LeapingStag

"We've heard the one about the Princess and the Frog and the Good King and the Evil King a thousand times.
I'm sick of those stories. Let's hear a new one!" Fin the wheelwright bellowed, and banged his empty mug on the
trestle table of the Leaping Stag inn hard enough to make his neighbors' mugs jump. There were   maledictions
heaped on the wheelwright's wooly red head as the inn's inhabitants hastened to steady their mugs before all the
ale sloshed out.

The innkeeper anxiously looked around, obviously debating whether Finn had over-indulged enough to cause
trouble. The inn was filled to near capacity, and a brawl could wreak havoc with the innkeeper's livelihood in a
matter of moments.

"A story! A story!" Finn bellowed again. "I want more ale and a new story!" The drunken, red-faced wheelwright
got unsteadily to his feet, jostling the table again.

"Gods take it, Finn!" Danler the smith roared in annoyance. "Quit spilling my drink! There ain't no new stories.
They've all been told."

A look of strain on his face, the innkeeper chose the lesser of two evils and trotted over to Finn's side, refilling
his mug and patently hoping the wheelwright would be satisfied with that.

"I'll tell you a story you haven't heard before," the minstrel in the corner said. His voice was as trained and
melodic as his fingers on the lute strings and just as much his tool -- the voice of a born storyteller.

Finn sat down heavily on the bench and fumbled for his drink, his bloodshot eyes glued to the minstrel. Arm and
back muscles powerful enough to lift one end of a wagon to change a broken wheel were lax and uncoordinated
with drink, and it took him some time to close his sausage-like fingers around the mug's handle.

"All right!" Finn said belligerently. "Tell it then." He took a mighty swig from his mug, ale runneling down the side
of his mouth and spotting his already reeking vest.

The minstrel, who had arrived earlier that night, now had the interest of the crowd. He was a small and slender
man, with black eyes and lank black hair framing a face nearly as pale as snow. A well-worn cloak was draped
across the stool near him, and his lute, which he had occasionally strummed as the night wore away, was
carefully laid upon its rusty black folds. The minstrel looked around at his potential audience, black eyes
observant. The innkeeper was suddenly aware that the press of unwashed bodies tainted the air along with the
scents of ale and burning pine, and that the walls were rough, and that the split pine floors were splintered. The
candlelight from the suspended iron wheels and the glow of the fire in the fireplace created a wavering and
unsteady system of lighting that now hardly seemed adequate.

Earlier that evening (the minstrel began, instant silence prevailing upon his first words), I walked on the road
toward this very town and entered Gannon's Pass -- (I see by your looks you know of its dire reputation already;
people going into the pass but never coming out) -- and with the sun just beyond the mountains, the pass was
dark and gloomy. Having heard many terrible stories about the haunted pass, I slowed down and peered ahead,
trying in vain to pierce the gloom on either side of the road which gleamed with what light there was like a pale
ribbon unwinding before me. I heard many sounds that were hard to identify, and the sweat of fear stood out on
my brow. My eyes ached from the strain of trying to see every way at once.

Just as my eyes were beginning to adjust to the darkness and my fear subside a little, I saw her. A very beautiful
lady stood on the road in front of me. (Yes, I see your suspicious looks, but you could hardly be more suspicious
than I was, I assure you.) "Who are you?" I cried out. "What do you want?"

The lady spoke no word but beckoned to me. She was really very beautiful, but I had no intentions of going
anywhere with her. "I've heard of your kind before," I said as bravely as I could. "You're a siren sent to lead me
off to some horrible fate, aren't you? Except that you're not a siren. My mother told me about you. You're an
old witch in disguise trying to lure people into your lair so you can use their living hearts in a spell to make you
young again. She came this way once. Remember a woman named Maribelle?"

The beautiful woman changed into a horrible, ugly old witch. "Found me out, eh?" She cackled. "I remember
the brainless chatterbox. Almost had her, too, if she hadn't bumped into that tree and ruined my hypnotic spell.
Clumsy twit! Just as well she ran away. Her incessant talking would have driven me insane before I had a
chance to use her heart. But knowing what I am won't save you now, boy. Your heart will do nicely." She
grinned, exposing yellowed, rotting teeth and started toward me.

"Wait! Wait!" I said, throwing up my hands in front of me. "My mother didn't run away. She stayed and found
out what you really were."

The old witch stopped and eyed me.

"She saw through your second disguise, remember?" I said. "She told me that you were really a great wizard
who was testing everyone who passed by to see if they had enough magical talent to become your apprentice.
Anyone who could see through your disguises had enough talent to qualify. She became your apprentice and
learned to be a great wizard herself."

The old witch turned into a tall man in dark blue robes who carried a wizard's staff. "I just can't fool you at all,
young man, can I?" the old wizard said ruefully.

"You still don't fool me," I said.

"What?" the old wizard said, startled.

"I heard that old wizard died," I said, confident. "Who you really, really are is my mother!"

My mother dropped her disguise and called out in a joyful voice, "Son, is that you? You are mother's boy! You'll
be a great wizard someday instead of just a lousy musician."

There was complete silence in the Leaping Stag inn when the minstrel finished his story. A titter somewhere in
the back of the room started a round of guffaws that shook the rafters, causing the candle flames overhead to
sway and cast crazy shadows.

"That's the biggest load of poppycock I've ever heard in my entire life," Danler the smith said.

"It's new," Finn the wheelwright said sententiously. "Never heard that one before." He smirked into his ale.

"You can make sentences sound like music, minstrel, but better leave the storymaking to others," the innkeeper
said, grinning. "Your story has holes a horse could get swallowed in, but it surely has one big flaw. How come
you and your mother didn't recognize each other right away?"

"Well, I thought it was a good story, but it does have that one major flaw," the minstrel said.

With that, he dropped his disguise so they could see what he really, really, really was.

The dragon curled up among the still-glowing ruins of the Leaping Stag inn for a doze, his full stomach making
him sleepy. Now that people were avoiding Gannon's Pass, he'd had to think of a new way to acquire dinner.

                                                                          end

This story was sold to "Dragonlaugh" just before the e-zine folded and never appeared in print.