BP & G, The Mad Wizard

[joegoda]

The next night, Bags was back at the pub. Damien had his mug ready for him, waiting at the table by the door, in front of his seat against the wall. Bags liked to sit with is back against the wall. It made him feel comfortable. It made him feel safe.

"All right," he began, "this is the last tale for a while. Griz is champin at the bit for me to go find Pockets, even though I know the little jerk is perfectly fine. If he wasn't, we'd know about it. Cuz it's him."

His eyes scanned the crowd that surrounded the table. The other patrons groaned from disappointment.

"Now look," Bags said, "Griz is Griz. She's the Queen. And you don't want me going against the queen now, do you?" Everyone's head shook negatively. "All right. So this may be the last tale for a while. Maybe not, cuz I have to stay here until that baby is born. Do you all agree with that?"

Heads bobbed all around in agreement.

"Now, Griz, she says I don't need to stick around. She says that she'll be fine without me for a while, but I says I don't know how long that while is gonna be, so I'm stickin. Pockets, for as odd as he is, tends to get out of as much trouble as he gets into. Granted he sometimes needs a little help, like these last few times. And that's why I'm going to deputize a couple of folks and they are going to go find Pockets."

A silence as deep and resonant as could be found in the deepest tomb inside the deepest cave inside the tallest mountain collapsed into Swineheart's. Chipmunks could be heard playing on the rafters across the street, and this was with the door to the pub closed.

Bags let the silence build for a bit. Then he started drumming his fingers. Then he raised his eyebrows and asked in a quiet voice, "Any volunteers?" Not a word was said. "That's just great. Harv has gone off to find his lady love, Carhop or whatever her name is so I can't send him. I'm the only one that I know of that has gone outside the gate..." he looked around... 'or am I? Anyone else here been further than the front gates? Anyone seen any other place than here?" A few of the old timers raised their hands, but Bags shot them down.

"Nope. You old guys stay here with me. Not that I don't appreciate the thought, but you've done your time. We don't know how hard the trip will be, and I only have half a thought where Pockets went. This won't be a short trip to the market and back." A collective sigh went though the old men, even Briggs.

"All right." Again, Bags scanned the crowd. He saw a tall, willowy form in the very back. You! Jenkins! Come here."

Cautiously, the town scribe came forward. "Jenkins, I know you're not mute. You just don't have a lot to say, right?" Jenkins nodded, sweating a bit. "And don't worry, I'm not sending you." Visible relief shot through the young man. "What I need from you is a list of folks with abilities. I need someone that can read and write, and I need someone that may be a good hunter. Neither can be fat, nor can they be too thin. They have to be able to ride horses, and they can't be afraid of tall places. Think you can do that?" Jenkins nodded.

"Good. Now, a few other things. They can't be clumsy, and they can't be drunks. I don't care if they like the women, or if they like other things. But they need to be dependable, which means that if I charge them with something, they'll do it. Got that?" Jenkins again nodded.

"Okay. When I finish this tale, I want at least two men, and not more than four that can fill the bill." Jenkins turned to fade into the crowd. "Oh, by the way. I'll pay them for their troubles. One hundred gold, non taxable."

This got a noisy response from the crowd, as they started to tell Jenkins what each of their own special abilities were. Jenkins was busily scribbling away on the pad he always kept with him.

"Hey!" Bags shouted. "Let the man work! He knows more about you than you do, and if you go to lying to him, you'll liable to get yourself killed. Or worse. Then who would spend your gold? Nobody. So leave him alone, grab and ale or whatever and listen to the story." He hunkered forward, took a draw from his mug and said "Damn. Just like a buncha kids."

When it had all settled down again, Jenkins in a corner scribbling and crossing out, the other patrons back in their chairs, Bags began.

"The high point of my life in the Mad Wizard's cave, the twelve years of servitude I gave to the old bastard, was going to the nearby village for supplies. It's not that it was such a great village, I mean, it only had a blacksmiths and a bakery and a pub and a grocer. It was the sort of place you always leave, and rarely stay at. I could pick up beans and rice and wheat and whatever else he needed."

"Sometimes the Wiz would send me for odd stuff, like bits of wire or some odd metal that the blacksmith would shake his head over, but eventually produce. Sometimes it would be something that had been delivered at the grocer, some package or something like that, from some far away place I had never heard of. It was always addressed to the Wiz, though. M Fletcher, care of Monty's Grocer, Newton."

Bags scratched his head and said with mild surprise, "Huh. I can still remember the address, after all this time." He shook his head. "Anyways... There were these two old guys on the front porch of the grocer, of Monty's, and they would always be playing checkers or something... cards maybe. They looked to be about a hundred and a bit more than that. I mean OLD, with a capital wrinkle!"

"These old guys would see me coming down the road, stop me each and every time and ask me how my day was going. In the beginning, it was a pain in the ass, because I didn't want to be there, I didn't want to have to answer any questions, and I just wanted to get back up where I could hide away and let the time pass."

"But these old geezers stopped me one day and they asked me why I was always in such a hurry. They asked me if I really wanted to get back up the hill to the Wiz's place that badly. They made me think a bit and I decided that I didn't really want to get back up there that bad. So I told them that if I could avoid it, I surely would."

"So these old geezers, Zeb and Zack, I think their names were, invited me to join them. They bought me tea, sweet and cold. I 'spect they probably had Pockets' frigerator way before he thought of it, but I never even thought to ask."

"Zeb and Zack had lived a very long time, they told me. They remembered back before the Mad Wizard had shown up and moved into the mountain. They remembered the old days, when magical beasts, like centaurs and flying horses roamed the land. They also remembered when they all seemed to die out, one by one. They said it had something to do with the mountain, but they would never really tell me much about it. They said that there may still be pockets of magic somewhere, but they didn't know where. In the end, I asked them what they did know about, and this is what they told me."

Zeb rocked back on his heels and let the back of his chair rest against the wooden wall of the store, waved a hand at Zack and said "You're the smart one, Zack. You do the talkin. I'm tired."

Zack, who had a plain face, but piercing eyes, looked at young Bags and said "Son, there are things in this world that can't be accounted for by your average man. Zeb and I have seen things that you would find unbelievable. We traveled from here, south through the wood, across an ocean, and back again. Zeb and I had to go see the world, after our adventures with Charlie."

"Charlie?" Bags asked.

Zack looked at his brother and raised an eyebrow. "Hell, Zack, I don't care. He's not gonna believe it, and since the old fart and Cecile moved on."

Zeb turned back to Zack and said "Charlie Pentel was a heck of a guy, very stand up, and wouldn't want any better. Course, the fact that he was half goat was kind of odd."

"Half goat?" Bags asked. "He was half goat?

"Only the lower half." explained Zack. "And his wife didn't have a head. Well.. she did, but it only came out at night, when the rest of her body disappeared." Seeing the look on Bags face, he said, "No! Really. But that all changed when he and me and Zeb went to rescue the God Shockly."

"Wait," Bags said, shaking his head to clear the cobs out. "God Shockly? What the hell are you talking about?"

Zeb dropped his chair back on to the porch. "You know... this would taste much better with something to drink." He looked at Bags and asked, "How bout you?"

Bags looked at the tea in his hand and said "No thanks, I'm good."

Zeb laughed and said "Oh hell. What are you, a little boy? I meant something to DRINK."

"Well... I'm just a little over eleven, sir." Bags said.

"Eleven? At your size? You could pass for fifteen, sixteen tops. Couldn't he Zack?"

Zack stood up, a bit shakily, and walked over to Bags. He placed a hand on the young man's shoulder and was quiet for a bit. His eyes rolled up in his head and Bags looked uncertainly at Zeb, who just sat, smoking a pipe.

"Don't worry, boy. Zack won't hurt you any. He just has a kind of gift. Just be patient."

So Bags sat there, sipping his tea waiting for Zack to finish, doing....whatever it is he was doing. Whatever it was, it didn't take long, just about five minutes, but it was just uncomfortable to the young man. He was not used to being touched, and especially touched gently by a large man who was old enough to be his greater than great grandfather.

Zack pulled away, his eyes rolled back, and he looked over at Zeb. "This one's special, Zeb. And yes, it's time we got him educated."

"Educated?" Bags asked. He felt like he had done nothing but ask questions since he got here. "Okay, you geezers. What the hell is going on?"

Zeb stood up, grabbed his cane from its spot on the back of the chair, and started across the street. "Come on, you two."

One last question, but not the last one of the night, Bags asked "Where are we going?"

Zack put his arm around the young man and said "To the Pub, young Timothy Bags. Time to begin your destiny, though it has already begun." He nodded, smiling a large toothy smile. "To the pub."

"And I gotta tell you," Bags told the group at Swineheart's, "those two old guys told me more about how to enjoy life than anyone I've known since. Zack, the smart one, was kinda like Pockets. He heard voices, sometimes. And sometimes he talked though those voices. Yeah, it was kind of odd, but they were nice guys. I just figured that Zack was kind of touched in the head, if you know what I mean."

He took a draw from his mug, wiped his foamy mustache, and continued, "Now, this isn't to mean that I haven't seen strange things since then. It's possible that Zack heard voices, just like it's possible that there really was a God named Shockly. I don't know for sure, but my bet is on the things I can see and the things I can define. All this space ship flying through the air stuff is just so much hocus pocus, if you ask me."

Damien, sitting at the same table as Bags, leaned his chin against his fist. "You sure are a hard man to convince, Bags. I've known about the God Shockly all my life and I believe in him."

Bags looked at Damien and allowed a bit of silence to pass. "Yeah, but that's you, Damien."

"Anyway, that was the first time in my life I had ever tasted anything that wasn't water or tea. And as you can tell, I got to liking it a lot. The two old guys never did talk much about this Charlie guy, or the Shockly God. Sometimes in a private joke they would let slip tiny things, like this God was supposed to be dead or something. Of course, I felt it was just the rambling of a couple of really, really old guys. And of course, I'm not so stubborn to know that there is always some truth, some grain of truth in any ton of bullshit. So I dunno. It might be true, it might be mostly true, or it might be not even a little bit true."

"I do know this. There are things in this world that Pockets and I have seen that I have no explanation for. Hell, Pockets himself I have no explanation for, most of the time. Doesn't mean I don't wonder, and it doesn't mean that I don't suspect. What it means is that there are things that I can't explain, and that's okey doke with me. I can live with it. You all can believe what you want and it doesn't matter even a little bit to me. I'll defend your right to believe as you do, as long as you leave me the right to NOT believe it."

"Jenkins!" Bags yelled. The thin scribe came forward. "What have you got for me?" Jenkins handed him his pad, and Bags looked at it briefly. "Excellent choices, Jenkins. Go grab lunch at the house, tell Griz I'll be there in a bit." Jenkins nodded and left.

Bags looked at the anticipation on the faces. Some had dread, some were just waiting. He took a deep breath and called out. "Milton Pewitt! aaaand..." he looked down the list, "Weehawk!"

From the back came the two men. Both were small and compact of frame, both had long hair running down their back. Pewitt was very blond, with intense blue eyes, a quirky smile and thin face. Weehawk had black hair, almost blue in depth. His eyes shone black as well, black as any coal, but there was a fire in them. He too smiled, but it was a quiet, contemplative smile, as if he held a secret no one else knew. Of the two, Pewitt was more slender, but the bulk of his frame was carried in his chest. Weehawk's showed in his thighs, muscular and tanned.

Bags looked the two men up and down, and then asked "Where the hell did you two come from?"

Pewitt stuck out his hand to be shaken and said, with force "Father was a blacksmith, your majesty!" Weehawk simply smiled and said "No where special. Just a sewer rat."

Bags looked at the proffered hand, shook it briefly, and said "At ease, soldier". He looked at Weehawk and said "Sewer rat, huh? Any more to your story?"

"Nope." came the sallow answer.

Bags looked at the young man and rubbed his chin. "Ever know a woman named BeJay, son?"

Weehawk looked suspiciously at Bags a long look before answering. "Maybe. Does it matter?"

Bags shook his head. "Nope. Doesn't matter a damn. Only thing is, if you get yourself killed out there, how mad will she be with me?"

"She might be miffed a bit, Bags, but she'll get over it. She figures I'm old enough to make my own decisions." Weehawk gained his smile again.

"You her son?" Bags asked. "No... wait... Grandson?"

"Grandson, Bags."

"Good enough. You're in." He turned to Pewitt. "Soldier, this is a pub. I'm not the boss here. Damien is, okay?"

Pewitt relaxed just a bit more and said "Yes, your majesty."

"Can the majesty crap, Milt. By the time you get back, you might be calling a whole lot of other things, other than 'your majesty'. Your dad's a blacksmith, huh? I don't remember a blacksmith in this town."

"He's not of this town, your... ummm..."

"Bags is my name, Milt."

"Bags, then. Pa is the blacksmith of another village, about two days ride away. I've been here six months now, working for the butcher. I was looking for something different, you see. And here I am!"

"And here you are." Bags agreed. He looked at Pewitt, looked at Weehawk. "You two know where the Mansion is?" Both men nodded. "Good. Go there, you'll find Jenkins and Grizelda, my wife there. Tell them I sent you and to feed you, Okay?" Again, both men nodded. "Go on. I've got just a bit more to finish up here. I'll be along presently."

After Pewitt and Weehawk had left, Bags turned to the remaining crowd. He got a grim face and said "What do you think? Think they'll do ok?"

Briggs said "I don't know, Bags. I don't know what they are heading towards."

"Yeah." Agreed Bags. 'Course you don't." He looked off into the distance, and then quieter. "Course you don't." He slapped the table, said "Welp, I better go get them ready. Griz will already be wondering what the hell I'm up to." He stood up from the table and moved towards the door.

"Damien," he said as he paused before leaving. "Put 'em all on my tab tonight, okay? Don't let 'em get too carried away, but don't hold 'em back, either. Life was made to enjoy, you know?" And then, somberly, he left, the door closing quietly behind him.