Haymon, Eric K, Hasler [books to read in a lifetime TXT] 📗

The old man slammed his balled fists against his hips, "who in the blazes do you..."

"I'm not talking to you!" interrupted the hood again.

The old man looked around the dead end alley, then chuckled, "Well, who by Maweth are you talking to?"

The hooded man raised his right hand and pointed at the old man, "What I want to know," he growled, "is why..."

ASK HIM THE QUESTION

"Stop telling me waht to do!" rasped the hooded man.

"I didn't say anything!" whined the old man.

 "I'm not talking to you!"

ASK HIM

The hooded man raised both hands to his ears, "Get out of my head!" he chuntered. The old man's eyes widened, his mouth hung slightly open, he started to edge away from the mad man.

"Alright!" rasped the hood, "I'll ask him!"

The old man hadn't moved too far before the hooded man grabbed him and pushed him back against the wall. "Why were they going to break you?" his voice grating in the old man's ears, scaring the urine out of him again.

"Th... Th... They want silver..."

"They don't look like thieves!" interrupted the hood's grating voice, again.

"They aren't," squeaked the old man, "They're collectors!" The feeling of relief surrounded the old man once the hood released his grip. He smiled nervously. Not because of the situation, but because he could, for the first time, see some of the hood's face. His nose was a little crooked as if it had been broken a few times. There was a scar on the left side of his upper lip and there looked to be dark rings around his eyes, which may have been from the shadow the hood provided.

The hood grumbled as he took a step back to reassess the situation.

ASK HIM AGAIN

"Why don't you leave me to it then!" rumbled the hood. With a shaking of his head and the taking of a deep breath, the hood seemed to calm down a little. "Why did they want silver?" he asked in a way that could be considered pleasent which threw the old man a little.

"Well, about a moonth ago I borrowed ten pieces of silver to pay my landlord. But I haven't been able to pay them back. Now they want twenty pieces of silver!" The old man almost slid down the wall into a crumpled heap. "I don't know what to do any more! My family has been here four hundred cycles. I'm going to lose..."

"Knock it off!" interrupted the hood. "There's no point in sobbing about it. You're not the only one it's happening to!"

The hood turned to his left as if to walk off.

ASK HIM WHERE...

"For the love of Dazbog, will you stop..."

ASK HIM

The hood turned back to the old man, "Where can I find these faecal punches?"

The old man stood up straight. "Well," he said, "Go back out this alley, turn left and count twelve alleys on the right, which should be on your left. Then turn into the left alley, which should be on your right. Then count seven alleys and three doors on what should be your left. The third door is quite expensive and has all thesee..."

"Enough!" grumbled the hood as he grabbed hold of the old man's left shoulder, "Your directions are hogwash!" he rumbled, "show me!"

The old man squirmed in attempt to get away, "please no!" he almost cried, "if they see me..."

"Show me!" the hood interrupted loudly, and with a grimace said, "nobody will see you, they'll be busy dealing with me!"

That sent shivers down the old man's spine. What by the fires of Limilk have I gotten myself into?

As they walked to the edge of the alley he turned to the hooded man and said, "I think it is about time to introduce myself..."

"I don't care!"

The old man chuckled nervously, "you should care. Everyone's talking about you and claiming some things that I thought unbelievable. That is until..."

Will saying your name stop you from talkinf to me?" growled the hood.

"I am Hayman," said the old man, "descended from the first..."

"I have your name, now you can shut up!"

The back room is something that has to be seen to be believed. There are no windows and the walls are almost completely covered in paintings that enshroud the wonderfully plastered and whitewashed walls. Many of the pictures are from places most people in Anta-Nathalia had only heard about in stories; or lies, which is what most consider stories to be. Places like the fabled walled city that controls the North Western lands known as Mulburga. Or the River Daldara, that great snake-river cutting through the western lands dividing the Northwest from the Southwest until it bleeds into Boils Embayment, the little western indentation near the top of the Great Gulf. Another intriguing picture was the creation of the Sea of Glass, depicting the massive lightning storm two thousand cycles eariler that turned half the Dacari Desert into glass; although it is assumed the Sea of Glass only surrounds the Red Mountain and is only about quarter of the size of the Dacari Desert. 

The floor itself is impossible to see as it's laden with many rugs with all sorts of bright and beautiful colours created from dyes that are foreign to Anta-Nathalia. One of the rugs had a rather large lion's head that looked to be spitting fire while letting loose a mordacious roar. It obviously came from Eomar, one of the oldest cities in the land although its where abouts is uncertain; a troubled city that had some kind of uprising around five cycles ago, which this rug most probably represents. There was a bright blue rug with red edges and red tassels and a bright yellow sun in the centre, which looked to be depicting some form of Dazbog. Some of the rugs had images of mountains, rivers and palaces from faraway lands. There was even one with a mythical beast surrounded by men with spears attacking it; the beast didn't look to be very impressed with the men.

Hanging from the centre of the ceiling was a chandelier with six large candles, which seemed to rock ever so slightly, bringing a wavering light to the room, making the rugs and paintings look kind of like they were living things. The candles represented the six major gods of Anta-Nathalia and were shaped in their likeness, that is until the heat from the flame distorted them. The structure of the chandelier itself resembles the shape of a star which has five points. Each point of the star has a candle attached while in the centre was the largest candle. Each candle was a different colour with the large one in the centre being a yellow that represented Dazbog the sun god. The blue for Anoukis the water god, the orange for Limilk the god of fire, the white for Maweth the god of death, the black for Sin the god of the moon and green for Upunaut the god of the afterlife.

Towards the back wall was a black wooden table with a pile of scrolls on the left and one scroll stretched out in the centre. The table was expertly made with hand carved legs. The feet of the legs had been shaped to represent the paws of some long forgotten beast, while the centre of the legs looked to be shaped into that of a female human being with an oversized bust without nipples. The top of the legs were shaped into the style of a tree with the branches stretching out to support the table top, which was about a hand thick and made out of one piece of wood. The blacness of the wood was natural; well not really. The tree the table was made from once stood in The Dead Woods, just south of one of the proposed places Eomar was though to be. Rumour has it that the trees were tortured by some stray lightning from around two thousand cycles ago, that the woods never recovered, that nothing lives there, hence the name: The Dead Woods. It is also assumed that the woods were tortured at the same time as the Dacari Desert was turned to glass, but that may just be speculation.

Hunched over the black table peering intently at the stretched scroll was a short bald man with a round midsection, kind of like a barrel is a barrel was soft. His cheeks had a purple, reddish complexion that was enhanced by his large beak like nose. He had patches of stubble above his top lip, which did nothing for his appearance other than expose how small his mouth is and how thin his lips are. The chin is pointed and sticks outward, his eyes are beady and black, which enhances the short forehead. He did have one thing going for him though and that was his rather long pony tail that hung half way down his back, but starts at the lower back of his head, negating any form of attractiveness the pony tail would give the average man. His hands planted either side of the scroll seemed to support his weight if only to stop him from face planting the scroll.

"Well Jekar, this is looking pretty darn good!" His voice sounded a bit like the squeal a pig makes, although quieter it still has the ability to make most in the room a little anxious and to bring out the need to end the conversation quickly. Except for Jekar, who was partially deaf. He stood a good head and shoulders above the average man and, even though his size warranted a second guess when confronting him, he was a big softy. Until he is given an order that is, then it's a good idea to run! He is intensely loyal to Damson, the man beside him, and would do anything he's asked without question.

"How so?" asked Jekar with his thundering voice. The volume and depth exclaimed a form of authority until you noticed that his pony tail wouls swing from side to side when he spoke, kind of like a happy puppy wagging its tail, which made it hard to take him seriously.

Damson stood up about as straight as he could and looked to his right. "The scroll says we are owed one thousand silver coins and that we are up by five hundred silver coins this moonth." He smiled, which did nothing for his complexion except to show that his face looks more rat like when he's happy.

When Jekar smiled it did two things, it made Damson look quite attractive, while at the same time made Jekar look downright scary. "Semiazaz will be happy then!"

Damson dropped his smile, shook his head, "You would think so, wouldn't you." He let out a rather loud sigh, "I'm not sure if that man will ever be happy!"

Jekar laughed, and Damson took a step back, his eyes widened. It was a little strange for Jekar to laugh, normally he would just smile at you, sometimes he would grin and that was straight out terrifying. "We should take him to Doogal's tavern to celebrate!" he thundered out a little louder than was expected.

Damson piffed out a breath of air, "You just want to visit the upper rooms!"

Jekar nodded his head in agreement while his smile widened.

"Sorry to spoil your interesting and possibly devious plan of getting some free crumpet out of me, but we must wait for Jabula and those two idiots he took with him to get back." Damson kind of like Jabula. He was hard, but fair and the customers seemed to respect him. Well, that's what he said. Those other two though, they seemed like they were more interested in enforcing something that really wasn't needed. "What do you think of Jabula's two apes?"

Jekar took a deep breath, his eyes widened and almost rolled into the back of his head. Letting out the wind with a whistle he said, "They look to be untrustworthy. I grew up with Jabula. He wasn't very nice back than and I don't think much has