Nomane

4.30 PM

he inn was crowded, smoke hanging near the ceiling, the stench of damp clothes and sweat pervading the air. Tallow lamps cast a dim, orange glow, throwing shadows across the stained tables. Over the conversation could be heard the rain, dripping from the eaves into the puddles swamping the hamlets' single road.

The conversation tailed off into silence as a gust of cold wind, blew suddenly through the small room, bringing with it the rain from the darkness, making the flames in the fireplace leap and roar as if to escape the chill. The door slammed into its frame, the wind dropped to the familiar howling through the tree. The flames settled back to their calm crackling. In the doorway stood a tall, darkly robed figure, everybody turned and stared, open mouthed, at the stranger. The silence seemed to drag for an eternity only to be broken by the barman,

"Well come friend, come in and warm yourself by the fire, it's cold and wet out there, don't see many foreigners in these parts nowadays, here let me take your cloak".

The barman's chatter continued, trying to draw the stranger to conversation but to no avail, drawing closer to the outsider, wiping his greasy hands on the apron about his waist, then reaching to lift the black robe from the newcomers' shoulders. A raised arm stopped the motion, revealing a pallid hand, sporting long dexterous fingers, a plain gold band on the middle finger. The barman noted the presence of such a treasure with interest but said nothing and desisted from trying to remove the mans cloak, maybe he could 'come by' the trinket later.

"Bring me your finest ale." commanded the stranger in a cool, powerful voice. Leaving his cowl drawn, hiding his features in deep shadow, the stranger glanced towards the locals as if commanding them to return to their chatter then strode to a table in deep shadow, his robes swishing as the hem swept across the worn floor boards.

Hours later, beyond the hour of midnight a knock at the door abruptly brought the gathering to silence. All were wary, a late night subversive meeting like this might be frowned upon by some. The robed stranger ignored the knocking. The barman siddled to the door and opened it, peering into the inky darkness. Turning he closed the door behind himself, "Nobody, odd must be the wind." he commented. The next instant the door rudely banged against the his skull, and a small, hairy form pushed its way into the glow of the inn. Swaggering, the small figure strode to the centre of the inn, the light revealing its nature, a cubit high, covered in long, brown hair, through which glowed red eyes like hot coals, and below a wide mouth pulled into the mimicry of a human grin. Bowing slightly to its audience, in belched, then shook itself heartily, splashing the onlookers. Skittering rapidly across the floor, it leapt upon the strangers table where it settled down in front of him, crooning under his caressing stroke.

The youths around the fire, worse the wear for all the ale consumed, rose to their feet, intent on extracting an apology from the lightly built stranger. Spreading themselves around the edge of his table, one gently tipped the strangers drink onto the table, the thin trickle of ale running along a crack and dripping onto the visitors robes. Looking up, the stranger rose to his feet displaying his dry cloak, stretching his body to its full height he pushed his hood back disclosing a manical grin and a pair of rather nifty mirrors 1.

He raised his arms above his head and flexed his nimble fingers in a gesture of impending doom and brought his left hand down to point at the biggest youth facing him, the youths took a step backward, absolutely nothing happened, not that the youths believed in magic 2. They smiled wickedly and took the required step to bring them closer to the small table once more whilst the stranger mused gently "Oh bollocks, never did get that one sussed" whilst using his right fist in a sharp jabbing motion known as a punch.

Really, hitting someone is a bad habit, especially when out numbered five to one, but life's a bitch then you die 3. The youths advanced removing the tables and chairs in the way 4, drawing assorted weaponry, including an selection of silver knives and forks. Yelling wildly they leapt to grab the stranger who reacted with the phrase commonly uttered at such times, "Ohhh dear!" whilst trying the hand motions again. His reward for such foolhardy bravery in the face of adversity? (Well he could have run away), the youths stopped in their tracks to look at their buddy who had just nonchalantly gone up in a ball of flame and disappeared leaving behind a pair of smoking boots with ash piled around them.

The stranger, looking very surprised and quite honestly pleased with himself (OK, relieved as well) drew his cowl over his head once more, scooped up the small, hairy creature and walked to the bar. He whispered to the barman "The station?" and handed over a few coins then left hurriedly.

5 PM

Striding with long, sweeping steps the young, blond woman rapidly made her way along the flat thing with yellow dashes down the middle, her long hair flowing behind her. She'd thought it was a minefield to start with but having walked on it, decided it might not be, anyway it was better than walking in the damp grass. That would ruin her thigh length, leather boots. Then again it felt 'right' walking down the middle for some reason.

It was awfully quiet this morning, nobody about at all. Actually she'd never been here before but this was meant to be the way to the city so she thought there ought to be people about. About an hour later she reached the city and still saw nobody, not surprising really with all the grey stone about, bit oppressive.

Upon reaching the city centre she discovered a fulgin garbed gentleman moving amongst the mounds of bodies piled there. The gentleman looked up and called "Aft'noon mate" as he raised a bony arm in greeting. He stopped what he was doing and propped his scythe against a handy tree, then stooped to pick up the last of the small, black objects from atop the nearest body and popped it into the little, black back swinging slowly from the top of the scythe.

The young woman strolled across to him and asked demurely "Who the hell are you?" which brought the man out of his reverie 5.

"I think you know who I am, if you don't you'll find out soon enough." he replied as he looped his arm through hers and set off walking around the bodies.

"Do you spend all your time hanging around dead bodies then?"

"Err, yes, rather, it's my job you understand."

"Your job? What manner of man are you, a scavenger, a looter, the dregs of humanity, maybe you are akin to the lowest forms, coal-miners."

"I have to collect their recorders, the little black boxes, I'm no scavenger, I have no need of your petty mortal treasures." 6

"Oh! Well what did they die of?"

"Something to do with holes I think, they call it 'Bore Doom", but I haven't seen a hole yet."

"No cider then?"

"Apparently not, I hear they use alcohol as preventative medicine against their ailment, must have run out. Well guess I ought to go now, job's done, here have something to read on your travels." he boomed gently as he plucked a book from the second hand book stall they were passing. The woman put the book under her arm and stood to watch the man as the wispy figure grasped the scythe with a bony hand and turned to leave. Unfortunately 7 he felt his arm dragged backwards and looking over his shoulder discovered hundreds of tiny hands clutching the scythe. Taking a deep breath he glared nastily 8 at the tree, making the hands let go and disappear amongst the remaining green leaves as the tree rapidly withered.

As the girl moved away, the entity watched her or at least watched her, oh, so tight, jeans 9, calling after her "try the one up there on the right" as she began to flick through the book handed to her. Soon she came to realise the real reason for the death of a city, a book full of stories like this one and puns like 'Bore Doom'. She tossed the book casually to one side, where it closed itself to reveal the title 'Fallen Sons'.

8.30 AM

The man trudged down the spiral staircase, head bowed low, clean shaven, his new M&S suit gleaming in the early morning sunlight. Not a happy man. Reaching the breakfast table he slumped tiredly into the nearest chair, his eyes fixing, glazed, upon the Pirelli calendar on the far wall. The whole family looked up, stunned, the breakfast cereal packet refrained from comment 10. In fact, the first comment was from the older man sitting across the table, "Get your 'air cut, ya bloody hippie!".

"Yes dad." came the meek reply.

"Come on lad, cheer up, it's only a job interview 11, don't forget your wallet, keys and this lovely lunch I've made you," trilled the woman as she handed the besuited young man a large carrier packed with peanuts and chocolates, "now eat your breakfast up."

Finally, escaping after only three greasy, fried eggs forced upon him by his mother 12, the young man rose, collected his wallet and made his exit without saying goodbye. He had plans did this guy, plans growing with every moment as the day moved onwards, he was going places

Somewhere Far, Far Away

The old man awoke suddenly, the fleeting tickle of cold steel running across his throat jerking him awake. His eyes flickered open and flashing, first to the left then to the right he summed up the situation. Confronted by three burly men, mercenaries judging by the medley of equipment, they didn't look too friendly, things didn't look so good. Improvising he spoke jauntily "Can I help you gentlemen?" as it dawned on the sword wielding mercenary that a sword ain't really meant for tickling. The mercenary opened his mouth to make a silent reply which was when the old man discovered this particular mercenary lacked a tonguea13. Never mind the other parts could still be used for certain spells.

Gently withdrawing his arms from the voluminous folds of his cloak, the old man decided to take a risk, after all who wants to live forever, so he whispered "Would you like a...."; the final words so low that one of the mercenaries lent forwards and silently said

"Ya what! Ya ponced up old git!"

The old man repeated himself to which the mercenary gave him a puzzled look, stood up and didn't say "Don't ged it?".

Starting to think quickly as sweat began to bead on his forehead the old man reasoned that his ploy wasn't working. But, to his utter amazement the smallest mercenary, grinning toothlessly, lent towards him. However, it was at about this point in time where he spied from the corner of his eye a previously unnoticed, black garbed gentleman clutching a scythe and leaning casually against a nearby pillar, grinning faintly.

Realising this character was of some importance but not quite being able to place him, the old man returned his attention to the mercenary and the prospect of an early grave. When the mercenary had come close enough the old man squeezed his eyes shut and jammed his wrist knife to the hilt in the mercenarys' left eye. Opening his eyes after two longs seconds and the thought that he was still alive he saw the other two mercenaries didn't appear to have noticed the little incident but the black robed man appeared to be smiling whole heartedly now as he picked a little black box from atop the dead hirling. "What happened?" he asked timidly, to which the scythe wielding entity intoned

"Well, I stopped time didn't I, have to let you go, yeah 'fraid so, see the rules say you always win".

With that the old man got up and walked away from the bus station.

Later On

Silence reigned momentarily as the gentleman with the scythe finished recounting his tale. He looked around the small, beer stained table, examining the faces of an old man, a robed Mage, a young woman and a young besuited man over the multitude of pint glass and a tall stack of coke cans, then asked gently

"Whose round was it anyway?"

1. Which of course the local lads didn't recognise. but one later went on to make reflective surfaces to be used for making oneself look cool. They sold quite well.

2. Magic - art of influencing events by occult control.

3. Originally stated by an unknown 20th century philosopher.

4. One picked up a chair and said "Wow! a quad gun" but everyone ignored him so he used it as firewood instead.

5. He'd been thinking that she wasn't a bad bit of crumpet, bit flat chested perhaps, just about legal, and her see through, white T-shirt would complement his black cloak nicely.

6. Well perhaps not ordinary treasures, he was beginning to think that perhaps the term 'treasure' could be stretched to include her.

7. Unfortunate for whom or what is left for the reader to decide.

8. Know as an icy stare, a weapon gifted only to women, thus proving this entity is female despite popular opinion. However, we're all male chauvinist pigs around here so ...

9. Who says the dead don't desire things (no this ain't a cardboard fetish).

10. Okay, a few crackles of laughter were to be heard, but the 20th century heroes, Snap, Crackle and Pop, reputedly were highly diplomatic, as can be seen by them keeping stum as best they could here.

11. Yep, it happens to us all, honest !

12. All for the cause of the ancient British institution - breakfast.

13. This does tend to make the speech process more complicated than the norm.