Small Talk

"Bwahahahahahahah!" cackled the hag. "Now I've got ye, and yer little dog too!"

The Wizard and the Knight stood speechless, until Frederigo had the courage to say: "I thought YOU were the little dog."

"Oh...aye, twas I," she responded and then ran off into the woods.

This left the Wizard and the Knight in a perplexed and stunned silence. After a while they both shrugged their shoulders and entered the Wizards little hut. It was a bare affair; four white-washed walls seemingly made of the mud local to the area, a cot with simple bedding, a wooden table with three chairs, a book shelf with only two books and no windows. It was lighted by three lamps that burned a tinted oil that smelled of olive. The Wizard gestured for the Knight to sit himself and then the Wizard did likewise.

"Well then," began the mage. "Yer pet turned out t' be quite something else."

"Indeed," answered Lord Frederigo. "This be a wild and enchanted land. I like it not, I'd rather be home in Suffex where the wine is sweet and the dogs are, well...dogs."

The Wizard laughed at this: "Ye call th' lands of th' Great Kingdom tame compared t' this 'wild and enchanted land'? What foolishness ye speak, oh great Knight of th' Kingdom!"

Lord Frederigo became indignant at this, he was not used to being spoken to so. Yet the elder mage continued: "How can ye, Lord Frederigo, th' son of a grand Duke, member of th' Knighthood, defender of th' lowly and inheritor of th' genius of seven generations of Dragon-slayers be so naive as t' say that MY land is wild and presuppose that YER land is not?!?"

The Knight's trepidation grew, for he had never seen this mage before yet the mage knew much of him.

"Yer father," continued the magic-bender. "Yer father is th' grand Duke Dredrik of Suffex, yer sister is th' graceful Lady Frederina and yer brother is th' rash and deceased Charles of Suffex. Do not be surprised that I know of th' House D'Honaire, it is a name well-known throughout th' Kingdom and beyond. I saw ye once, long ago...after yer fourteenth year. Do ye remember?"

Frederigo eyed the mage with greater suspicion but answered truthfully (as he had always been taught): "You I do not recall, but my fourteenth year is as fresh in my mind as if it were yesterday. It was the year in which I was squired and trained in arms. There was a minor ceremony, minor in comparison to what took place in later years. Were you there, at the ceremony?"

"Aye," came the mage's answer. "I was there as I should be, as was my duty."

"What 'duty' do you have to the House D'Honaire?"

"Have?" came the mage. "None. I said 'was.' Yer brother was my downfall and by th' time of yer installment within th' Order of th' Knighthood, my...services...were no longer required."

The man's words brought to memory the Ceremony of Installment. Oh! He had made speeches that day, and oaths - many oaths of fielty and chivalry - and then he was dubbed by the great Lord. It was a glorious day that has since colored all his life. Yet still Lord Frederigo knew not of what the mage was speaking.

"Why do you speak in riddles?" asked Frederigo.

"Because it suits me," spat out the old man.

"I was taught to speak plainly, openly, with no deceit - why do you run words around the shrubbery? Explain, good mage, please."

"Oh, so now ye say 'please'? Very well, then. Yer brother is dead, long dead these many years. He died by th' consumption, no?"

"Of course," replied the Knight. "He was in the habit of consuming exotic foods and, unfortunately, it was the food that consumed him. We all wept bitterly, but that was many years ago."

"It was not th' palate that killed yer brother, twas his own insatiable quest fer th' eldritch energies that few can bend and fewer still can tame."

This accusation that his older brother's magical studies were the cause of his death was one that did not sit well with Lord Frederigo. He had been told by Master Crom himself that his brother had died of the consumption. Goodly Master Crom would not lie, it was not honorable! Then it struck him - consumption was a two-edged word; it spoke of the malady of the flesh, yet too whispered of any dis-ease that would consume a man. Could this mage be telling the truth?! Had Lord Fred's own family covered the truth by speaking in truthful words? But why? To what end was it accomplished? And most importantly, why was the mage telling him this now?

"Why do you live in this hovel far from the Kingdom?!" asked Frederigo, and it was more a demand for information than a request.

1. The mage began to explain....

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