The Worm of the Ages and Other Tails: Six Short Fantasies Read Online Free Page A

it’s for,’ I said. ‘I don’t blab secrets. Who would I tell, anyway?’
    ‘The year’s about spent,’ said Droll, looking out at the brown tangle of the willows and the umber patches of the frozen bog. ‘They may not have money for such toys, but they like to get them for Yule, you understand. Not all – I don’t do this for just anybody. But there was a girl once – think of that dancer, but in flesh and blood. I made a fool of myself, in vain of course. A Dwarf has to be very rich indeed to catch the eye of a woman, even an ugly one; and she was one of the other kind. She died, somehow, and I went on living – the Maker knows why or how. But she has a daughter, you see, who is about nine or ten now—’
    ‘I see.’
    ‘Do you?’
    ‘Yes, I really do.’
    ‘It’s not just that she likes little acted-out stories where true love conquers all. Her father was a soldier, you see; and now she has nothing but a maiden aunt, who is easy enough to mistake for an ogress—’
    There was a mirror on the wall beside the door: chest-high for me, full-length for him. He paused and made a face in it. ‘A little girl ought to have some beauty in her life, and in my experience, Yule is when she feels the need most keenly. Even an old Dwarf needs that much; more especially if he’s got no beauty of his own.
    ‘Hand me down those two boxes, will you? I have a little errand in town.’
     
     

Magic’s pawnshop
    I was talking one day with my friend and cover artist, Sarah Dimento (who, by the bye, is a very interesting writer in her own right; I hope you may have a chance to read some of her work one day). We were having a good laugh about online role-playing games, and the immense amounts of magical junk that players accumulate in their monomaniac quest for the biggest and best and flashiest and lethalest gear. And we took to wondering: What happens to all the old equipment that the players trade in for petty cash? I made some investigations—
    I had stopped to window-shop, then come in to price a bit of cheap jewellery. The proprietor must have liked the look of me, for he trusted me enough to take a display box of rings and gewgaws out from under glass and let me rummage through them on my own. While I was amusing myself with that, another customer came in, a bulging canvas bag over his shoulder. He was one of these adventurers by the look of him, and not an experienced one; he had on a lot of shiny new armour and other rubbish, more stylish than practical, probably sold to him by some huckster who spotted him for a rube and told him the yarn about how this stuff was  just what he needed. This fellow was the counterpart to the first-time camper who goes ‘roughing it’ with six carts full of gear and all the discomforts of home.
    Your true hero goes out with a flint and steel and a case-knife, and comes back with a hoard of treasure and a rescued princess – if he wants them. I knew one once, such an old hand that he didn’t even trouble with the flint, and only bothered with princesses if he could score a brace of them. He said it was no more trouble to rescue two at a time, and a lot more sporting to try and bring them back without having them scratch each other’s eyes out. Princesses are a jealous lot, and give the lie to the old yarn about breeding equating to good manners. If you want to see worse manners than wildcats fighting, just stir up two princesses with the same dress on, and set them down in a room together. It needn’t even be dresses; your more particular sort will start up if they both have the same colour of eyes. Jade-green and violet are the worst; especially the ones with tip-tilted noses—
    But I digress. This raw young kid with about a hundred pounds of gear on his person, not counting the bag, sauntered in as if he was somebody and heaved the bag up on the counter. I kept still and listened. It is always good to see a skilful tradesman at work, even if he is only a pawnbroker;