"Master Achnai, a message from the Roadhouse. An outworlder taleweaver will share the joining there."
Trai er Achnai Khar looked up from the scroll he'd just finished.
"You bring marvelous, wonderful news. Tell Escha I'll be at the jump tower as soon as I can walk there."
Trai ran from the room. Outworlder taleweaver, now that was news indeed. He took the steps three at a time and continued into the night. This was going to be a very long night. He'd only planned to finish his scroll before going to sleep when Eri, his seneschal, came with the news, and Erkateren was on the other side of the continent. It would still be light when he arrived there, and he was well aware of the time it took for the body to adjust to such a long travel westwards.
He sat waiting on the jump shield when Escha arrived. Lovely Escha, more than a brother and a friend, gorgeous in his slender strength and unmarred body. Unmarred in difference from Trai who bore the marks of every fiery spell gone astray. He sighed at the sight of his heart mate, his perfect slave and the most powerful of all Jump Khars in Khanati.
Master and slave since ten years, bond brothers for seven and lovers for four, they jumped five times to arrive in Ira, the width of a continent to the west, and Escha only needed a short rest there before casting the spell just a handful ever dared and only he mastered. Trai marveled at the power streaming through them both when Escha unleashed the mighty word that bore them all the way north from Ira to Erkateren unaided by any receiving jump tower.
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Arthur noted how people started to arrive. He saw a maddening variety of clothes, but four of the arrivals almost sent him screaming through the door. One resembled a nightmarish carnivorous gorilla, large tusks clearly meant for ripping meat apart, and Arthur was already rising from his seat when he registered that no one else seemed to care. The other three shorter, standing barely a meter in height. Something primitive in Arthur's mind yelled at him to run and hide.
Damn, they're scaring everyone else as well!
Three walking lizards, scales glimmering and each wearing a perpetual grin showing long lines of sharp teeth.
Arthur fought down the ghost in his mind, a ghost helping his ancestors to survive long before they could even grasp the concept of mankind. The sight of sentient reptiles made him want to crawl away never to be noticed by them.
"Such audacity!" a voice behind him hissed.
He turned and saw the giant ape glaring at the lizards. Even though he understood what it had said he also realized it had spoken in a language he'd never heard before.
"Why is that?" he asked in an attempt to bite down on his rising panic.
"Raiders from the west. You're lucky not to have seen them before. They burn and kill. Only good teeth or the gift of tale telling will save you."
So that was it. The naval blockade that made Harbend swear. Arthur groaned at the irony. The very reason making it possible for him to escape returning home was here making him long desperately for the safety of Earth. He shuddered, but curiosity got the better of him.
"But if they are raiders from across the sea, how can they be here now?"
"A very good question, very good indeed. You have raised an issue that needs looking into," the ape answered as if Arthur had revealed an important secret.
He was about to rephrase his question when a surge of air and a soft boom caught his attention. Two men materialized out of thin air on the floor just across the table. They had their backs to him but still sat down on a chair each as if they had known beforehand they would be there.
"What the bloody hell..."
Arthur was cut short. "Escha! By the thousand gods, you never jump inside a building!" A black skinned woman in shirt and skirt, both the color of bone, closed in on the table. Fury shone from her eyes.
"What a darling reception! So fiery yet so to the point," the leftmost backside spoke. Arthur still hadn't seen their faces.
"Are you totally out of your mind? You could have killed us all you idiot!"
"Ah, you're so beautiful when you show your feelings. There has to be certain advantages to living so close to the ocean, so far from the jungle. Darling, you have to send my greetings to your relatives in the trees there."
"You Grank" Arthur heard the word but didn't understand it anyway. "smelling soldier's whore! I'll tear your lungs out of your perfumed body!" A spinning wheel of static charges started to form between her outstretched hands.
"Enough!" The roar silenced the room. Arthur reeled from the pain inside his head. The old man who'd received Arthur stood in the doorway. "You'll not use the gift while in a Taleweaver's Inn, or, by the gods, I'll have your name struck from history and your life's content undone for all generations to come!"
Now that's a way of threatening someone! Arthur had to admire the man.
"You, Trai, stop harassing the woman! You'll not bring your petty war here! If all men were like you there'd be no Khanati today."
Not a single word was spoken for a long while, and the serving girl busied herself with bringing food to the latest newcomers. As always she brought it long before it could humanly have been cooked, but Arthur had already seen something impossible this evening and his sense of wonder was dulled. Only after all had eaten did the visitors start to exchange polite small talk with each other, but they were soon interrupted by the old man who climbed the stage beside the fireplace.
"I have sent the calling required by the edict, and tonight is more than a mere storytellers night. More even than the gracing of a traveling tale teller. Today we are visited by no less than a self-appointed taleweaver. Unknown to all of us this outworlder comes with the gift to share with us, unknown as of yet, but after he has Woven he shall most assuredly be well known amongst us all."
Arthur smiled despite the insult. If mister senile wanted to play a game then he would get one.
Arrogant bastard! So, no bloody being nice. He'd give them one of his Golden Secret shows. First rate, no cheating. He rose and entered the stage.
Pity I don't have my crew here. Well it can't be helped. I'll just pretend. Cameras four and five, pan in, steady, slow forward and time for the perfect smile. "Welcome, welcome, ladies and gentlemen. I welcome the rest of you as well." That brought laughter from all but the three lizards. They only stared at him with their cold, hungry eyes. "I am indeed what you call an outworlder, and as such I share my name with others of my kind." By now Arthur knew the story he would tell, and he closed his eyes for a moment, and when he opened them again he was once again in the familiar landscape of between, the place he needed to be in whenever he wanted to bring a listener into what he told, and he knew that this would indeed be one of his Golden Secret shows.
"This is a tale from ancient times, but not from the history you know. Long before we came here we learned to treasure the legends from times when maybe things were as here, yet different in many ways. It was a time when the old had to give way to the new. This is the tale of a hero and a king, but it really begins with his father. Now it should be known that Uther Pendragon had fought a long and bloody war."
Arthur spoke, and it was as when he stood before a camera those early years when he still had to prove himself, and as he had done then he climbed into himself, immersed himself in his own words so that he was more a vessel from which they poured rather than actively choosing between them.
He heard mighty Merlin help Uther with his betrayal. He was there, watching a Camelot that had never existed, yet it was real for him. Unseen he walked its great halls listening to secret meetings. He was flying like a falcon disturbed in its hunt by the thunder of two shining men clashing into each other, each carrying a lance one of which broke. He saw the queen torn between love and loyalty, and he knew the moment when love won and gave birth to yet another betrayal. The murder of children haunted him, tore his heart apart, and he was aghast to learn the evil deed had done nothing to prevent what was foretold. Sitting, crying, on the battlefield where the kingdom was broken.
Standing, standing in a room where window slits allowed a gray dawn to enter and bring cold light to replace the fire that had slumped to nothing more than red embers. There was an eerie silence where each breath was a barely audible acclaim to the legend itself. Faces unmoving in a land between worlds, still living out the destiny of the greatest king who had never lived.
He had emptied an entire jug of watered wine without noticing. A little drunk and tired beyond reasoning, he was, like the jug, a vessel spent.
And silence. I can hear them breathing, afraid to break the spell. Like statues.
Arthur staggered towards the door glancing at the faces in front of him. They were all sharing the same expression of awe and a little fear, and he knew he must have put on one of the best shows in his life.
"I have never for thirty years... not since Master de Ghera." It was the old man who had tried to deny him entrance the night before. Only this time he was whispering in a voice suiting him far better than the arrogance only an ignorant man could show.
"I told you I was a taleweaver by profession where I come from," Arthur said, satisfied he'd made a proper impact on his audience. He smiled despite his fatigue, and on weak legs went in search for his bed.