BagsNPockets

[joegoda]

Jorge guided Grizelda through the glass door, to stop before the tree. "What do you think of my house?" He asked, looking up into the branches.

"I think," Grizelda said "that it may be the most amazing thing I've ever seen. Just having a tree in the house amazes me, not to mention a tree this large."

"Yes. I rather like it." He walked up to the tree and tapped on it's rough bark. "This is one of the last trees from the forest this village was built from. No, I think it IS the last tree. When my predecessor's predecessor saw the forest being torn down, he decided to build this house around the tree, and here's it's been ever since."

"You know," Jorge said, casually looking up at the tree, "I've been watching you folk, the three of you, since you registered at the gate. It's not often we have a jack of all trades, a fortune teller and a weapon's master check in. It caught my interest, I must admit."

Grizelda didn't know what to say, so she didn't say anything. Jorge filled the empty space by taking her hand and pulling her toward the hallway. "Come with me, look at some of my artwork, some of the tapestries."

There were two halls, one on the left, and one on the right. Each held any number of paintings and portraits. Jorge took her down the nearest one, the one on the right. "Look here," he said, "this was my father, or at least the best I could remember. He died when I was eight." The portrait was of a gray haired man, high forehead and aquiline nose leading down to bearded chin, sitting with hands crossed, dressed in purple robes. His steel blue eyes were focused somewhere up and to the right of the artist. It wasn't what one would call a great portrait, but for an amateur’s attempt, it was quite good.

"It's very nice." said Grizelda, looking close at the brushstrokes, the blend of color and light."

"Such the diplomat. It's how I see him in my minds eye. Stern and severe, quite the taskmaster, or so I thought. Perhaps he was just the product of his raising." Jorge turned towards Grizelda. "As are we all."

"Take Bags, for example. Is Bags his real name?"

Grizelda shrugged. "As far as I know. He claims that's what he remembers, but I suspect it's just the name that he adopted because of that bag he always carries. He says at the orphanage, he had no name but Timothy, but later the nuns called him Timothy Bags, so that became his name."

"Yes, " mused Jorge. "I did notice that bag of his. It's almost like it's a part of him. After a while you hardly notice it." He stroked the portrait of his father. "Later, Dad." he said, and moved on down the hall. He showed her paintings of flowers he said he had grown in his garden, portraits of colorful folks he had called in from the Midway. "Bags is the product of his raising, even if that raising was of his own making. He is what he made of himself. Timothy Bags, weapons master. He's a very gentle man, I gathered that from the way he moved, the look in his eyes. Is he?"

"Yes. Very much so." Grizelda answered.

"I figured as much. Why do you think, or how do you think, a man as gentle as Bags became so proficient in his art of death?"

"I prefer to think of it as protection." Grizelda offered.

"Exactly!" exclaimed Jorge. "But protection from what? Protection from whom? I believe a gentle man learns these arts not to protect himself from the world, but to protect the world from himself."

"How do you mean? I'm not sure I follow you." Grizelda questioned.

"Look at it this way," he said, "to gain the proficiency I believe that Bags has, he had to work very hard to develop the discipline to control himself in the way he does. He is disciplined, isn't he? Cautious in all he says and does? Careful in manner and mood?"

"Yes..." Grizelda admitted.

"So, a man with that much control doesn't learn to have that control to control the world outside of himself. He learns that much control to control the world inside of himself. To protect the world from himself. I believe that your Timothy Bags can be a very dangerous man."

"Bags would never hurt ..." she protested. Jorge raised a hand to stop her.

"I agree. To those he cares about, he would move the moon and fight the tigers that would feast upon your hearts and soul. But to those that would stop him from doing what he knows is right... to those people, he would be a very dangerous person, indeed."

"I suppose you're right." Grizelda said doubtfully. She didn't like to think of the man she loved, the man she had spent many a night with as being dangerous. She preferred to think of him as the gentle lover, the slow spoken, thoughtful man he had always been to her.

"I want to show you something. Then after I do, I want to talk about Pockets."

At the end of the hall, they came to a plain wooden door, set off to the side.

"This is the sculpture room. It's where I create my dreams," he opened the door, "and some of my nightmares."

They walked into a room that was populated by statues of animals, plants, people. Here and there were examples of horrible art, not that the art itself was horrible, just that the images were. Sculptures of people being tortured, being torn apart. Of animals with spikes through their head and their hearts. Sculptures of pain, of loss, of anguish and agony.

"What do you think?" asked Jorge.

"I think..." Grizelda stopped and thought. She was beginning to wonder what in the seven hells the king was talking about. He never seemed to settle on one subject, and dammit, when was he going to get to Pockets?

"Don't pretty it up, girl. Tell me your honest thoughts."

"All right." she turned to look directly at him. "I think this is pretty disturbing. Not something I'd want the average public to look at. They might get the idea there was something... not quite right with you."

Jorge just stood there, looking at her with a cheshire smile on his face. His eyes twinkled with a bit of madness. "Go on." he urged.

"I mean, some of them are very nice. Some of them have a distinct beauty about them. That one over there, for example."

She pointed to a statue of a woman, old and crippled, who was being crushed beneath a stone twice her size. It was obvious she struggled with it, and strove to hold it up, but it was just as obvious she would never win out against the weight above her.

"That one has some incredibly tragic beauty about it, a sign of struggle against the inevitable. The face is of an old woman, yes, but you can see the woman she used to be, youthful and lovely. In it's own way, it's a very good piece of art, but in it's own way it's disturbing as hell to look at, as if it's a reminder to us all that we will never really win."

She pointed to another. "There's that one, the one showing a lion eating a child while it's mother looked on in terror. It's superbly done, the musculature is well defined and the movement is captured at the exact right moment to bring the viewer to the same emotions as you have the mother displaying. It's horrible and lovely at the same time."

"There are some here I'm not sure I understand, and some that are downright wrong. I mean, what's this one about? You have a man in the stage of what? Melting? Merging into something with claws and a tail while the human part of him is screaming? You have statues of beheadings and people being pulled apart. I'm sorry, Jorge. Some of these are just terrible. Beautiful work, yes, but terrible in intent, and very, very hard to look at."

"Yes." said Jorge, mildly excited. "That's exactly right. That's exactly why I have them here, back in this room." He paced through the room, stroking one, and then another. He stopped, and gazed off into the distance. "These are where I put the bad thoughts, because sometimes they just happen. They happen to all of us, you know. I believe though, that the more responsibility a person has the more bad thoughts he may have." He turned again to look at Grizelda. "Do you believe that is true?"

"What has this got to do with us?" Grizelda asked. "You said you thought that Pockets might be in trouble. What about that? What sort of trouble?"

"In a moment. Do you believe that the more responsibility a person has, the more nightmares he may have?"

"I suppose." She admitted, her voice becoming a bit strident with impatience. "I would imagine the more responsibility a person has, the more they may fear what may go wrong. It would take a great deal of control to not give into that fear."

"Exactly!" Jorge said. "Let's get out of this place. It gives me the willies." He led the way back to the hallway, turning after Grizelda was out to close the door tightly. He pulled from his robe a key, and locked the door behind him. "I don't like to go into there, but I wanted you to know me. I'm not a bad or a crazy person. At least, I don't think so.

"I never wanted to be king. I wanted to be a horn player. But here I am, chosen by the king before me. Sometimes the position requires me to make decisions that are not ...pleasant." Jorge appeared to have fallen into himself, lost his luster and appeared to be just an old gray man.

"Gee, your majesty. That's rough." Grizelda said, not hiding any of the sarcasm she felt. She was moving down the hall towards the main room. "But isn't that what being a king is all about? Making tough decisions?" She was thinking to herself that she had no earthly idea what that was all about.

Jorge stopped at the doorway and gazed hard at Grizelda. He seemed to pull from inside of himself some inside strength, to gain back some of his former charm and joy. "Yes, you're exactly right, Grizelda." he smiled a shy smile at her. "Sorry... I seemed to have gotten lost for a minute back there. Thanks for bringing me back to now. Bags is a lucky man to have you in his life. Pockets too, I would imagine."

Grizelda turned to face the old king, who was standing in the entry to the hallway. Her hands were balled into fists "Now then, you said you believed that Pockets was in trouble. Tell me what you were talking about."

"Yes. About Pockets." The king moved past Grizelda, and seated himself at the great dining table. "From the moment you three registered, I've had you watched. Like I said, you caught my curiosity."

"My people told me about your visit to the pub. They saw Pockets leave the pub with that woman, Chibi. She's a rather shady character, and we've never been able to find out exactly what she does. Oh, she works in Swineheart's, that part is true. But she's got something else going on, that's obvious. Late night comings and goings. We've followed her, but she just disappears. Very sneaky, that one."

"When my men got to a point where they could follow Pockets out the back, he was already gone. They figured he had just gone home with Chibi. They sat outside of Chibi's home for quite a while, and when they didn't detect any movement in the place, they suspected he had been kidnapped. That really raised my curiosity, since you three had just entered the gates that very day. Chibi obviously wanted something from Pockets, though we don't know what." He looked very hard at Grizelda, examining every breath, every blush, searching for truth. "I don't suppose he told you anything that might give a clue?"

Grizelda thought about telling the king about Pockets' little windup toy, but decided discretion was the better part of valor. She sat down directly opposite the king. "He came in and told us he had been kidnapped and held captive in a stone building. He said he escaped through a storm drain. Other than that, he didn't tell us much more."

Jorge looked hard at Grizelda. "He didn't say anything else? He didn't mention why he had been taken, what Chibi wanted with him?"

"Pockets is... he's rather odd, to tell the truth, your majesty. He tends to drift off into worlds of his own, and sometimes he has no interest at all in the things that go on in this world. We asked him the same things you are asking me, but he didn't appear to be particularly interested or concerned about it. When he gets like that, we've learned not to push him. If he feels he's being pushed into a corner, he'll just... kind of withdraw into himself. He'll disappear."

"Ah. That's too bad. And that's very interesting. Disassociate personality disorder. I imagine he would be fun at a party" Jorge mused while he stroked his beard.

"You have no idea." Grizelda smiled back.

Jorge pondered and hummed a bit. "A stone building, you said? There's not many stone buildings here. There's not much stone to build them with."

Grizelda suddenly gasped and shivered. "What's wrong?" asked Jorge.

"I don't know. I just had a terrible feeling about Pockets. There's something wrong. I heard him very clearly saying 'Run away'!" Grizelda had turned ashen.

At that exact moment Bags burst through the door, followed by Harv. "Griz? Did you feel it?"

Grizelda stood up, went over and hugged Bags, hard. "Yes! Pockets is in trouble, Bags. We need to find him, quickly." She turned toward Jorge, who had risen when Bags entered. "Jorge, what stone building contains a cellar?"