhaps the sloppiest, most ridiculous clandestine agent I have ever seen."

"It's Mortil. I think he wants the admiral dead. He thought I was working for Cheliax too. But you killed the real assassin, didn't you?"

"Perhaps..." Tambour backed away with a calculating look.

And Tambour's men grabbed Gull from behind.

Gull did not resist. At this point, surrender was safer.

Thok.

Suddenly the men let go, slumping to the floor.

Gull turned to see Eutharic's compatriots, Adamantius of the demonic tattoos and Thok of the big stick.

"Who killed Eutharic?" snarled Adamantius.

"Thok weeps," Thok said. Gull was startled. This was the first time he'd ever heard of Thok saying anything.

"It was not I," Tambour said. "Nor my men. I am beginning to believe it wasn't Gull."

"Gull could never kill Eutharic," scoffed Adamantius.

"Gull is weak," Thok said.

"Hey..." Gull began, and finished, "that's right. It was the governor's man, Mortil."

"That knowledge," came Mortil's voice, "will die with you all."

Fire filled the doorway.

Adamantius and Thok screamed as an explosive magical blaze consumed them and Tambour's fallen men. Gull and Tambour were barely able to take cover behind a counter. An unused chicken on a hook burned above their heads like a comet of culinary omen. The reek of roasted flesh made Gull gag.

"And when you are finished," Mortil said, "so will the target burn. I may be implicated, and that is regrettable. But in Hell my masters will laugh."

Wedges of light erupted from Mortil's fingertips, and Gull heard a scream.

He knew that voice. Corvine.

Gull scrambled around the counter, skillet in hand, and Tambour was with him, dagger ready. Together they rushed the wizard.

Coming Next Week: The ultimate weapon is revealed in the conclusion of Chris Willrich's "The Cloak of Belonging."

Dive into more adventures with Gideon Gull in the new Pathfinder Tales novel The Dagger of Trust!

Chris Willrich is the author of the Pathfinder Tales novel The Dagger of Trust. He is a former children's librarian best known for his sword-and-sorcery tales of Gaunt and Bone, which have appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction and elsewhere, and which continue in the novels The Scroll of Years (Pyr, 2013) and The Silk Map (forthcoming). Chris lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his family. Visit his website at www.chriswillrich.com.

Illustration by Glen Osterberger

The Cloak of Belonging

by Chris Willrich

Chapter 2: A Roving Young Fellow

Gentlemen adventurers needed to mind their steps, especially on roofs. Gull discovered that hard lesson—as well as that cold, wet, and muddy lesson—when he slipped off the mist-slick summit of Skua Croon's Curiosity Shop and toppled into the mud.

He stood up painfully, brushed the muck of Admiral's Fen off his new cloak, and acted as though such things happened every day.

The passersby nodded and smiled exactly as if it were so.

Striding through the fog toward Cassomir's shipyard like an admiral and not a vagabond minstrel, Gull wondered at the new poise that enveloped him. True, he was clearly no more coordinated than before, nor tougher, as his bruises informed him.

But something had kindled his spirit. Perhaps it was the strange rattles and cranks he'd heard from Grayguard Castle, or the stares he'd attracted with this peculiar cloak. Whatever the reason, Gull walked without fear through the heart of Taldor's naval power. And despite his odd appearance, workers, sailors, merchants, and officials all nodded or waved as he passed.

Once or twice he heard shouts behind him—the corsairs or the ruffians perhaps—and he took care to slip through fog-shrouded alleys between the businesses that catered to the navy and its sailors, the provisioners, sailmakers, coopers and the like, as well as the brothels, fortune-telling halls, and gambling dens. No one challenged him, though some beckoned him toward this ill-reputed doorway or that. Perhaps, with more time on his hands and fewer foes on his tail, he'd have lingered.

But now he'd a destination in mind.

He emerged from the maze of ship-related concerns and braved the shadowy ruins of Quickfall Abbey, making the sign of Erastil's antlers on his chest as he passed that reputedly haunted locale. Like the splintered bones of dead giants, the crumbled walls jabbed through the sunlit fog. Gull whistled, mentally revising an old Andoran drinking song.

Oh, my name's Gideon, I'm a songman gone bad,
And a roving young fellow at need.
So be easy and free, if you're haunting at me—
I'm a man who will run far away.

No spirit deigned to trouble his morning. The tune's energy seemed to pour into his feet, and it was with a light step that he emerged into the northern end of Cassomir, a realm of cobblestone lanes and pleasant cottages and houses. As the rising sun melted the fog away, Gull located a certain flower shop and purchased a red rose from a matron whose suspicious look similarly melted in the light of his smile.

"Why, Master Gull," she said. "You've not been this way in weeks."

"The life of an musician is a busy one, Mrs. Amaranth." Gull looked toward the ceiling. "Ah, is Corvine..."

"She is in, but I don't think—" But by then Gull was out the door and ascending one of the exterior stairs. Abbey Green held many such locales, harboring a shop or two on the ground level and lofting dwellings overhead. A widow, Mrs. Amaranth owned this building and reserved for herself a flower shop and a small home above, while renting the rest of the ground floor to a navy wife who supplemented her husband's pay with needlework and flag-making. As the wife lodged at the Citadel, the remaining space was rented to a pair of female musicians.

Gull had known one of them quite well. The other had regarded her roommate's taste in men as a mental affliction.

As he knocked, a snatch of song came to him, a piece with a backwoods sound, something he'd not worked on in years.

Howling like a mangy old wolf at the moon
Sleeping through the warmth of the sun
Worrying too much about getting the girl—
Not enough about getting the right one.

The door opened. It was the one who'd thought him an affliction.

"You."

Thea Zephyr (a stage name if Gull had ever heard one) narrowed her eyes beneath her artistic beehive of hair, which loomed above like a russet thunderhead with black hairpins for lightning. Taldan women fought endless skirmishes via their glorious crowns of hair. Men who supposed these displays were entirely or even mostly about them were naive.

Gull's own naivete lay elsewhere. "Me," he confessed, smiling.

"You selfish bastard." Thea stepped out, her stare pushing him backward as though she were warding her roommate from the very sight of Gideon Gull. "Do you have any idea how long Corvine looked for you?"

"I..."

"She thought you were dead!"

"She minded?"

Thea finally got a good look at him, taking in the shave, the wash, the raised hands, the cloak. She blinked.

"She minded," she said. She studied him a little longer, her expression shading from anger to confusion. "I'll get her." She shifted slowly inside, then slipped back, snatched the rose from his hand, and gave it a quick sniff like a child stealing a sweet. In she went, and now Gull wore the confused look.

Curious.

He heard new voices from the fog to the south. They might be Sebastian Tambour's men, or even Tarik the Unclean's. He practiced looking as inconspicuous as a minstrel in a gold-embroidered purple cloak on a second-story stairway could be.

A woman with a more subdued tangle of black hair, held by a single ivory pin, appeared at the door. She had bronze-looking skin and pale blue eyes that made Gideon shiver like a newly plucked string.

"You," she said.

"Me," he said.

She handled the rose like an idle conductor with a baton, tapping the blossom against one palm. “So?”

"Yes..." he began, and stopped. The word was like a steppingstone leading into fog.

"Well?"

He held up his hands. "I know."

"And?"

"I'm sorry."

The last thing Corvine Gale expected was a visit from Gideon Gull.

Corvine Gale's fresh appraisal of Gideon Gull did not seem to banish her disdain as it had Mrs. Amaranth's and Thea Zephyr's. Rather the opposite. "You're sorry?"

"I'm sorry."

"You're sorry..."

"Yes. May I... come in?"

"No." She followed his gaze to where a group of figures appeared to be emerging from the fog around the abbey. She noted his concern. She sighed. "Yes."

"Okay. Thanks."

"Don't thank me," she said as she led him into the crowded room.

Just before the door closed, Gull heard something hit one of the fallen stones of Quickfall Abbey.

Thok.

Gull looked around, seeing many familiar faces, most with a musical instrument to go with them. "Why, Alaric, Nicolaus, Walpurga... It's been too long."

Several people looked as though they might question that assertion. But they shifted uncomfortably and were uncharacteristically silent in the presence of the new Gull.

Corvine placed a hand on his shoulder, spun him to face her. In the process her balance faltered and she weaved into him. He smelled gnome whiskey. He had an excellent nose for that sort of thing. She stiffened and pulled away. "I'm having a party, Gideon. Well, a rehearsal with a friendly audience. Not much difference. You know how it is."

"I used to."

"Well. Four of us are singing at Admiral Kasaba's birthday at Madame Velm's." She gave Gull a scrutinizing look, for they'd both known Velm well.

"Maybe three," put in a harpist named Alaric. "I've been feeling ill..."

"You'll make it," Corvine insisted. "It has to be a four-part madrigal. And I believe they're going to surprise Kasaba with a giant cake and have a handsome midshipman jump out or some damn thing. I don't know, she's not my patron anymore." Here came another hard look. "They're just paying us to sing. But we need to be good. Just about everybody who's anyone is going to be there."

Gull said, "That's why you're practicing drunk? Madame Velm doesn't like lushes."

"You are not going to lecture me about drink. Nor about a patronage you deprived us both of. You are going to sit right there and not make a fool of yourself."

Gull knew when to shut up. Sometimes. He bowed and took a chair beside Corvine's bookshelf. He tried easing the commotion he'd caused by peering over his shoulder at the books. Although Gull could read, it was no easy task, and he'd learned music entirely from mentors, starting with backwoods fiddlers back in Andoran. Corvine, now, she was a reader. Gull saw books of ballads, scores for operas, and ragged collections of songs and folk tales collected from the villages of the Taldan interior. He saw, too, books about magic—The Olde Companion, The Magister's Tunebook, Songs of the Azlanti Twilight—not the intricate tomes of professional spellcasters, full of maddening esoteric formulae, but the sort of homely references collected over time by those worthy of the title bard.

For all the bravado of this day, he now felt fully the bumpkin, and as the quartet resumed its jolly madrigal the feeling only grew.

Raise the sail, strike the drum
The long-awaited hour's come
Let all who live by wind and wave
Stand attention proud and grave.

Alaric's part faded in a fit of coughing. The man waved for the others to go on, and Corvine proved her status as a bard by gesturing and conjuring an enchanted mouth to sing from the wood of the door. The mouth used her own voice but made it possible to proceed without Alaric.

Though Taldor's foes yet ring us round
Our admiral runs them all to ground.
Though alarums summon all too soon
Hearken to this happy tune.

Now the song seemed to disintegrate like a flock of birds startled by human voices, only to careen back into formation at a higher pitch:

Happy happy (la la la) happy birthday (la la) birthday birthday (la)...

Gull knew there were variances and flourishes here he'd not the education to appreciate, but he understood this tune was both respectful and teasing, and would bring joy to the listeners, and applause—and then be forgotten. That was the way of much Taldan music. In contrast, he'd had only blunt verse, with whatever truth he could muscle behind it. Even songs of battle had eluded him, for he'd focused in Andoren fashion on the horrors common folk faced in war, not on the glory, real or supposed, chased by nobles in polished armor.

His musings led him so far from Corvine's chamber that he only slowly understood the rehearsal was over, the enchanted mouth had faded, and the quartet and its small audience were now gossiping and talking shop. Some snatches of conversation cut through his bitter reflections.

Alaric: It helps to first compose several stanzas about the history of the campaign, the battle setting, the distribution of forces, et cetera. Then you can just tack on an ending that celebrates the victory or mourns the loss. Last, you add a prologue about it all being destiny. Saves time and worry...

Thea: Could it be? Could I truly have been born to sing?

Corvine: Born to talk about it, maybe.../p>

Nicolaus: Alaric, give it up. There's no such thing as imitation quirky...

Alaric: But of course we trust pretty people more than honest people! Taldor's great tragedy is that we value faces over facts.

"Andoran's worse," Gull muttered, "in its way."

Conversation ceased. Gull uneasily looked back at these musicians of Taldor, each better versed in the craft than he. Corvine frowned, as though she'd forgotten he was there, and was unhappy to be reminded. "I'd have thought you would be missing Andoran," she said. "For a while, I thought you had returned there."

Gull saw no choice but to plunge in. "In Andoran anyone can hold high office. So even though we've no king, we the people are in the same position as a king choosing his ministers. But we don't have the leisure or learning of kings. We are busy... well, my fellow Andorens are busy... with our lumbering and bee-keeping and harvesting. So we are like the most foolish of kings—a wastrel prince, maybe, suddenly inheriting the crown and choosing his servants in a hurry. And so we choose the pretty. Or the silver-tongued. Or someone with a famous name, even if they were famous for something utterly irrelevant. Or we choose whomever now seems angriest at the last fool we elected."

He expected to be laughed off, a fool speaking of fools. Or worse, tsked and tut-tutted at by the superior folk of Taldor.

Instead they nodded with interest at his words. Had he spoken better than was his wont? Or was the strange charm of this day working upon them?

Alaric coughed and answered. "Far be it from me to praise Andoran before Taldor... but I think you are too harsh. What you speak of is simply human nature. It applies everywhere. Perhaps the consequences have special meaning in Andoran, but I assure you shallow judgment is as devastating here."

The other man in the quartet, Nicolaus, nodded. "And if the great of Taldor are foolish, who's to stop them? At least in Andoran the fools can expose each other."

And indeed, Gull felt a sudden yearning for his old land.

"I did not know," said Thea, "that you were a philosopher, Gideon Gull."

The other guests made encouraging sounds to echo Alaric, Nicolaus, and Thea's responses. All but Corvine.

"He's not!" she scoffed. "He talks a good story, always has. Maybe he's a little more polished now. But it's the same old Gideon!"

But the others ignored her, and from then on Gull was the center of the party. Alaric loaned him a harp, and with the other musicians' help he began composing something on his theme.

In Andoran, the founders so fine
Gave us all a bottle of wine.
Common Rule, the label had read
A glorious vintage of martyrdom red.
In drunken sprees we drank it all down
Rejoicing that no one would wear a crown.
In sickly dawn's light we needed to pee
And so used that bottle called Democracy.
O Andoran, you land of the free,
You drank up the wine of Democracy
But the price of gettin' some more of that drink
Is a plunge in cold water and a promise to think!

Alaric and Nicolaus jumped in with a verse they'd just concocted:

O Taldan lords, you trample our rights
While you battle each other for miniscule slights.
Our lords eat and drink while the commoners thirst,
True nobles would always put common men first!

"You'll get thrown in the stocks," Corvine warned.

"Just like I'll get tarred and feathered in Andoran," Gull said.

"It's the song that gets you in trouble everywhere!" Nicolaus said.

"But don't you see?" Thea said. "If we are more careful with the words... this song could actually criticize the nobility. It sounds at first like it's mocking Andoran. But it's not actually mocking Common Rule. It just says that Andoran's people don't live up to the ideals."

"Our royals would say," said Corvine, "that no one can live up to those ideals."

"But if we go on to poke fun at Taldor's foils," Thea went on, staring into the daylight beyond the window, "we can have a song that argues for a better world—and sing it right under the nobility's noses."

There was a chorus of assent.

"What?" Corvine said.

"Friend Gull," Alaric said, "you should take my place tonight in the quartet."

"What?" Corvine repeated.

"We all know I'm not feeling well," Alaric continued, "and it's affecting my voice. And just maybe, if there is the right moment, you can sing your song where the powerful can hear. Hold on to the harp. I'll return for it tomorrow."

"What?" said Corvine looking from one companion to another.

"You know," Nicolaus said, "I have had a few ideas of my own, for songs that mock the mighty..."

"I too," said another musician.

"And I," said a third.

"You are all mad," Corvine said. "Out of here, all of you! Gideon is addling your minds. Get some fresh air. I'm serious. You too, Thea."

Thea was the last outside, giving her roommate—or was it Gull?—a last, probing look.

Corvine slammed the door, and turned to face Gull. She did not look enchanted. "Where did you get it?"

"Eh?"

"The cloak, Gideon. It's obvious that's it."

"That's what?"

"The thing you're using to become such a smooth talker. A philosopher." She shook her head. "I knew something was amiss when I noticed Thea of all people making eyes at you."

"She was?"

"Don't act so innocent! You saw how they behaved. I swear they're ready to write limericks about the Grand Prince!"

"All right... yes." He steepled his fingers, leaned back in his chair. He'd seen scholars act like that. "I know there is something different about today. Something extraordinary has come over me. But it could be a concoction of my own mind." He remembered his dream of the music of the spheres. "Perhaps desperation has kindled something in me. Perhaps I am finally ready to awaken from my drunken dreams..."

"It's not you, Gideon. It's the cloak. It wouldn't be the first magic item to enhance a person's presence. Take it off, and you'll see."

He smiled. "Are you actually telling me to take my clothes off?"

"Go to hell."

"All right, all right. That's a spooky thought, you know, when you're wearing a Chelish cloak."

He began to remove the garment, albeit with reluctance. I can take it off anytime I want to, he insisted silently. So why did he hesitate?

He made a show of negligently draping the cloak over a chair.

"Ah," said Corvine. "There you are."

"What do you mean?" He suddenly felt naked as a mole rat, for all that his old clothes clung clammily to his body.

"I mean, you look like yourself."

He let out a long breath, as if weeks of hard living were woven through that gust of air. What had he been doing? Had he really taunted thugs and corsairs, run along rooftops, encouraged sedition? He was insane.

And yet, he'd rather liked it.

"Ah," he said, looking at his feet. "Myself."

"Where did you get it, Gideon?"

He stared at her. "Why do you really want to know?"

"I've the feeling you're mixed up with something bad. Magic like that doesn't just fall from the sky."

"No." He smirked. "It washes onto shore." He told her the story of his day. Her eyes widened at each new episode.

She gripped his shoulder, firmly this time. Her hand stayed put. Startled, he looked into her eyes. He found himself hoping he could keep doing that...

"Gideon,” she said. “I'm glad to see you. Truly. But you are impossible. You don't need magic to rise out of the gutter."

"The gutter has been a step up..."

"Enough. Stay off the streets. Stay here for a while." She rubbed her temples. "I know how to put an ear to a wall. I will go and see what I can learn about strange Chelaxians with purple cloaks—and those who might murder them. You... well, Alaric is sure to come to his senses, but if he doesn't..."

“What about your senses? You've been drinking.”

“Shut up.” She set down two sheets of handwritten music. "Do you remember what I taught you about reading notation?"

"Of course."

"Then practice. If you do end up joining us tonight I don't want you embarrassing us in front of Madame Velm."

"I am sorry. About all of that."

"Sorry you got sloshed before a duet, and cost us both our patronage?"

"That... and that I convinced you to come to Cassomir to work with her. Where there were no other patrons of similar stature."

"This... is not the time. Give me one of those gold coins."

"I have but three left."

"You need clothes." She sniffed. "Don't argue."

He didn't argue. To a degree he was enjoying the fuss. When she left he even dutifully studied tonight's madrigal, so he could adequately perform Alaric's part. He was still a musician. And moreover, he did not enjoy the disdain that had colored Corvine's words.

So he focused on this one small thing.

Presently he was nagged by a desire for drink. He looked about the room for something to sate it. A tiny, persistent disgust at himself crept in through some corner-crack of his soul, like a little animal stubbornly nesting in Gull's mental cupboards. At that moment he found an actual cupboard containing a bottle of Zimaran wine.

He gently closed the door.

And opened it again. And closed it.

He was somewhat in need of willpower.

His eye turned to the cloak, and in one fluid motion he was across the room and swishing it onto himself, tying it off with a dramatic half-turn. "No," he said, "Gideon Gull drinks when he wishes—not when the bottle demands."

And in that manner, proud and purple, he returned to the problem of the madrigal.

So focused upon the music was he that at first he believed the knock at the door to be some rhythm-induced hallucination.

On the second knock, he rose languidly and opened the door. "What did you—" he began, but choked on the words, for it was not Corvine.

Here instead was well-dressed man of hard bearing, his red woolen jacket buttoned with pewter, his blue felt hat bearing a silver pin depicting the Lion of Taldor crouched upon a ship. "At last," said the man.

"Are we acquainted, sir?" The man seemed somehow familiar.

"We know of each other. I am Mortil, assistant to Governor Bozbeyli." More quietly, he added, "I am also your contact." He waited for Gull to take that in, and although Gull failed, Mortil went on. "Are you alone here?"

"Well..."

Mortil brushed past Gull, eyes focused on the musician as if he thought Gull a dangerous customer. Gull was reminded of a look he'd seen back home in the eyes of wild dogs. Mortil took the chair beside the books; Gull shut the door and sat at the nearby bench along the wall.

Mortil said, "I had to call in help to find you. Do you know what that cost me?"

By now, Gull did indeed recall Mortil, someone he'd met once or twice under the patronage of Madame Velm. The recognition was not mutual, however, and Gull suspected he had the cloak to thank for that. A good thing, too. Despite the bland tones, something in the other's eyes spoke emphatically of prices like murder, torture, blood, and madness. This discouraged Gull from his normal loquaciousness. He ventured, "We all must pay the piper..."

"You were not at the rendezvous," snapped Mortil. "Where were you?"

"I—have had my difficulties."

"I have been assured you are exceptional at your work."

"Well... you know, back home I was considered great..."

"We are not in Cheliax. Things are different here."

That annoyed Gull. "Do I look Chelish?"

"Come now, don't fence with me. It doesn't matter to me where Cheliax finds its agents. I have been awaiting the man with the purple cloak for days, and in that time the target has begun working to undermine the efforts of our masters. It is time to strike back."

"Ah."

"Yes. The event is tonight. Never will the target be more vulnerable."

Gull had an uncomfortable feeling he knew who the target was. "I might be able to get close," he ventured, not sure why he was playing along, unless of course it was to avoid getting killed.

Yes, that might be it.

"Good," said Mortil. "I have been unable to divine your plans. You, of course, need not give me details...." Mortil paused.

Gull said nothing.

With a disappointed look Mortil continued. "... but I will ensure the guard is light. There will be enough distraction that you should have no great difficulty. I would do the deed myself, but I would likely be discovered."

"And what of escape?"

"That is your problem."

"And what of reward?"

"That is our masters' problem."

Gull made himself chuckle. "Of course."

Mortil was unamused. "You seem to take this matter too lightly. I assure you our masters, on Golarion and elsewhere, see your mission as essential to their plans."

"Oh, I take it seriously." Gull leaned forward. "Damned seriously." Gull kept a straight face. Mortil studied him, and slowly nodded.

"Very well, I take my leave." Rising, Mortil added, "I hope to hear a tale of woe upon the morning."

Gull opened the door. "Woe's the word."

Mortil shot him a grave look and departed.

"Well, Cloak," Gull muttered, once he was alone. "It seems we have a choice. Disappoint Cheliax and the hordes of Hell. Or assassinate Admiral Kasaba."

He stroked his chin and came to a firm conclusion.

"Where's that wine?"

Coming Next Week: Birthdays and mayhem in Chapter Three of Chris Willrich's “The Cloak of Belonging."

Dive into more adventures with Gideon Gull in the new Pathfinder Tales novel The Dagger of Trust!

Chris Willrich is the author of the Pathfinder Tales novel The Dagger of Trust. He is a former children's librarian best known for his sword-and-sorcery tales of Gaunt and Bone, which have appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction and elsewhere, and which continue in the novels The Scroll of Years (Pyr, 2013) and The Silk Map (forthcoming). Chris lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his family. Visit his website at www.chriswillrich.com.

Illustration by Glen Osterberger

The Cloak of Belonging

by Chris Willrich

Chapter 1: A Vagabond and a Gentleman

The clank and whir of infernal machinery called Gideon Gull back from the music of the spheres. At first he thought the din was dragging him down to Hell, but in a way it was worse. He woke up on the Dog's Teeth.

As he sorted the mechanical noise from the pulse of his throbbing head, Gull's namesakes scattered around him, foiled in their efforts to pry last night's crusty bread from his death-grip. Since making a home on these coastal islands, Gull had become used to the squawking scavengers. They were an honest crowd of greedyguts, and their voices possessed a kind of desperate music. In any case, he liked them better than his human and near-human neighbors.

Better get up, Gideon, he thought, before one of those neighbors knifes you.

The thought was a prophetic one, for when Gull rose blinking in the tentative gray dawn, he saw the dead man.

The corpse and the ongoing mechanical racket were both located across a tide-covered waterway. Gull beheld the dark cloak and sprawled limbs of the former, facedown on the shore. Meanwhile the latter boomed from the high windows of the great castle looming above the body. For a moment Gull had the eerie impression that the carcass was a sacrifice to some clattering stone god.

The mechanical sound ceased, and what passed for silence returned to the Dog's Teeth. Amid the screeches and ripple of waves and the stirrings of work in the harbor city of Cassomir, Gull cast a look over his shoulder, nibbled a bit of the bread in his left hand, swirled the nearly empty bottle in his right. The look reassured him that the various vagabonds and thugs who occupied these islands were either sleeping off the night's adventures or hatching new plans, and that he was unobserved. The bread nearly cut his lips, but the combination of food and pain helped revive his wits. The bottle held just one crimson drop, the same color as the cheerful red hat pictured on the torn label—a reminder of his home in Andoran, a handful of miles and years of broken promises away.

The past was gone. He sucked out the last drop and tossed the bottle. Hands itching for his lost harp, Gideon Gull took another look at the corpse. He shivered from more than the morning chill. That's a nice cloak, he thought.

I'm halfway down the road to dead
Armed with a bottle and crusty bread.
And friend, the best that I can see
Is that you're doing worse than me.

As he walked through the knee-high tidewaters toward the mainland, Gull was already thinking through a tune for his bitter ballad, something spare and sharp, far removed from the celestial sounds of his dream. Once he'd followed such dreams to the bustling squares of Andoran and beyond to the glittering manors of Taldor. Now he'd hit bottom in this border city between, and he was learning that his true nation was the Dog's Teeth outside this Taldan navy town, and his true calling the songs the dogs of the Teeth preferred.

You wore a cloak so fine
I wore a reek of wine.
I'd say our places are reversed,
But dead man, you're no longer cursed...

The sandy shore was covered in a hash-pattern of webbed seagull prints, like a carpet woven by a weaver with a mania for threes. Gull shooed the birds away, and although he looked nothing like his family's emblem, what with his haystack of blond hair and his sun-parched gangly limbs, he could squawk with the best of them.

Alone, he bent over the pale, dark-haired body. He made the sign of the antlers and checked for a pulse. But the man was cold and his spirit gone, and no servant of the good god Erastil clomped forth to gore Gideon Gull. He took this as permission.

For the cloak was indeed beautiful. It reminded Gull of opera cloaks he'd seen in the capital, its strange purple material silky soft but warm to the touch like velvet. Golden designs swirled about it with strange interweaving patterns that drew the eye into endless labyrinths. Even soaked by the waters, the material looked vibrant, and where the dim sunlight had hit it, the cloak was already dry. Only a small rip testified to the violence that occasioned this find. The tear matched a gash in the dead man's shirt, with a deep knife-wound beneath.

Almost as an afterthought did Gull search the man's pockets for coin—gold Andoren sails, oddly enough, and what's more there were six, enough for some high living.

If he was living high, he thought, he should have a nice cloak, torn in the back or not. He put it on.

The wine-haze and dog-tiredness seemed to bleed away like harbor fog beneath the sun. He stood and tied off his cloak in one swift movement. The rocks and sands around him came into sharper focus. Shore-grass twisted on the breeze, and sand fleas danced—and boot steps sloshed and crunched their way to shore.

He turned to see three ruffians approaching from the Teeth.

"Off to the opera, Gull?"

Eutharic is the sneering lieutenant of the lord of the Teeth.

He knew these three, two Taldans named Eutharic and Adamantius, and a wanderer from the Mammoth Lords' lands named Thok. Folk declared Thok got his name from the sound his only real possession—the improbably big tree branch he carried everywhere—made when connecting with a target. They said he rarely failed to produce that sound. It was probably an apocryphal story, but Thok never tried to correct it, nor communicated at all save to grin whenever he had the opportunity to make that sound.

Adamantius was hardly less intimidating. The man was wrapped in salt-brined leather armor, and what one could see of his skin was a strange blend of scars and tattoos, the artwork portraying monstrous claws and tails erupting from the old wounds, as though the depths of Adamantius were akin to the demonic Abyss.

Eutharic was the brains of the trio, a lieutenant of Tarik the Unclean himself, unofficial lord of the Teeth. Eutharic was only unthreatening by comparison with his colleagues. Thin, taller even than the barbarian, the man exhibited nothing overtly menacing other than the clammy calculation written all over his sneering face. It was Eutharic who had spoken, and Gull knew immediately it had been foolish to assume this loot was unobserved.

The smart move now would be to offer the cloak and some coin to Eutharic. Gull would still come out ahead. Maybe he'd even earn a little gratitude from Tarik's organization.

The deal was upon his lips, and his body was starting its descent into the correct amount of cringing, when something peculiar came over him.

Gull stood up straight as a martial flagpole and said, "I might be. I might not. I haven't decided how to enjoy my salvage."

Eutharic looked amazed. "Your salvage? What washes up on the Dog's Teeth is Tarik's salvage. Give it up, minstrel, and sing us a ditty, and maybe Thok'll only thok you once."

Gull knew about now he ought to be placating the man. All the loot and a round of "The Qadiran's Winsome Widow" might save him from some broken bones. But something buried within him, something like good Andoran steel, rebelled.

He thrust out an imperious finger.

"Then you ought to be about Tarik's business, Eutharic, for there are the Dog's Teeth. Here is the very wall of Grayguard Castle, where Gideon Gull has dared to strike. And what Gull has risked his life to claim, Gull keeps."

By the time he reached Gull keeps, his voice was booming nearly as loud as the surf on the outer reaches of the islets and the strand. The ruffians stood amazed; even Thok's eyebrows rose. Gull felt then almost as though he were two individuals: one who blazed with righteous fury at the threat to his lawful salvage, and the other who fully expected to be gutted and crushed beside the corpse at his feet.

"You... what?" managed Eutharic, too startled even to sneer.

Knowing this was his last chance, Gull raised his hands to implore the thugs to break only a few bones.

Yet something deep and dark as his hometown woods reared up snarling in Gull, and told him no.

And as his fingers rose they did not spread in supplication, but began tracing imaginary designs in the air as he'd seen wizards or bards do now and again. Deep in his throat he gurgled out nonsense words thick with consonants. "Mrrglurrg rumdiggity belchighast blurff! Glark-snaarfl aftblast gassbaggen floof!"

"It's a spell," shouted Eutharic, rushing three paces back, and Adamantius and Thok followed suit, the first crouching low to present a smaller target, the second cursing with the old contempt of his people for civilization and its wizardry. For there was yet about Gideon Gull the reputation of a bard, for all that he'd never truly mastered bardic lore, let alone bardic magic.

Astonished that his bluff had worked, Gull bowed, tossed a gold coin over the trio's heads, and ran like a corsair in a fair wind.

Gull did not stop to scream over the toe he stubbed while rounding the castle wall and scrambling over the breakwater into the town. Nor did he take much notice of his surroundings until he was gasping in the stone streets of the district of Grayguard's Shadow near the Admiral's Barbershop and attracting the stares of two constables.

Little good could come of such attention, so Gull staggered into the shop, struggling to breathe normally. Familiar faces looked up. Though Gull was not a frequent customer, sometimes he came here to sing a shanty or two and earn a shave for his trouble.

He expected a friendly grunt from Bosun Rack the barber, curt indifference from the Taldan sailor in the chair, and easy waves from the laborers waiting for shaves. Instead he got immediate attention.

"Mr. Gull," said Bosun Rack, pausing with his cream-dabbed blade in the air, sounding as if he still had two arms and was serving aboard ship. "What can we do for you?"

Gull searched the tone for sarcasm and found none. The laborers straightened in their chairs. The sailor, half-shaved, sat up, studied Gull, and said, "You seem to be in a hurry, sir. Perhaps you'd like to go first?"

Gull felt as stupefied as the thugs he'd just left behind. But with constables watching outside, he thought a shave would be a good choice about now. He thanked the sailor and sat down, saying, "Nothing fancy, Bosun. Don't want to put on airs."

Bosun Rack brushed cream onto Gull's face and chuckled.

"Full shave, please," Gull said meekly. Bosun Rack was acting as though Gull were still a noted musician, the toast of the capital even, not a washed-up minstrel in a military town. This was becoming an odd day indeed. Maybe the strange mechanical noises of dawn had disturbed everyone's dreams, left them funny in the head. Soon his companions would notice the reek rising from his clothes. The sailor cleared his throat—here it came.

"Begging your pardon," the sailor said, "but are you singing at the admiral's birthday party? It's tonight, you know."

"I... had not planned to."

"Oh, well. That singer, Corvine Gale—didn't you used to do duets? She'll be there, I hear."

Bosun Rack finished the shave while Gull blinked his surprise, and insisted on washing and trimming Gull's hair too, a task fit for a combat veteran. The thought of Corvine darted through Gull's mind like a crow diving for corn. She'd been about the last good thing to happen to him. And like all good things, it had ended it badly. Bosun Rack ended too, by cajoling Gull for a song.

So Gull entertained the group with a rendition of "What Shall We Do with a Sober Sailor?" and the tapping and hooting brought the constables inside. They tapped and hooted too, and clapped Gull on the back as he left. Gull smiled, bowed, and got away from the barbershop before their sea-fevers broke.

What was happening here? By odds he ought to be locked up or bleeding. One thing was sure, he had gold in his pocket, and close by the castle was no place to spend it. He needed a good meal—and perhaps some paid companionship? He hummed a tune as his feet took him toward the rowdier district of Admiral's Fen, in search of the sign of the twisted-tailed mermaid.

Half-dead man with a dead man's cloak
Where do you think you're going?
Pocket full of gold from a man that's cold
Dead on this fine morning?
Off to the Admiral's Fen, my friend
Where streets are ripe and muddy
'Cause dead man's gold is better sold
For wine than left all bloody.
Half-dead man with a dead man's cloak
Do you not have pity?
Well, I'm still alive with gold coins five
And I'm busy with the living.
And I'm busy with the living.

He was not fool enough to drink at this hour, of course, and the gold he offered the barkeep at the Knotty Mermaid wasn't bloody. Nor was Gull a murderer as his new song implied. Nevertheless he resolved not to sing it here. One coin bought him eggs and sausages and bread and a seat beside the common room's sunnier windows. The windows were of straightened and polished strips of ram's horn, which let the light bleed in all golden and glorious but more importantly kept Gull hidden from the street. A return to the Dog's Teeth was surely unwise, and Gull would have to find somewhere else to live. Homeless men in Cassomir had a way of getting press-ganged. The Knotty Mermaid had rooms, but Tarik's operation had fingers in Admiral's Fen. Perhaps Gull could sing in the streets up in Abbey Green. He was feeling energized, with many new ideas for songs. Something peculiar was happening.

From outside, the voice of Eutharic cut through Gull's thoughts. "Word is," Tarik's man was saying, "there's a foreign agent in there."

"Indeed?" said a haughty voice. "We'll handle it."

Knowing some sort of officialdom was entering the inn, Gull hastened to the bar and used his new line of credit to get quill, ink, and paper from the tavern keeper. "Of course, Master Gull," said the man. There was no irony, no sarcasm. There were no complaints about his stench from the shipwrights preparing for a long Toilday. It was almost as if Gull were a respectable citizen.

As if in answer to that thought, a group of sailors strode into the Knotty Mermaid, all dressed in mismatched rich clothing, and their leader did indeed have a whiskered chin. This motley crew received a rousing spontaneous toast from the laborers, for it appeared they were among the corsairs who operated out of Cassomir. Gull belatedly lifted his tankard of water, but he drew attention as the privateers claimed a table.

He tried to ignore their stares and focused on his work. If he appeared to be just what he really was—a musician come into some luck—perhaps all would be well.

So he worked out the details of the dark ballad that had rattled through his mind since seeing the cloak's dead owner. Gull had no superstitions about projecting himself into his work, and gleefully put his narrator into a noose. He'd not worked this swiftly in a long time. Why had he not composed more? It only went to show that fooling yourself you were a musician was easier if you did it every day. Only the conversation of the corsairs impeded him, for he caught distracting snatches of talk from their table.

"Wrong wrong wrong," the bearded man was saying, and Gull knew him for the man who'd spoken with the thug Eutharic outside. "You're all wrong. I'm wrong too, but I look better when I do it."

There were chuckles from the shipyard workers. More came in, and waved at the corsairs.

"I'm just saying," answered one of seamen, "the Chelish are chumps. Making a pact with Hell, well it's about as stupid as getting a loan from my uncle Wulf."

"No, no," said the bearded man, "the Chelish are just recognizing their true value. Look, a Taldan vessel is worth, what, ten Chelish ships?"

There were snarls of agreement.

"And a Taldan corsair is worth any ten Chelish fighting men?"

There was laughing affirmation.

"And a Taldan lady in bed is worth any ten Chelish women in bed?"

That gave the men a moment's hard consideration, but patriotism won out.

"And so," concluded the bearded man, "while any of us would think our souls a matter of high price, for a Chelaxian it may not be much to speak of. 'My soul for a pint! My soul for a chair by the window! My soul for sausages and a good cloak!'"

The corsairs' laugher had a pointedness to it, and Gull snapped out of his ballad (sometimes you got to do, he was writing, what you got to rue) and realized the pirates believed they were goading him. He looked up, bewildered. They were all looking back at him, expectantly.

"I am sorry, good sir," said the bearded man with a deep nod. "I did not mean to offend. I merely wished to cheer these good sailors after their hard weeks harrying foreign merchantmen. Why, just three days ago they sank a Ch—ah, but again I risk offense." He smiled, and made a fair impression of a dandified crocodile.

"Excuse me," Gull said. "You believe me to be Chelish?"

The smile stayed fixed as a steady blade. "You are not, sir?"

Anger flushed in Gideon Gull. "You speak to a free man of Andoran. Many a Chelish bottom still wears the imprint of Andoren boots."

That earned laughter from the other tables. The corsairs glanced around them in surprise. Their leader narrowed his eyes. "I could have sworn that cloak was of Chelish make."

"Perhaps. Do you not also wear clothes taken from Cheliax? Or from Qadira, Osirion, or Nex? Or, dare I say it, from Andoran?"

"The sea provides," said the leader, scratching his bearded chin as though sizing up an attack.

So it does, Gull thought, pulling his cloak tighter around him. "Our lands are not at war, and I may overlook the presence of a familiar style of red hat on one of your companions, my friend. But do not insult me again by calling me Chelish. I may be a fool, but I am not a damned fool."

The shipyard workers rewarded him with laughter and a few raised mugs. This response clearly annoyed the bearded man, who was used to adulation. That made Gull smile. He decided to finish things off. "Let me buy the heroes of Cassomir a round."

The privateers seemed rather appreciative, and the one with the red hat tipped it to Gull, but their leader's face became more set, his gaze more appraising. "Sebastian Tambour takes what he wants. He needs no bribe from foreign agents."

Gull knew the same Sebastian Tambour. The man was first mate on the Happenstance, the current flagship of Jean Coromant's crew of corsairs, who operated out of Cassomir with the full blessing of Taldor.

As with his encounter with the trio at the Dog's Teeth, Gull knew he really ought to be quaking now. Instead he was furious.

In an exaggerated rendition of Tambour's voice, Gull said, "Sebastian Tambour has a stick up his backside. Sebastian Tambour is too proud to let his men drink."

Now the guffaws spread to Tambour's own table.

The man stood. "I will show you a stick, dog. Let us settle this outside, like men."

"I will be glad to do so," said Gull, turning away and taking a long swig, "as soon as any men arrive."

The laughter was this time confined to the laborers, as the corsairs all frowned at the jibe.

So it was that the whole group descended on Gull.

Slammed into the table, his already-aching head concluding that whatever new confidence had bewitched him this day had not made him a skilled combatant, he punched and wriggled in a futile attempt to escape.

All at once he was dropped and fell with a thud upon the floor.

The tavern had rallied to his defense.

The laborers had set upon the corsairs—the very heroes of Cassomir—with fists and mugs and plates and candlesticks. The barkeep was gesturing him over. Gull scrambled on all fours behind the bar.

"Quickly, man," said the owner. "The fog's rolled in. If you get out by the roof, you'll likely escape. They're just drunk, I'm sure, else they'd not have preyed upon a fine gentleman adventurer like yourself. You'll be safe once they sleep it off."

"Yes, yes," Gull said, "of course. Lead the way, good man."

They ascended the stairs and the owner unlatched and shoved a creaky window and worked a hand-crank to extend a plank toward a neighboring building.

"This sort of thing happens often?" said Gull.

"Many of my clients need a discreet escape route. I have an arrangement with the neighboring landlord."

Gull fished out one of his gold pieces, handed it to the man. "Gideon Gull will remember you," Gull said. The barkeep winked and shooed him out the door.

Gideon Gull stepped outside into mist and mystery.

Gideon Gull, gentleman adventurer, that is. He liked the sound of that. This cloak had brought him luck. He wrapped it tighter around himself and fled across the rooftops.

Coming Next Week: An uncomfortable reunion in Chapter Two of Chris Willrich's "The Cloak of Belonging."

Dive into more adventures with Gideon Gull in the new Pathfinder Tales novel The Dagger of Trust!

Chris Willrich is the author of the Pathfinder Tales novel The Dagger of Trust. He is a former children's librarian best known for his sword-and-sorcery tales of Gaunt and Bone, which have appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction and elsewhere, and which continue in the novels The Scroll of Years (Pyr, 2013) and The Silk Map (forthcoming). Chris lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his family. Visit his website at www.chriswillrich.com.

Illustration by Glen Osterberger