The Song of Arventis — Part One
Once hailed as the best bard on the continent, Arventis found himself in dire straits
Pain erupted from the scores of welts that made up the topography of Arventis’s body. The sharp twinges brought him back to consciousness. Still alive, then. His other senses re-emerged from the darkness, and he heard the squelch of mud as the overwhelming acrid stench of pigs stung his nostrils while the animals rooted about in the muck. Muck that he, Arventis, felt under his back and in his ears. The taste of metal lay thick on his tongue. Pink light blazed through his closed lids, scorching the inside of his fragile skull. With utmost caution, he eased up the shutters of his soul and saw his other senses had not betrayed him. He was, in fact, lying on his back in a pig sty.
The first wave of panic rolled in, heavier than the mud and the stink and the pain. He was alive, but what worth was that if he wasn’t intact? In the mess of throbbing aches and stabs that wracked his body, he couldn’t pick out the feel of his hands. Gritting his teeth, uttering a prayer to the Four, he tried to wiggle his fingers.
And wiggle, they did. The panic receded. So long as his fingers still worked, the rest meant fuck all. He waved his left hand in front of his face to confirm, and with satisfaction, did the same with the right. Arventis’s pleading last night had convinced Giovik’s thugs to see reason.
“Wait, waitwaitwaitwaitwait,” Arventis remembered saying as they forced his hand down on the table. He continued, sputtering, “I can’t pay if I can’t play. A bard — the continent’s best bard — he can earn, he can pay a vig, but with broken hands, well.”
The two men — the grease and cheap tuberose pomade smell of them still thick in Arventis’s bloody nose — had looked at each other, and the bard knew he had them. He just needed to keep from overplaying his hand.
“If you’re going to break my hands, just kill me now. Save yourselves a trip,” Arventis had said, keeping the nervous edge to his voice. The two thugs looked at each other, keeping their faces flat, betraying nothing.
“We don’t kill you until next time,” the bearded one had said. Then the shaved one had lifted his chortlewood club and —
Arventis looked down at his legs. Brown clots of blood, along with mud, glued the fine linen trousers to his legs. He tried to wiggle a toe.
Bolts of pain arced up his leg. But the toe did wiggle. Aches of all varieties followed him as he pushed his way to sitting. Last thing he remembered from the prior night was the shaved one swinging that white club at his knees. He grimaced and with a slow, careful reach, prodded at his kneecap.
To his relief, the resulting pain originated a couple finger widths below his knee, where a horrible gash screamed and bellowed that it did not wish to be touched. Arventis honored the request.
He flopped back onto the mud and hefted a sigh for all the stupid luck that had deposited him in a pig pen, beat to a pulp, and worst of all, in Dellin. The fetid country refused to let him go. First, its culture starved masses lured him in with showers of coins for his songs. Then, the same people — who proved quite sultry and practiced in the arts of bodily pleasure, despite their poverty of music — kept him seduced long enough to find the final nail for his coffin. The cards.
The twice-earth-damned cards, with their whimsy and promise, robbed him of every copper. He’d been on the verge of wealthy before he began chasing that beautiful convergence of fates, that sweet whisper from the Spirits, when the cards showed their favor. Never before had Arventis seen gambling halls like they built in Dellin. A winning hand on a big bet matched the heights of singing at a royal wedding, of falling in love with a beautiful woman, of knowing the tender heart of a hard man. So Arventis chased that feeling. And now he was broke. And in all fairness, it wasn’t entirely his fault.
Yes it was. But the Four take Dellin, this hot, sultry, sticky country. He’d never have wallowed on his back, holding back hungover tears in Bergot. At least Bergian silver-vicers had the decency to kill a debtor. Leave him his pride.
Arventis laid there in his mud and thought up a tune to express his misfortune. Something wistful and haunting. But a bit bawdy, since in truth, it was his own fault for playing the part of the fool. The sun strode near the sky’s center by the time thirst overcame Arventis’s brooding and forced him to actually do something.
He tried his feet, but found the pain in his shin too much to bear. So he clawed his way through the slop of the pigs, on a level with them, until he reached their water trough. He stared at his reflection in the squirming water a moment.
In the water he saw his dark mustache had become a bloody broom, a far cry from its usual waxed elegance. His nose was undoubtedly broken, but he thought it added an air of roguish charm, so not a total loss. His sparkling green eyes were ringed with blue bruises. On a positive note, the bruises hid the beginnings of crow’s feet which had bothered him these past few months. Or, he couldn’t see them in the pig trough, anyway.
He eyed himself with disappointment. No more cards. Giovik the silver-vicer would see neither hide nor hair of him, as Arventis determined to get out of Dellin at his earliest convenience. He gritted his teeth and muttered, “Fucking Dellin,” then drank a mouthful of the pig’s water.
If you stuck around this long, hopefully you enjoyed the story and didn’t simply finish out of spite. And if you liked it, do my ego a favor and throw some claps, maybe a response, or follow my way.
Arventis has a long journey ahead of him. I can promise music (on the page), violence (on the page), and disease (on the page, as well as in my own body on occasion).
