"Can you believe that guy?" Tarl said, getting to his feet.
Hearing this snapped Orlon bolt upright yet again. But when he turned to face his best friend he kept his wonder and worry hidden behind a mask of indifference.
"Crazy, wasn’t it?" he said. "All that talk of joining him on a quest."
"And he was so vehement about it, too," Tarl said, mimicking the man’s flailing limbs, "with his talk about evil spreading throughout the land, the need to stop it and…and that only you could do it." He snickered. "He called you Orlon the Pure."
Orlon frowned.
"Anyway," Tarl went on, "the goofiest part of it was the nonsense about a holy pike. I don’t see how a fish can be holy, or why only you could touch it. Why you would want to touch it. And how could you stop anything, especially some growing evil, with it?"
"He wasn’t talking about a fish, Tarl," Orlon said, eyes to the heavens. "He was talking about a weapon."
"A weapon?" Tarl looked confused.
"It’s a kind of spear," Orlon said. "Look—"
"Hey, wait a minute," Tarl said. "Didn’t Sleen Manibeen go through this a while go? Come on, you remember."
"I—" Orlon brought a finger to his chin, eyes staring back in time.
Yes, he remembered the incident. It happened three seasons back, when he and Tarl stepped out of the house on their way to the carpenter shop, and there was no way they could have missed it. Sleen, who lived across the road, had simultaneously opened his door to a bizarre visitor. But that incident was different! Sleen’s visitor was an old man in rusty armor, by all appearance touched by his age, raving about some quest from his youth. Their visitor was a learned man in robes, speaking of the here and now. He shook it off as too much for his tired mind to deal with.
"I am going to bed," he said and headed for the hall leading to the bedrooms.
"But he said he would be back in the morning, early," Tarl said, "and he was bringing people with him."
"I doubt he will be back," Orlon stopped at the hall doorway and looked back. "If he does, we’ll deal with it then. Goodnight."
"Too bad," Tarl said, watching his friend fade into the hall’s darkness. "It sounded like fun. Think about it. Finally having the chance to see more of the world than Dwarf Road, to meet new people, experience new things. Ah, the companionship, the camaraderie, the chance for adventure—"
"The chance to die in combat or worse," came Orlon’s voice from the darkness.
Tarl gave the darkness a double-take.
"Goodnight." The thump of Orlon’s bedroom door drew the conversation to a close.
With a turn, Tarl rubbed his hands together, unsure what to do next: go to bed or write a little more. His decision was made by a yawn that racked his body. He was more tired than he thought, but before he retired there was one thing he must do. His attention turned to the fireplace to find the blazing fire gone, and all that remained was the charred log. There was no sign of whatever Ty the Parson had tossed in it to cause the fire.
He frowned and went over to take a closer look, which revealed nothing. But his curiosity would not let him accept this anomaly so easily, making him take the poker from its hook and poke the log remains. A pop, a flash and a sickening odor that crinkled his nose, made him take a quick step back. In a quick step forward, he replaced the poker and backed up again.
"Definitely time for bed," he whispered.
After contorting with another yawn, he went to the desk and blew out the candle, sending the room into darkness. This did not bother Tarl Bimbo in the least, as a lot of his free time…activities tended to deal with moving—sneaking through the dark. Thus he did not even wait for his eyes to adjust before heading to his bedroom. He crossed the room, slipped into the hall and through his bedroom door, opposite that of Orlon’s, shutting it and leaning against it.
Tired though he was there was one thing he felt compelled to do which would keep him up a little longer. He went to his bed, knelt and retrieved a cloth bundle from beneath it. A thin smile crossed his plump face as he sat on the bed to unwrap it. Within was a leather-bound book. Orlon had been right about him knowing nothing more than farming. Sure, he used the imagination he smarted off about and it had been great, for twenty pages or so. Then it went dry, and in his desire to finish his book, he became desperate.
After weeks of struggling with it, he secretly obtained a book from a neighbor, who owed him a gambling debt, to "help" him. It had been a wise move in his mind. The book had great ideas, and when he considered what he was doing he felt no guilt. Besides, who would ever know?
There was a candle on the table by the bed he used to read by. But when he reached into a pocket for flint and steal, they were not there. He searched his other pockets to no avail, and it dawned on him where he lost them, in Mona Ik’s barn during their…time together. That meant there would be no reading tonight. With a shrug, he rewrapped the book, replaced it under the bed. He stripped and slipped into bed, and after a fleeting thought of tonight’s visitor, he fell fast asleep.
Despite his tiredness from a hard day’s work, his twice interrupted drift into sleep, Orlon lay in bed wide awake. While he had put up an air of indifference about it, he was deeply troubled by the arrival of Ty the Parson and what he said. Was he really one of the trio of Parsons mentioned in his book? Or was he a nut like the old man who visited Sleen Manibeen? And if the answer to the first question was yes, which he feared it was, what did that mean for him.
Parsons were said to only appear when needed, if important events were happening. He rolled onto his side, his mind focused on what the Parson said tonight. Evil was spreading throughout the land in preparation for a takeover. It was being orchestrated by Tibtarni—whatever, and only he, Orlon, the Pure, could stop him.
He rolled onto his other side, tense from head to foot. The very idea of it sounded impossible, crazy. How could he, a mere farmer, stop someone that powerful? True, Ty the Parson mentioned the Holy Pike, a weapon that would assist him in this deed. That meant this Pike must be special in some way, but he simply found it hard to believe he could perform such a task, special weapon or not. He did not want to believe this was real, yet he could not help but wonder.
The thought of a quest, of leaving hearth and home for an unknown length of time worried him greatly, especially this time of the season. He curled up in a fetal position and drifted off into a restless sleep, his last thought concern over what would happen to the crop if he went…
II. Ty the Parson
Orlon lay in bed fast asleep. Though the first part of the night had been restless, his sleep was now peaceful. Gone were the twitches, the thrashing about, and the dark dreams of wandering through mysterious places, the fear of dangers unseen yet palpable. He was lost in the void of slumber, so comfortable he wanted to wallow in it…forever. Tomorrow’s work could be delayed a while, maybe until the day after. Sure, what harm could one missed day do?
The question made him frown, knowing precisely what harm a missed day would do, as well as for a little while. They could survive the harm of a little while. He smiled in his sleep at his decision, snuggled into his pillow.
There began a pounding in his head, constant, demanding a response he did not want to give. He fought the urge to wake up, pressing his eyelids tightly together. The pounding only grew louder and louder, started shaking the very foundation of the little house, shaking the bed—him, and the more it shook the more he shook. He was shook right off the bed.