Some things look like coincidence, and truly as they happen they are indeed, but what was to happen now was eventually bound to be. A few more years could have passed, maybe only a few seasons, but sooner or later another coincidence would have brought it to pass.
The room was surprisingly well lit considering the lack of oil lamps, but apparently the intricate construction of mirrors reflecting bonfires outside the building was enough to fill the room with a warm light bright enough to read by. The flaming logs in the fireplace did add warmth, but as a source of light they were only decoration.
Ken Leiter de Ghera, traveler, Protector of the Geralin islands but foremost a taleweaver sat at a table waiting for the storyteller to arrive. The warmth of the room, a hot stew and a goblet of heated, spiced wine made waiting a pleasure. His rapier hang together with his coat on a wooden peg behind him and he'd stashed his backpack under his chair.
Ken stretched his legs under the table. They were still sore after his evening's walk, a walk he remembered without fondness. Having mispronounced the name of the town he was heading for he'd fooled the carriage to drop him off at a nearby village. The walk here had taken the better part of early evening and his feet were blistered. He wiggled his toes and for a moment considered ordering a bath instead of listening to the storyteller. The spicy smell of stew quickly made him reconsider.
"Bah! If I took this pain to get here I'll be damned if I'm not going to hear the story." he murmured to himself and swallowed another sip of wine. He knew a town this size was likely to have a Magehealer anyway, and he had enough coins to pay for healing anything short of a broken backbone. His feet could wait until morning.
Ken turned to his evening meal and ate with an appetite born from his unplanned exercise. When he was finished he ordered another goblet of wine and started to look around. People were arriving, alone or in small groups and from their clothing he assumed most were local craftsmen and merchants. Some were travelers like himself and at least one nobleman with bodyguards had entered the tavern.
That makes us two noblemen, Ken thought to himself. But I hardly look the part. He grinned.
He watched with silent resignation how the bodyguards forced a group of merchants to leave a large table in the middle of the room, and soon thereafter the nobleman sat down. The merchants grumbled but fell silent when a few coins were thrown their way. Disgruntled they picked them up but knew better than to start arguing with armed men and quickly found another table closer to the entrance. Most of the customers gave the episode even less notice than Ken, and he guessed it wasn't too uncommon.
He turned to watch the stage. It was facing the fireplace, and the mirrors on the roof concentrated most of the light on the stage. Made of brick and worn wood it was clearly a permanent installation, which was a good sign.
The tavern obviously had some reputation for its visiting storytellers and he was looking forward to hearing a new story coming all the way from Nimambata. If rumors were correct, it had traveled there from Keen. Some of those rumors even said it originally was a Weave.
Ken knew he risked spending the evening listening to a bleak reflection of a Weave he'd once Woven himself told by a mere storyteller, but even so, if the story really came from Keen it would still be a reminder of a place he hadn't seen for over twenty years.
Traveling there was abysmal and news from home almost never reached the lands here so he planned to have a private talk with the storyteller in the hopes of getting whatever piece of news or rumors he had scraped together.
Ken took another sip of his wine realizing his goblet was empty and rose to order another. Doing so he noticed that the temperature had risen with all the arrivals and when the innkeeper caught his eyes he changed his mind and asked for an ale instead.
The innkeeper smiled knowingly and within a few moments a young boy arrived carrying a tankard so large it looked ridiculous beside his small face. Ken grabbed it, afraid the boy would spill its contents when setting it on the table. Ken hoisted it to his mouth and swallowed a mouthful of the stale ale he'd become familiar with during his travels here.
He noted that all of the tables were occupied now, but people were still coming in, ordering wine or ale and just picking a place along the walls were they could stand.
The light dimmed and he wondered briefly if the fires outside had burned low, but then he realized that someone had turned the mirrors so the light was more focused on the stage. He felt apprehension rising, and finally the storyteller entered the stage from behind a thick curtain Ken had failed to notice earlier.
The man was short and deeply tanned, brown hair tied in a knot on top of his head, almost a short ponytail. The innkeeper, with the help of a woman Ken guessed was his wife, struggled with a square table they placed on the stage and the young boy who'd brought Ken his ale unceremoniously dumped a pitcher on top of it. The storyteller fished up a cup from a bag he carried slung over his shoulder and poured a clear liquid from the pitcher into it.
"Boiled water. If you can believe it," he said smiling.
Ken could see a couple of men smirking.
"Well, welcome all of you, and a great pleasure it is to see so many gathered here to listen to the ramblings of a storyteller. Words that concern not us but the people who live over the ocean." He had a deep baritone carrying over the room and the noise of voices subsided to leave room for the storyteller's alone.
"Mine is the gift of this tale, a gift given to me by a storyteller from Nimambata who in his turn heard this tale from a man captured during a Minish raid on the coasts of the lands beyond even the Great Islands." The storyteller turned dramatically to his audience, waiting for them to feel the distance from home. "Now I have been told that in those lands there is a place called Erkateren, and in Erkateren there is a fortress never called anything but the Roadhouse."
Ken gasped. The details proved to him the storyteller would indeed have some news from Keen.
"This prisoner, I was told, belonged to a select group of fortunates who are allowed into a closed part of that fortress and that part goes by the name Taleweaver's Inn. One evening he was there listening to a master storyteller, and those masters are all called taleweavers there, even though I suspect they are what we know of as dream casters," the storyteller continued.
By now he'd caught Ken's attention fully. When he left Geralin Goldovin he was one of only ten taleweavers living, the four dream casters he hadn't known of unaccounted for, and he knew what a rare experience it was for most people to ever experience one.
"Now this is the tale he heard, a grand saga from lands far away with customs unfamiliar to us. 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."
Ken stood up, face ashen and icy cold, slammed some coins onto the table, grabbed his gear and ran out into the night yelling for a carriage with only one thought echoing in his mind. "Holy Christ, sweet Jesus in Heaven I'm not alone!"
***
The End