The Fire and the Fog Read Online Free Page A

table.
    ‘Nice of you to join us’ Gel’s father
rumbled, blowing lightly on a chunk of meat from the stew as Gel
quickly slid into his seat at the table.  ‘Is this your house
only when it comes to food, or do you intend to sleep here tonight
as well?’
    Othwaithe was a large man.  Big of
shoulder, broad of chest, hands that looked large enough to crush
bricks into dust.  He could be intimidating at times, looking
as he did like a large bear.  But he was always gentle, kind,
and fair.  Gel had written a song for his father years ago,
when he was seven years old; a slow, deliberate song filled with
held staccato notes that Gel still felt perfectly matched the way
his father, or a bear, would walk.
    ‘Soreh’ Gel mumbled, trying to speak through
the stew-soaked bread he had just shoved into his mouth.  ‘Ws
wth Shne n Mae.’
    ‘Gel,’ his mother cut in, ‘chew your
food.  You will choke.’
    ‘And how would we explain a dead son to
Fulhar Chaeveh?’ his father rumbled again, smiling as Gel washed
down the bread with a gulp of watered-down wine.  The Fulhar
was the Church’s representative in the town.  He was nice
enough, but generally entirely too serious. 
    Smiling as she shushed her husband with a
wave of her hand, Maerge turned to Gel.  ‘How was your lesson
today Gel?’
    ‘Do we have to find you another tutor again?’
Othwaithe rumbled in the background, his eyes focused on his stew
as Gel spoke over him.  Gel’s mother tried to throw a quick
glare in his direction, but Othwaithe’s already diverted eyes
shielded him.
    ‘The lesson was boring,’ Gel whined, dragging
out his syllables as he rolled his eyes.  ‘Lady Vaen had me
playing more of Don Vole’s 4th cantata, but it’s just wrong, and
she won’t let me fix it.  So I went and played for Sheane and
Mae instead.’  As Gel took a break from talking to shove in
more mouthfuls of stew, his mother spoke up.
    ‘What did you play for them?  And have
you decided who you’ll take to the Harvest Festival?’
    ‘And have you forgotten that you have to play
Don Vole’s cantata for the Duke in two days?  You had better
learn it well.’ Othwaithe said as he leaned back calmly and began
wiping the bottom of his already empty bowl with a torn-off piece
of bread.
    There were a few moments of silence as Gel
voraciously shoveled spoonfuls of stew into his mouth.  His
parents waited calmly, both eating with the patience that comes
with years and the knowledge that food normally doesn’t disappear
if it’s already in a bowl in front of you.
    As Gel finished off his first bowl of stew,
he looked up to respond.
    ‘Yes, father, I know I have to play in two
days, but it doesn’t matter,’ he replied, exasperated.  ‘I
know the song already, and more lessons on it are just
boring.’ 
    Othwaithe began to open his mouth to respond
as Maerge fetched Gel another bowl and more bread, but Gel
interrupted.  ‘And yes, father, I know.  Practice makes
perfect.  But I already am perfect, so why should I
practice?  Gel said, smiling smugly at his father as only a
teenager could manage.
    ‘And the girls?’ his mother interrupted as
she put more stew in front of him, trying to bring him back on
track to what was important, to her at least.
    ‘Right’ Gel said, smiling as he cut up a
large chunk of potato into more manageable pieces.  ‘Well, we
went to the old oak tree and I played them a song I wrote. 
It’s like Don Vole’s, only I fixed it, and made it into a smoother
blue for Sheane and Mae, instead of yellow.  It was really
nice.  Then I played them some more songs, and we talked, and
Sheane brought tea and pastries.’  Gel took quick bites in
between sentences, keeping just enough stew in his mouth that he
could eat and talk at the same time, leaving all his sentences
slightly muffled.  ‘And now I’m going to write a song for the
Oak, and one for our house too.  They’re old, and they seem so
lonely.’
    ‘Very nice