Chapter 3.

A rich earthy odor rose from the mud through which his caked boots slogged.  The cart he dragged behind him squelched and squeaked up the road towards his goal.  The sky lay low, weighty and huge in its grey omnipresence.  Darkness was creeping up behind him as he plodded on towards the only light in the sky.  Wind snatched at his felt hat, and caressed his face with cold, wet fingers.  He was tired, but in a familiar way.  A stolid, accepting fatigue, born of a life of travel upon the roads.

Ahead was rest, in the form of the vast, shambling Inn.  This wasn't an inn.  Oh no, this was The Inn.  The place from which adventure began, plots were hatched, kingdoms toppled.  Nobody knew when The Inn was first constructed.  There was some debate about which had come first, the roads, in places sunken several feet beneath the surrounding fields, or The Inn.  Furthermore, while there was an unending stream of theories, claims, and suppositions, nobody knew whereabouts within The Inn that construction had started.

The Inn stood, and hulked, and slunk, around the crossroads at the meeting of the roads from Hither to Yon, and There to Elsewhere.  While not all roads led through this crossroads (after all that would be a foolish conceit, as a crossroads has but two roads) it was well known that an astonishing proportion of significant events involved a night at The Inn.

He tried not to raise his head too many times.  It is an established fact that for any piece of toil that requires sustained effort, looking to see how far you have to go simply increases that amount.  However, people being people, it is also impossible to entirely refrain from this activity.  Humans are indeed cursed with an indecent quantity of hope.  He looked to see what changes had occurred since his last visit, for there would be changes.  In the gloom he noticed the old whiskey still rotting and collapsing into slow oblivion, and what was that in the far corner?  It seemed as though a whimsically slender tower, barely wide enough for a stair to wind its way within its innards, was reaching for the heavy sky.  What manner of subtle extortion would this bring for the unwary? 

The Inn was always changing.  The collapse of ancient buildings, the occasional fire, even the rising and falling of the rich, loamy earth brought low extensions, additions, follies, barns, rooms, and necessities.  To counteract this siege of decrepitude there was an ongoing campaign of construction, alteration, and improvement.  For centuries this campaign had continued with an unceasing enthusiasm, and a total disregard for the aesthetics of the rest of the construction.  In summary, The Inn was a glorious shambles.

Almost without warning he arrived.  Finding a sloped and somewhat leaky roof of indeterminate purpose he pulled his cart into its shelter.  Seeing a young lad huddled beneath the sad roof's shelter, possibly in hope of a penny or two for the brief assistance in the grooming of a noble's horse, possibly with more nefarious activities in mind, he glared his best and tapped his dirk in what he hoped was a significant gesture.  The boy remained unmoved, and dry, and our carthorse set out in search of warmth, sustenance, and drink.

The sound of voices and music were his first clue.  He ducked through a low doorway and set off down what might have been a small portion of a cloister in a different age.  He knew he was on the right path when the smell of roasting capon assaulted his pleading senses.  True night fell upon him, as did the beginning of a storm as he turned into a large common room, awash in light, heat and people.  He shouldered his way through an eddy of drunkenness, its members immersed in the inane hilarity so common to these occasions, and found a small table sitting empty against a wall.  Probably it had been left unused because of its proximity to the roaring fire, but fresh from the road this was a glorious luxury rather than a discomfort. 

Collapsing into the chair he stretched his legs, rubbed his eyes, and smiled that languorous smile that only the weary who have found rest can really pull off.  A wench of stereotypical buxomness arrived to take his order for food and drink, returning with remarkable alacrity to deposit a tall, pewter tankard of dark, musty porter into his eager fist.  A sip, a sigh of contentment, a roll of his head, and he was ready to look around the room.

Kocka's Tavern was a large room, supported with the blackened oak beams of a rather splendid barn, and lit unevenly by the large fire and a few lamps behind the bar.  This provided the requisite shadows for vagabonds, itinerant mercenaries, thieves, pickpockets, and servants of the dark and gloom, to lurk in as sinister manner as they thought appropriate.  Several of these seemed almost desperate for some neophyte traveler to require their help in some madman's quest.  Of course, in the deepest gloom of one corner sat a man (probably a man) hooded and cloaked in grey.  A glance, and then he was forgotten.

To the side furthest from the door was a tiny stage, flanked by doors, upon which a fiddler and mandolin produced reels, jigs, and one or two vulgar hornpipes.  The music carried impossibly through the room, as the magic of music will on the best of days.  A tableau of strumpets and lechers stumbled gropingly before the stage, with moments of uproarious laughter at the collapse of one of the bawdy dancers.

A gaggle of disapprovers, dressed severely in funereal black or virginal white, huddled together in formation, taking a thin pleasure of their own in their self-righteous hatred of the pleasure of others.  In contrast a gathering of peacocks screeched around long tables in the precise center of the room, ostentatiously slumming in their bright finery.  The rest were the meat of the room.  Traders, carters, ploughmen.  Men with dirt too deep to shift in their skin, and hands hard as horn.  They sat in small groups, drinking with the practiced economy of skilled professionals and confidently opining on matters political, philosophical, and spiritual.  After all, if a person does not know everything, and have solutions for that everything, then they have not been drinking properly.

"A remarkable world in which we live," said the ploughman.

"How so, good sir?" inquired the carter.

"I am remarking on the state of the inhabitants of this world.  On the one hand there are we, those of ordinary flesh and bone.  We who work the soil, produce the sustenance and goods upon which this world survives with our hands and tools.  For us all is predictable.  If it rains we get wet.  If we trip our knees are scraped and we bleed.  On the other hand there are those who are born into this world with characteristics that can only be described as magical.  For no reason that we can ascertain they are immune to blows, can conjure fire and lightning from their hands, stride like giants across the land.  From whence do they come?  What are they for?"

"But there have always been heroes, villains and conjurers.  There has not been a time without them."

"True, and well said dear sir.  However, this does not explain why this should be."

"Well, why do you think it is so, my good friend?"

"Well, it almost seems as though there is something behind it all, as if we were merely playthings for the amusement of...bloody hell man!  What do you think you are doing?"  The last in outrage at a drunken lecher entangled within the bodice of his strumpet who had fallen full upon their table, sending their beers fountaining into the air.

"Sorry, sirs, but that man pushed me!"  exclaimed the lecher pointing through a swirl of lacy underthings from his vantage point upon the sodden floor. 

"Are you talking to me?  growled a brute of a man in his closest approximation of innocent outrage.

"Yes, you oaf, you cretin, you barbarian.." were the last words exchanged before a fight of truly operatic proportions erupted within the room.  Nobody noticed the grey hooded shape, slipping away between the tables and out into the night.